There has been a lot of debate about paying college athletes. This has come even more into the forefront with Reggie Bush and also the numerous college football players who have missed time this season already.
Here is an interesting take by Darren Rovell in the amount of money, or lack there of, if athletes were given a take of their jersey sales. Apparently it isn't much. http://www.cnbc.com/id/39099125
They do get paid. Free school, free room and board. Free books. That stuff is expensive. As far as the Universities making money on the athletes, yep, they sure do. The same way My employees make millions off of whatever I and the rest of my fellow employees do.
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I tend to think ESPN's Gregg Easterbrook has the most logical take on this. He was talking about the Georgia player who was suspended four games for selling his jersey on Ebay.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print...magesPrint=off
TMQ doesn't think NCAA athletes should be paid. My key point is that a small number of star players come out behind by performing as amateurs, but they create the value that allows large numbers of student-athletes who are not stars to get a college education either free or at reduced cost. But though college athletes shouldn't be paid, the persecution of them for slight misjudgments should stop.
It's not as if the Athletic Departments are turning a profit.
Where I think the departments fail is in paying $1 million or so to average to just above average coaches and athletic directors. If you cut the "wasteful" spending like this in half, you'd be able to give out even more in financial scholarships.
Originally Posted by BuckeyeRed27
The reason the universities make billions (with a B, friends and neighbors) is directly related to the performance of these kids.
It's eminently fair to give the kids money. It's the right thing to do. This is, after all, a billion dollar pie and the kids get squat, other than a seat that costs nothing to the university, a dorm room that costs little, and food that costs less than that.
The problem is that the implementation of the money is impossible to figure out, especially considering how much programs already cheat.
True, All of the revenues are derived from the kids' performance. However the Universities don't make money(unless the University of Phoenix is starting a basketball program.)
How those revenues get redistributed is a fair question, but it's not as if each university is sucking down huge amounts of profit. In fact just the opposite as in many cases the University has to pay to keep the Athletic Department out of the Red.
The actual costs are slightly more complex as well. The universities pay for all the fields where the athletes perform and practice, they pay for all the travel, the insurance and the administration of the sports. No one is making the athletes play college athletics, so it's important to note that they only do so if it makes economic sense for them.
Again, I have questions about how much they should pay the administrators and the coaches, but it's inaccurate to say the university or the athletic department is "making money."
Except they are. As I mentioned above, the NFL and NBA effectively force kids to play college ball. They can rationalize all they want but it really boils down to an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" deal with the NCAA. Except for baseball and non-revenue sports athletes, those kids don't have the choice of jumping straight into their athletic profession.
I don't really favor paying the athletes. What I do favor is allowing them to live by the same rules as everyone else. I attended college on a full scholarship and was allowed to work all the way through; athletes can't do so without breaking the rules. That needs to change.
That's not really true. The truth is very few athletics make money. In some cases basketball and football make money but the other 18 or so sports lose money. Are you saying that if you are in one of the few sports that makes money that you deserve a cut and the others do not?
I'm sorry, I thought we were using common sense here.
In 2001 (the last year I have notes for), Western Kentucky's basketball program made upwards of $24 million for the school. The only reason that $24-ish million was in the school coffers was because of those 13 guys on that team.
Are you telling me you think it's okay that the school take all that cash, let the kid make the $15,000 (room and board, plus scholarship in that era) he "earned", and call everything honky dory?
Really?
Kentucky's licensing agreement is a million dollar money-maker for the school. (And thats just the merchandise. We're not talking about games tickets or anything else.) It's not because people like the dentistry program.
Louisville's School of Medicine didn't make the school $52 million. But its sports programs did.
When I was a kid, my Dad worked for L&N Railroad. At one point, he had to travel the rails of three states, supporting bridges, cutting ties, et al. The Railroad paid for his travel, his room, and his board.
By your logic, that should be enough to satisfy that worker.
Well, at that point we're teetering on the philosophical precipice of college athletics -- a kid cannot simultaneously be an amateur athlete and a professional athlete/worker.
Well, okay, he can, but not for the same sport at the same time!
Last edited by IslandRed; 09-15-2010 at 08:36 PM.
Reading comprehension is not just an ability, it's a choice
If you look at what a person makes with a college education against what someone makes without one over their lifetime, a free ride (and not having to pay back the massive student loans most kids have to take out) is a tremendous economic benefit to the student athlete. If they don't want to take advantage of it, that's their problem. Sometimes I feel like they should just turn some sports into semi-pro teams. Basketball and football become divorced from their universities, but still maintain a relationship with the school, where they rent the use of the athletic facilities and pay the school a licensing fee for the use of the school name, colors, and mascot if they wish to market to the school's alumni. Then give the players a choice, the team can pay their way through college or pay them the equivalent amount as salary. That way it allows those who want a college education get one and keeps the ones who just want to play sports from becoming a nuisance. If these athletes then complain years down the road about their financial problems, they can look back on how they chose money over an education and have no one but themselves to blame.
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Louisville's school of medicine didn't cost $52 million either. I'm guessing their sports programs did.
If basketball players want to take the money made from the soccer players, swimmers, and wrestlers, that's the alternative.
Very few athletic departments MAKE money. THey take in revenues, they spend more than they take in and the University in many cases has to pay to keep them back in the black.
Your analogy of comparing a business (railroad) with amateur athletics defies "common sense" as you put it.
Let's use your Western Ky example. So do you think the Hilltopper basketball team deserves a paycheck but the girls team does not?
I think the CNBC guy is severely underestimating the sales of college jerseys but I don't think the player should get any of it. First of all, aren't the college jerseys for sale nameless? I don't think they can sell the jerseys with names on them.
I could go on and on about why this is a bad idea but I'll give just one:
Competitive balance.
If players can profit from sales of their jerseys and all, then that gives a huge advantage to the powerhouse schools like USC, ND and Ohio State. A player can expect to make a lot more selling his ND jerseys in the Chicago market or USC in the LA market than a guy from Auburn. There are a ton of unintended consequences to doing this
Yep College jerseys are nameless. That would prove to be especially difficult to determine equitable money being paid for a #1 Michigan jersey. Are you buying a #1 because of the current WR, or because of a former WR? And it's not like all players get a chance to sell their jersey, so in reality you'd be splitting the pot among all players on the team. Or you could split it among all the athletes at a school, or all NCAA licensed jerseys could be split among all NCAA athletes. If you did that I'm going to guess the total amount would end up being less than the stipend athletes already get.
Don't know. Rovell does a pretty good job here. I guess what I thought was interesting is the small amount of money they would actually make if they were paid for the jersey. Often people forget about all of the cost in the supply chain and also the risk that your individual stores take in selling the jersey. It would interesting to see if a guy like Green would be willing to take the risk in buying up a large quantity of his jerseys to be sold?
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