Shyamalan Twist! NCAA athletes joining labor union?

[A-Tex Devil]

I understand the pay-the-players view that some have, from a micro case-by-case stand point at the high end of the skill distribution. But from a macro perspective, I just think the negative consequences of that singular decision would affect many, many parties and would net out to a much worse situation than we are in right now.

- Chillin

I don't disagree with this. But as more and more Johnny Manziels and Jameis Winstons individually generate millions upon millions of revenue for their schools and the NCAA, with no option to turn pro, I guess that's their sacrifice? They have no other options to cash in on that, so I guess they owe their conference/school/NCAA/ESPN the opportunity for the exposure.

But I still have a hard time not siding with a guy who has 70K fans in the stands wearing his number, off which the University makes a boatload, and he can't see a dime. And yes, I realize the slippery slope/infinite loop holes that would create for boosters, agents and that ilk, but it still strikes me as wrong.

[ChillinDuke]

I don't disagree with this. But as more and more Johnny Manziels and Jameis Winstons individually generate millions upon millions of revenue for their schools and the NCAA, with no option to turn pro, I guess that's their sacrifice? They have no other options to cash in on that, so I guess they owe their conference/school/NCAA/ESPN the opportunity for the exposure.

But I still have a hard time not siding with a guy who has 70K fans in the stands wearing his number, off which the University makes a boatload, and he can't see a dime. And yes, I realize the slippery slope/infinite loop holes that would create for boosters, agents and that ilk, but it still strikes me as wrong.

I see where you're coming from, qualitatively. The problem, as I've stated before, lies in quantification. How many of those fans wearing his jersey are doing so in support of him versus his/their school? In your example, 70K are wearing his jersey. Would 35K of them just wear a different jersey if he weren't on the team while 35K stay home? Would all 70K just wear a different jersey? Therein lies the problem. And frankly I've never heard anyone (on this board or anywhere else - although I probably have higher regard for this board than "anywhere else" on these topics) able to clearly articulate how to solve this problem.

I agree schools shouldn't clearly and directly profit off of a player. In your example, they probably shouldn't sell jerseys with Winston's number and definitely not with his name (I assume this is already outlawed). But to the degree the school is marketing/profiting/making money off of their own brand and their own identity, I find it very difficult to prove to what degree the players are quantitatively backing those cash inflows. Would you still watch if the pool of players on your team were 12 completely different kids (in the case of basketball)? My answer is yes. Others may disagree - which is fine. But in my case, how can you then quantify that the players are the ones that I'm paying for? I'm not saying snub them completely - but they're also not getting snubbed (as a whole) as it stands.

And my point in my previous post was that a lot of people talk about paying "market value" to the players (a la Bilas). Once you start attacking the system as it currently stands with a complete overhaul like "market value" without answering this very difficult quantitative question discussed above, then if it falls apart you are doing a lot more harm than good to a lot of people and a lot of invested parties.

A union is an interesting attempt at addressing this. The permanence part of it seems to be a barrier at first blush.

- Chillin

[Jarhead]

Does anyone have a solution? None that would work, so it must not be a problem. For any career path there are students, interns, and apprentices. Are football and basketball players outside of that structure? I don't think so. However, for all those people, students, interns, and apprentices, a little help in covering their day to day expenses and training costs is a fair approach. But that's all. Unions are for professionals.

[Thurber Whyte]

Some random thoughts:

All of this turns on the definition of “employee.” What may be surprising, but is typical of Employment Law statues generally, is that that word was never defined in the original National Labor Relations Act. For a while, courts generally used something called the economic realities test, which purported to be “realist” test. Later, Congress specified that the common law definition of the word was to be used, which is based on agency principles. Realist or not, both tests are similar and are mainly used to distinguish employees from contractors rather than get at the essence of what it means to be employed. They are not particularly helpful in this context. To the extent they are, they seem to cut against the idea of student athletes as employees.

The idea of amateur athletics is that athletes compete and bring glory to themselves and, in the process, their patrons. Is the U.S. Olympic Committee or any of its allied sports federations employers? Coaches, at least in the context of amateur team sports, would seem to be an additional benefit provided to athletes rather than an employee/boss relationship. Coaches are provided to help the athletes realize their full potential. Many professional athletes in individual sports hire their own coaches/trainers/managers/caddies. In a university context, coaches would also seem to be akin to professors: students pay them to learn through their tuition (and universities as patrons pay the tuition).

Approaching it from the other direction, sports are fun, but traditionally they are seen as part of the University’s larger educational mission, which incorporates Greek notions of a strong body going hand in hand with a strong intellect. It begs the question about who is performing a service for whom when a university subsidizes or facilitates athletic competition. Some universities, a fraction of the 4,500 or so degree granting institutions in this country the vast majority of which have athletics, do make money off of sports. However, nonprofits are allowed to make money. That is not the issue. Nonprofits must use that money for their own purposes rather than pay it out to investors. Universities do that. They money they make off of revenue sports either covers costs or supports the rest of their athletics department’s budget. Some schools lose money even on revenue sports.

One of the attractions of going the labor law route is that working conditions and compensation are what are called “mandatory subjects” under the NLRA, meaning that employers cannot refuse to bargain over those issues. They have to come to the table and bargain in good faith and can be sanctioned by the National Labor Relations Board if they do not. If a student players’ union gets certified, then a university cannot refuse to negotiate in order to take a principled stand against compensation for athletes as a general matter.

As someone pointed out, government agencies are not covered by the NLRB, meaning public universities would seem to be exempt. However, the value of tuition at a private university is usually much higher than public universities so private school athlete employees would not seem to be in a position to haggle over compensation because the going rate for their services would seem to be less than what they are already making. Mandatory bargaining would seem to be a Phyrric victory.

States have their own labor laws for public employees though so unionization might still a possibility for pubic university student athletes.

In the private sector, wage bills for companies tend to be inelastic so unions have to choose between maximizing employment for their members and maximizing wages. They cannot do both. Over the years, unions have overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Athletic Department budgets are already break even affairs. Even if the conceptual problems are overcome, the net effect of unionization for student athletes would be to increase compensation for some and reduce opportunities for others.

To amplify Mountain Devils’s point, universities give scholarships for all sorts of reasons. Some of them require service of one kind or another in return but others do not. Does any sort of service requirement make scholarship students employees? Are A.B. Duke Scholars employees? It seems that they are paid to come to our university and be awesome.

[A-Tex Devil]

Does anyone have a solution? None that would work, so it must not be a problem. For any career path there are students, interns, and apprentices. Are football and basketball players outside of that structure? I don't think so. However, for all those people, students, interns, and apprentices, a little help in covering their day to day expenses and training costs is a fair approach. But that's all. Unions are for professionals.

I get all of this. But at the end of the day, *why* are we trying to salvage big time college football (I'll set aside basketball for a moment) as an amateur sport, as opposed to recognizing it as constructive minor leagues?

The reasons are pretty superficial ---> the fandom, tradition, money for the schools, a little fear of change, etc. Not to mention a minor league with no operating costs for the NFL. But what of the actual players playing the sport? I imagine a good portion of the elite (let's say, the top 300 recruits out of high school per year, which makes 900 players that can't play in the NFL yet -- 15 60 player teams) would prefer to start getting paid right away, even if it is in obscure minor leagues. Why is it OK for baseball and hockey for kids, who may not be that well off, to forgo a full ride and toil away in the minor leagues, but it seems to be verboten in football: "gotta get them that education."

I really don't have a solution either. But I just find a lot of the reasons why players shouldn't be paid to be hollow. If the players get what they want, I agree that could blow up big time college football as we know it between schools participating in the arms race, and those that decide to pack it in and devalue or drop football. But I sympathize with the players, whose temporary position and, frankly, lack of organizing power, will continue to put them at a disadvantage, while making lots of other people rich.

[ChillinDuke]

I get all of this. But at the end of the day, *why* are we trying to salvage big time college football (I'll set aside basketball for a moment) as an amateur sport, as opposed to recognizing it as constructive minor leagues?

The reasons are pretty superficial ---> the fandom, tradition, money for the schools, a little fear of change, etc. Not to mention a minor league with no operating costs for the NFL. But what of the actual players playing the sport? I imagine a good portion of the elite (let's say, the top 300 recruits out of high school per year, which makes 900 players that can't play in the NFL yet -- 15 60 player teams) would prefer to start getting paid right away, even if it is in obscure minor leagues. Why is it OK for baseball and hockey for kids, who may not be that well off, to forgo a full ride and toil away in the minor leagues, but it seems to be verboten in football: "gotta get them that education."

I really don't have a solution either. But I just find a lot of the reasons why players shouldn't be paid to be hollow. If the players get what they want, I agree that could blow up big time college football as we know it between schools participating in the arms race, and those that decide to pack it in and devalue or drop football. But I sympathize with the players, whose temporary position and, frankly, lack of organizing power, will continue to put them at a disadvantage, while making lots of other people rich.

I, for one, am not.

Selfishly, I like college football. I admit that up front.

That admission out of the way, my belief is that this vague "market value" approach is very simply removing the "college" aspect from "college football". That's it and that's all. Once you are paying market-based salaries then the rules of the game are completely different, the incentive structure is completely different, it's just apples and oranges. In my opinion.

The market value approach would simply destroy college football. The only way I see it playing out is in the inevitable creation of a new football league (perhaps somehow loosely affiliated with colleges, at least in the beginning - you actually alluded to this concept a few posts ago). Think of it as the minor leagues or whatever floats your boat. That league would then have to stand on its own. For the first few years, there would probably be enough residual fandom from college fans to keep it going. But 10 years down the road, would people really care about this 2nd tier league?

Do people really care about minor league baseball? Minor league hockey? Arena Football? Clearly, nowhere near as much as college football.

Meanwhile, removing college football from campuses would ruin the scholarship balance of Title IX. How would 60 female scholarships survive this change? Inevitably, how would some of these would-be female student athletes afford to go to school? Not to mention the lesser would-be college football players that wouldn't sniff an NFL roster. Do they then play a year, tear their ACL, then have no college to fall back on? TV contracts would dry up in a hurry as I doubt anywhere near the amount of eyeballs that want to watch Penn State play Notre Dame would care about (10-year-down-the-road) Middle Pennsylvania vs Rural Indiana football on FSN 7. Net net, it's possible the NFL even suffers from such a move - although the hypotheticals are getting too hard to predict at that point.

Listen, I'm using a ton of hypotheticals, I know. But a lot of them, at least in the short term, seem to be, at worst, reasonable possibilities. So it's not a fear of change for me. It's a lack of proven viewpoints that seem to add enough weight to the counter-arguments in this situation to back a "market value" approach to college football. That's it. Yeah - Johnny Football may get paid more but Johnny Pots-n-Pans somewhere else would get jack.

There's a lot going on here and it's being oversimplified to look at the cream of the crop's "unfortunate" or "unfair" situation. But I'm not sure they'd even be in that situation if it weren't for all the other factors around them. And if you give them their cake, their seat at the table may be pulled out from under them before they can even eat it.

- Chillin

[arnie]

I get all of this. But at the end of the day, *why* are we trying to salvage big time college football (I'll set aside basketball for a moment) as an amateur sport, as opposed to recognizing it as constructive minor leagues?

The reasons are pretty superficial ---> the fandom, tradition, money for the schools, a little fear of change, etc. Not to mention a minor league with no operating costs for the NFL. But what of the actual players playing the sport? I imagine a good portion of the elite (let's say, the top 300 recruits out of high school per year, which makes 900 players that can't play in the NFL yet -- 15 60 player teams) would prefer to start getting paid right away, even if it is in obscure minor leagues. Why is it OK for baseball and hockey for kids, who may not be that well off, to forgo a full ride and toil away in the minor leagues, but it seems to be verboten in football: "gotta get them that education."

I really don't have a solution either. But I just find a lot of the reasons why players shouldn't be paid to be hollow. If the players get what they want, I agree that could blow up big time college football as we know it between schools participating in the arms race, and those that decide to pack it in and devalue or drop football. But I sympathize with the players, whose temporary position and, frankly, lack of organizing power, will continue to put them at a disadvantage, while making lots of other people rich.

I disagree with some of your ideology - but totally agree with the concept of a pro football minor league. As we have seen with the Heels, many of their players would have preferred no classes, no education, etc. There is no reason they should should be attending college to solely develop their football skills. I don't know how we "force" the NFL to provide minor leagues, but that would be a great solution. I; however, have the strong belief that the college football/basketball players should not be paid and their benefit limited to free tuition, room, meals, books, etc. The fans are cheering for their school and we will be there regardless of whether player A or player B is the quarterback.

Its interesting that Jay Bilas, Dick Davenzio (sp?) and others that had no pro career possibilities are often the ones harping on "pay for players" in college. I may have missed it, but I don't recall Michael Jordan, Bill Walton, Charles Barkley, Jay Williams, Grant Hill saying they should have been paid during college.

[A-Tex Devil]

Good posts, everyone. I definitely struggle with what my ideal outcome is here. My initial reaction to paying players is negative, because the domino effect it would have on the college game and potentially other sports. And I like college football, and am excited for the playoff starting next year.

But when i dig deeper, I also can't fault a group of people that collectively are the *reason* a bunch of other people are getting rich, for wanting more. This isn't analogous to a corporation or even the academic structure. The consumer is paying to watch the people that are, in a lot of ways, benefitting the least from that consumer's dollar, or at least any significant benefit the players have is pretty indirect.

Maybe the status quo, with a move to division 4 is the only way to go, hoping the house of cards stays up. But based on the NCAA's recent impotence the last 10 years, the impossibility of reigning in the $1,000 handshakes (inflation, yo), and the increasing facilities arms races, college football will likely become more semi-pro than it already is, only with the under the table money continuing to grow. Is that better? Perhaps that's the Faustian deal that has to be made to keep the other sports afloat.

[lotusland]

I get all of this. But at the end of the day, *why* are we trying to salvage big time college football (I'll set aside basketball for a moment) as an amateur sport, as opposed to recognizing it as constructive minor leagues?

The reasons are pretty superficial ---> the fandom, tradition, money for the schools, a little fear of change, etc. Not to mention a minor league with no operating costs for the NFL. But what of the actual players playing the sport? I imagine a good portion of the elite (let's say, the top 300 recruits out of high school per year, which makes 900 players that can't play in the NFL yet -- 15 60 player teams) would prefer to start getting paid right away, even if it is in obscure minor leagues. Why is it OK for baseball and hockey for kids, who may not be that well off, to forgo a full ride and toil away in the minor leagues, but it seems to be verboten in football: "gotta get them that education."

I really don't have a solution either. But I just find a lot of the reasons why players shouldn't be paid to be hollow. If the players get what they want, I agree that could blow up big time college football as we know it between schools participating in the arms race, and those that decide to pack it in and devalue or drop football. But I sympathize with the players, whose temporary position and, frankly, lack of organizing power, will continue to put them at a disadvantage, while making lots of other people rich.

From the standpoint of the NCAA and it's member institutions, football IS the same as baseball. It's the respective pro leagues that treat them different and I don't think their motive has anything to do with educating the players. Why then should the NCAA be radically reformed? Shouldn't the law suits and unions be directed at the NBA and NFL?

[A-Tex Devil]

From the standpoint of the NCAA and it's member institutions, football IS the same as baseball. It's the respective pro leagues that treat them different and I don't think their motive has anything to do with educating the players. Why then should the NCAA be radically reformed? Shouldn't the law suits and unions be directed at the NBA and NFL?

And that's why the Big 5 conferences want to exit the NCAA, at least for football. It's a charade to treat football the same as the other sports at this point. But that's a whole different discussion.

As far as suing NFL/NBA, Maurice Clarett tried and lost, and I don't know how college students can unionize against an unrelated entity (from a corporate perspective). You can't enjoin the NFL to create a minor league system. If Goodell, et al. thought it was a financially sound idea, I'm sure they'd do it. But why create the cow when they get the milk for free? The NFL has no motivation outside an upstart league that actually gets traction (and we've seen how futile that is) to create a minor league system at this point.

[Indoor66]

I have been a huge basketball fan since the 1950's. I have slight interest in football. This year I watched all of the Duke games on TV or the Internet (as available). I watched the football because Duke was competitive AND the name on the jersey was Duke. If all of the juggling, suing, negotiating, etc. results in non-student athletes playing basketball, football, LAX, baseball, etc., I will not pay attention any more. It will no longer be intercollegiate athletics it will be semi-pro. I can watch pro players all day long with no emotional involvement and, as a result, no interest.

IMO, if they go to paid players, college athletics will die on the vine and they will kill a great deal of the interest from Alum and serious fans. I became a Duke fan long before I went to Duke. My fan status ties to Duke - not Jabari, not Grant, not Tinkerbell, not Howard Hurt or any other single players. If you make them loyal to their union, their contract, their paycheck rather than loyal to Duke, you lose me - day one.

[Duvall]

And that's why the Big 5 conferences want to exit the NCAA, at least for football. It's a charade to treat football the same as the other sports at this point. But that's a whole different discussion.

It's genuinely hilarious that football is going to destroy college sports just before the sport itself goes the way of bear-baiting.

[throatybeard]

Do I remember this correctly? I want to say ESPN's Top Five Reasons You Can't Blame did an episode on why you can't blame the NCAA for not paying players. I think one of the main ones was Title IX. Football has to pay for the nonrevenue sports, including all women's sports except perhaps WBB at a few schools (UConn, Tennessee).

I can't remember the other four reasons. One was probably the scholarship-is-already-pay argument.

[throatybeard]

It's genuinely hilarious that football is going to destroy college sports just before the sport itself goes the way of bear-baiting.

I'll take this bet. In 2035, if energy austerity hasn't yes brought us to our knees, but probably even if it has, American football will be as popular or more popular than it is now, in the US.

Now, that doesn't mean well-off people are going to send their sons out for this insanity. (I'm reminded of what Allen Murray said--I enjoy football, but only if I don't think about it too much). Football will increasingly be staffed by kids from low-income families. This is already happening. A lottery ticket seems more plausible if you have less to lose. I know a bunch of poor young guys in Mississippi who honestly thought they'd work their way from community college to the NFL, until their bodies started falling apart at age 19 or 21. But there are like 315M people in this country. Young males in particular feel invulnerable and are comfortable with risk. The population will be greater in 2035. They'll be able to find enough young males to hit each other.

I think another factor that will strengthen football or at least keep it from going the way of bear-baiting is one that everyone mentions as a threat to the NFL, but one that may become a strength. Guys on ESPN radio like to ululate about how the NFL really needs to think carefully about how almost everyone would rather watch on their flat-panel than go to the games. ESPN ran a poll a little while back. 82% watch at home, 9% sportsbar, 9% stadium. Oh dear, the NFL will die. Yeah, no. That would be a massive problem for the NFL if it depended on ticket sales as much as the NHL, but it doesn't. And the way that TV makes the violence seem virtual instead of real--I think that keeps people ON board, not off.

I remember my first semester at Mississippi State. (I never went to an NFL game before I came to StL, and even then I've only been to like three Rams games). I'm a good little school spirit guy, and I get my season tickets for Sylvester Croom's first season while I'm still writing my diss at Duke. I'm excited. First AfAm head coach in the SEC's premiere sport. Wooo. Bad team (3-8), but hey, they upset Florida.

I was shocked at the violence. I couldn't believe it. People will say the SEC is way more fierce than the ACC, but I think the bigger factor was that silly track around the football field at Wade. You're five miles from the action. As faculty, I got a discount at MSU and my seats were sweet, and I could not believe what these guys were doing to each other. It was the sound, really, not the visuals. I've never played football, so it was really the un-amplified sounds of the collisions that freaked me out. And this protection that distance gives you is what the TV does for you as well. There's a cognitive disconnect that protects you when you watch the NFL on TV. You see they guy jacked up, but you don't feel it the same way as you do when you're twelve yards from the action. (Remember that segment ESPN used to do about hard hits called JACKED UP? Notice how they've eliminated it since the concussion concerns got taken seriously). My second year, I made pals with the Associate Dean, and he gave me a ticket in club level. I came for the A/C, but I stayed for the fact that I could watch other games on TV, and the game I was at was like watching it on TV because I was up in the air conditioned glass haven.

TV makes the insane violence of this sport more palatable, not less. The NFL has never done better on TV. As TV and the NFL french kiss each other on a massive pile of our money, we viewers are desensitized to how awful the violence in this game is.

If I'm alive, I'll be paying for pay TV so I can see Thomas Bundchen Belichick Brady Jr, a 2032 graduate of the University of Michigan, lay waste to the 2037 Rams' defense.

[cf-62]

I get all of this. But at the end of the day, *why* are we trying to salvage big time college football (I'll set aside basketball for a moment) as an amateur sport, as opposed to recognizing it as constructive minor leagues?

The reasons are pretty superficial ---> the fandom, tradition, money for the schools, a little fear of change, etc. Not to mention a minor league with no operating costs for the NFL. But what of the actual players playing the sport? I imagine a good portion of the elite (let's say, the top 300 recruits out of high school per year, which makes 900 players that can't play in the NFL yet -- 15 60 player teams) would prefer to start getting paid right away, even if it is in obscure minor leagues. Why is it OK for baseball and hockey for kids, who may not be that well off, to forgo a full ride and toil away in the minor leagues, but it seems to be verboten in football: "gotta get them that education."

I really don't have a solution either. But I just find a lot of the reasons why players shouldn't be paid to be hollow. If the players get what they want, I agree that could blow up big time college football as we know it between schools participating in the arms race, and those that decide to pack it in and devalue or drop football. But I sympathize with the players, whose temporary position and, frankly, lack of organizing power, will continue to put them at a disadvantage, while making lots of other people rich.

As with our annual discussions about the one-and-done vs. none-and-done kids, you're talking about such a SMALL set of kids associated with the sport, even within the proposed D4.

There are 224 kids drafted into the NFL every April. That includes players from all NCAA divisions, but let's focus on D1 (124 current schools, going to 128). That's 10,880 scholarships.

If you evenly spread out over 5 years, that's 2,176 scholarships per year. So about 10% of the kids will get drafted, about 1% will make a roster. Of those 25 kids, maybe 5 will be stars, 1 or 2 superstars. And entering school, they KNOW this. Thus, the VAST VAST VAST majority of football players in DI are there to leverage football as a way to enter college (or get in a better college) to get a degree.

Even within the proposed D4, IF (and it's a big IF) all NFL prospects played within D4, then you're still talking about 20% and 2%.

If I were FORCED to pay a market value to the kids for what they CONTRIBUTE to the profits made by the school, first you would remove the residual value inherent in the school (and NCAA) brand ALREADY!!! In other words, Jameis Winston doesn't get to claim any of the value of the FSU brand created by Charlie Ward, Deion Sanders, Bobby Bowden, etc. He only gets to claim the value HE brings to FSU.

That may actually be considered a large amount, but you could argue that scholarship numbers 21 - 85 don't add ANY inherent value to the program. This is the problem with the "market value" proposals. The stars are what people want to talk about, and today's social media outlets make it worse, but when we talk about "changing the system" to fix it, we're talking about "fixing" it for the very privileged few.

I'll reiterate the idea that players have some valid concerns: full cost scholarships, 4 year scholarships, complete medical coverage. But a DI football player CHOOSES to play Football ANDDDD they CHOOSE their school. So in this world, saying they NEED representation as a collective group is bogus. They can choose to leave Northwestern. If they DON'T WANT to leave Northwestern (because there is inherent value in attending Northwestern), then they are being "fairly compensated" for their choices. They are choosing to play football in poorer conditions than at another school, in exchange for a degree from a Top 10 university.

[lotusland]

I'll take this bet. In 2035, if energy austerity hasn't yes brought us to our knees, but probably even if it has, American football will be as popular or more popular than it is now, in the US.

Now, that doesn't mean well-off people are going to send their sons out for this insanity. (I'm reminded of what Allen Murray said--I enjoy football, but only if I don't think about it too much). Football will increasingly be staffed by kids from low-income families. This is already happening. A lottery ticket seems more plausible if you have less to lose. I know a bunch of poor young guys in Mississippi who honestly thought they'd work their way from community college to the NFL, until their bodies started falling apart at age 19 or 21. But there are like 315M people in this country. Young males in particular feel invulnerable and are comfortable with risk. The population will be greater in 2035. They'll be able to find enough young males to hit each other.

I think another factor that will strengthen football or at least keep it from going the way of bear-baiting is one that everyone mentions as a threat to the NFL, but one that may become a strength. Guys on ESPN radio like to ululate about how the NFL really needs to think carefully about how almost everyone would rather watch on their flat-panel than go to the games. ESPN ran a poll a little while back. 82% watch at home, 9% sportsbar, 9% stadium. Oh dear, the NFL will die. Yeah, no. That would be a massive problem for the NFL if it depended on ticket sales as much as the NHL, but it doesn't. And the way that TV makes the violence seem virtual instead of real--I think that keeps people ON board, not off.

I remember my first semester at Mississippi State. (I never went to an NFL game before I came to StL, and even then I've only been to like three Rams games). I'm a good little school spirit guy, and I get my season tickets for Sylvester Croom's first season while I'm still writing my diss at Duke. I'm excited. First AfAm head coach in the SEC's premiere sport. Wooo. Bad team (3-8), but hey, they upset Florida.

I was shocked at the violence. I couldn't believe it. People will say the SEC is way more fierce than the ACC, but I think the bigger factor was that silly track around the football field at Wade. You're five miles from the action. As faculty, I got a discount at MSU and my seats were sweet, and I could not believe what these guys were doing to each other. It was the sound, really, not the visuals. I've never played football, so it was really the un-amplified sounds of the collisions that freaked me out. And this protection that distance gives you is what the TV does for you as well. There's a cognitive disconnect that protects you when you watch the NFL on TV. You see they guy jacked up, but you don't feel it the same way as you do when you're twelve yards from the action. (Remember that segment ESPN used to do about hard hits called JACKED UP? Notice how they've eliminated it since the concussion concerns got taken seriously). My second year, I made pals with the Associate Dean, and he gave me a ticket in club level. I came for the A/C, but I stayed for the fact that I could watch other games on TV, and the game I was at was like watching it on TV because I was up in the air conditioned glass haven.

TV makes the insane violence of this sport more palatable, not less. The NFL has never done better on TV. As TV and the NFL french kiss each other on a massive pile of our money, we viewers are desensitized to how awful the violence in this game is.

If I'm alive, I'll be paying for pay TV so I can see Thomas Bundchen Belichick Brady Jr, a 2032 graduate of the University of Michigan, lay waste to the 2037 Rams' defense.

You would not be betting on the American public's appetite for violence. Big time college and pro football demands a massive training apparatus in primary education and even pop Warner leagues. The further down the chain you the less economic impact. Pop Warner and junior high school football are not profitable. The risks are no longer debatable but the costs are currently being calculated. A judge just said the half billion dollar NFL settlement is not enough. They will be establishing actuarial tables to determine the cost. These non profitable lower tier leagues need insurance no? It could snow ball in ways we cannot imagine now and I'm inclined to believe it will.

[A-Tex Devil]

I'll reiterate the idea that players have some valid concerns: full cost scholarships, 4 year scholarships, complete medical coverage. But a DI football player CHOOSES to play Football ANDDDD they CHOOSE their school. So in this world, saying they NEED representation as a collective group is bogus. They can choose to leave Northwestern. If they DON'T WANT to leave Northwestern (because there is inherent value in attending Northwestern), then they are being "fairly compensated" for their choices. They are choosing to play football in poorer conditions than at another school, in exchange for a degree from a Top 10 university.

First -- although I've used Manziel and Winston as examples throughout, I don't like the "open market value" solution at all, at least if we are going to maintain the illusion of student-athlete/amateurism. Anything open market requires a disconnect from the university system, in my opinion. I lean to the idea that the money in the system has increased so extraordinarily, such that we even have million dollar assistant coaches and athletic directors, strength coordinators making $500K, etc. that football players, at least in the big money conferences, are owed a piece of that too. Perhaps a portion of the TV contract for a conference is distributed ratably among players, with seniors getting more than, juniors, on down the line... There are obviously flaws there, but something along those lines seems right. Maybe make it completely merit based -- wins, bowl wins, championships, all paid from a pool of TV money. Unfortunately, that probably opens up the "employee" pandora's box, and a whole other range of issues/loopholes/problems. Again -- I don't have a great answer here (luckily I'm not getting paid to find one), and like any complicated solution, whatever finally happens is both (1) going to tick a large group of people off, and (2) have unintended consequences.

Switching gears, I think the more general, obviously unanswerable, question becomes would FBS football be as lucrative if the NFL had a minor league system that allowed the most talented kids to jump straight out of high school, like baseball does, such that a large majority (let's say 75%) of the top 300-500 high school kids every year bypassed college.

If the answer is "YES" or "ALMOST", then I concede all concerns I have about the players' stake in the exponentially increasing value of college football. If the answer is a resounding "NO," then why, again, shouldn't the actual entertainers (when you get right down to it) reap some of the ever-increasing reward?

[cf-62]

Switching gears, I think the more general, obviously unanswerable, question becomes would FBS football be as lucrative if the NFL had a minor league system that allowed the most talented kids to jump straight out of high school, like baseball does, such that a large majority (let's say 75%) of the top 300-500 high school kids every year bypassed college.

If the answer is "YES" or "ALMOST", then I concede all concerns I have about the players' stake in the exponentially increasing value of college football. If the answer is a resounding "NO," then why, again, shouldn't the actual entertainers (when you get right down to it) reap some of the ever-increasing reward?

I'll ignore the "Complicated Solutions" statements, as I will no doubtedly regress into political discussion.

But what you've written here is the crux of the - er - misunderstanding by "SPORTS" writers and the reality of college athletics. Assuming Title IX aside -- which is the GIANT elephant in the room of any decision to pay ANYBODY -- is the idea of non-student athletes representing the schools. There are two specific talking points that seem to be coming out of this.

1) The players make the school millions of dollars
2) UNC proves that they aren't student athletes already

1) The PROGRAM makes the schools the money, and a BIG PART of that money is the donations from alumni. There are lots of reasons to give money, but the biggest is because of the connection we feel with our soon-to-be-fellow-alumni, and how much we marvel at their ability to cut it at our school while also committing themselves to success on the football field.

Now, Duke has funded their other sports with football for decades with none of the top 300 players in the country committing to them. So the answer to your question - do alumni care if their football team doesn't have 10 - 50 potential NFL players on the team? That is a RESOUNDING NO. They will continue to go to games, and continue to watch the games. I will make the trip to South Bend even if Notre Dame is awful (and if we are awful) because the pageantry of a Notre Dame football game is the same, whether it's Joe Montana at QB or some guy we'll never hear of again.

2) My favorite current problematic arguments are guys that infer from the AFAM scandal at UNC that football players aren't student athletes, so "let's stop the charade." This torks me for several reasons. First, it buys into the Heels weak argument that "everybody does this. We just got caught" mantra. The truth is that for decades, UNC was able to put together a successful football program with student athletes, but paid the Butch Davis piper to try to get into the elite tier.

Whether you're talking about the kids that signed up for bogus classes, or the kids that probably shouldn't have been admitted to UNC in the first place, the problem is fixed by acting ethically on the academic side (not admitting kids that have no business being there / treating athletes as students, even if they're bad students). This isn't fixed by saying "interscholastic sports shouldn't exist." It's fixed by making sure the scholastics actually occur - and holding schools accountable when they're not.

[BigWayne]

As with our annual discussions about the one-and-done vs. none-and-done kids, you're talking about such a SMALL set of kids associated with the sport, even within the proposed D4.

There are 224 kids drafted into the NFL every April. That includes players from all NCAA divisions, but let's focus on D1 (124 current schools, going to 128). That's 10,880 scholarships.

If you evenly spread out over 5 years, that's 2,176 scholarships per year. So about 10% of the kids will get drafted, about 1% will make a roster. Of those 25 kids, maybe 5 will be stars, 1 or 2 superstars. And entering school, they KNOW this. Thus, the VAST VAST VAST majority of football players in DI are there to leverage football as a way to enter college (or get in a better college) to get a degree.

Even within the proposed D4, IF (and it's a big IF) all NFL prospects played within D4, then you're still talking about 20% and 2%.

If I were FORCED to pay a market value to the kids for what they CONTRIBUTE to the profits made by the school, first you would remove the residual value inherent in the school (and NCAA) brand ALREADY!!! In other words, Jameis Winston doesn't get to claim any of the value of the FSU brand created by Charlie Ward, Deion Sanders, Bobby Bowden, etc. He only gets to claim the value HE brings to FSU.

That may actually be considered a large amount, but you could argue that scholarship numbers 21 - 85 don't add ANY inherent value to the program. This is the problem with the "market value" proposals. The stars are what people want to talk about, and today's social media outlets make it worse, but when we talk about "changing the system" to fix it, we're talking about "fixing" it for the very privileged few.

I'll reiterate the idea that players have some valid concerns: full cost scholarships, 4 year scholarships, complete medical coverage. But a DI football player CHOOSES to play Football ANDDDD they CHOOSE their school. So in this world, saying they NEED representation as a collective group is bogus. They can choose to leave Northwestern. If they DON'T WANT to leave Northwestern (because there is inherent value in attending Northwestern), then they are being "fairly compensated" for their choices. They are choosing to play football in poorer conditions than at another school, in exchange for a degree from a Top 10 university.

This and many of the other well thought out posts here illustrate how unionizing the players (the original topic here) is almost farcical. The idea of compensation above and beyond scholarships can only be justified for the top percentage of players. The overwhelming majority of the players are already receiving a payout through scholarships that is way above their value. Look at the compensation in pro sports and compare the minimum salaries to the headline makers. It's a very steep curve at some point in the equation. How a union can help is beyond me. If there had been a union in place all these years, it would have most likely advocated for a system like what we have where all players get more or less the same compensation. While they may continue to advocate for a similar flat system if they get certified, they are basically poking the bees nest and there is an extremely high chance it settles out completely differently in the end than what they are hoping for.

[vick]

Now, Duke has funded their other sports with football for decades with none of the top 300 players in the country committing to them. So the answer to your question - do alumni care if their football team doesn't have 10 - 50 potential NFL players on the team? That is a RESOUNDING NO. They will continue to go to games, and continue to watch the games. I will make the trip to South Bend even if Notre Dame is awful (and if we are awful) because the pageantry of a Notre Dame football game is the same, whether it's Joe Montana at QB or some guy we'll never hear of again.

This doesn't make much economic sense to me as an argument against paying players, because if alumni go to and watch games at the same rate as before, the market-clearing wage for players will be $0--why would a school pay more if player quality doesn't impact interest?