The Pay the Players Debate

[JasonEvans]

We have danced around it a bit in various threads, so I figured it was time for a thread simply dedicated to the question of -- should we pay the players?

I offer the following article from The Atlantic as an excellent read on the subject. It will hit somewhat close to home as the first couple pages talk at length about UNC's Bill Friday as well as an outspoken UNC trustee who feels athletes should be paid.

For all the outrage, the real scandal is not that students are getting illegally paid or recruited, it’s that two of the noble principles on which the NCAA justifies its existence—“amateurism” and the “student-athlete”—are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes. The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some college athletes are getting paid, but that more of them are not.

I did find it interesting that when the article went down the laundry list of accused and convicted NCAA violators in recent years (USC, Ohio St, Miami, and Cam Newton) that no mention was made of Carolina. Players getting treated to parties and other benefits by agents and an assistant coach serving as a runner for an agent would seem to hit right at the core of the points of this story. Ahh well, no biggie.

Anyway, the article certainly makes a compelling case for some kind of payment to athletes.

-Jason "enjoy!" Evans

[uh_no]

I'll first admit I haven't read the whole article, but having read the first couple pages leaves me with some notions about the rest of the article.

The question that won't get answered is "where does the money come from?" They are quick to point out how much schools make off football teams each year, but noticeable absent is the fact that despite this revenue, almost every big sports program loses money each year.

With that being the case, where do the cuts come from? should we cut volleyball to pay the football team? Should the university pony up bigger stipends to pay them? Since the latter likely won't happen here, how do you justify the huge competitive disadvantage this would put schools who wouldn't increase stipends to pay players?

In terms of the NCAA itself, people assume the whole operation is rolling in cash: this simply is not true. Almost all of their revenue comes off the some of the championships (the football money has nothing to do with the NCAA...) and this money is almost all spent on a) putting on the other non-profitable championships which don't make money (the lacrosse and womens ncaa tournaments may turn a profit...I don't know) or b) split among the schools...so you want more of this money to go to ball players...then which championships are you going to cut? sorry D3 wrestling, no natty for you this year, Derrick Williams needs his paycheck. Even if you DID split this among players, how do you decide who gets the money? how do you determine how much a player is worth? here's a fun fact, the NCAA gives 100% of the profit from the men's championship back to the schools...

where does the money come from? "tv contracts" is not a valid answer here...that money gets spent...

perhaps you want to allow players to profit from jersey sales with their names...I'm okay with that...

[JasonEvans]

Duuuh, totally forgot to include my feelings on this subject... as if anybody cares

I have long said that the NCAA should find some way to compensate these kids. To some extent, the athletes are providing a service for the school-- representing it to the outside world, providing entertainment, and enhancing the college experience for fellow students. So, they should be compensated the same way other student employees are. The kids who work in the admission office conducting tours get paid. The kids who work in the library get paid. The kids who check IDs outside the gym or tennis court or whatever get paid. So too should the athletes.

My suggestion is to provide payment for every hour of practice. The NCAA already mandates certain amounts of practice time, so the number is easy to monitor and uniform. Pay them, I dunno, $7 an hour or something like that. The NCAA mandates no more than something like 20 hours of practice a week during the season, so my proposal would put $140/week into the pocket of scholarship athlete, probably coming to several thousand dollars a year. Not enough to keep kids from turning pro early (though the schools should not be trying to compete with the pros in that regard); not enough to buy a new car; but enough to let kids buy pizza and beverages every now and then; enough to take your girl out for dinner and a movie; enough to save for a couple weeks and buy a ticket home or maybe buy a ticket for mom and dad to come see one of your games.

This is not a break-the-bank kind of proposal. Schools could afford this, I am convinced. I would hate to see it only applied to football and basketball -- it should just be part of a full athletic scholarship, the same way books, room, and food money are part of the scholarship.

--Jason "Someone tell me why this is a bad idea!?!?!" Evans

[JasonEvans]

I am trying to figure out how many scholarships a typical Division I university gives out each year. I know Duke will have about 60 guys on football scholarship and 13 on basketball and 15 on women's basketball... but I am unsure how many others there are. I doubt Duke gives out the equivilant of more than 150 full scholarships... probably a bit less.

So, lets use that 150. If Duke awarded $4000 in stipends alongside each of those 150 scholarship, that would mean it would cost Duke $600,000 to give a stipend to their players. I know many sports department run on a tight budget, but I think $600-grand is not a break the bank kind of figure. Maybe I am wrong.

This may be difficult for some schools... but perhaps those schools do not belong in Division I competing with the big boys.

-Jason "money is tough... but fixing the NCAA's problems won't be free" Evans

[Genedoc]

I am trying to figure out how many scholarships a typical Division I university gives out each year. I know Duke will have about 60 guys on football scholarship and 13 on basketball and 15 on women's basketball... but I am unsure how many others there are. I doubt Duke gives out the equivilant of more than 150 full scholarships... probably a bit less.

So, lets use that 150. If Duke awarded $4000 in stipends alongside each of those 150 scholarship, that would mean it would cost Duke $600,000 to give a stipend to their players. I know many sports department run on a tight budget, but I think $600-grand is not a break the bank kind of figure. Maybe I am wrong.

This may be difficult for some schools... but perhaps those schools do not belong in Division I competing with the big boys.

-Jason "money is tough... but fixing the NCAA's problems won't be free" Evans

Duke's own Jay Bilas has put more thought into this that most of the rest of the people in the internet combined. My opinions in short, many of which have been shaped by listening to/reading Jay's perspectives and which I know will be wildly unpopular...

1) Yes, absolutely, unequivocally yes...players deserve fair market compensation for their work product. Their risk and skill generations billions of dollars of revenue, and they're not given an iota of compensation for the wealth they create. That's patently un-American.

2) The NCAA nor the member institutions has to bear a dime of the costs. The market will sort it out. If you've a drama program and the star can make a million dollars also doing films, you don't kick him out of the drama program. If you've a music program and one of your stars signs a record deal, you don't kick him out of the drama program. If you've an English major that write the great American novel, you don't bar them from seeking compensation for their efforts. Why are athletes treated completely, totally different than any other college student?

3) The title IV canard is just that - a canard. You absolutely do not have to pay all of the players in all of the sports. That's preposterous and only applicable if the Universities and/or the NCAA is the payer. How much revenue does the field hockey team or the cross country team generate? None. And in the event that they do and there exists a market for their endorsements/products...GREAT! Let them take advantage of those rare opportunities. If Bob in Omaha wants to spend $100 on a field hockey jersey, let him, and let the jersey owner reap the profit.

[devildeac]

I am trying to figure out how many scholarships a typical Division I university gives out each year. I know Duke will have about 60 guys on football scholarship and 13 on basketball and 15 on women's basketball... but I am unsure how many others there are. I doubt Duke gives out the equivilant of more than 150 full scholarships... probably a bit less.

So, lets use that 150. If Duke awarded $4000 in stipends alongside each of those 150 scholarship, that would mean it would cost Duke $600,000 to give a stipend to their players. I know many sports department run on a tight budget, but I think $600-grand is not a break the bank kind of figure. Maybe I am wrong.

This may be difficult for some schools... but perhaps those schools do not belong in Division I competing with the big boys.

-Jason "money is tough... but fixing the NCAA's problems won't be free" Evans

I'd bet it's closer to 200 total when you add up all the fulls and partials in all the other sports. My estimates:

FB-85
WBB-15
MBB-12
BB-10
WG-6
MG-4
WLAX-15
MLAX-10
WS-15
MS-10
VB-5
WT-6
MT-4

Again, these are estimates I recall from my son briefly considering soccer (10/year IIRC) and Jim Sumner discussing BB in the past with ~10/team. I haven't counted any for field hockey, track and field, wrestling, swimming/diving or fencing. Perhaps add 10 more? If I added correctly, that should be about 210. And we don't have ice hockey or water polo, a couple other popular sports in other areas of the country. Not a cheap proposal. It would certainly be even more interesting to see the #s from the large state schools compared to Duke also. Obviously, their $/scholly is less based on in-state tuition, but perhaps they fund larger #/sport and/or larger # of teams.

[CDu]

Duuuh, totally forgot to include my feelings on this subject... as if anybody cares

I have long said that the NCAA should find some way to compensate these kids. To some extent, the athletes are providing a service for the school-- representing it to the outside world, providing entertainment, and enhancing the college experience for fellow students. So, they should be compensated the same way other student employees are. The kids who work in the admission office conducting tours get paid. The kids who work in the library get paid. The kids who check IDs outside the gym or tennis court or whatever get paid. So too should the athletes.

My suggestion is to provide payment for every hour of practice. The NCAA already mandates certain amounts of practice time, so the number is easy to monitor and uniform. Pay them, I dunno, $7 an hour or something like that. The NCAA mandates no more than something like 20 hours of practice a week during the season, so my proposal would put $140/week into the pocket of scholarship athlete, probably coming to several thousand dollars a year. Not enough to keep kids from turning pro early (though the schools should not be trying to compete with the pros in that regard); not enough to buy a new car; but enough to let kids buy pizza and beverages every now and then; enough to take your girl out for dinner and a movie; enough to save for a couple weeks and buy a ticket home or maybe buy a ticket for mom and dad to come see one of your games.

This is not a break-the-bank kind of proposal. Schools could afford this, I am convinced. I would hate to see it only applied to football and basketball -- it should just be part of a full athletic scholarship, the same way books, room, and food money are part of the scholarship.

--Jason "Someone tell me why this is a bad idea!?!?!" Evans

The revenue sport athletes DO get compensated. They get a full scholarship, free food (don't think for a minute that those kids have to pay for pizza and drinks - they get fantastic meal plans), free tutors, free medical support and trainers. That's quite a payment.

And uh oh's point remains - if you pay the revenue sport athletes, where does that money come from? Do you cut a non-revenue sport? Do you decrease the quality of the facilities (which get used by the non-revenue sports and some of the regular student body)?

[Genedoc]

The revenue sport athletes DO get compensated. They get a full scholarship, free food (don't think for a minute that those kids have to pay for pizza and drinks - they get fantastic meal plans), free tutors, free medical support and trainers. That's quite a payment.

It's hardly "quite a payment" when they generate a billion plus dollars in profit and put themselves at significant physical peril while doing it. And they work extensively in the weight room, on the training field, in the film room, and in practice in exchange for their "payment." They're getting less than pennies on the dollar.

And uh oh's point remains - if you pay the revenue sport athletes, where does that money come from? Do you cut a non-revenue sport? Do you decrease the quality of the facilities (which get used by the non-revenue sports and some of the regular student body)?

You don't have to cut anything, you don't have to decrease anything. Allowing the players access to the free market will not cost the NCAA nor the member institutions a dime. If anything, they'll save money because the laughably arcane rule book will be greatly simplified and compliance with the new rules will be markedly easier.

[sagegrouse]

The revenue sport athletes DO get compensated. They get a full scholarship, free food (don't think for a minute that those kids have to pay for pizza and drinks - they get fantastic meal plans), free tutors, free medical support and trainers. That's quite a payment.

And uh oh's point remains - if you pay the revenue sport athletes, where does that money come from? Do you cut a non-revenue sport? Do you decrease the quality of the facilities (which get used by the non-revenue sports and some of the regular student body)?

Jason already answered it. A few hundred a month for about 95 players (football and hoops scholarship limits) is about half-a-million, which is only one percent of Duke athletic budget. Don't you think Kevin White can handle a 1% variance within an existing contingency account? Let's don't make this problem too hard.

Also, on my earlier post that drew a comment, I said that Duke's $69 million was REVENUE and not PROFIT. The point was that universities like the government count all spending the same , whether its a true cost or an investment. Texas may "spend" all of its $154 million -- but it really doesn't need to.

sagegrouse

[Duvall]

Also, on my earlier post that drew a comment, I said that Duke's $69 million was REVENUE and not PROFIT. The point was that universities like the government count all spending the same , whether its a true cost or an investment. Texas may "spend" all of its $154 million -- but it really doesn't need to.

Which brings us back to the question of what we cut, doesn't it?

[uh_no]

Also, on my earlier post that drew a comment, I said that Duke's $69 million was REVENUE and not PROFIT. The point was that universities like the government count all spending the same , whether its a true cost or an investment. Texas may "spend" all of its $154 million -- but it really doesn't need to.

sagegrouse

Most schools are not texas, take us for example. do you think the athletics department would be taking 16 million dollars a year from the university if it didn't NEED to spend it on something?

Another point: someone said that the couple hundred thousand dollars a scholarship is worth is pittance compared to the billions the athletes bring in....well then what difference does 4k an athlete make when they have all their living expenses paid for? By the same argument, the 4k is worthless since it doesn't compare to the amount of money they bring in

Whether 600k is doable or not, that money is already being spent somewhere, and the question is still, where does it come from? if the athletics department had 600k laying around, they wouldn't be taking as much money as they do from the university.

When you're working at a huge loss any decently large increase in the budget will have to be taken from somwhere else (unless you're the US government)

and if we'd have trouble finding the money how the heck are school like villanova or st johns with a tiny endowment going to even field a team? we might as well just wave every mid major school goodbye...and suddenly there'd be a HUGE disparity between teams that can afford to pay up and those that can't....

and that's where I think the largest problems lie...the rich schools get better and the small schools lose out...this is a kind of problem you run into when you want any sort of significant amount of payment. If for instance, you only allow players to make money off jersey sales, then a good baller is going to make money wherever he goes to play, and the money comes from the fans, and doesn't cannibalize university profits (except for maybe jersey sales, which I believe are outside the athletics departments balance sheet...not sure)...and mid majors might have an even bigger draw for some top players, as they wouldn't have to compete for jersey sales with 4 other guys (on a team like duke)...so effectively its the same reasons you have for people to go to small schools today.

[Duvall]

1) Yes, absolutely, unequivocally yes...players deserve fair market compensation for their work product. Their risk and skill generations billions of dollars of revenue, and they're not given an iota of compensation for the wealth they create. That's patently un-American.

Isn't that the opposite of a free market? Under the current system, a player is free to accept the compensation offered by schools in exchange for becoming a student-athlete. A player is also free to reject that offer and seek any and all compensation from anyone willing to pay him. The player just can't do both at the same time.

[Genedoc]

Isn't that the opposite of a free market? Under the current system, a player is free to accept the compensation offered by schools in exchange for becoming a student-athlete. A player is also free to reject that offer and seek any and all compensation from anyone willing to pay him. The player just can't do both at the same time.

The opposite of a free market is a work force that creates billions of dollars of value while not being allowed to capitalize on their market worth. Why is the drama student, the music major, or the English literature major allowed to partake of both an academic scholarship and whatever yield the free market may provide, but not the athlete?

[SoCalDukeFan]

Jason wants to give a fixed stipend, which is hardly a free market.

I am not sure where GeneDoc thinks the money will come from - letting the players get paid for doing TV interviews? their name on jerseys? accepting payments from boosters? autograph shows? Maybe the NFL and NBA?

I agree completely that it is sickening the way big time sports at many school exploit their football and basketball players. Almost no concern for academics and all for money, and the money goes to the school or the conference or the NCAA.

Why not try to reverse it. Play college football at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. No Sunday college basketball. Require athletes to be students.

While certainly big time players are exploited, I know several women who went to college on full or partial athletic scholarships. I think they and their parents think it was a pretty good deal. They got to play a sport they loved and got a college degree, in some cases from schools that would not have accepted them otherwise and the parents saved a bunch of dough.

SoCal

[Duvall]

The opposite of a free market is a work force that creates billions of dollars of value while not being allowed to capitalize on their market worth.

You may not like the deal. You may not think it is a good deal, and you are free to reject both as participant and spectator. But that doesn't make it any less freely offered and accepted.

Why is the drama student, the music major, or the English literature major allowed to partake of both an academic scholarship and whatever yield the free market may provide, but not the athlete?

Because there are no drama leagues or literature competitions. Even if alumni and sponsors tried to lure talented fine arts prospects to one school over another, it wouldn't present a problem.

[uh_no]

While certainly big time players are exploited, I know several women who went to college on full or partial athletic scholarships. I think they and their parents think it was a pretty good deal.
SoCal

I think there are millions of parents/students out there wishing they could scrounge ANY scholarship money to help offset the huge loans they end up with. I dislike the argument that one can't complain just because others have it worse, but lets keep it in perspective here.

The NCAA is the college game, and if players don't like it, there are other leagues that would certainly love to pay them to play.

[Genedoc]

I am not sure where GeneDoc thinks the money will come from - letting the players get paid for doing TV interviews? their name on jerseys? accepting payments from boosters? autograph shows? Maybe the NFL and NBA?

SoCal

The money will come from wherever/whomever would like to spend/invest their money on a college athlete. The more marketable players...QB at USC, Tailback at Alabama, etc...will inevitably have more options than fullback at Direcional State Tech. If a thousand fans in Kenosha want to give a hundred dollars each to Russell Wilson for his autograph, let them. And let him capitalize on his earning potential.

Students will have to remain academically eligible, do their own course work of course, and make sure they're doing nothing illegal - just like every other college student.

[Genedoc]

The NCAA is the college game, and if players don't like it, there are other leagues that would certainly love to pay them to play.

What other football leagues would love to pay the players?

[uh_no]

The money will come from wherever/whomever would like to spend/invest their money on a college athlete. The more marketable players...QB at USC, Tailback at Alabama, etc...will inevitably have more options than fullback at Direcional State Tech. If a thousand fans in Kenosha want to give a hundred dollars each to Russell Wilson for his autograph, let them. And let him capitalize on his earning potential.

Students will have to remain academically eligible, do their own course work of course, and make sure they're doing nothing illegal - just like every other college student.

Having the free flow of money from boosters to players opens up a huge can of worms. At least if you restrict it to jersey sales, there is very little grey area exposed, and it is harder to abuse.

as to other football leagues, the CFL would LOVE to have some american college players I am sure.

[MartyClark]

The title IV canard is just that - a canard. You absolutely do not have to pay all of the players in all of the sports. That's preposterous and only applicable if the Universities and/or the NCAA is the payer. How much revenue does the field hockey team or the cross country team generate? None. And in the event that they do and there exists a market for their endorsements/products...GREAT! Let them take advantage of those rare opportunities. If Bob in Omaha wants to spend $100 on a field hockey jersey, let him, and let the jersey owner reap the profit.

I assume you mean Title IX rather than Title IV. I think you acknowledge that, even with a rule change, Duke or the NCAA could not pay the mens basketball team without paying the woman's lacrosse team ( I'm not an expert in Title IX but believe that interpretation would be consistent with the legislative intent ). Are you saying that every men's basketball player receive a cut from the sale of any Duke basketball jersey? Or are you saying that Austin Rivers should get a cut consistent with the sale of jerseys bearing his name?

I probably disagree with you but am interested to hear a clarification.