Mr. WEO Posted July 2, 2011 Posted July 2, 2011 The consensus for those who wish to see athletes paid (extra) by their schools seems to be that it is fair because of the millions in revenue they produce for their "700 hours" of labor. What, then, of those athletes who spend 700 hours a year on football teams that don't make any profit? Are they not entitled to the same compensation for their hours of labor? What about the long distance runner on the track team--what is the value of his 700 hours of work participating in year-round seasons? If an athletic department is losing money, do the players still deserve extra cash? "regular students" are not on scholarship. It's safe to conclude that the vast majority of Div 1 football players don't take money under the table. Yet somehow they are not starving. Giving all players a little spending money, or whatever such proponents are proposing, will not stop the relatively tiny number of guys who take money from continuing to do so. There is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.
NoSaint Posted July 2, 2011 Posted July 2, 2011 The consensus for those who wish to see athletes paid (extra) by their schools seems to be that it is fair because of the millions in revenue they produce for their "700 hours" of labor. What, then, of those athletes who spend 700 hours a year on football teams that don't make any profit? Are they not entitled to the same compensation for their hours of labor? What about the long distance runner on the track team--what is the value of his 700 hours of work participating in year-round seasons? If an athletic department is losing money, do the players still deserve extra cash? "regular students" are not on scholarship. It's safe to conclude that the vast majority of Div 1 football players don't take money under the table. Yet somehow they are not starving. Giving all players a little spending money, or whatever such proponents are proposing, will not stop the relatively tiny number of guys who take money from continuing to do so. There is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise. especially guys like pryor. for them its about wanting/deserving more. its an entitlement issue, not a survival one for most of the people that accept the cash. although i do think more guys are getting cash than just a few. that doesnt mean i think they deserve to get paid though.
Hplarrm Posted July 2, 2011 Posted July 2, 2011 I agree that Olympic athletes and college athletes are not equivalent situations… but there's something there to consider. I'm thinking aloud during this thread and my thought process now is this: I'm not yet sure that I want to see big-revenue sports, college athletes (Division I-a football and basketball players) getting paid a stipend beyond their scholarships… although I'm not necessarily against it either. The question is whether giving them a stipend for the 700+ hours or so they invest in sports alone each year would cut down on cheating and boosters glad handing with $100 handshakes, etc. It's not uncommon for a regular grad student to receive an academic stipend worth thousands of dollars per month (on top of their tuition and fees) to compensate them for the long hours they contribute to the university and the fact that such an investment in time and energy precludes them from working a paying job. I think the argument could easily be made that there's a difficult-to-justify double standard between what regular students can receive and what "student athletes" can receive due to the rules of the NCAA. I have a very hard time reconciling this double standard. Back to the stipend issue, if you thought that a stipend would substantially cut down on cheating, I think it would have to be considered. However, I'm far from certain that it would, in fact, cut down on cheating. I think that in order for athletic stipends to work, that there would have to be a real crackdown on boosterism and all those things you had talked about before. The problem I see is that I view cheating as being rampant in the areas we're discussing. Ohio State University, for instance has 6 "compliance" officers and yet they basically hid their heads in the sand when all bartering of merchandise for tattoos and other things was going on. IMO, if the athletes were given a fair stipend for the fact that they spend 700+ hours per year helping the school generate money, I think that would be fair. But I doubt that it would cut down on the cheating and abuses that are part of the ruination of the current system. I understand your thinking on this and much of it has an appeal to me. However, I think where this approach runs smack dab into reality is that the definition of "fair" is wholly different within two systems which our society pretty fully embraces. Ia fair value determined by what a student would normally get for their work time on a project? Is fair value determined by the amount an athlete would get in the open market? These two values are both "fair" by different legitimate measures. However, they are wildly different as the first value that a student worker would get is probably somewhere at or around minimum wage. However, what the market would likely judge to be fair for a student athlete (in particular an accomplished one) is going to be far orders of magnitude higher. I simply do not think a "fair" number which serves both these principles can be done. Is there some number you propose which is both doable in the long term or not insulting to the student athlete as an offer.
San Jose Bills Fan Posted July 2, 2011 Posted July 2, 2011 I understand your thinking on this and much of it has an appeal to me. However, I think where this approach runs smack dab into reality is that the definition of "fair" is wholly different within two systems which our society pretty fully embraces. Ia fair value determined by what a student would normally get for their work time on a project? Is fair value determined by the amount an athlete would get in the open market? These two values are both "fair" by different legitimate measures. However, they are wildly different as the first value that a student worker would get is probably somewhere at or around minimum wage. However, what the market would likely judge to be fair for a student athlete (in particular an accomplished one) is going to be far orders of magnitude higher. I simply do not think a "fair" number which serves both these principles can be done. Is there some number you propose which is both doable in the long term or not insulting to the student athlete as an offer. Work-study pay rates range from about $7/hour up to about $12/hour. Why not pay them as a regular student is paid by work-study? Keeping with NoSaints' numbers, it seems like college football players "work" about 720 hours per year. At $12/hour, that's about $8640 per year. It could be viewed just like some kid working in the library or in the bursars office (except the football players are working in meetings, the weight room, practices, and games). It gives the kids "walking around money" so they can pay for restaurants, clothes, and yes, tattoos. Remember that many of these athletes come from very humble backgrounds and didn't arrive at college with $5000 in a bank account saved from working summer jobs. For poor kids, whatever money they made during high school they probably used just to eat and for the bare essentials. Paying them an hourly rate for the time they devote to football in an arrangement similar to work-study seems like an excellent starting point for me. My nephew and niece are both grad students on academic scholarships who also have work-study jobs during the school year. Neither of them play intercollegiate sports but as regular students, even with scholarships, they actually have time to work a part-time job, unlike Division I football and basketball players. The only thing my nephew and niece have to do to maintain their scholarships is to keep their grades up. Their universities are giving them a free ride… AND providing them with part-time jobs for extra cash. And again, the football/basketball players are putting in substantial time and energy while helping the school generate revenue as well as adding value to their institutions' "brand." Yet the athletes are very restricted to what money they can accept and their schedules do not realistically allow for part-time jobs.
NoSaint Posted July 2, 2011 Posted July 2, 2011 Work-study pay rates range from about $7/hour up to about $12/hour. Why not pay them as a regular student is paid by work-study? Keeping with NoSaints' numbers, it seems like college football players "work" about 720 hours per year. At $12/hour, that's about $8640 per year. It could be viewed just like some kid working in the library or in the bursars office (except the football players are working in meetings, the weight room, practices, and games). It gives the kids "walking around money" so they can pay for restaurants, clothes, and yes, tattoos. Remember that many of these athletes come from very humble backgrounds and didn't arrive at college with $5000 in a bank account saved from working summer jobs. For poor kids, whatever money they made during high school they probably used just to eat and for the bare essentials. Paying them an hourly rate for the time they devote to football in an arrangement similar to work-study seems like an excellent starting point for me. My nephew and niece are both grad students on academic scholarships who also have work-study jobs during the school year. Neither of them play intercollegiate sports but as regular students, even with scholarships, they actually have time to work a part-time job, unlike Division I football and basketball players. The only thing my nephew and niece have to do to maintain their scholarships is to keep their grades up. Their universities are giving them a free ride… AND providing them with part-time jobs for extra cash. And again, the football/basketball players are putting in substantial time and energy while helping the school generate revenue as well as adding value to their institutions' "brand." Yet the athletes are very restricted to what money they can accept and their schedules do not realistically allow for part-time jobs. i just pulled those numbers from an article quickly, so im sure they arent 100% accurate - ie what time frames constitute in season, out of season, does it matter if its during the semester vs summer etc... just my own disclaimer. i think all things considered, we arent truly going to solve the problem so its probably close enough for us though. my follow up question.... do you pay that only to mens football and basketball? if yes, then do you pay only teams generating profit? if no, where do those funds come from? do you cut other sports to pay your football players?
PDaDdy Posted July 3, 2011 Author Posted July 3, 2011 (edited) and for me thats kind of where it comes full circle for me and back to the top level people needing to be held highly accountable. if tressel was blackballed for life for signing off that the program was clean, while he obviously knew otherwise - i doubt he would have rolled the dice to get his trophy with pryor. players get suspensions that essentially end their NCAA career, but the higher level take a year off, work for espn and come back the following year. reggie bush cannot have any affiliation with usc anymore but the boosters and agents that handed him the money face no sanctions. i think that discipline would trickle down into programs, and recruitment. until you are willing to clean up the system, i think that any compensation, or cash, or right to sign is a tough topic to seriously discuss. i just dont think the ncaa wants to seriously address this and its likely because to come down hard on the rule breakers would essentially amount to many of the people in charge losing their own livelihood... There is a lot of work to do there. Agreed the system needs a lot of work to truly help make a difference. Work-study pay rates range from about $7/hour up to about $12/hour. Why not pay them as a regular student is paid by work-study? Keeping with NoSaints' numbers, it seems like college football players "work" about 720 hours per year. At $12/hour, that's about $8640 per year. It could be viewed just like some kid working in the library or in the bursars office (except the football players are working in meetings, the weight room, practices, and games). It gives the kids "walking around money" so they can pay for restaurants, clothes, and yes, tattoos. Remember that many of these athletes come from very humble backgrounds and didn't arrive at college with $5000 in a bank account saved from working summer jobs. For poor kids, whatever money they made during high school they probably used just to eat and for the bare essentials. Paying them an hourly rate for the time they devote to football in an arrangement similar to work-study seems like an excellent starting point for me. My nephew and niece are both grad students on academic scholarships who also have work-study jobs during the school year. Neither of them play intercollegiate sports but as regular students, even with scholarships, they actually have time to work a part-time job, unlike Division I football and basketball players. The only thing my nephew and niece have to do to maintain their scholarships is to keep their grades up. Their universities are giving them a free ride… AND providing them with part-time jobs for extra cash. And again, the football/basketball players are putting in substantial time and energy while helping the school generate revenue as well as adding value to their institutions' "brand." Yet the athletes are very restricted to what money they can accept and their schedules do not realistically allow for part-time jobs. Good ideas man. Walking around money is right on. Let them own their image and make a couple more bucks that doesn't come out of the system. It could be a slippery slope I know as it might open up other avenues for boosters to funnel money into the system. i just pulled those numbers from an article quickly, so im sure they arent 100% accurate - ie what time frames constitute in season, out of season, does it matter if its during the semester vs summer etc... just my own disclaimer. i think all things considered, we arent truly going to solve the problem so its probably close enough for us though. my follow up question.... do you pay that only to mens football and basketball? if yes, then do you pay only teams generating profit? if no, where do those funds come from? do you cut other sports to pay your football players? Any sort of accounting could be a B word but I think that you could model it more like profit sharing. Players would get a little cut of the revenue up to a reasonable maximum kind of thing like the work study kind of compensation level. Edited July 3, 2011 by PDaDdy
San Jose Bills Fan Posted July 3, 2011 Posted July 3, 2011 Work-study pay rates range from about $7/hour up to about $12/hour. Why not pay them as a regular student is paid by work-study? Keeping with NoSaints' numbers, it seems like college football players "work" about 720 hours per year. At $12/hour, that's about $8640 per year. It could be viewed just like some kid working in the library or in the bursars office (except the football players are working in meetings, the weight room, practices, and games). It gives the kids "walking around money" so they can pay for restaurants, clothes, and yes, tattoos. Remember that many of these athletes come from very humble backgrounds and didn't arrive at college with $5000 in a bank account saved from working summer jobs. For poor kids, whatever money they made during high school they probably used just to eat and for the bare essentials. Paying them an hourly rate for the time they devote to football in an arrangement similar to work-study seems like an excellent starting point for me. My nephew and niece are both grad students on academic scholarships who also have work-study jobs during the school year. Neither of them play intercollegiate sports but as regular students, even with scholarships, they actually have time to work a part-time job, unlike Division I football and basketball players. The only thing my nephew and niece have to do to maintain their scholarships is to keep their grades up. Their universities are giving them a free ride… AND providing them with part-time jobs for extra cash. And again, the football/basketball players are putting in substantial time and energy while helping the school generate revenue as well as adding value to their institutions' "brand." Yet the athletes are very restricted to what money they can accept and their schedules do not realistically allow for part-time jobs. my follow up question.... do you pay that only to mens football and basketball? if yes, then do you pay only teams generating profit? if no, where do those funds come from? do you cut other sports to pay your football players? Yes, you only work-study football and basketball players because those are the only programs which really bring in revenue. No other college sports do. I know that we talked about the actual profit-making ability of Division I football and basketball (just over half the programs are actually "profitable") but if you break it down to raw numbers, the most scholarships a program can give is 75 per year. If you calculate tuition, room, and board for out-of-state students as being about $30,000 per year, the "face value of those scholarships is $2.25 million per year. Of course that's only face value, not actual value. Given that number, I would say that if a football program is not profitable, it has only partly to do with "player costs" and that the non-profitability probably has more to do with other expenses related to running a football program. So IMO the players actually give an excellent return on investment as they are very cheap and bring revenue back to the school. So yes, I would say pay the football and basketball players only and not the swim team and crew team, for instance. In fact, many of these other programs exist only because of football or basketball revenue (again referencing Title 9… which I'm not against).
NoSaint Posted July 3, 2011 Posted July 3, 2011 Yes, you only work-study football and basketball players because those are the only programs which really bring in revenue. No other college sports do. I know that we talked about the actual profit-making ability of Division I football and basketball (just over half the programs are actually "profitable") but if you break it down to raw numbers, the most scholarships a program can give is 75 per year. If you calculate tuition, room, and board for out-of-state students as being about $30,000 per year, the "face value of those scholarships is $2.25 million per year. Of course that's only face value, not actual value. Given that number, I would say that if a football program is not profitable, it has only partly to do with "player costs" and that the non-profitability probably has more to do with other expenses related to running a football program. So IMO the players actually give an excellent return on investment as they are very cheap and bring revenue back to the school. So yes, I would say pay the football and basketball players only and not the swim team and crew team, for instance. In fact, many of these other programs exist only because of football or basketball revenue (again referencing Title 9… which I'm not against). the wall which that is going to run into is that just like they cant say "we are only having football and basketball because they generate revenue" they cant say "we are only paying football and basketball players."
Hplarrm Posted July 3, 2011 Posted July 3, 2011 There is a lot of work to do there. Agreed the system needs a lot of work to truly help make a difference. Agreed there is a lot of work to be done to build an install a new system. Yet, in this case there would have to be so much work done to design that system (as we see even in the theorizing here) AND then an enormous amount of work done to actually install and make this new system work that on the face of it strikes me as prohibitive. A way to think about this (and the analogy is only offered to think about this because designing, reaching working agreement by all parties involved, AND then implementing it is small potatoes compared to this analogy, but I think it is worth using this because it is the same steps applied to the collegiate system) Think of the analogy of the steps needed to construct, get agreement, and then go to war to install the Declaration of Independence AND then construct, get agreement on, and then inatall the US Constitution. Again, altering collegiate athletics is "mere" small taters compared to building a new governmental system. However, one needs to understand that the process of designing, reaching agreement upon, and then installing our new collegiate constitution is a similar process to the effort made in forging a new world (though obviously much different in import. I just do not see how such an effort beyond the pleasure of mental masterstuff can result in real world change. Good ideas man. Walking around money is right on. Let them own their image and make a couple more bucks that doesn't come out of the system. It could be a slippery slope I know as it might open up other avenues for boosters to funnel money into the system. The slippery slope is not something which needs choices by individuals to make happen, the slippery slope will occur simply due to market economics. All it will take is for someone to speculate on a college star breaking out and this will cause the "walking around" money awarded to him to spiral out of control as institutions seek to get the best athletes they can with increased inducements of walking around. Maybe you want to ban payments by universities above walking around money. However, you now have created the same system where boosters and schools run by folks like Pete Carroll try to use under the table money to get athletes. Some of the athletes chafe under the unfairness of being paid merely walking sround money when their actual speculative market value is much higher. Any sort of accounting could be a B word but I think that you could model it more like profit sharing. Players would get a little cut of the revenue up to a reasonable maximum kind of thing like the work study kind of compensation level. The concept of working to achieve profit in our society. The question of how much $ is to much has no answer. I think if you agree to pay the players a little you will quickly get into discussion of how much is too rapidly down the slippery slope you will go.
Indy Dave Posted July 18, 2011 Posted July 18, 2011 Thought those chiming in within this thread would like to read this.Pat Forde story
CSBill Posted July 18, 2011 Posted July 18, 2011 Dear Veteran, the players do have a choice: they can choose not play football, pay the $30,000 tuition like everyone else, and work and get paid all they want at the local McDonalds. Being a college athlete is loaded with benefits and privileges the average student doesn't get. No one is exploiting them. Anyhow, please come back to reality soon. Thanks
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