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- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
Comments
Football payers at big D1 schools provide a product that consumers pay for. The broadcasters get paid, the NCAA gets paid, coaches and staff get paid, and school administrators get paid. Let's apply the love of the game and free college logic to all those groups as well. I wonder how long they would stick around. Why do they get to reap the benefits of a "free market" but not the players?
Edit: sounds like the players get Marxism and everyone else gets capitalism. "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others."
Broadcasters - have a college degree, work experience, and they are the elite of the elite at their profession. Just a fraction of these positions compared to the number of college athletes...
The "NCAA?" Not sure who that is. Are you referring to the individuals who work for the NCAA? Most of them make very little. There are a few, highly educated elites (most with advanced degrees) with tons of work experience who make a lot of money.
Coaches - all college graduates. Thousands and thousands of them out there with years and years of experience who are making very little. Only the elite of the elite "get paid," meaning they make the money that most people complain about. For most programs in the NCAA, if you took the entire coaching staff's salary and split it up amongst the roster, that turns out to be very, very little money per kid.
Staff - Well, the medical staff's are incredibly educated, and making normal medical wages.
Athletic Administration - high educated, multi-degreed individuals who have worked their way up. Very few high paying jobs here. Most worked long hours for years to get there.
So, the "capitalists..."
They all are EDUCATED - have a degree. And have worked for YEARS to rise up the profession.
Now, let's remove the highly educated, highly skilled people we are paying from the process - Coaches, staff, broadcasters, compliance company, school administration, and see how much the "football players" would make with their "skill." How many of them would make life-changing money without the "system" in place to prepare them for the NFL?
Remove the college football system, and let's see who makes it. Let's have a minor league football system. A small percentage, like 1%, make it, with the other 99% ending up uneducated, unskilled high-school graduates, looking for a place to go to pay to go to school.
The present system EDUCATES (or attempts to educate) the roster and prepare them for life after college. The skills of the elite few GENERATES the revenue for the entire system to exist. The elite need the average. The average need the elite.
Multi-layered, multi-faceted system with tons of working parts - all needed each other to exist.
I'm referring to the entire broadcast station as in CBS or ESPN not the individual commentators.
NCAA makes money off TV broadcast deals.
I specifically mentioned big D1 schools that bring in viewers. You're strawmanning by talking about smaller schools when I never mentioned them.
You're argument comes across as the highly educated and well connected elites of society are ENTITLED to the money generated by college players after they put in long hours training and practicing to provide an amazing product. Is this what you meant?
Edit: or are you critiquing the entire system and saying the revenue should be more evenly distributed to everyone that makes top college games possible?
If there was an easy answer, an easy fix, an easy way to give the kids more, without hurting the competitive balance (ex. killing the golden goose), without bankrupting small colleges, while still supporting the colleges (and the college programs inside of those colleges) that they represent, someone would have done it.
Everyone loves the idea of everyone getting "the money they deserve" (excuse me while I gag...). But the Law if Unintended Consequences is real, and that check will come due...
I cheer for the guys who wear a G on their helmet. That G represents an institution. That institution represents where I was born. Therefore, I cheer for ideals. A whole lot of people watch a football game because "Georgia" is playing, first and foremost. Without the G on the helmet, they are not watching. That idea is bigger to most than a skill some 19 year old may possess, and all this cash associated with college sports will follow the G, not the individual skill. We root for ideals. It's polyanna-ish, but I feel like it is realistic.
SOME of the guys you are complaining about "getting paid" have actually worked TEN TIMES as many hours as the players you are referring to. There are always exceptions, but rising to the top of many of these professions is thankless, hard work. They have put in their time, their work. And they got their opportunity, their foot in the door with a DEGREE. They have EARNED their salary. You know, through hard work. Their skill sets are more "elite" than the players. The players have been working hard for 4 or 5 years, not 15, 20, or 30.
The value of a college degree far exceeds what it cost in tuition. It is an investment in the rest of their lives. You know this - the average salary for a person with a college degree is tens of thousands of dollars annually more than someone without that degree. Do the math with someone who works to retirement.
I don't know what strawmanning means...
But, without the "rest" of college football (and college sports), the top 9-10 athletic programs in the country don't make this money. They need the "smaller," less profitable schools to exist so they can be the "national champions."
And to answer your question - yes, there are some revenue issues that can be addressed. But the can of worms even the smallest change in this "distribution" would open is crazy. I wish I knew the answer. But, I fear the system that serves so many - only to be a disservice to so few - will collapse with any big changes...
If someone provides a product that is purchased by others, they should be compensated for that with a wage. I understand it would change the current system but way too much money is moving around compared to when the amatuer system was implemented for college athletics. It's hard to justify that much money changing hands with none of it going to the players that actually provide the product.
"Taking into account student loan interest and loss of income, the ultimate cost of a bachelor’s degree may exceed $400,000."
This is from educationdata.org.
"Men with bachelor's degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor's degrees earn $630,000 more."
This is from the social security administrations website.
And these are random stats that I pulled with little personal research, and stats can be manipulated. But they do serve as a good starting point for discussion.
So, for 4 years of work (at no more than 25 hours a week as mandated by the NCAA), athletes are getting a total value between $1.0mil and $1.4mil compared to what they would have made without going to college. And NONE of this accounts for the lessons and learning and growing up that LIFE teaches them during these years.
Now, we can discuss and try to decide just how much of the "money changing hands" should go to the student athlete. We can argue which student athletes should get that money. But, I don't think we can say that "none of it is going to the players that actually provide the product."
There is GREAT value for what they are getting in return. EDUCATION is not a wage, but it is an investment that PAYS.
P.S. How #@$$ed up is the gap in male and female wages in the second stat? Different discussion, different time...
I don't find the scholarship argument that compelling. We should be working to have college and high skilled labor training more accessible for everyone regardless of athletics. Let's make the Hollywood elites and the plutocrats in big tech pay for it.
Sorry I think letting the players make money off their names is brilliant. Let's the school off the hook for any added expenses and let's the players make whatever the market allows. Sure some will rack up some serious coin and some not..but I would think most will profit some. This is letting players have the same rights everyone else does without a huge hit to the school.Anyway just my two cents, let's see how it plays out.