4 ms·

I agree with pretty much every criticism in this article. Where I differ in opinion is the solution. First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay footba

by chroma 11y ago

I agree with pretty much every criticism in this article. Where I differ in opinion is the solution. First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay football players, other athletes will want to be paid. They'll ask, "What makes football special?" and they'll have a point. Then we'll run into some unhappy truths regarding sports. For example: If colleges base compensation on revenue, the wage gap between male and female athletes will be massive. Then there's the problem of mixing sports and education. If these athletes are paid, do they still have to attend classes? Do they have to get good grades? Are they given scholarships in addition to monetary compensation? Can athletes switch colleges if another school will pay them more? It seems to me that most of these problems would be solved by creating a minor league separate from college. If people are so attached to college names, then the colleges can sell naming rights. But honestly, I'm hard-pressed to find a sport more repugnant than football. If football came into being today, people would riot in the streets. Who would pay money to watch mostly lower-class, mostly black[1] players permanently damage each other's brains and bodies? Who would cheer during such an event? Yes, it can be argued that athletes know the risks, but the same is true for dueling. In the past, people thought dueling was fine. Today, we recognize it to be a barbarous tradition. I believe that, as we do with dueling, future societies will condemn us for allowing this sport to continue. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_players_in_American_professional_football#Today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_players_in_American_prof...

wernercd 11y ago
What makes Football different than Female baseball or wrestling? Full stadiums. I'm not a football fan either (nor any sport where "we" will go all the way)... but to say that people will riot in the streets over it is a bit over the top. YOU don't like it. Many people obviously disagree - and enough that it's a major sport. Probably THE major sport currently.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Popularity breeds popularity
webXL 11y ago
I feel the brutality of the sport every morning when I get out of bed. And I was a scrub for the most part. But I wouldn't trade any of it. If it weren't for the increase in brain injuries and the muscle-mass maximizing arms race that ends careers (and limp-free middle age) on a weekly basis, I'd encourage my son to play. I absolutely loved the sport. It still has its merits, and I'm still a huge fan, but there's a lot of ugliness that needs to be fixed before I'd encourage anyone to play. It's a lot like encouraging someone to serve their country. If the mission is clear and moral, no problem. But it's rare you're gonna find that these days. Just work hard and try to be happy. That's honorable.
- a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
  > brain injuries and the muscle-mass maximizing arms race The huge players and huge hits are a direct consequence of the modern changes to the game. Just go back to no separate defense/offense/special teams. Everybody runs the whole game. Maybe also bring the play clock down to 15 seconds.
smacktoward 11y ago
> First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay football players, other athletes will want to be paid. They'll ask, "What makes football special?" That's easy: what makes football special is that it generates absolutely gigantic piles of cash. If a delegation of athletes from, say, the college ultimate frisbee team were to demand similar compensation, the burden would be on them to demonstrate they're generating similar revenue. (And if they can actually make that case? Then heck, pay them too!) > Then we'll run into some unhappy truths regarding sports. For example: If colleges base compensation on revenue, the wage gap between male and female athletes will be massive. Wait -- because we might end up paying female athletes less than male athletes, we shouldn't pay any of them anything? Surely we can cross this particular bridge when (and if) we ever actually come to it. > Then there's the problem of mixing sports and education. Which isn't really a problem, because the "education" many (most?) college football players currently receive is pretty nominal anyway. > It seems to me that most of these problems would be solved by creating a minor league separate from college. I'm always wary of a proposed solution whose first step is "change everything," not least because frequently it's proposed less to provide an actual alternative than to delay taking any steps at all to improve the situation. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, in other words. You can advocate for creating a whole new league if you want to, and maybe someday that will happen, but in the meantime there's all these real people getting really screwed out of real money they've really earned. A whole new system that takes 10 or 15 or 30 years to get worked out and implemented doesn't do them any good. So let's just start paying them, and then we can take all the time we want to work the bigger questions out.
- chroma 11y ago
  I'm fine with a huge wage gap, but most people aren't. There's an odd defect in most people's thinking where if you make some small contribution toward solving a problem, they'll berate you for not doing more.[1] I'm simply pointing out that because of this, the author's solution is politically infeasible. Paying college athletes is probably as difficult as starting minor league football. There are a significant number of regulations in place to prevent college athletes from being compensated, to ensure gender parity, and to stop colleges from spending "too much" on sports. Their efficacy varies, but repealing them would be an immense political effort. For starters, you'd have to get rid of Title IX. There's no hill-climbing solution here. We're in a local maximum. :( 1. http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethi...
curun1r 11y ago
I'm of the opinion that there are two things that colleges owe their revenue-generating athletes: 1) Insurance policies. These people put their bodies on the line for 4 years and serious, life-long injuries can be sustained. In the event that a player is hurt in this way, they should receive compensation (an annuity, to ensure it lasts their entire lifetime). Insurance seems like a good way to handle this. 2) Financial education. This works for both the 2% that go on to professional careers and the 98% that don't. What goes along with being broke is not having basic financial skills like budgeting or even opening a bank account. There's a reason that the majority of professional players are broke only a few years after retirement despite making millions during their playing careers. ESPN's documentary, Broke, did a good job of dissecting it, but the moment that left the biggest impression on me was when one player admitted to taking his $500k signing bonus to a check cashing store. I agree with you about creating a minor league instead of using colleges, but it will never happen. The two popular college sports are the ones where the pro league has no minor league (the D-League is a very recent development, so it remains to be seen whether it survives.) Baseball and Hockey have minor leagues and neither is popular. The college equivalent is also unpopular. But Football and Basketball have found a way to put an inferior product on the field/court and make it incredibly popular/lucrative. It's unlikely they'd be able to replicate that success with a minor league. So given that the current setup is too profitable to discontinue, I think the only conscionable thing to do is to give athletes who don't pass the admissions process an alternate education. Paying them will, for the vast majority, not make them well off given what we see of athletes paid in the professional leagues. Paying them in a practical education that prepares them to make the most of what they do have once their fame expires with their athletic eligibility seems more appropriate and maintains the mystique of the amateur athlete. Also, as an aside, I think Universities and football programs are missing a huge opportunity. Football coaches should be required to teach a course in the spring in football theory. As it is now, the only people who become Football coaches are ex-players. But Universities have access to some of the brightest minds in the country and most would love to learn about Football. Offering elective courses could open up the coaching field to a much wider field and make teams much more successful. We saw what happened when the Baseball nerds were allowed to influence how players were valued (Moneyball)...there's no reason to believe that bright and motivated Math/CS nerds couldn't do the same to other sports as well. From analyzing the tendencies of opposing teams using statistical analysis to designing new plays based on computer simulations, we have the tools today to revolutionize these sports if we're only allowed access to their insular communities.
vacri 11y ago
> If football came into being today, people would riot in the streets. Who would pay money to watch mostly lower-class, mostly black[1] players permanently damage each other's brains and bodies? Mixed Martial Arts is a very popular sport which is exactly this (maybe not the 'mostly black' part), and as a spectator sport in the US has only really risen recently. No rioting in the streets against it yet. Also, given your criticisms, how do you find football more repugnant than professional boxing, given that the latter's explicit goal is to literally beat your opponent into submission?
- chroma 11y ago
  MMA likes to tout itself as the closest thing to a pure fight, but it's scarcely less restrictive than boxing. Fish-hooking, biting, eye-gouging, rabbit-punching, breaking and dislocating fingers and toes... those were never allowed. Even UFC 1 didn't come close to actual "anything goes" fights. And much of MMA's popularity is owed to the fact that public outrage has significantly tamed it. Many effective (but permanently damaging) moves are now banned. Fighters wear gloves to prevent broken hands and ugly faces. Refs err on the side of stopping the fight early, rather than letting a fighter suffer significant injury. Ethics-wise, I place MMA in the same bin as boxing. Speaking of which... It's hard to say whether I find boxing more repugnant than football. If I could wave a magic wand and eliminate one, I'd pick football due to its popularity. The number of people put through that meat grinder is much higher than the number of boxers. That said, I do find boxing abhorrent. Watching a boxing match, I get the same emotions as watching a disaster. Horrifying, yet fascinating. Some part of me is compelled to keep watching. I think most people are similarly affected.
Thriptic 11y ago
> First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay football players, other athletes will want to be paid. They'll ask, "What makes football special?" and they'll have a point. What makes it special is that it's what more people will pay to see. There's more demand for it and so athletes should be paid more to play it. I would imagine college basketball players will also rightfully demand large compensation to play. > Then we'll run into some unhappy truths regarding sports. For example: If colleges base compensation on revenue, the wage gap between male and female athletes will be massive This gulf is already massive in professional sports, but I never hear anyone complaining about it. It's fairly well understood that men's college basketball is more popular than women's college basketball for example (at least by any metric that I can think of), and salaries will probably reflect that. > Then there's the problem of mixing sports and education. If these athletes are paid, do they still have to attend classes? Do they have to get good grades? Are they given scholarships in addition to monetary compensation? No, players who are paid will be employees of the university and will receive a salary and benefits. They will not be students. Perhaps there could be a mechanism in place to allow for some players to receive a scholarship in lieu of payment if they choose to (with the caveat being that they need to be admitted to the University under the same criteria as other non-athlete students), but in reality most of these players in top D1 programs are there to play football or basketball, not to go to class. > Can athletes switch colleges if another school will pay them more? Why not? > It seems to me that most of these problems would be solved by creating a minor league separate from college. If people are so attached to college names, then the colleges can sell naming rights. I agree, and that's basically what this will be. These sports teams will be discrete entities affiliated with the University, but their players will not be students.
- basseq 11y ago
  I like this a lot. There's certainly no social stigma against paying for athletics (e.g., multi-million dollar coaching salaries, stadiums in the hundreds of millions). There's no stigma about students working for the college during undergrad (e.g., TAs, lab assistants). And there's no stigma against non-student college-aged adults working for a college. So... Let's call a spade a spade. Let's be fair to the real scholar–athletes that the NCAA trots out in their TV spots. Let's stop comparing apples-to-oranges student statistics and trying to put a price on opportunity.

by chroma 11y ago

wernercd 11y ago

What makes Football different than Female baseball or wrestling? Full stadiums. I'm not a football fan either (nor any sport where "we" will go all the way)... but to say that people will riot in the streets over it is a bit over the top. YOU don't like it. Many people obviously disagree - and enough that it's a major sport. Probably THE major sport currently.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
Popularity breeds popularity

webXL 11y ago

I feel the brutality of the sport every morning when I get out of bed. And I was a scrub for the most part. But I wouldn't trade any of it. If it weren't for the increase in brain injuries and the muscle-mass maximizing arms race that ends careers (and limp-free middle age) on a weekly basis, I'd encourage my son to play. I absolutely loved the sport. It still has its merits, and I'm still a huge fan, but there's a lot of ugliness that needs to be fixed before I'd encourage anyone to play. It's a lot like encouraging someone to serve their country. If the mission is clear and moral, no problem. But it's rare you're gonna find that these days. Just work hard and try to be happy. That's honorable.

a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
> brain injuries and the muscle-mass maximizing arms race The huge players and huge hits are a direct consequence of the modern changes to the game. Just go back to no separate defense/offense/special teams. Everybody runs the whole game. Maybe also bring the play clock down to 15 seconds.

smacktoward 11y ago

> First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay football players, other athletes will want to be paid. They'll ask, "What makes football special?" That's easy: what makes football special is that it generates absolutely gigantic piles of cash. If a delegation of athletes from, say, the college ultimate frisbee team were to demand similar compensation, the burden would be on them to demonstrate they're generating similar revenue. (And if they can actually make that case? Then heck, pay them too!) > Then we'll run into some unhappy truths regarding sports. For example: If colleges base compensation on revenue, the wage gap between male and female athletes will be massive. Wait -- because we might end up paying female athletes less than male athletes, we shouldn't pay any of them anything? Surely we can cross this particular bridge when (and if) we ever actually come to it. > Then there's the problem of mixing sports and education. Which isn't really a problem, because the "education" many (most?) college football players currently receive is pretty nominal anyway. > It seems to me that most of these problems would be solved by creating a minor league separate from college. I'm always wary of a proposed solution whose first step is "change everything," not least because frequently it's proposed less to provide an actual alternative than to delay taking any steps at all to improve the situation. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, in other words. You can advocate for creating a whole new league if you want to, and maybe someday that will happen, but in the meantime there's all these real people getting really screwed out of real money they've really earned. A whole new system that takes 10 or 15 or 30 years to get worked out and implemented doesn't do them any good. So let's just start paying them, and then we can take all the time we want to work the bigger questions out.

chroma 11y ago
I'm fine with a huge wage gap, but most people aren't. There's an odd defect in most people's thinking where if you make some small contribution toward solving a problem, they'll berate you for not doing more.[1] I'm simply pointing out that because of this, the author's solution is politically infeasible. Paying college athletes is probably as difficult as starting minor league football. There are a significant number of regulations in place to prevent college athletes from being compensated, to ensure gender parity, and to stop colleges from spending "too much" on sports. Their efficacy varies, but repealing them would be an immense political effort. For starters, you'd have to get rid of Title IX. There's no hill-climbing solution here. We're in a local maximum. :( 1. http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethi...

curun1r 11y ago

I'm of the opinion that there are two things that colleges owe their revenue-generating athletes: 1) Insurance policies. These people put their bodies on the line for 4 years and serious, life-long injuries can be sustained. In the event that a player is hurt in this way, they should receive compensation (an annuity, to ensure it lasts their entire lifetime). Insurance seems like a good way to handle this. 2) Financial education. This works for both the 2% that go on to professional careers and the 98% that don't. What goes along with being broke is not having basic financial skills like budgeting or even opening a bank account. There's a reason that the majority of professional players are broke only a few years after retirement despite making millions during their playing careers. ESPN's documentary, Broke, did a good job of dissecting it, but the moment that left the biggest impression on me was when one player admitted to taking his $500k signing bonus to a check cashing store. I agree with you about creating a minor league instead of using colleges, but it will never happen. The two popular college sports are the ones where the pro league has no minor league (the D-League is a very recent development, so it remains to be seen whether it survives.) Baseball and Hockey have minor leagues and neither is popular. The college equivalent is also unpopular. But Football and Basketball have found a way to put an inferior product on the field/court and make it incredibly popular/lucrative. It's unlikely they'd be able to replicate that success with a minor league. So given that the current setup is too profitable to discontinue, I think the only conscionable thing to do is to give athletes who don't pass the admissions process an alternate education. Paying them will, for the vast majority, not make them well off given what we see of athletes paid in the professional leagues. Paying them in a practical education that prepares them to make the most of what they do have once their fame expires with their athletic eligibility seems more appropriate and maintains the mystique of the amateur athlete. Also, as an aside, I think Universities and football programs are missing a huge opportunity. Football coaches should be required to teach a course in the spring in football theory. As it is now, the only people who become Football coaches are ex-players. But Universities have access to some of the brightest minds in the country and most would love to learn about Football. Offering elective courses could open up the coaching field to a much wider field and make teams much more successful. We saw what happened when the Baseball nerds were allowed to influence how players were valued (Moneyball)...there's no reason to believe that bright and motivated Math/CS nerds couldn't do the same to other sports as well. From analyzing the tendencies of opposing teams using statistical analysis to designing new plays based on computer simulations, we have the tools today to revolutionize these sports if we're only allowed access to their insular communities.

vacri 11y ago

> If football came into being today, people would riot in the streets. Who would pay money to watch mostly lower-class, mostly black[1] players permanently damage each other's brains and bodies? Mixed Martial Arts is a very popular sport which is exactly this (maybe not the 'mostly black' part), and as a spectator sport in the US has only really risen recently. No rioting in the streets against it yet. Also, given your criticisms, how do you find football more repugnant than professional boxing, given that the latter's explicit goal is to literally beat your opponent into submission?

chroma 11y ago
MMA likes to tout itself as the closest thing to a pure fight, but it's scarcely less restrictive than boxing. Fish-hooking, biting, eye-gouging, rabbit-punching, breaking and dislocating fingers and toes... those were never allowed. Even UFC 1 didn't come close to actual "anything goes" fights. And much of MMA's popularity is owed to the fact that public outrage has significantly tamed it. Many effective (but permanently damaging) moves are now banned. Fighters wear gloves to prevent broken hands and ugly faces. Refs err on the side of stopping the fight early, rather than letting a fighter suffer significant injury. Ethics-wise, I place MMA in the same bin as boxing. Speaking of which... It's hard to say whether I find boxing more repugnant than football. If I could wave a magic wand and eliminate one, I'd pick football due to its popularity. The number of people put through that meat grinder is much higher than the number of boxers. That said, I do find boxing abhorrent. Watching a boxing match, I get the same emotions as watching a disaster. Horrifying, yet fascinating. Some part of me is compelled to keep watching. I think most people are similarly affected.

Thriptic 11y ago

> First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay football players, other athletes will want to be paid. They'll ask, "What makes football special?" and they'll have a point. What makes it special is that it's what more people will pay to see. There's more demand for it and so athletes should be paid more to play it. I would imagine college basketball players will also rightfully demand large compensation to play. > Then we'll run into some unhappy truths regarding sports. For example: If colleges base compensation on revenue, the wage gap between male and female athletes will be massive This gulf is already massive in professional sports, but I never hear anyone complaining about it. It's fairly well understood that men's college basketball is more popular than women's college basketball for example (at least by any metric that I can think of), and salaries will probably reflect that. > Then there's the problem of mixing sports and education. If these athletes are paid, do they still have to attend classes? Do they have to get good grades? Are they given scholarships in addition to monetary compensation? No, players who are paid will be employees of the university and will receive a salary and benefits. They will not be students. Perhaps there could be a mechanism in place to allow for some players to receive a scholarship in lieu of payment if they choose to (with the caveat being that they need to be admitted to the University under the same criteria as other non-athlete students), but in reality most of these players in top D1 programs are there to play football or basketball, not to go to class. > Can athletes switch colleges if another school will pay them more? Why not? > It seems to me that most of these problems would be solved by creating a minor league separate from college. If people are so attached to college names, then the colleges can sell naming rights. I agree, and that's basically what this will be. These sports teams will be discrete entities affiliated with the University, but their players will not be students.

basseq 11y ago
I like this a lot. There's certainly no social stigma against paying for athletics (e.g., multi-million dollar coaching salaries, stadiums in the hundreds of millions). There's no stigma about students working for the college during undergrad (e.g., TAs, lab assistants). And there's no stigma against non-student college-aged adults working for a college. So... Let's call a spade a spade. Let's be fair to the real scholar–athletes that the NCAA trots out in their TV spots. Let's stop comparing apples-to-oranges student statistics and trying to put a price on opportunity.