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CA Governor Signs Bill Allowing College Athletes to Profit from Endorsements

288 points by DesaiAshu 7y ago

avip 7y ago
In case you're lacking context (not all readers here are US basketball fans) - John Oliver has an excellent take on NCAA salaries issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX8BXH3SJn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX8BXH3SJn0
nradov 7y ago
Seems fair. Non-athlete college students are allowed to earn money and profit from endorsements. There shouldn't be special rules just for athletes.
- moate 7y ago
  Hypothetically, if a student with a full ride merit scholarship wanted to take a job in his field of study, he could. He could also speak at a conference, write a book, and do all sorts of other things that would allow him to monetize himself. There's no reason athletes should be different. The fact that there are greater opportunities for a star QB to advertise shoes shouldn't mean that we need to limit them.
  - handedness 7y ago
    The analogy doesn't totally fit. There's nothing to stop a college student from also playing a pro sport outside of college, either. I'm still in favor of college athletes getting paid endorsements if only because the practical alternative is rampant corruption, but college athletics are hosted and promoted by the colleges. That's a distinction that matters.
    - adrr 7y ago
      They can’t play pro sports because of agreements between the NCAA and the pro leagues. For example, to be eligible for the NFL draft you must be 3 years out of high school and used up all your college eligibility. NBA also has similar rules to stop pro teams from poaching out of highschools.
      - bonoboTP 7y ago
        Does this mean every pro basketball player in the US goes through college? Why? What do they typically study? "Sport science"?
        LynxInLA 7y ago
        That description isn't quite accurate. All players must be 19 or 1 year after graduating from a US high school to be eligible in the NBA. This was changed around 15 years ago and has led to a lot of basketball super stars playing 1 year in college (One-and-done). There are a lot of "reasons" why. Most argue that it was fueled by a lot of 18 year olds that flamed out and were unsuccessful in the league in the late 90s and early 2000s. There is a great book that came out recently detailing that time period.[1] Some people say this is to protect the players and give them a degree to fall back on, but IMO it has become much more obvious lately that it is a free way to scout players for another year and see them compete against each other to get a better handle of who is worth investing in. The NBA is planning on dropping this age requirement back to 18 in the next several years. As for what they study, the answer is typically not very much. Some of these players are basically physically ready to play in the NBA at 16 and college is a complete waste of time. They just need to pass their classes in the first semester (or first two quarters) to stay eligible through the post-season in March before dropping out and preparing for the draft. It is a farce. Ben Simmons is a recent example if you want to read about it or watch his documentary. [2] Football is a little different. The requirement is 3 years from HS graduation and very few players are physically ready for the NFL at 18. Careers are also much shorter in the NFL, so you really only see players skipping a few games at the end of their final college season to stay healthy for the draft. Baseball has the best system in my opinion. You can be drafted out of HS or Junior College, but, if you turn that down or are not drafted, you aren't eligible until you turn 21 or finish your 3rd year. This system wouldn't work well as well in the NBA because of how their contracts work, but this is already way too long of a post. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Among-Men-Prep-Pro/dp/080413927X https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Among-Men-Prep-Pro/dp/080413927X [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_%26_Done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_%26_Done
- Alex3917 7y ago
  I mean they're allowed to earn money from endorsements already, they just aren't allowed to compete in future NCAA competitions if they do so. Even if this law prevents CA universities from punishing students who accept endorsements, they still won't be able to compete in NCAA competitions so what is the actual point?
  - psychometry 7y ago
    See other comments here for why the NCAA can't just do nothing about this situation. The scenario you describe is unlikely to happen.
  - lacker 7y ago
    They will be able to complete in NCAA competitions, or at least they will be able to sue the NCAA in California if they are prevented from doing so. The law applies to both universities and athletic associations.
    - deleted 7y ago
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    - Alex3917 7y ago
      > The law applies to both universities and athletic associations. So they made the Olympics illegal even though they are set to host it in 2028?
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        The Olympics are neither a university nor an athletic association, and even if they were Olympic athletes are not, in most (if any) sports, prohibited from paid endorsements.
        Alex3917 7y ago
        The IOC is 100% an athletic association. And they absolutely prohibit athletes from accepting many forms of paid endorsements. I'm not sure to what extent they have "authority over intercollegiate athletics", but it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of college sports defer to rules created by the IOC governing bodies. E.g. I wasn't a swimmer in college, but it wouldn't surprise me if the bylaws of college swimming called for the use of Olympic size pools.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  Don't college athletes already have the same right to profit from endorsements as college students that non-athlete college students have? And then they get additional subsidized opportunities for being athletes? What I am saying is that all college students have the same rights to profit from their endorsements as "college students" whether they are athletes or not.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - dgritsko 7y ago
    >Don't college athletes already have the same right to profit from endorsements as college students that non-athlete college students have? Not under the current NCAA rules, no. http://www.ncaa.org/about/frequently-asked-questions-about-ncaa http://www.ncaa.org/about/frequently-asked-questions-about-n...
- deleted 7y ago
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weworkhard 7y ago
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- jedberg 7y ago
  They would be available to males and females. Where does it say only males get this? In fact, title 9 might require the male athletes to share some of their profits with the female sports.
- pkaye 7y ago
  Since there are not many women playing football, it should be possible for them to join a mens football team.
  - oarabbus_ 7y ago
    It is, if they qualify.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      I honestly wish more women would try out for football, though I completely understand at least some of the reasons why they might not want to.
      - oarabbus_ 7y ago
        There are few if any women who would be able to make a D1 football team, and it's an inherently unsafe sport, so I'm not sure I agree.
        diminoten 7y ago
        Ah yes, hello modern misogyny, thanks for showing up! No one said D1, and there are plenty of women who could make football teams in CFB. People like you are probably why they shouldn't bother.
        7y ago
dhd415 7y ago
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's definitely a distortion of the market that college athletics bring in significant revenue and none of it beyond scholarships accrues to the athletes themselves. On the other hand, this is essentially the legalization of paying college athletes because wealthy college alumni/boosters can easily guarantee promising athletic prospects a certain amount of money in endorsements even if those endorsements don't make financial sense. E.g., a $1MM endorsement for Alumni Bob's Radiology Practice. That's certainly not going to improve the broken state of post-secondary education in the US. Edit: It's going to have lots of interstate ramifications, too. If this goes through, why would you ever go to Notre Dame if you could also go to USC?
- jedberg 7y ago
  Yeah, I agree. This basically means paid college players. It will be far too easy for the boosters to funnel money in via "endorsements". But I'm not convinced that's a bad thing.
  - kodablah 7y ago
    > But I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. It's hard to predict, but one could expect larger disparity than even exists today amongst schools (arguably the disparity today is based on coach and facility costs, and will grow when it includes players). That disparity is not only one school compared to another, it's also the programs within a school itself and the ability for NCAA and conference funds to be redistributed. So much legislation was focused on equality of services across sports programs and universities, this is clearly a step towards inequality (even if it is a good step).
    - lostapathy 7y ago
      At the same time - there are a lot of wealthy alumni from schools without a noteworthy program that would be more than happy to directly play some players to come put their alma matter on TV for a couple seasons.
- moate 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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jedberg 7y ago
The NCAA has an interesting choice to make here. Option 1, they remove the California teams from the NCAA. The Power 5 have been talking about a "division 0" league for a long time. Chances are that would push them all to leave the NCAA and create their own organization. Option 2, allow California to be the exception. This would be great for California, because if you're a top high school athlete, would you rather play in California where you could potentially make millions, or anywhere else? Presumably a bunch of other states would pass similar laws and demand the same exception, until the NCAA was forced to allow paid players everywhere. Or Option 3, just change the NCAA rules to match California, and let players get paid. If sounds like the only winning move here is for the NCAA to allow paying players. I think California just forced their hand.
- balozi 7y ago
  NCAA should be counting on the fact that more states will adopt California's stance on this issue.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    Yes. This decision will most definitely cause a land-grab rush, unless the NCAA overwhelmingly punishes CA, other states will just do the same thing. It's a pretty big change - my guess is CA's stance will win, because the alternative is massive disruption of the NCAA.
  - WhompingWindows 7y ago
    Yes, if auto emissions, minimum wage, contractor laws, and many other progressive policies are any example: blue states often pile on to each others' policies to spread them widely. NCAA shouldn't count on NY, IL, WA, MA, or other big blue states not doing this.
    - rconti 7y ago
      Right, but this CA change is (probably) an unalloyed good for CA, which gives other states even larger incentive to copy it -- whereas the incentives to copy minimum wage or auto emissions or other 'progressive' policies may be non-obvious or nonexistent.
spicymaki 7y ago
Good, that was pure exploitation. Student athletes should be able to profit off of their talents, just like any other student could profit off of their own talents. It is like when a software engineer working at a tech company comes up with an idea at work, they could develop, release a product, and then make a fortune ... right? ... ... uh oh!
- ehnto 7y ago
  I think that one is a little bit on the software engineer for not negotiating that out of their contract. There are plenty of shops who won't try to own your brain at work and at home.
- pkaye 7y ago
  I mean look at Robert Pera, the founder of Ubiquiti Networks but started working on his idea while at Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pera
scarejunba 7y ago
Low quality reporting. Two things that should go in the top few sentences: * Name of the Bill: SB 206 * Link to bill text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB206 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... Instead the bill is only accidentally named in the embedded tweet.
dmode 7y ago
This was long overdue. Thank you. College coaches get paid millions of dollars a year, yet when a poor athlete gets rent money for his dad, all hell breaks loose. Let's stop pretending that college sports is anything but a glamorized professional sporting franchise, and pay the people who make it happen. Actually, this bill doesn't even ask the colleges to pay the athletes their fair market value. It simply allows athletes to make money from their own brand. Not sure how anyone can be against this. If someone is making money off me, in a free society, I sure should be able to make money off myself as well.
- byebyetech 7y ago
  NCAA literally has the slave model and most likely has origins in that mentality. Just like a race horse can't ask for money because it is a property of its owner, student athletes are not any different from NCAA perspective. It is strange to think that such rule existed for so long in the "free" society.
  - samatman 7y ago
    I'd say this is confusing where we've ended up with where we started. In the beginning, the "amateur" in "amateur athletics" was taken quite seriously; college athletics was seen and treated as part of the education system. There's been considerable erosion of this ideal, and at this point it's better to treat college athletes as minor leaguers who happen to be affiliated with colleges.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    The history of how we got here is very odd. The NCAA's worship of amateurism has it's roots in Ivy League gentleman amateurs, and for many, many years was explicitly racially segregated.
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      The roots were very much more in the public's insistence that college students had to stop dying while playing football. Lots of players were paid in the old Ivy League days. Those like Theodore Roosevelt who "saved" the game did so mostly by not letting students handle the payments. Only much later (1940s and '50s) did NCAA take on the form it has today.
40acres 7y ago
The players should be paid a salary, full stop. If you're an athlete at a D1 school in the primary money making sports of men's basketball or football you're hardly a student -- most days are spent training or preparing for a game, the athletes notoriously take cupcake classes and majors; and we've seen enough academic scandals to know that 'student-athlete' is a misnomer. The NCAA is another case of cartel like behavior in the American economy and I'll be glad when this phony amateurism is put to rest.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >The players should be paid a salary, full stop. This is where I disagree. I don't think the schools should be obligated to provide a salary. These are amateurs, by definition. That said, if you are popular enough to make money outside of the school, of your own volition, the NCAA has no business stopping you from doing so.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > These are amateurs, by definition. They are unpaid workers providing economic benefit to their employer, the same way that has been federally outlawed most of the other places it was practiced (often also with students) when the rules on unpaid internships were tightened down. They are amateurs only by circular definition: the trade association of their employers prohibits paying them, so they aren't paid, so they are “amateurs”. Using that as an argument to continue not paying them is ludicrous on it's face.
    - snarf21 7y ago
      This is where I think the argument falls down. They do get a free ride. That might not seem like much, but I worked full time while going to school full time. I could have created a lucrative start-up in the hours I was working to pay for school. The athletes also get the primetime TV exposure and ESPN highlights that lead to a chance for $MM contracts. They also get some of the best training and coaching facilities that money can buy. I get that the players are taken advantage of but so do all of our employers. They aren't slaves, they can try out for professional sports around the world right out of high school and start making money. It will probably be less but they have options. The one fallout of this is that there are lots of collegiate sports that will go away. They schools won't pay the money for the field hockey team so all the players can get a salary. All this to say that this is much more grey than a lot of people think it is. I think the right solution is to get rid of college athletics completely. Move it to an intramural setup. All the other leagues can create their own farm systems like baseball has and people can start having minor league NFL and NBA teams in their middle sized towns instead.
arthurjj 7y ago
Hopefully this works out the same way to how California sets clean car standards just for themselves. California is a big enough market and it's not worth making different cars just for California. So all cars sold in the U.S. are manufactured to that standard.
dfsegoat 7y ago
Southpark nailed why this needed to happen in their episode "Crack Baby Athletic Association" [1], where Cartman essentially poses as a Slavery-era plantation owner, and wants to ask the University of Colorado for "business advice" on how to make people work without paying them - like their college athletes ("slavery"): >> "Now when we sell their likeness for video games, how do we get around paying our slaves…erm - student-athletes then?" - Cartman NSFW / Trigger warning etc: I realize Southpark isn't for everyone. But on this issue I feel like they nailed it by showing just how ludicrous the NCAA really is. [1] - https://www.businessinsider.com/the-crack-baby-athletic-association-cbaa-2011-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-crack-baby-athletic-asso...
- dmix 7y ago
  The media talked about a 'plantation mentality' by NBA owners ad nauseam with the Donald Sterling affair, but the NCAA is where the real analogy lies. South Park indeed hit this one on the head. Additionally, the whole amateur vs professional sports thing has always been questionable grey area, with artificially created red lines.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >Southpark nailed why this needed to happen in their episode Yes and no. The problem is that the NBA and NFL had an implicit requirement of college before making to the league. This meant that players with no interest in college were nevertheless funneled through the college system. That's not fair to the players that wanted to start earning money from their profession. The NBA has lifted the restriction on high-school players graduating to the NBA - so at this point young athletes can move directly to the NBA, or G League, or play overseas. Under these conditions I think it's fine to leave NCAA as is, since college is no longer mandatory. Professionally-oriented football players don't really have that option, and NFL careers are much shorter as well. It's not a great look that those guys can't make any money in their college career.
  - jordanpg 7y ago
    > It's not a great look that those guys can't make any money in their college career. Especially since someone else with none of the talent and assuming none of the risk, is making wheelbarrows full of money.
reaperducer 7y ago
So is this just for people engaged in the rapid movement of balls, or does it apply to all athletes? It would also be interesting to see this expanded to other scholastic competitions, like the chess club, or the debating team. "Scotts, the official pre-moistened hinge of the Shippensburg University Philatelist Team."
- moate 7y ago
  IDK that the chess or debate teams has forced amateur status. They're def not NCAA sports, so they never had to follow NCAA rules. But you can now expect Noah Matricciani to tell you all about AFG's new Epee mask if he so chooses. (Okay technically that's not true since this law won't take effect for 4 years and he'll have graduated, but the joke stands)
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > It would also be interesting to see this expanded to other scholastic competitions, like the chess club, or the debating team. When I did intercollegiate speech and debate, no one prohibited me from (or threatened my continued eligibility for) getting paid endorsements, or from engaging in paid professional speaking or argument. Now, there weren't exactly piles of opportunities, either, but I was free to take any I found.
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
  none of that applies the the NCAA
DeonPenny 7y ago
California from the contractor law to this has made it habit to muscle large organization to doing the progressive and right thing. Pretty interesting to see one state change so much nationally.
Lukeas14 7y ago
The NCAA's main argument against paying college players is completely bogus, which is that there is an uneven playing field between "amateur" and paid players. In reality, some players already claim that advantage by coming from rich families, which according to NCAA logic is unfair. The real separation between college and professional athletics is being a student. Rich and poor students both only have 24 hours in a day and as long as a significant portion of that is dedicated to classes, then that's fair enough for me. 12 units / semester is the current minimum.
- lostapathy 7y ago
  There's a lot to family background. I went to a division 1 school and while I didn't personally know any of the "big name" players, it was obvious life was a lot less comfortable for many of them (even with a certain future in the NBA) than the walk-on with no professional ambition but a surgeon for a parent.
mrosett 7y ago
My preference would be for a world where college athletes were genuinely student-athletes: held to the same academic standards as other students while genuinely acting as amateur athletes. But that's not the world we live in (particularly for football and basketball.) The quasi-professional setup we have now, where athletes generate tremendous revenue for schools and and capture very little of that, is untenable. I don't necessarily think athletes should get paid by schools, but it's hard to articulate why they shouldn't be able to benefit from endorsements.
- mlyle 7y ago
  Tremendous revenue but not really any profit. College sports overall are not "profitable" except at a very few elite programs. (Schools hope knock-on effects, like increased alumni interest, make them pay off).
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Tremendous revenue but not really any profit. College sports overall are not "profitable" except at a very few elite programs. Those elite programs are probably the only ones where athletes would have any significant endorsement opportunities, anyway.
  - mrosett 7y ago
    In a narrow sense, you're right. But even if a college isn't directly profiting on an program, there are a couple things to consider: - If a university is breaking even on a program but its donations are captured on a different part of the balance sheet, it's still reasonable to think of it as profitable. - College football coaches are able to capture a huge share of the football revenue at a school in part because players are unpaid.
  - moate 7y ago
    If that's accurate, and college sports in aggregate have no net positive value to the schools (through alumni donation, local economic stimulus, etc.) that's all the more reason to not support the status quo. That would mean these kids are making lots of money that's not benefiting anyone except the NCAA and others able to siphon value off.
dannykwells 7y ago
California has been on an absolute tear with progressive legislation recently. Love it or hate it (I happen to be the former) it's definitely an experiment in how efficacious modern progressive policies will be.
dbg31415 7y ago
No doubt we aren't doing enough to compensate our college athletes. We treat college Football like the AAA farm system for Baseball, and these kids have incentives to go out and hit hard and stand out so they can advance to the NFL. All without much of a safety net. I have a friend who was on an athletic scholarship, but he blew out his knee and was cut from the team. Luckily his parents found a way to cover the cost for his final year, but overnight he went from having access to tutors, trainers, and special classes, to being tossed in with everyone else and having to cover his own knee surgery and rehab costs. Now I'm not saying this is good that athletes got special treatment, but it really drives the point home that they are given special treatment when you deprive them of it right before the graduation finish line... My friend struggled; this is actually where I met him, as he was seeking tutoring. He was trying, like really trying. Putting his all into academics to try and get caught up. There's only so much you can do, and he had been given such an easy pass to that point he simply wasn't able to do any of the work. He was depressed, felt like his whole life had been taken away, felt like his parents had sold everything they had to help him at least come out with a degree... and he didn't want to let people down. This was all in the early 2000s, so I don't know if it's changed... what I think would be good: * Make scholarships irrevocable due to injuries. If you get football scholarship, you get to stay no matter what. With full access to team tutors. A school can't offer someone a life-changing education, and then rip it away just because that person got hurt trying to help entertain the school's athletic audience. * Make health funds available. Any injury you get while at work, work is liable for. You get hurt playing football, the team has to pay your insurance premiums and provide trainers for your rehab. Like a pension fund. Not like these programs don't have the money... But paying athletes... slippery slope. It feels like then we really should split sports out into their own AAA systems, rather than relying on schools. I recognize that the drive to be a top athlete can permeate into other areas of a person's life, and sports built team mentality and promote physical fitness... It's just such a sketch gray area when you think about the NFL (and sure, others) diverting risk and responsibility for these kids to the NCAA.
- moate 7y ago
  The school isn't paying the athletes. Yes, there might only be a whisker separating an "alumni sponsorship" and the school itself paying, but that's the alumni's choice. You can't spin out an NFL or NBA minor league at this point, because you'd just have to rip sports out of college entirely. The issue is that the NCAA's amateur rule prevents players from capitalizing on their likeness. There's no reason for that rule to stay in place. If you're working in any other field, like say Comp Sci, you can go out and get work in that field while going to school. Why shouldn't athletes? You're a QB, you can sell your likeness to NCAA 2K19 or whatever and make some money. You can sell merch or do jersey signings. That all seems extremely reasonable.
zarro 7y ago
The sooner we can separate sports and education and allow the market play itself out, the better.
jpadkins 7y ago
America likes its markets free, but it's sports socialist (unpaid college, revenue sharing, salary caps, drafts, etc). Funny how it's progressive CA is going to cause college athletics to a whole lot more market oriented....
- deleted 7y ago
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- moate 7y ago
  If you somehow think that "unpaid laborers" in college sports is a socialist ideal, I think you need to do literally any reading at all about what socialism is. How do the workers have any control over the "means of productions" in that situation? How is that a confederation of laborers setting the market collectively for their efforts? You do realize that markets exist in a socialist paradigm right? Progressive California is going forward for the right for laborers to make money off of their labor, which is an extremely socialist ideal (as opposed to being paid in "exposure", sorry, "college education" as if that's a real commodity)
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thedudeabides5 7y ago
Good for liberty. Now all we need is a way for college atheletes to sell some of their income in a securitized way on the blockchain. Anyone have an example of a startup trying to do this?
rb808 7y ago
Honestly I dont understand what College Sports is there for. If they're going to get paid its really stupid to have the athletes paid more than the professors. I've heard the justification that the sports brings in money to the school, but if they athletes get paid that wont be much.
- honkycat 7y ago
  Colleges put an ABSURDLY high price on the value of athletics and the "school pride" they bring. Does it actually improve the common student's education? Probably not. I assume the teams actually make money, since people would not run them if they were run at a loss. I've heard that the "sports teams pay for themselves." I assume this is bullshit and colleges like to have their vanity projects in the form of big stadiums and athletic teams.
yumraj 7y ago
Can someone share some light on why NCAA doesn't want the college athletes to be paid?
- colechristensen 7y ago
  Because it's really odd to associate a university with a professional sports team and not paying the athletes was the last straw after stadiums in the hundreds of millions, coaches salaries in the millions, television deals, etc. etc. already all made it seem like a joke. There's nothing wrong with being a sports fan or being a player, or competing while at university, but the levels that football and basketball have gotten to are plainly ridiculous. Those games and how much money is sunk into them are just ridiculous to have at a university. There is no reason they should enjoy any tax benefits and their presence distracts and overshadows the purpose of a university.
tracker1 7y ago
Amazing how much the TV series "Ballers" seems to reflect what's going on behind the scenes in sports. I've felt for years that NCAA rules has treated the athletes like a virtual slave class, while everyone, other than them, makes huge amounts of money.
andrew_ 7y ago
Interesting that no one has raised the implications of this on the taxable income in the state. Given budget shortfalls in the state, and 50-some NCAA institutions with several power programs, this would surely be a welcomed source of revenue for the State government. It begs the question of intent behind the law.
- holler 7y ago
  This is precisely what I just thought about. CA has some of the highest income tax rates in the US with 10.3% for income over $275k -> 13.3% for income over $1million. From a tax revenue standpoint, this is a no brainer. If other states end up adopting this rule successfully and I were an athlete, I'd probably consider playing in a state that has a more favorable income tax or none at all like NV, WA, WY, FL.
  - dmode 7y ago
    CA has a $200bn budget. The tax gains from this will be barely noticeable
    - holler 7y ago
      I mean, they could have proposed this at any time in the last X decades, why now?
notadoc 7y ago
College athletes already were getting paid with free tuition, room, board, meal plans, expenses, etc.
rb808 7y ago
To me athletes should be able to go pro (NBA, NFL) straight when they're in high school. College is a waste of time for these guys. Problem solved.
bonoboTP 7y ago
Seen from Europe, the whole concept of college sports is just strange. What do the two have to do with each other? One is a place of study, the other is sport. Here if you want to be an athlete, you join a sports club. If you want to be a computer scientist or historian, you go to university. You can also do both but they have no interactions. Apparently one of the ways to get a scholarship in the US to pay the high tuition fees is through good sport results. But what does swimming really fast have to do with someone's aptitude for studying biology or astronomy or finance?
- NTDF9 7y ago
  As is the answer with almost anything in the US, the answer is: "There are some who stand to make money from it at the expense of others." US is fundamentally different from most other countries. In most countries, govt designs (or tries to design) laws and systems for the public good. Not so in the US.
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    > US is fundamentally different from most other countries. In most countries, govt designs (or tries to design) laws and systems for the public good. Not so in the US. I think this is overly simplistic. There's plenty of corruption in many European countries as well, it's just in a different form. It seems also deeply cultural. What would count as greedy and offputting behavior here, is seen as laudable and ambitious in the US. People are supposed to be pushing for more and more money and they are considered successful to the extent they can make it. This results in good and bad things alike. Most of the other parts of the world suffer from some form of the tall poppy syndrome: if you want to be socially accepted, you aren't supposed to be deviating too much from those around you. Meaning that entrepreneurship is much smaller and also that many things are just not considered to be for sale in good taste (private prisons, expensive private schools, expensive hospitals).
    - NTDF9 7y ago
      > I think this is overly simplistic. There's plenty of corruption in many European countries as well, it's just in a different form. Not denying corruption doesn't exist in other countries, including EU. However, if you look at it closely from a 3rd person perspective, you'll see that the laws in US are designed to snatch rights away from citizens vs laws in most other countries are designed to give rights to its citizens. One may ask where it comes from? It seems comes from a place of profit for a lobby. No payment for student athletes? NCAA and others suck in value of labor of young kids by denying right to earn money for their labor No universal healthcare or clean competition in healthcare? Private insurance and healthcare institutions suck in value of humans by denying right to get basic healthcare as a service. No cheap education? Lenders racketing on student's worth by denying students access to low cost capitalistic education. No rights for private prisoners? Immigrants? Civil forfeiture? Every thing is designed as a system to take away rights for the benefit of a few. The US govt and private industry are a nexus of money making for large lobbying groups. This won't fly in another non-corrupt democracy, let alone in EU. > It seems also deeply cultural. What would count as greedy and offputting behavior here, is seen as laudable and ambitious in the US Yep, there's another way of looking at the fundamental difference. The govt exists to make money for a few at the expense of others.
leoh 7y ago
This strikes me as somewhat dystopian. It is going to enhance the incentive to become a student athlete without helping students that are currently having difficulty affording education without loans, thereby potentially enhancing an already not insignificant sense of discord between athlete and non-athlete students on college campuses.
kennickv 7y ago
Good.

288 points by DesaiAshu 7y ago

avip 7y ago

In case you're lacking context (not all readers here are US basketball fans) - John Oliver has an excellent take on NCAA salaries issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX8BXH3SJn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX8BXH3SJn0

nradov 7y ago

Seems fair. Non-athlete college students are allowed to earn money and profit from endorsements. There shouldn't be special rules just for athletes.

moate 7y ago
Hypothetically, if a student with a full ride merit scholarship wanted to take a job in his field of study, he could. He could also speak at a conference, write a book, and do all sorts of other things that would allow him to monetize himself. There's no reason athletes should be different. The fact that there are greater opportunities for a star QB to advertise shoes shouldn't mean that we need to limit them.
- handedness 7y ago
  The analogy doesn't totally fit. There's nothing to stop a college student from also playing a pro sport outside of college, either. I'm still in favor of college athletes getting paid endorsements if only because the practical alternative is rampant corruption, but college athletics are hosted and promoted by the colleges. That's a distinction that matters.
  - adrr 7y ago
    They can’t play pro sports because of agreements between the NCAA and the pro leagues. For example, to be eligible for the NFL draft you must be 3 years out of high school and used up all your college eligibility. NBA also has similar rules to stop pro teams from poaching out of highschools.
    - bonoboTP 7y ago
      Does this mean every pro basketball player in the US goes through college? Why? What do they typically study? "Sport science"?
      - LynxInLA 7y ago
        That description isn't quite accurate. All players must be 19 or 1 year after graduating from a US high school to be eligible in the NBA. This was changed around 15 years ago and has led to a lot of basketball super stars playing 1 year in college (One-and-done). There are a lot of "reasons" why. Most argue that it was fueled by a lot of 18 year olds that flamed out and were unsuccessful in the league in the late 90s and early 2000s. There is a great book that came out recently detailing that time period.[1] Some people say this is to protect the players and give them a degree to fall back on, but IMO it has become much more obvious lately that it is a free way to scout players for another year and see them compete against each other to get a better handle of who is worth investing in. The NBA is planning on dropping this age requirement back to 18 in the next several years. As for what they study, the answer is typically not very much. Some of these players are basically physically ready to play in the NBA at 16 and college is a complete waste of time. They just need to pass their classes in the first semester (or first two quarters) to stay eligible through the post-season in March before dropping out and preparing for the draft. It is a farce. Ben Simmons is a recent example if you want to read about it or watch his documentary. [2] Football is a little different. The requirement is 3 years from HS graduation and very few players are physically ready for the NFL at 18. Careers are also much shorter in the NFL, so you really only see players skipping a few games at the end of their final college season to stay healthy for the draft. Baseball has the best system in my opinion. You can be drafted out of HS or Junior College, but, if you turn that down or are not drafted, you aren't eligible until you turn 21 or finish your 3rd year. This system wouldn't work well as well in the NBA because of how their contracts work, but this is already way too long of a post. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Among-Men-Prep-Pro/dp/080413927X https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Among-Men-Prep-Pro/dp/080413927X [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_%26_Done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_%26_Done
Alex3917 7y ago
I mean they're allowed to earn money from endorsements already, they just aren't allowed to compete in future NCAA competitions if they do so. Even if this law prevents CA universities from punishing students who accept endorsements, they still won't be able to compete in NCAA competitions so what is the actual point?
- psychometry 7y ago
  See other comments here for why the NCAA can't just do nothing about this situation. The scenario you describe is unlikely to happen.
- lacker 7y ago
  They will be able to complete in NCAA competitions, or at least they will be able to sue the NCAA in California if they are prevented from doing so. The law applies to both universities and athletic associations.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - Alex3917 7y ago
    > The law applies to both universities and athletic associations. So they made the Olympics illegal even though they are set to host it in 2028?
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      The Olympics are neither a university nor an athletic association, and even if they were Olympic athletes are not, in most (if any) sports, prohibited from paid endorsements.
      - Alex3917 7y ago
        The IOC is 100% an athletic association. And they absolutely prohibit athletes from accepting many forms of paid endorsements. I'm not sure to what extent they have "authority over intercollegiate athletics", but it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of college sports defer to rules created by the IOC governing bodies. E.g. I wasn't a swimmer in college, but it wouldn't surprise me if the bylaws of college swimming called for the use of Olympic size pools.
wavefunction 7y ago
Don't college athletes already have the same right to profit from endorsements as college students that non-athlete college students have? And then they get additional subsidized opportunities for being athletes? What I am saying is that all college students have the same rights to profit from their endorsements as "college students" whether they are athletes or not.
- deleted 7y ago
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- dgritsko 7y ago
  >Don't college athletes already have the same right to profit from endorsements as college students that non-athlete college students have? Not under the current NCAA rules, no. http://www.ncaa.org/about/frequently-asked-questions-about-ncaa http://www.ncaa.org/about/frequently-asked-questions-about-n...
deleted 7y ago
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weworkhard 7y ago

jedberg 7y ago
They would be available to males and females. Where does it say only males get this? In fact, title 9 might require the male athletes to share some of their profits with the female sports.
pkaye 7y ago
Since there are not many women playing football, it should be possible for them to join a mens football team.
- oarabbus_ 7y ago
  It is, if they qualify.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    I honestly wish more women would try out for football, though I completely understand at least some of the reasons why they might not want to.
    - oarabbus_ 7y ago
      There are few if any women who would be able to make a D1 football team, and it's an inherently unsafe sport, so I'm not sure I agree.
      - diminoten 7y ago
        Ah yes, hello modern misogyny, thanks for showing up! No one said D1, and there are plenty of women who could make football teams in CFB. People like you are probably why they shouldn't bother.
        7y ago

dhd415 7y ago

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's definitely a distortion of the market that college athletics bring in significant revenue and none of it beyond scholarships accrues to the athletes themselves. On the other hand, this is essentially the legalization of paying college athletes because wealthy college alumni/boosters can easily guarantee promising athletic prospects a certain amount of money in endorsements even if those endorsements don't make financial sense. E.g., a $1MM endorsement for Alumni Bob's Radiology Practice. That's certainly not going to improve the broken state of post-secondary education in the US. Edit: It's going to have lots of interstate ramifications, too. If this goes through, why would you ever go to Notre Dame if you could also go to USC?

jedberg 7y ago
Yeah, I agree. This basically means paid college players. It will be far too easy for the boosters to funnel money in via "endorsements". But I'm not convinced that's a bad thing.
- kodablah 7y ago
  > But I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. It's hard to predict, but one could expect larger disparity than even exists today amongst schools (arguably the disparity today is based on coach and facility costs, and will grow when it includes players). That disparity is not only one school compared to another, it's also the programs within a school itself and the ability for NCAA and conference funds to be redistributed. So much legislation was focused on equality of services across sports programs and universities, this is clearly a step towards inequality (even if it is a good step).
  - lostapathy 7y ago
    At the same time - there are a lot of wealthy alumni from schools without a noteworthy program that would be more than happy to directly play some players to come put their alma matter on TV for a couple seasons.
moate 7y ago

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jedberg 7y ago

The NCAA has an interesting choice to make here. Option 1, they remove the California teams from the NCAA. The Power 5 have been talking about a "division 0" league for a long time. Chances are that would push them all to leave the NCAA and create their own organization. Option 2, allow California to be the exception. This would be great for California, because if you're a top high school athlete, would you rather play in California where you could potentially make millions, or anywhere else? Presumably a bunch of other states would pass similar laws and demand the same exception, until the NCAA was forced to allow paid players everywhere. Or Option 3, just change the NCAA rules to match California, and let players get paid. If sounds like the only winning move here is for the NCAA to allow paying players. I think California just forced their hand.

balozi 7y ago
NCAA should be counting on the fact that more states will adopt California's stance on this issue.
- r00fus 7y ago
  Yes. This decision will most definitely cause a land-grab rush, unless the NCAA overwhelmingly punishes CA, other states will just do the same thing. It's a pretty big change - my guess is CA's stance will win, because the alternative is massive disruption of the NCAA.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Yes, if auto emissions, minimum wage, contractor laws, and many other progressive policies are any example: blue states often pile on to each others' policies to spread them widely. NCAA shouldn't count on NY, IL, WA, MA, or other big blue states not doing this.
  - rconti 7y ago
    Right, but this CA change is (probably) an unalloyed good for CA, which gives other states even larger incentive to copy it -- whereas the incentives to copy minimum wage or auto emissions or other 'progressive' policies may be non-obvious or nonexistent.

spicymaki 7y ago

Good, that was pure exploitation. Student athletes should be able to profit off of their talents, just like any other student could profit off of their own talents. It is like when a software engineer working at a tech company comes up with an idea at work, they could develop, release a product, and then make a fortune ... right? ... ... uh oh!

ehnto 7y ago
I think that one is a little bit on the software engineer for not negotiating that out of their contract. There are plenty of shops who won't try to own your brain at work and at home.
pkaye 7y ago
I mean look at Robert Pera, the founder of Ubiquiti Networks but started working on his idea while at Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pera

scarejunba 7y ago

Low quality reporting. Two things that should go in the top few sentences: * Name of the Bill: SB 206 * Link to bill text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB206 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... Instead the bill is only accidentally named in the embedded tweet.

dmode 7y ago

This was long overdue. Thank you. College coaches get paid millions of dollars a year, yet when a poor athlete gets rent money for his dad, all hell breaks loose. Let's stop pretending that college sports is anything but a glamorized professional sporting franchise, and pay the people who make it happen. Actually, this bill doesn't even ask the colleges to pay the athletes their fair market value. It simply allows athletes to make money from their own brand. Not sure how anyone can be against this. If someone is making money off me, in a free society, I sure should be able to make money off myself as well.

byebyetech 7y ago
NCAA literally has the slave model and most likely has origins in that mentality. Just like a race horse can't ask for money because it is a property of its owner, student athletes are not any different from NCAA perspective. It is strange to think that such rule existed for so long in the "free" society.
- samatman 7y ago
  I'd say this is confusing where we've ended up with where we started. In the beginning, the "amateur" in "amateur athletics" was taken quite seriously; college athletics was seen and treated as part of the education system. There's been considerable erosion of this ideal, and at this point it's better to treat college athletes as minor leaguers who happen to be affiliated with colleges.
- thrower123 7y ago
  The history of how we got here is very odd. The NCAA's worship of amateurism has it's roots in Ivy League gentleman amateurs, and for many, many years was explicitly racially segregated.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    The roots were very much more in the public's insistence that college students had to stop dying while playing football. Lots of players were paid in the old Ivy League days. Those like Theodore Roosevelt who "saved" the game did so mostly by not letting students handle the payments. Only much later (1940s and '50s) did NCAA take on the form it has today.

40acres 7y ago

The players should be paid a salary, full stop. If you're an athlete at a D1 school in the primary money making sports of men's basketball or football you're hardly a student -- most days are spent training or preparing for a game, the athletes notoriously take cupcake classes and majors; and we've seen enough academic scandals to know that 'student-athlete' is a misnomer. The NCAA is another case of cartel like behavior in the American economy and I'll be glad when this phony amateurism is put to rest.

navigatesol 7y ago
>The players should be paid a salary, full stop. This is where I disagree. I don't think the schools should be obligated to provide a salary. These are amateurs, by definition. That said, if you are popular enough to make money outside of the school, of your own volition, the NCAA has no business stopping you from doing so.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > These are amateurs, by definition. They are unpaid workers providing economic benefit to their employer, the same way that has been federally outlawed most of the other places it was practiced (often also with students) when the rules on unpaid internships were tightened down. They are amateurs only by circular definition: the trade association of their employers prohibits paying them, so they aren't paid, so they are “amateurs”. Using that as an argument to continue not paying them is ludicrous on it's face.
  - snarf21 7y ago
    This is where I think the argument falls down. They do get a free ride. That might not seem like much, but I worked full time while going to school full time. I could have created a lucrative start-up in the hours I was working to pay for school. The athletes also get the primetime TV exposure and ESPN highlights that lead to a chance for $MM contracts. They also get some of the best training and coaching facilities that money can buy. I get that the players are taken advantage of but so do all of our employers. They aren't slaves, they can try out for professional sports around the world right out of high school and start making money. It will probably be less but they have options. The one fallout of this is that there are lots of collegiate sports that will go away. They schools won't pay the money for the field hockey team so all the players can get a salary. All this to say that this is much more grey than a lot of people think it is. I think the right solution is to get rid of college athletics completely. Move it to an intramural setup. All the other leagues can create their own farm systems like baseball has and people can start having minor league NFL and NBA teams in their middle sized towns instead.

arthurjj 7y ago

Hopefully this works out the same way to how California sets clean car standards just for themselves. California is a big enough market and it's not worth making different cars just for California. So all cars sold in the U.S. are manufactured to that standard.

dfsegoat 7y ago

Southpark nailed why this needed to happen in their episode "Crack Baby Athletic Association" [1], where Cartman essentially poses as a Slavery-era plantation owner, and wants to ask the University of Colorado for "business advice" on how to make people work without paying them - like their college athletes ("slavery"): >> "Now when we sell their likeness for video games, how do we get around paying our slaves…erm - student-athletes then?" - Cartman NSFW / Trigger warning etc: I realize Southpark isn't for everyone. But on this issue I feel like they nailed it by showing just how ludicrous the NCAA really is. [1] - https://www.businessinsider.com/the-crack-baby-athletic-association-cbaa-2011-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-crack-baby-athletic-asso...

dmix 7y ago
The media talked about a 'plantation mentality' by NBA owners ad nauseam with the Donald Sterling affair, but the NCAA is where the real analogy lies. South Park indeed hit this one on the head. Additionally, the whole amateur vs professional sports thing has always been questionable grey area, with artificially created red lines.
macspoofing 7y ago
>Southpark nailed why this needed to happen in their episode Yes and no. The problem is that the NBA and NFL had an implicit requirement of college before making to the league. This meant that players with no interest in college were nevertheless funneled through the college system. That's not fair to the players that wanted to start earning money from their profession. The NBA has lifted the restriction on high-school players graduating to the NBA - so at this point young athletes can move directly to the NBA, or G League, or play overseas. Under these conditions I think it's fine to leave NCAA as is, since college is no longer mandatory. Professionally-oriented football players don't really have that option, and NFL careers are much shorter as well. It's not a great look that those guys can't make any money in their college career.
- jordanpg 7y ago
  > It's not a great look that those guys can't make any money in their college career. Especially since someone else with none of the talent and assuming none of the risk, is making wheelbarrows full of money.

reaperducer 7y ago

So is this just for people engaged in the rapid movement of balls, or does it apply to all athletes? It would also be interesting to see this expanded to other scholastic competitions, like the chess club, or the debating team. "Scotts, the official pre-moistened hinge of the Shippensburg University Philatelist Team."

moate 7y ago
IDK that the chess or debate teams has forced amateur status. They're def not NCAA sports, so they never had to follow NCAA rules. But you can now expect Noah Matricciani to tell you all about AFG's new Epee mask if he so chooses. (Okay technically that's not true since this law won't take effect for 4 years and he'll have graduated, but the joke stands)
dragonwriter 7y ago
> It would also be interesting to see this expanded to other scholastic competitions, like the chess club, or the debating team. When I did intercollegiate speech and debate, no one prohibited me from (or threatened my continued eligibility for) getting paid endorsements, or from engaging in paid professional speaking or argument. Now, there weren't exactly piles of opportunities, either, but I was free to take any I found.
VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
none of that applies the the NCAA

DeonPenny 7y ago

California from the contractor law to this has made it habit to muscle large organization to doing the progressive and right thing. Pretty interesting to see one state change so much nationally.

Lukeas14 7y ago

The NCAA's main argument against paying college players is completely bogus, which is that there is an uneven playing field between "amateur" and paid players. In reality, some players already claim that advantage by coming from rich families, which according to NCAA logic is unfair. The real separation between college and professional athletics is being a student. Rich and poor students both only have 24 hours in a day and as long as a significant portion of that is dedicated to classes, then that's fair enough for me. 12 units / semester is the current minimum.

lostapathy 7y ago
There's a lot to family background. I went to a division 1 school and while I didn't personally know any of the "big name" players, it was obvious life was a lot less comfortable for many of them (even with a certain future in the NBA) than the walk-on with no professional ambition but a surgeon for a parent.

mrosett 7y ago

My preference would be for a world where college athletes were genuinely student-athletes: held to the same academic standards as other students while genuinely acting as amateur athletes. But that's not the world we live in (particularly for football and basketball.) The quasi-professional setup we have now, where athletes generate tremendous revenue for schools and and capture very little of that, is untenable. I don't necessarily think athletes should get paid by schools, but it's hard to articulate why they shouldn't be able to benefit from endorsements.

mlyle 7y ago
Tremendous revenue but not really any profit. College sports overall are not "profitable" except at a very few elite programs. (Schools hope knock-on effects, like increased alumni interest, make them pay off).
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Tremendous revenue but not really any profit. College sports overall are not "profitable" except at a very few elite programs. Those elite programs are probably the only ones where athletes would have any significant endorsement opportunities, anyway.
- mrosett 7y ago
  In a narrow sense, you're right. But even if a college isn't directly profiting on an program, there are a couple things to consider: - If a university is breaking even on a program but its donations are captured on a different part of the balance sheet, it's still reasonable to think of it as profitable. - College football coaches are able to capture a huge share of the football revenue at a school in part because players are unpaid.
- moate 7y ago
  If that's accurate, and college sports in aggregate have no net positive value to the schools (through alumni donation, local economic stimulus, etc.) that's all the more reason to not support the status quo. That would mean these kids are making lots of money that's not benefiting anyone except the NCAA and others able to siphon value off.

dannykwells 7y ago

California has been on an absolute tear with progressive legislation recently. Love it or hate it (I happen to be the former) it's definitely an experiment in how efficacious modern progressive policies will be.

dbg31415 7y ago

No doubt we aren't doing enough to compensate our college athletes. We treat college Football like the AAA farm system for Baseball, and these kids have incentives to go out and hit hard and stand out so they can advance to the NFL. All without much of a safety net. I have a friend who was on an athletic scholarship, but he blew out his knee and was cut from the team. Luckily his parents found a way to cover the cost for his final year, but overnight he went from having access to tutors, trainers, and special classes, to being tossed in with everyone else and having to cover his own knee surgery and rehab costs. Now I'm not saying this is good that athletes got special treatment, but it really drives the point home that they are given special treatment when you deprive them of it right before the graduation finish line... My friend struggled; this is actually where I met him, as he was seeking tutoring. He was trying, like really trying. Putting his all into academics to try and get caught up. There's only so much you can do, and he had been given such an easy pass to that point he simply wasn't able to do any of the work. He was depressed, felt like his whole life had been taken away, felt like his parents had sold everything they had to help him at least come out with a degree... and he didn't want to let people down. This was all in the early 2000s, so I don't know if it's changed... what I think would be good: * Make scholarships irrevocable due to injuries. If you get football scholarship, you get to stay no matter what. With full access to team tutors. A school can't offer someone a life-changing education, and then rip it away just because that person got hurt trying to help entertain the school's athletic audience. * Make health funds available. Any injury you get while at work, work is liable for. You get hurt playing football, the team has to pay your insurance premiums and provide trainers for your rehab. Like a pension fund. Not like these programs don't have the money... But paying athletes... slippery slope. It feels like then we really should split sports out into their own AAA systems, rather than relying on schools. I recognize that the drive to be a top athlete can permeate into other areas of a person's life, and sports built team mentality and promote physical fitness... It's just such a sketch gray area when you think about the NFL (and sure, others) diverting risk and responsibility for these kids to the NCAA.

moate 7y ago
The school isn't paying the athletes. Yes, there might only be a whisker separating an "alumni sponsorship" and the school itself paying, but that's the alumni's choice. You can't spin out an NFL or NBA minor league at this point, because you'd just have to rip sports out of college entirely. The issue is that the NCAA's amateur rule prevents players from capitalizing on their likeness. There's no reason for that rule to stay in place. If you're working in any other field, like say Comp Sci, you can go out and get work in that field while going to school. Why shouldn't athletes? You're a QB, you can sell your likeness to NCAA 2K19 or whatever and make some money. You can sell merch or do jersey signings. That all seems extremely reasonable.

zarro 7y ago

The sooner we can separate sports and education and allow the market play itself out, the better.

jpadkins 7y ago

America likes its markets free, but it's sports socialist (unpaid college, revenue sharing, salary caps, drafts, etc). Funny how it's progressive CA is going to cause college athletics to a whole lot more market oriented....

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moate 7y ago
If you somehow think that "unpaid laborers" in college sports is a socialist ideal, I think you need to do literally any reading at all about what socialism is. How do the workers have any control over the "means of productions" in that situation? How is that a confederation of laborers setting the market collectively for their efforts? You do realize that markets exist in a socialist paradigm right? Progressive California is going forward for the right for laborers to make money off of their labor, which is an extremely socialist ideal (as opposed to being paid in "exposure", sorry, "college education" as if that's a real commodity)

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thedudeabides5 7y ago

Good for liberty. Now all we need is a way for college atheletes to sell some of their income in a securitized way on the blockchain. Anyone have an example of a startup trying to do this?

rb808 7y ago

Honestly I dont understand what College Sports is there for. If they're going to get paid its really stupid to have the athletes paid more than the professors. I've heard the justification that the sports brings in money to the school, but if they athletes get paid that wont be much.

honkycat 7y ago
Colleges put an ABSURDLY high price on the value of athletics and the "school pride" they bring. Does it actually improve the common student's education? Probably not. I assume the teams actually make money, since people would not run them if they were run at a loss. I've heard that the "sports teams pay for themselves." I assume this is bullshit and colleges like to have their vanity projects in the form of big stadiums and athletic teams.

yumraj 7y ago

Can someone share some light on why NCAA doesn't want the college athletes to be paid?

colechristensen 7y ago
Because it's really odd to associate a university with a professional sports team and not paying the athletes was the last straw after stadiums in the hundreds of millions, coaches salaries in the millions, television deals, etc. etc. already all made it seem like a joke. There's nothing wrong with being a sports fan or being a player, or competing while at university, but the levels that football and basketball have gotten to are plainly ridiculous. Those games and how much money is sunk into them are just ridiculous to have at a university. There is no reason they should enjoy any tax benefits and their presence distracts and overshadows the purpose of a university.

tracker1 7y ago

Amazing how much the TV series "Ballers" seems to reflect what's going on behind the scenes in sports. I've felt for years that NCAA rules has treated the athletes like a virtual slave class, while everyone, other than them, makes huge amounts of money.

andrew_ 7y ago

Interesting that no one has raised the implications of this on the taxable income in the state. Given budget shortfalls in the state, and 50-some NCAA institutions with several power programs, this would surely be a welcomed source of revenue for the State government. It begs the question of intent behind the law.

holler 7y ago
This is precisely what I just thought about. CA has some of the highest income tax rates in the US with 10.3% for income over $275k -> 13.3% for income over $1million. From a tax revenue standpoint, this is a no brainer. If other states end up adopting this rule successfully and I were an athlete, I'd probably consider playing in a state that has a more favorable income tax or none at all like NV, WA, WY, FL.
- dmode 7y ago
  CA has a $200bn budget. The tax gains from this will be barely noticeable
  - holler 7y ago
    I mean, they could have proposed this at any time in the last X decades, why now?

notadoc 7y ago

College athletes already were getting paid with free tuition, room, board, meal plans, expenses, etc.

rb808 7y ago

To me athletes should be able to go pro (NBA, NFL) straight when they're in high school. College is a waste of time for these guys. Problem solved.

bonoboTP 7y ago

Seen from Europe, the whole concept of college sports is just strange. What do the two have to do with each other? One is a place of study, the other is sport. Here if you want to be an athlete, you join a sports club. If you want to be a computer scientist or historian, you go to university. You can also do both but they have no interactions. Apparently one of the ways to get a scholarship in the US to pay the high tuition fees is through good sport results. But what does swimming really fast have to do with someone's aptitude for studying biology or astronomy or finance?

NTDF9 7y ago
As is the answer with almost anything in the US, the answer is: "There are some who stand to make money from it at the expense of others." US is fundamentally different from most other countries. In most countries, govt designs (or tries to design) laws and systems for the public good. Not so in the US.
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  > US is fundamentally different from most other countries. In most countries, govt designs (or tries to design) laws and systems for the public good. Not so in the US. I think this is overly simplistic. There's plenty of corruption in many European countries as well, it's just in a different form. It seems also deeply cultural. What would count as greedy and offputting behavior here, is seen as laudable and ambitious in the US. People are supposed to be pushing for more and more money and they are considered successful to the extent they can make it. This results in good and bad things alike. Most of the other parts of the world suffer from some form of the tall poppy syndrome: if you want to be socially accepted, you aren't supposed to be deviating too much from those around you. Meaning that entrepreneurship is much smaller and also that many things are just not considered to be for sale in good taste (private prisons, expensive private schools, expensive hospitals).
  - NTDF9 7y ago
    > I think this is overly simplistic. There's plenty of corruption in many European countries as well, it's just in a different form. Not denying corruption doesn't exist in other countries, including EU. However, if you look at it closely from a 3rd person perspective, you'll see that the laws in US are designed to snatch rights away from citizens vs laws in most other countries are designed to give rights to its citizens. One may ask where it comes from? It seems comes from a place of profit for a lobby. No payment for student athletes? NCAA and others suck in value of labor of young kids by denying right to earn money for their labor No universal healthcare or clean competition in healthcare? Private insurance and healthcare institutions suck in value of humans by denying right to get basic healthcare as a service. No cheap education? Lenders racketing on student's worth by denying students access to low cost capitalistic education. No rights for private prisoners? Immigrants? Civil forfeiture? Every thing is designed as a system to take away rights for the benefit of a few. The US govt and private industry are a nexus of money making for large lobbying groups. This won't fly in another non-corrupt democracy, let alone in EU. > It seems also deeply cultural. What would count as greedy and offputting behavior here, is seen as laudable and ambitious in the US Yep, there's another way of looking at the fundamental difference. The govt exists to make money for a few at the expense of others.

leoh 7y ago

This strikes me as somewhat dystopian. It is going to enhance the incentive to become a student athlete without helping students that are currently having difficulty affording education without loans, thereby potentially enhancing an already not insignificant sense of discord between athlete and non-athlete students on college campuses.

kennickv 7y ago

Good.