21 ms·

The problem is that they're being exploited. Choose to go to class or not, they are not being paid anything remotely close to the value that these schools get f

by rrrx3 12y ago

The problem is that they're being exploited. Choose to go to class or not, they are not being paid anything remotely close to the value that these schools get from them in terms of team gear sales, ad revenue, tv time, increased enrollment, etc etc etc. This is especially true when they're turning in BS papers for crap degrees that can't and won't serve them once they leave school. A minuscule few make it pro. The rest - if they graduate, even - have only an AFAM degree to show for it and no real life skills. I agree that if they want to be athletes, they should be allowed to be athletes. But they should be paid appropriately for it in kind.

differentView 12y ago
>they are not being paid anything remotely close to the value that these schools get from them in terms of team gear sales, ad revenue, tv time, increased enrollment, etc etc etc. This is true for only a very small percentage of college athletes. Most college sports don't generate a lot of money for their schools. Even the most popular sports, men's football and men's basketball, generate big money for a minority of elite programs.
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  Let's look at it another way. 40 out of 50 states' highest paid public employee is a head football or basketball coach.
- ska 12y ago
  But isn't it this same minority of elite programs looking for ways to carry academically incompetent students? Most student athletes are students first, not looking for an opening in a professional league.
brudgers 12y ago
In the case of gridiron football the system is a subsidy to the NFL which avoids player development costs...often at taxpayer expense. Likewise, the colleges pass off youth development costs to the public high school systems...again at taxpayer expense. For the players. this form of amateurism means they have no power to negotiate contracts to offset the risks associated with the sport.
- rrrx3 12y ago
  One could also make the argument that industry does the same thing with your average college student - offloading education and training cost onto the taxpayers and students and then reaping the benefits. Doesn't make it right, I;m just saying the argument could be made.
mbreese 12y ago
Well, they are getting compensation in terms of free tuition, room and board, etc... these things do have significant value. If they complete school, they get to walk away with a degree without any debt. That's not trivial. However, the athletes are only able to actualize this compensation if they can freely choose their majors, are able to take the classes they want, and actually earn their education. By creating a secondary tier of classes, the school was deliberately exploiting them. I think that the value of a degree (for an athlete) will vary greatly depending on the school. Some schools are more academically rigorous for athletes than others... UNC apparently was on the low end of the scale.
- washadjeffmad 12y ago
  I think a brunt of the issue is that their exploitation is what is being used to generate that "significant value". Here's an article about the latest NCAA reform vote on [edit: student-]athlete compensation: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-ncaa-rules-idUSKBN0G62EZ20140806 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-ncaa-rules-idUS...
  - LanceH 12y ago
    If the athletes truly brought the value and it wasn't the schools and league itself, then the NBA's D-League would be raking in the billions and they could all play there. It turns out that people want to watch their school beat another school, and they aren't particular about the athletes. You can say the individuals bring value, but they destroy an equal amount of value at some other school when they succeed. Witness the last NBA lockout when the players had some all-star games and couldn't fill the seats. A mature competitive league is responsible for far more of the revenue than it gets credit for.
- rodgerd 12y ago
  > Well, they are getting compensation in terms of free tuition, room and board, etc... these things do have significant value. Compare and contrast with the money an 18-21 year old second team player at Real Madrid or Barcelona makes and get back to me on the "significant value". Especially when the athletes are being funneled through second-rate degrees to free up their time for sport.
bo1024 12y ago
> The problem is that they're being exploited. Choose to go to class or not, they are not being paid anything remotely close to the value that these schools get from them in terms of team gear sales, ad revenue, tv time, increased enrollment, etc etc etc. I'm tired of seeing this argument without data. If you sit down and think about the numbers, you'll see that for the vast majority of NCAA athletes, this is false. Most get a very sweet deal relative to their market value if the NCAA did not exist. First, limit to the NCAA sports that actually produce revenue, essentially men's football and basketball. If the NCAA did not exist, these players would at best be in a minor league (again except for the top dozen or two in the country). Now look at a sport that has a minor league in America: baseball. Minor league baseball players, even toward the top, make how much? $2000-3000 per month. And that's only in-season. Paid tuition is already worth higher in cash value than that. And the value of the student-athlete experience? You can't put a price tag on it. Ask any former NCAA athlete what they would trade to give up their experience. But, you respond, NCAA sports make way more money than baseball minor leagues. Yes, that's true. But it's not solely because of the players. It's because of the schools. Schools bring almost everything important to the table: A huge fanbase, a connection to a physical location and community, an illusion of amateur-ness, rivalries, all of these things you can't get to nearly that extent outside the NCAA. The players? They have no bargaining power because without the NCAA system, they'd be hosed. They'd be working even harder for essentially less money, living a tougher lifestyle, and not even get the degree to show for it. Hard to argue they should be paid when they bring very little to the table compared to the schools. The point people miss is that it's the combination of the schools and the players together that generates so much revenue. Either without the other would be out of luck. And right now, if you think about the numbers, the current split is pretty fair. The exception might be the few star players who could make millions in the pros. ... I want to say, I'm not saying that players aren't exploited currently. I think they are. But I think the exploitation boils down to your second paragraph: They lose a real education because they don't have their priorities in line at that point in their lives. But the solution isn't to pay kids even more money/benefits to continue to masquerade as students while living as full-time athletes. The solution should be to divorce sports from education and create minor leagues. This will never happen because, as I stated above, it's the combination of schools and sports that generates so much money, and the people at the top won't give that up just to do the right thing.

by rrrx3 12y ago

differentView 12y ago

>they are not being paid anything remotely close to the value that these schools get from them in terms of team gear sales, ad revenue, tv time, increased enrollment, etc etc etc. This is true for only a very small percentage of college athletes. Most college sports don't generate a lot of money for their schools. Even the most popular sports, men's football and men's basketball, generate big money for a minority of elite programs.

vinceguidry 12y ago
Let's look at it another way. 40 out of 50 states' highest paid public employee is a head football or basketball coach.
ska 12y ago
But isn't it this same minority of elite programs looking for ways to carry academically incompetent students? Most student athletes are students first, not looking for an opening in a professional league.

brudgers 12y ago

In the case of gridiron football the system is a subsidy to the NFL which avoids player development costs...often at taxpayer expense. Likewise, the colleges pass off youth development costs to the public high school systems...again at taxpayer expense. For the players. this form of amateurism means they have no power to negotiate contracts to offset the risks associated with the sport.

rrrx3 12y ago
One could also make the argument that industry does the same thing with your average college student - offloading education and training cost onto the taxpayers and students and then reaping the benefits. Doesn't make it right, I;m just saying the argument could be made.

mbreese 12y ago

Well, they are getting compensation in terms of free tuition, room and board, etc... these things do have significant value. If they complete school, they get to walk away with a degree without any debt. That's not trivial. However, the athletes are only able to actualize this compensation if they can freely choose their majors, are able to take the classes they want, and actually earn their education. By creating a secondary tier of classes, the school was deliberately exploiting them. I think that the value of a degree (for an athlete) will vary greatly depending on the school. Some schools are more academically rigorous for athletes than others... UNC apparently was on the low end of the scale.

washadjeffmad 12y ago
I think a brunt of the issue is that their exploitation is what is being used to generate that "significant value". Here's an article about the latest NCAA reform vote on [edit: student-]athlete compensation: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-ncaa-rules-idUSKBN0G62EZ20140806 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-ncaa-rules-idUS...
- LanceH 12y ago
  If the athletes truly brought the value and it wasn't the schools and league itself, then the NBA's D-League would be raking in the billions and they could all play there. It turns out that people want to watch their school beat another school, and they aren't particular about the athletes. You can say the individuals bring value, but they destroy an equal amount of value at some other school when they succeed. Witness the last NBA lockout when the players had some all-star games and couldn't fill the seats. A mature competitive league is responsible for far more of the revenue than it gets credit for.
rodgerd 12y ago
> Well, they are getting compensation in terms of free tuition, room and board, etc... these things do have significant value. Compare and contrast with the money an 18-21 year old second team player at Real Madrid or Barcelona makes and get back to me on the "significant value". Especially when the athletes are being funneled through second-rate degrees to free up their time for sport.

bo1024 12y ago

> The problem is that they're being exploited. Choose to go to class or not, they are not being paid anything remotely close to the value that these schools get from them in terms of team gear sales, ad revenue, tv time, increased enrollment, etc etc etc. I'm tired of seeing this argument without data. If you sit down and think about the numbers, you'll see that for the vast majority of NCAA athletes, this is false. Most get a very sweet deal relative to their market value if the NCAA did not exist. First, limit to the NCAA sports that actually produce revenue, essentially men's football and basketball. If the NCAA did not exist, these players would at best be in a minor league (again except for the top dozen or two in the country). Now look at a sport that has a minor league in America: baseball. Minor league baseball players, even toward the top, make how much? $2000-3000 per month. And that's only in-season. Paid tuition is already worth higher in cash value than that. And the value of the student-athlete experience? You can't put a price tag on it. Ask any former NCAA athlete what they would trade to give up their experience. But, you respond, NCAA sports make way more money than baseball minor leagues. Yes, that's true. But it's not solely because of the players. It's because of the schools. Schools bring almost everything important to the table: A huge fanbase, a connection to a physical location and community, an illusion of amateur-ness, rivalries, all of these things you can't get to nearly that extent outside the NCAA. The players? They have no bargaining power because without the NCAA system, they'd be hosed. They'd be working even harder for essentially less money, living a tougher lifestyle, and not even get the degree to show for it. Hard to argue they should be paid when they bring very little to the table compared to the schools. The point people miss is that it's the combination of the schools and the players together that generates so much revenue. Either without the other would be out of luck. And right now, if you think about the numbers, the current split is pretty fair. The exception might be the few star players who could make millions in the pros. ... I want to say, I'm not saying that players aren't exploited currently. I think they are. But I think the exploitation boils down to your second paragraph: They lose a real education because they don't have their priorities in line at that point in their lives. But the solution isn't to pay kids even more money/benefits to continue to masquerade as students while living as full-time athletes. The solution should be to divorce sports from education and create minor leagues. This will never happen because, as I stated above, it's the combination of schools and sports that generates so much money, and the people at the top won't give that up just to do the right thing.