Jay Bilas pointed this out.... what if all the football players in the SEC decided enough is enough and all admitted to taking pay for autographs? What would the NCAA do, suspend all of them and tell the TV networks there is no SEC football this year? Would love to see them crap their pants in that scenario... Does anybody find it a bigger story that when Jay Bilas started tweeting out screenshots from the NCAA store about searching "Manziel" and having multiple #2 jerseys come up, with some even saying "Football" on the back, that the search engine is removed the following day? Hypocrits.
I've never seen a reasonable plan to pay college athletes. Not sure it can be done fairly. Regardless of that, the system as-is is broken. Absolute slave labor. A few folks are profiting like mad men. The % of $ allocated is completely askew. If I was Clowney's dad I'd be like bro, take the year off, I'm taking out a loan, hiring you a great trainer and we're getting an agent. Guys like Manziel still have something to prove... I think the fairest way to fix it is to restructure the whole thing in such a way that nobody profits very much. A communist system is less embarrassing than the slave labor system they have now. Manziel will have made TAMU at least 50 million in 2 years... he gets a scholarship? Sweet. Thanks.
It can't be done fairly when you have such a wide strata of programs in D1. The stipend program I posted on the last page shows how widely popular it is among the majority of the FBS. This is where the split is going to happen. I think the NCAA will accommodate this change, because they don't want even more turmoil.
People need to stop using the term slave labor. It implies the players have no choice in the matter, which they do. No one is making them play college sports. The closer correlation would be an unpaid internship or an apprenticeship, both of which are profitable for employers at the expense of the employee and are used widely in a variety of industries.
I tend to agree, but recognize that these players are being paid. 1) The huge cost of their education 2) For the truly elite, they are given exposure to showcase their skills to make money at a later date professionally. That has tremendous value. and of course nobody is forcing them to play. They can quit at any time. so for all the people saying "slave labor!", you're clueless.
Slave labor too harsh? Sure, but who doesn't exaggerate on an internet forum. The system is still terrible and nothing like an internship. If winning the Heisman was an internship Manziel is making less than 1% of the revenue he's generating. What intern does that? In real life when you have that kind of value you're allowed to play the field and go make more money, at least in America. I've never seen an unpaid intern get a billboard in Time Square with his face on it. You're right, nobody is making them play, that doesn't make any of this right. Again, it's an internet forum not a courtroom, if you take "slave labor" at face value then I guess phrases like "barn burner" must be lost on you. And a college athlete can make millions for the school without ever having a chance at a pro career, like Eric Crouch. If you're responsible for X% of the revenue you should receive a fair shake. In college football I would imagine the players are responsible for a similar % of the revenue as NFL players, if not more. I doubt a scholarship makes up for it. Or anywhere close to it. Nobody is doing these scholarship football players any favors, they're being used. No, it's not slave labor, it's like that time the whites offered a Ford Ram and wagon axel to the Native American's for the entire ****ing continent. Oh, but ****, that's okay, they got something out of it right? Nobody was forcing them to leave (not all instances) so it's cool, it's not slavery or anything bro, all is good, see you in Heaven bro. BTW - suicide rate is highest amongst Native American's. But thanks for the good times and the satchel of tree bark.
Lol at you thinking that the recruiting process currently is fair...The big schools are always going to lead when it comes to recruiting advantage. That 20k is not going to be accessible until the student finishes his education. And in a 4-5 year span for any college athlete, the "Tide" really can change at any moment...
It's not my problem to figure out how to make it work. I can tell you heart disease is bad, I have no clue how to eliminate it.
This is precisely why the big 5 conferences will start their own governing body...that and they are tiring of sharing the money with the NCAA office.
It certainly isn't slave labor. However, the system as presently structured is inequitable. Here are plenty of students at universities on full scholarship for things other than sports who have part time jobs to earn their spending money. Athletes are not allowed to do so by the NCAA. Most of these athletes come from situations where there isn't money coming from home. So you have these kids with no financial ability to buy anything. They can't take their girlfriend out to dinner. They can't split a pizza with their buddies. They can't do much of anything. The solution? Pay them the same stipend a university pays a grad student teaching an intro class. Add a dollar to the price of every ticket, and it is paid for (for larger schools, they'd make a profit). That scenario would be more equitable.
It'd still piss me off. Manziel makes TAMU $37 million in one season, gets like 20k in scholarship money. And oh, sweet, he gets a stipend now too, probably the same as the 11th string female soccer player that'll drop the sport next semester.
That money doesn't go into anybody's pocket. It goes to fund the larger athletic department, which was losing money not long ago. You cannot negotiate a salary for each player in college. That's what the NFL is for.
It doesn't matter where the money goes, Manziel is responsible for such a huge chunk of it and gets a fraction of it. I'm not trying to say what you're proposing doesn't have merit or isn't more fair, or that a system that got Manziel what he deserved wouldn't completely restructure college sports. But everyone is scared of change because they're worried about tradition and their pocketbooks. The whole thing needs a major reform, that's what I'm getting at, all of it, not just the monetary situation, all of it.
That's generally how it is in most businesses. Whoever invented the Post-It note made 3M billions of dollars - but he was probably paid $50k a year. The scientist that discovers a cure for cancer will make his company billions but won't be compensated that etc. But those billions will be paid to a bunch of other employees who don't generate their own salary - that's the way a business operates. Similarly, the money Manziel brings in will help pay for the swim team and the tennis team and the meat judging team and on.
wait, what do you consider "fair" .. the big schools have a natural advantage but the athletes aren't getting paid extra to go there. you would completely change the game if they were being allowed to profit off of jersey sales. Jersey sales would just mean any school could pay any college athlete however much money they wanted to come play for them. How is the athlete profiting off of jersey sales even debatable? How much would a $ would a number 1 QB coming out of high school be worth? at that point you would just be auctioning off the player to the boosters. what you're recommending will never ever happen and it shouldn't
Very true. But sports/fame is completely different. You are your name in sports. In the NCAA you sign your name away. I'm fine with spreading the wealth equally so long as the student athletes will be earning a similar piece of the pie that the NFL, NBA and MLB's athletes get. That Big 5 idea will ruin college sports for a lot of people but it makes the most sense to me.
Look at your post. You are essentially saying that college athletes should be paid on the same basis as pro sports. Not true. They are amateur athletes. Based on your model, they shouldn't even be forced to go to class. The NFL and MLB players don't go to class. The very moment that you start treating college athletes as professionals, you have killed what makes college sports special.
