March 28, 2014 · 3:22 PM

Perverse afternoon question

Do you think there’d be as much energy devoted to the topic of player compensation now if they hadn’t replaced the BCS with the new playoffs?

32 Comments

Filed under BCS/Playoffs, College Football, Look For The Union Label

32 responses to “Perverse afternoon question”

  1. Normaltown Mike
    March 28, 2014 at 3:32 PM

    Not at all.

    The girls b-ball tourney has been around for over 30 years

    http://www.ncaa.com/history/basketball-women/d1

    and it’s high time that these girls have a “voice” and a “place at the table”. What’s more, they deserve more “investment” in the cost of attendance and “research funding” to study the health effects of not dunking the ball.

    Mark Emmert’s war on women is over!

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    • Emerging from Allie
      March 28, 2014 at 5:12 PM

      Your use of “scare quotes” doesn’t diminish the legitimacy of the athletes’ cause. It does, however, make you come across as an “asshole.”

      I mean, the nerve of these guys showing concern about their health coverage or the safety of playing a sport with an ever-widening history of causing frickin’ brain damage. By all means, let’s heap derision and mockery on them!

      Seriously, why does this movement offend you so much? Unless you’re a university or NCAA administrator trying to hoard your loot, why should it bother you if the players want to wet their beaks a bit or have a means by which to raise perceived inequities in the system?

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      • Senator Blutarsky
        March 28, 2014 at 5:43 PM

        Kudos on the handle, EfA, one of the best double entendres to grace GTP‘s comments section.

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      • Hackerdog
        March 28, 2014 at 6:47 PM

        I didn’t interpret his comment as dismissing the legitimate issues the athletes have. I interpreted it to mean that the increased money of the playoff is causing more interest in unionization. And I think that’s true. Most of the players who are interviewed about unionization talk about being paid.

        Sadly, there aren’t many revenue sports in college athletics. And I assume that stipends will only be for athletes in revenue sports (i.e., men’s football and basketball players).

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      • Normaltown Mike
        March 28, 2014 at 9:10 PM

        -“Your use of “scare quotes” doesn’t diminish the legitimacy of the athletes’ cause”

        Actually, they are not “scare quotes”, they are “troll quotes”. The words quoted come from one of the articles Bluto linked. If the Northwestern players deserve to be recognized as employees for their labors, then so do the gals on the volleyball team and the rest of the non-revenue sports.

        Since it’s “not about the money” (not a scare quote, it’s been the claim ad nauseam here and elsewhere) then the player safety, health coverage, education support, stipends, etc. are equally deserved by all of the scholar athletes, not just the football players.

        -“It does, however, make you come across as an “asshole.”

        If holding people accountable for what they claim to support makes me an asshole, so be it.

        -“I mean, the nerve of these guys showing concern about their health coverage or the safety of playing a sport with an ever-widening history of causing frickin’ brain damage. By all means, let’s heap derision and mockery on them!”

        So the sport is so dangerous that people playing shouldn’t quit playing it but should get more money out of playing it? Got it.

        -“Seriously, why does this movement offend you so much? Unless you’re a university or NCAA administrator trying to hoard your loot, why should it bother you if the players want to wet their beaks a bit or have a means by which to raise perceived inequities in the system?”

        Don’t piss down my neck and tell me it’s raining. If they want money, have the balls to say they want money. And make sure that they include the girls volleyball, hoops, soccer, equestrian, field hockey, etc. in all these conversations, cuz they are making the same time commitment as the football players, they just don’t have a bunch of jock sniffers taking up for them.

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        • Senator Blutarsky
          March 28, 2014 at 9:53 PM

          Yeah, too bad they’re not straight shooters like Emmert.

          Then again, they don’t have near the experience he does.

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          • Normaltown Mike
            March 28, 2014 at 10:48 PM

            Right.

            Cuz all of a sudden outa nowhere the NCAA said that scholar athletes aren’t employees and can’t unionize.

            They pulled a real fast one on these players.

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            • Senator Blutarsky
              March 29, 2014 at 8:46 AM

              So because the players didn’t try to unionize when Byers came up with his end around workers comp, they’ve lost the right to try to do so now?

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              • Normaltown Mike
                March 29, 2014 at 6:46 PM

                Nobody is forcing these guys to play ball at an elite university with a mediocre football program. If receiving an exemplary education at Northwestern isn’t enough, go earn money doing whatever they think they should be doing (it’s probably not football b/c Northwestern puts a player in the NFL once every 5 years or so).

                There are over 400K scholar athletes receiving an education while participating in a collegiate sport. All of them make sacrifices, face the chance of injury and undoubtedly put up with stupid NCAA rules. Being good at fencing or swimming or football or whatever gives them something of value (an education).

                Blowing up this system b/c one particular sport is very popular and generating revenue is foolish in my opinion. Pushing sanctimonious bromides about it is personally insulting.

                The system has existed for well over 50 years so it’s no surprise. If they don’t like it, go do something else. They’re not serfs.

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        • Emerging from Allie
          March 28, 2014 at 11:05 PM

          What’s the equivalent term for an administration lackey? Blazer-sniffer? Or money-sniffer, I suppose.

          Of course it’s about the money, but why can’t they want both? A slice of the pie and a means to raise other concerns that aren’t directly compensatory. I don’t see how that’s disingenuous.

          The time commitment is beside the point (to me anyway). The issue is these power-conference schools are making obscene amounts of money off TV deals that exist solely because of the unique skills of the players. Or do you believe ESPN would pony up $34 million per SEC school to show football games featuring a bunch of econ and chemistry majors? (After all, it’s the name on the front of the jersey, right?) And yet the only compensation they get is the same thing they got 40 years ago, when no one was getting rich off college football.

          The volleyball players aren’t the ones bringing in that sweet, sweet SEC Network cheddar, but if Title IX says they should share in the wealth, too, I have no problem with that. Believe me, the power-conference schools can afford it … even if it means a little reallocation from the AD and coaches’ country-club memberships and summer homes.

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        • The Lone Stranger
          March 29, 2014 at 12:00 AM

          Anyone in this grand country who claims nearly ANYTHING is not about the almighty legal tender has an ulterior motive.

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          • Cojones
            March 29, 2014 at 10:03 AM

            You betchum, Kemo Sabe! By the way, how can white settler farm with donkey, big pan and pickax? Those were the only “farmers” who got beyond the Miss R..We showed you the yellow metal and the yellow corn so that you might have nice things when enjoying our corn-on-the-cob, but end up feeling like cob in strange place. We end up smoking Jimson weed because white man cultivate all our priests’ medicinal weed. Legal tender give us redass.

            We like you because you wear mask so that we see you coming. You not like sneaky Kemo Saban and Bill Enema who sell us fur-lined pee tree.

            When Cherokee learn how to use legal tender better than white man by owning plantation and winning power in elected office, you move him to land with thick dirty water coming out of ground, much like student-athlete of NCAA world experienced. Now student-athletes can make own tribe. Now tribes get gold back. Funny how that work.

            “Mud-Kicks” should be first tribal name in honor of Cherokees and the football Anisazi.

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  2. Reverend Whitewall
    March 28, 2014 at 3:34 PM

    Do you mean that the new playoffs fanned the flames of players’ rights, getting us to where we are now quicker?

    Or just that the debate about if there should be a playoff or not would capture more of our attention?

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  3. Hogbody Spradlin
    March 28, 2014 at 4:17 PM

    I don’t see why not. The NLRB ruling made good drama and the topic was alive before then in the O’Bannon case.

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  4. Scorpio Jones, III
    March 28, 2014 at 4:38 PM

    Yassuh…we saw the price of cotton goin up…thought….Hmmm maybe now de time to try to get us pickers a decent meal now n’then.

    I know, I know, I know…the plantation inference makes people itch, but das dey prolem.

    To give you a straight answer, Boss, I suspect the kids at Northwestern realized the time was right, after looking at the money involved.

    I realize this union stuff is a blogger’s dream come true, but I also realize it is The Doldrums….I do think it was pretty smart to have the ruling come down at the time it did…lotsa attention. Pretty smart kids, or pretty smart lawyers…or both.

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    • The Lone Stranger
      March 29, 2014 at 12:06 AM

      I’m a natural cynic, and as such I reckon the N’Western guys were “leaned on” some by the massive organized labor interests in the Windy City.

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      • Scorpio Jones, III
        March 29, 2014 at 10:18 AM

        What’s surprising to me is that the local newspaper sports department has gone ape-shit, as have many of us here, over the mere discussion of a union, but has failed to notice that the Steelworker’s union loaned the kids their lawyers.

        I don’t know who leaned on whom, Lone, but there is leaning going on.

        Considering the recent union election history here in River City, TN, one would have thought this would be worth a mention.

        I don’t know about anywhere else, but the mere prospect of a players’ union has been front page news twice in Chattanooga.
        And the sports columnists are convinced the sky is going to fall before the sun comes up tomorrow.

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  5. Nate Dawg
    March 28, 2014 at 6:45 PM

    Yes I think there would have been. It’s shiny & new (or the unionization is) and there’s lots of space to fill on blogs, papers, 24 hr sports networks who own college football, etc…

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  6. JG Shellnutt
    March 28, 2014 at 7:04 PM

    And the playoff came about because Alabama and LSU met in the MNC game. So this whole thing is all due to the strength of the SEC West – which as we all know is because of roster management and over signing. So I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of me…

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  7. Sanford222view
    March 29, 2014 at 9:04 AM

    Senator,

    I really wish you would have some topics that stir reader interest and we have strong opinions about. 😉

    Good stuff everyone. I always enjoy the healthy debate here. Now would someone please point me to a blog with the latest pre-season Top 25 Poll and Greatest Breakfast Cereals of All Time bracket?

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  8. Kevin
    March 29, 2014 at 9:43 AM

    Excellent point. The issue sure has ramped up since the playoff was announced. Certainly hope that football does not got the way of basketball. I can live with 8 team playoff, but any more than that is a slippery slope in my opinion.

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