For all of you who like to bullshit about the options available to high school football and basketball players, this is what a free market choice looks like for a talented athlete.
If you think the NCAA really wants to face a similar threat to its money making enterprises, I don’t know what to tell you. Sure, the NBA and the NFL enable the schools, but they’re more than happy to take advantage of the situation.
Get The Picture 
Back in the day Steve Prefontaine was on food stamps. He was on food stamps because there wasn’t a system in between college and Olympics that provided support and allowed him to compete with other “amateur” athletes.
I’m glad track and field and all the international bodies figured some of this out. I am wondering how long before high school footballers have any sort of viable options.
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Let high schoolers jump straight to the pros if they want. If they go to college and want to transfer four times in four years, let them do it, no restrictions allowed.
I know we’ve got a lot of free marketeers here. That’s what the free market looks like. Anybody who can’t get behind it is a socialist.
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Once they turn 18, I agree, they should be able to play wherever they want for as long as they want. I also think college entrance requirements should be the same for athletes as non athletes. Colleges don’t relax entrance requirements for talented musicians or really good looking students, why should a kid whose “special talent” is being able to run fast, jump high and throw and catch a ball get a break on admission?
Relax, I know it’s all about money. The NCAA, the colleges and the NFL are protecting their cash cow.
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Then Arthur Blank and Peyton Manning are socialists. They negotiated and agreed to a collective bargaining agreement that restricts eligibility for entry into the NFL. Same with the NBA and MLB.
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The NFL is socialist.
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Don’t they call it revenue sharing?
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Were the college athletes part of the bargain?
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So anyone who signs a four-year contract is a socialist? Got it. I’ll go tell my boss he is a socialist.
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Do what? Who’s talking about signing a four-year contract?
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What I am saying is that your statement is not the definition of a free market. All “free market” means is “not controlled by an outside force”, such as the government. Within the free market, participants may restrict themselves to an infinite number of things in exchange for something they want to receive via contract. Just because a player agrees to play football for a school for four years in exchange for something (a scholarship or a scholly plus cash payment), and in return is bound to that school for those four years, it in no way means it is not a free market. A contract has been agreed to by both parties. It happens all over the free market. What you are proposing is chaos.
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The inconvenient fact is, markets work. Currently, the schools get all the benefits. The scholarship is only for one year at a time. Schools can cut kids from the team, but kids can’t freely leave the team without suffering penalties.
If both parties had equal power, schools would likely guarantee 4-year scholarships for most kids. And, if the kid didn’t have a guarantee, he could leave with no penalty. It might just work.
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Don’t misunderstand. I am in favor of free markets and they do work. I wish the stinkin’ government would get out of ours. I’m saying that people in a free market are free to restrict themselves with contracts. That doesn’t make it less of a free market. I am totally in favor of four-year scholarships IF the student-athlete follows the rules and gives high effort while keeping grades up. If that’s the deal, then the kid is bound to that school for those four years, or suffers a one-year penalty for transferring to another school “for more playing time”. True hardship cases necessitating transfers can be dealt with individually.
If the kid doesn’t want to be bound by a scholarship agreement to play a sport, then it’s simple: don’t play. If we are talking about how they can’t enter the NFL until 3 years out of high school, then that’s the NFL’s fault. Why should the colleges get sucked up in lawsuits over that? If a kid wants to leave college early for the NFL, then his scholarship money should have to be repaid in full. That is peanuts for an NFL team to pay for on their draftees.
The point I am trying to make is: If you want to play COLLEGE football, then sign the contract for four years. If you leave early, pay back the money because a degree was not earned and partial educations are almost worthless. If you think you might be good enough to play PRO football and you cannot accept the terms of the scholarship contract, then go play pro ball. Can’t play until you’re 21? Tough. Take that up with the NFL. That, in my opinion, is how it should be. This crap about paying college players a salary is beyond ridiculous to me. It is NOT the colleges’ collective fault that the NFL will not accept 18-year-olds in the draft. The argument that college is a de facto developmental league for the NFL is also not the colleges’ fault. All of the fault lies with the NFL.
If the NFL would accept 18-year-olds, they could just bypass the college system and we would never have to worry about them screwing up the college game. Win-win. The kids who wanted to play college ball could do so and we would never miss the LeBrons of the football world just as college basketball didn’t miss him.
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I’m with you, up to a point. Yes, the NFL is to blame for the 3 years from high school rule. However, that has nothing to do with the NCAA cartel on athletic labor.
No, kids shouldn’t have to pay colleges for leaving early, anymore than colleges should pay kids for withdrawing their scholarship. Graduation isn’t a contingency of any scholarship, either athletic, or academic.
However, the schools are still benefitting from labor in a distorted, unfree market. So, the fair choices are to either free up the market and let the chips fall where they may, or start paying labor through some kind of collective bargaining. But the status quo won’t fly any longer.
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Before you know it, pro sports in America will be organized just like the rest of the world (IMHO, I think eventually all these law suits will end college sports as we know it). Kids will be put in club’s feeder system, provided housing and a basic education all sponsored by the club. If they make it to the pros, great, if not, life sucks and you get a real job or you become a coach… The Ivy league will return to college football dominance.
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Not sure if you’re being facetious or not, but I agree with you. I think it will take a long while, but eventually that’s where it will end up.
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And I am not against this. In laws from Europe are continually amazed at the sports systems here at the U level. Must admit, although I am a big fan of college football(at all four levels) I still do not understand the system here either. To me the current system is a sham. But I still watch and I would still watch if it were all at the Ivy League level.
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It’s all about relaxing rules vs enforcing rules. The Ivy League set their rules and standards and didn’t relax them in order to have the best football team in America at any cost, which is what the majority of schools have done. Taking marginal students, creating useless majors, unreal amounts of tutoring to keep players eligible, etc, are all things that need to go away in college sports. If that standard would have left out certain college hall of famers of the past, so be it. We wouldn’t miss them because we never would have known them. They would have been replaced by others. A Heisman would still be awarded every year. It may be painful to get there, but I long for the day that college football is again played only by those who want a college education.
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I’m undecided about 18 year olds entering the NFL. I do not discount the league’s position on injuries.
Given the current situation, this supports what the NCAA does for future NFL players. Right now, option #2 would be to practice with a personal trainer at a cost of $100,000+ per year for three years while waiting to be eligible for the NFL. So, once again, the $50,000 – $150,000 in benefits that top athletes receive from their respective schools while waiting to graduate to the NFL seems like a fair deal. I am not arguing that anyone in the NCAA has pure motives or that everything is perfect, just sayin’ that its not as horrible and exploitative as so many around here make it out to be.
I also love the New York Times: “Forty-plus years since Title IX means we have our first generation of supportive parents and coaches who grew up with the idea of female athletes not being horrifying.” Yeah, the success of female athletes is owed to the Federal government and Title IX.
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Edit: $50,000 – $150,000 per year.
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It’s non-compete.
One State’s legislature can screw the NCAA’s pooch with a statute that limits it to 12 mints under any circumstances covering a student and providing damages against violators .
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I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not, but do you think female collegiate athletics would have come about without Title IX? Or are you saying it’s not successful and shouldn’t exist? How far back do you think women’s collegiate athletics goes?
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Look no further than the IMG model. They have a high school down here for heaven sake. If they do that for high schoolers they would really like to do it for graduates. They train you house you and let you compete with other club teams or JC teams until you are able to turn pro and then they are your agent. They get paid back on the back side. This would gut the colleges of all the 5 star talent and maybe the 4 star if enough clubs were started. Colleges and ESPN would be in a talent drained system and ESPN would be televising the club games. The kids that truly wanted an education could still go to college but the ones that don’t would not to go through the motions taking basket weaving.
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Great Post 69 -man does that ever open a can of worms
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