Jim Delany, who will receive $20 million in future bonuses, says colleges don't exploit their athletes. https://t.co/HCEsdoX6sQ
— Jon Solomon (@JonSolomon35) September 12, 2017
Fuck you, Jim Delany.
“And that is what college athletics is all about.”
Fuck you, Jim Delany.
Filed under It's Just Bidness, The NCAA
Get The Picture 
Fuck him and fuck Irma.
Need a chainsaw in Watkinsville.
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I thought chain saws were standard equipment in Barrow County. Maybe that was back n the 70’s.
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This is a great blog and you provide wonderful commentary, but your response to this article, and really the controversy as a whole, is just sad. They’re not going to pay them which may or may not be the right thing to do. If it means that much to you, stop watching, trade in your season tickets and take up a hobby. There’s no denying P5 programs make a mint in college football, but to the benefit of Title 9 scholarship recipients and academic tutoring for every make of athlete. I get it, college football makes too much money, so does GE, but I’m not calling for GE to cease making products. We get it’s seemingly ‘Unfair’ & ‘Exploitative’ but enough already. If they do get paid down the road it won’t change how I feel about my Dawgs, which is the same reaction I’ll have if they never do.
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Well, as Richard Nixon once famously said, let me say this about that.
The premise of Jim Delany’s opinion piece is expressed in the header. It’s total crap, simply based on Econ 101 and the real world. Not to mention, he’s already on the losing side of an antitrust case. For you to add “seemingly” to the concept is denying reality. Now, that’s certainly your privilege, but gauging my feelings ain’t.
I’ve never said college football makes too much money. The sport is entitled to whatever the market allots it. That’s one thing Delany and I agree about. What’s wrong about his position is the allocation of what is taken in. Basically, Jim Delany believes the free market stops with Jim Delany. Hence, my epithet.
As for whether they’re going to wind up paying student-athletes, I’ll say this for the umpteenth time: they already are. All we’re arguing about is how much. Which kind of reinforces the point about exploitation, don’t you think?
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“Kind of reinforces the point about exploitation, don’t you think?” No, I don’t actually. Why, because scholarships only cover tuition, medical care and possibly a monthly stipend? That’s a hell of a lot of money to causally shake a stick at. Unless your view is that college tuition fees ain’t nuthin but peanuts, hecks let’s just gives’em away! Because we all know college degrees are a universal human right, and should be free anyway. I didn’t know Bernie Sanders was ghostwriting this blog. Is it as much as the free market would compensate said scholarship athlete? Depends on how good an athlete they are. “Paying student-athletes, they already are” Really. When the day of payroll budgeting hits college athletic departments it will mark the end of college athletics as we know it. And no, crazed and moneyed boosters don’t equal raises based upon last week’s completion percentage. How do you maintain the same level of funding for title 9 sports? How do you fund non-revenue generating male athletics? How about access to academic support staff for All athletes? Also, and this is my opinion, how do you maintain any cohesive sense of community between college students and paid athletes? These programs will become minor league teams, with the option to go to class. And the funding for smaller football programs and minor sports will evaporate. Maybe these changes will be for the better, but I’m not totally sold on it. “For you to add ‘seemingly’ to the concept is denying reality”…no that’s me stating my opinion regarding the matter. It’s your view that major college football is too exploitative because there’s too much $$$ not being ‘allocated’ fairly enough. Again, that’s just another way of saying certain people are making too much money off of a system, which itself is unjust, unfair and cruel. Meanwhile who’s made more millionaires out of black male athletes, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition or Nick Saban’s football program? Get back to me with those numbers. Economic and educational opportunities abound within the current system for many different types of athletes, both male and female. Could more be done for the student-athlete, absolutely. Look, I respect your views on the matter, you can bet your sweet tuchus on that. I just don’t buy into wholesale the viewpoint of ‘we gotta pay’em like professional employees’ because it’s the only way to make this corrupt system just.
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First straw man argument. Nobody is saying any of that is valueless. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s worth $100K/year. If Todd Gurley’s market value in 2013 is $500K, he’s being shorted $400K. That, my friend, is what we’re talking about here.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but I think it means I’m being accused of being a socialist who favors the free market.
They’re getting COA stipends now, different amounts at each school. With budgeting and everything. Really.
The NCAA allows kids who go professional in one sport to maintain their college eligibility in another. Have you noticed any cohesion problems as a result? One more thing here: some college kids who get paid would probably find it easier to stay in school rather than try to jump early to the NFL. Would that be a bad thing for college students?
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I agree with Blutarsky. Jim Delaney is out there grubbing for money and then speaks about the noble amateur attaining an education. That BS is pretty mediocre.
Each SEC school gets what, 25 million a year from the SEC network, and Todd Gurley got suspended for making $150 off his name. Who’s riding whose back to make a buck?
Everybody but the stars of the show is getting rich. There’s nothing about playing the players that will reduce their chance at an education.
But the schools and the Jim Delaneys of the world fight tooth and nail against having to fork over more bucks.
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And here’s the thing…forking over more bucks won’t come from their pockets. It will come from the fans who will support the increased expenses by paying more for the product and beer!, etc. The real cynicism is the belief on the Delaney’s of the world that they’ll get that extra money from us anyway and get to keep it.
We shall see.
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Hey No Country, you make a good point about GE. However while GE pays its executives a lot more than they pay their rank and file, GE is also a profit making, tax paying entity. Athletic associations claim to not be for profit and are tax exempt. Those salaries for Delaney and company are being paid to a great degree with the tax dollars that they’re exempted from.
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GE sucks. They moved large chunks of design and manufacturing to China a couple years ago, it is not an American company anymore. The executive board might be American but the products are not.
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Excuse me, if it ends with Delaney, that is so different,—in Delaney’s mind and seems to in a number of bloggers. 20 million huh? For what? Being a mouth piece, must be great work.
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That article is packed with disingenuous assertions about the intangible benefits bestowed upon college athletes. Truly shameful.
A long diatribe was written and then deleted…we all have our POV so I’m reducing mine to just expressing sheer disgust for those in charge of the system.
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What has Brice Ramsey not received that he should receive ?
At the risk of a wrong categorization, I’m generally ‘OK’ with what has been referred to as the Olympic model. Todd Gurley should be able to sell his autograph, but I think said model probably needs to be pretty heavily regulated.
The idea that it should come from the schools is nonsense. Say bye-bye to all the fully funded female scholarships if you go down that road.
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The problem with asking a question like “What has Brice Ramsey not received that he should receive ?” is that you make it sound like there’s supposed to be some moral underpinning to it. The correct answer to your question is simply whatever the market will bear. I suspect the market would have borne a helluva lot when he was coming out of high school.
Here’s my question for you: How many fully funded female scholarships would Delany’s bonus pay for?
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That’s the real question. Who are the f’in idiots who are deciding to pay Jim Delany that much instead of spending it on “the student-athlete,” even if that spending is not in the form of a de facto paycheck?
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“….who are the f*ing idiots who decided to pay Delaney that much…”The answer is Delaney himself and his AD and school president cronies who feed at the same trough. We have the foxes guarding the henhouse.
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Using the best data I could extrapolate, it appears that the Pac-12 commissioner (who had the highest 2016 salary among P5 commissioners) was paid at a rate of 0.8% of revenues for 2016. I’m not an expert on non-profit pay scales, but I’d venture a guess that is not excessive across multiple industries.
The problem with “whatever the market will bear” from strictly the relationship between student-athletes and their universities is that the model has always been communistic in its underpinnings. Nobody wants to speak the truth that volleyball and women’s basketball players are the ones taking money that the market won’t bear.
Suppose a big liquor man is willing to pay more than a big lumber man for the services of the February 2013 version of Brice Ramsey. Is he paying Bryce because he’s an uber-talent or because he is obsessively in love with his alma mater ? Has Dan Cathy of Georgia Southern offered the same amount of money to Brice to stay closer to home and sign with the Eagles ? If not, is it because the “market” there has less need for Brice Ramsey ? Would either the UGA or the Auburn guy be lining up to shell out money for tickets to a hypothetical NFL D-League to watch the uber-talented Ramsey play ball ? Or is the player’s “value” only relevant juxtaposed next to a “Buyer” that can only be described as irrational based on his love (obsession?) with an institution whose very platform was already mature and completely built out long before Brice Ramsey had a “market.”
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I give up.
I know I’m outmatched with somebody whose argument boils down to putting market in scare quotes.
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ad hominem.
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Pointing out that you put market in scare quotes is ad hominem? Ho-kay.
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If you want to change the status quo, you need to be the one that puts forth a solution that makes sense…. your argument doesn’t begin and end with referencing a once-a-generation star (todd gurley) at one of the highest revenue schools with a fan base rabid enough to send 40,000 fans 700 miles away.
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I take it you think treating student-athletes’ compensation like everyone else’s isn’t a solution.
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My beliefs are very much still up in the air. I do not believe that the commissioners and governing bodies deserve the vitriol they are receiving because I do think every decision on this front has the potential to open an unforeseen can of worms with even more negative consequences.
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That’s what everyone who has ever had the upper hand with the status quo believes.
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Do you really believe that a UGA booster should be able to pay whatever-his-heart-desires for a player to sign with UGA ?
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Gosh, boosters giving players money. Now that I think about it, it’s a good thing that’s never happened before.
Seriously, McGarity and Smart are running around with their tin cups out, scrounging thousands from boosters for a nicer recruiting room. Pickens spent millions on Okie State football. You okay with that?
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So the guys in charge fuck the little guy? That IS the free market Senator. Just kidding. ( I think). Seriously, I agree completely about Gurly, but what about the third string OL at say, GT. In the free market they are not worth nearly the value of a scholarship. Do we just give them a partial scholarship or make them pay for the privilege of being on the team?
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How do you know what the free market values a kid at, Gurkha? Just because you wouldn’t doesn’t mean a school wouldn’t.
Again, I don’t have a problem in the world with a subjective statement opposing player compensation. Just don’t try to dress up your emotions in economic theory, okay?
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Hold on a second there. I agree with your position on paying players according to what the market will bear. I don’t know what value the market will place on a player. I was just pointing out it MIGHT be less than a full scholarship.
Again, I don’t oppose player compensation. What emotions dressed up in economic theory are you talking about?
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If the market says the third string tackle at School A isn’t worth compensating, but that same kid going to School B would be, then the kid would have a choice, just like in the real world.
Let’s not forget we’re already in a world of walk-on and Division-III players who don’t receive compensation for being on a football team. It’s not exactly an alien concept.
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Legalizing an unfettered signing day quid pro quo is different.
Conclusively stating that economic arguments are bullshit does not make them bullshit. This is like the politicos that start every debate with the forced assumption that Donald Trump is a white supremacist.
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Are you objecting to a kid getting paid what he’s worth, or to who’s doing the paying?
I’m not exactly going out on a limb challenging someone’s economic theory that begins with “market”.
Again, let me know if you’re willing to live by the same rules you’re willing to apply to student-athletes.
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I’m wholly against the University being on the hook for anything more than a generous college allowance. I’m against third party payments / endorsements that don’t fund themselves (i.e. paid simply to sign=bad; paid for jersey sales=ok).
The second, I will concede, could be construed as selfishly favoring the big bad institution. But the University is on the hook for a myriad of obligations, some legal (title ix, tax code, etc), some goodwill, that make the staggering revenues not as prolific as they appear. It is not inconceivable to say that the institution would risk capital improvement donations allocated for projects because they were diverted towards signing a player. If you can’t see how that could cause a gigantic ripple effect that threatens the whole enterprise, particularly in an era where many think we are witnessing peak media contracts, we can agree to disagree.
I don’t know how fancy a new indoor football facility needs to be or not be. But crumbling infrastructure and a cow with no milk is not a good look even if the star tailback is getting a $5,000 handshake. But that’s not my position to clarify, that’s yours.
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You make a host of assumptions here, and then expect me to respond to them as if they’re facts on the ground.
All I will say in response is that nobody is holding a gun to the head of college administrators. If schools don’t want to pay players, nobody will make them do so.
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I’m getting a little confused on who is replying to whom. ( Did I say that right?). The reply button is not below every comment.
Let me try again. I agree that players should be compensated according to the invisible hand of the free market. I was just pointing out that some players MIGHT be worse off under that system if said system values them at less than a full scholarship. I have no problem with that. It’s the free market at work.
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Why is the free market just assumed to be the right way for the fish bowl that is college and college athletics ? Congress certainly didn’t see it that way when they enacted Title IX. But Title IX sure did wonderful things for Maria Taylor, who undoubtedly would not be working for ESPN if she had had the extra-curricular offerings of her Foremothers…..which have been described as “ballroom dancing and cheerleading.”
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What does Title IX have to do with a player not being allowed to control the value of his name, likeness and image?
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It would be more constructive and help temper the extremes driving the debate if we simply discussed a middle ground approach to help, at the very least, the scholarship athlete in revenue sports. A weekly stipend – a flat amount uniform for all players – and, for whose number/name/likeness is used in merchandising, a percentage royalty paid into a trust account for that player payable upon conclusion OCBC eligibility. The salary talk is unrealistic in nearly every respect – not the least of which is team esprit de corps from star QB to 3rd string lineman.
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I’ve never understood why a player is prohibited from some percentage of revenue from sales of his “Fathead” or other likeness item. In uniform, the school would receive something, too. I’m not the first to think of that, am I?
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How would you go about fashioning your middle ground approach?
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Won’t be easy given the limited authority and competence of the NCAA, penchant of the conferences to avoid uniformity of rules governing member schools, tendency of large programs to seek a competitive edge (COA and fuzzy math), and the politics of spending and revenues. However, it’s worth embarking on the journey for the sake of some near-term help for the athlete-student. The grandstanding on the extremes of the issue makes for lively discussion but isnt actionable or responsive in reality.
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Not trying to be overly snarky here, but you might want to revise that if Kessler wins his lawsuit.
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Approaching this from the standpoint of a lawyer, why can’t that case bee the means to settle this issue via a mediation or settlement negotiations?
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BWHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH… oh, wait, you were serious about that.
The NCAA won’t settle anything unless (1) Kessler wins in court and (2) Congress can’t be convinced to grant an antitrust exemption.
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I agree with the premise of this article. I think what people on the other side fail to realize is that at the heart of their argument is maximizing the gain of the 2% (who are going to make a bundle after college) to the detriment of the 98% that will desperately need every advantage their scholarship affords them.
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Why do you assume it’s the other kids who will be affected? Why not things like $10,000 lockers or $20 million bonuses to administrators?
For that matter, how does Nike giving Johnny Football or Todd Gurley a big endorsement contract affect anyone else?
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“Why do you assume it’s the other kids who will be affected? Why not things like $10,000 lockers or $20 million bonuses to administrators?”
We can debate what a locker should cost. What is not debatable is that those lockers are for every player. Unless, of course you believe that the “Star” players are entitled to the $10,000 locker and the other 98% or less on some teams, can have a coat hook and a shoe box?
For that matter, how does Nike giving Johnny Football or Todd Gurley a big endorsement contract affect anyone else? From my perspective these two or any other “star” player would not be much without the other 10 members of the offense. I was taught on a team that you win together and lose together. There seems something wrong with someone outside that team assigning value on an individual basis. In the NFL when it’s all about the individual and that is your chosen occupation then go for it. But when you”re playing for something bigger than yourself then it seems inappropriate.
All of us can disagree about TV money, administrators bonuses, and other perceived extravagances. But, those things are destined to be cyclical like most everything else. Do you really see those things staying at their peak as they are currently? If not what happens when they go south?
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The key word to your argument is “entitled”. You’ve made a moral judgment that it’s wrong to pay players. That’s certainly your prerogative. It’s just that you wind up heading into economic arguments that make no sense, like this:
Pro athletes aren’t being paid to win championships? Go figure.
If you’d just stick with the essence here — “I don’t believe student-athletes should be paid, period” — I wouldn’t have anything to say in response. It’s the rationalizing that gets my hackles up.
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I see his point. The problems with 3rd party endorsements is that they necessarily favor skill position players. But in the NFL, the organization is still paying the left tackle a dump truck full of money. Colleges cannot afford to do that.
Now, what I could support is SPLITTING Todd Gurley’s jersey endorsements evenly with every offensive player on scholarship. Would you have a problem with that ?
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Why do student-athletes have to be treated differently than every other American? Why do you think it’s acceptable to impose restrictions on them that you’d never accept for yourself?
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As to this^^example: Because Todd Gurley is being given a platform he didn’t build and the help of fellow student athletes (namely his O-Line) for which a market compensating them for the job they do does not, will not and cannot exist under any metric.
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You might as well say that about every movie star, too. If there weren’t a director and a cameraman, how could the market compensate them properly?
The market rewards scarcity. There aren’t many Todd Gurleys out there, which is why he gets the big bucks.
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By the way, isn’t the logical extension of your argument that coaches should share their compensation with their players?
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Your line of thinking here tends to lean toward my position where the issue is that professional athletes in football, baseball, and basketball are grossly over compensated and unjustly compensated. In my life experience, I get paid for what I know, which is a specific skill set. On the surface it seems to parallel pro athletes. The kink in the system is when one throws out the word TEAM. Team is socialist, communist, everything you, as a free market guy, stands to oppose. Amirite?
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I don’t think that.
In a society that puts a premium on entertainment, star athletes get paid accordingly.
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