I’ve asked this question a couple of times in the comments and been ignored, so I thought, what the hell, I’d make it the subject of a post. (I ask in good faith, not rhetorically or snarkily.)
Here goes: those of you who think that football and basketball players are fairly compensated under the current NCAA amateurism protocol, what exactly worries you about the free market? After all, if they’re already getting what they’re worth, won’t an open market simply validate that?
Occam’s razor would suggest otherwise — why screw with a cartel if you don’t need to? — but I’m legitimately curious to hear your logic. The floor is yours in the comments section.
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UPDATE: Those of you who have trouble figuring out how compensation would be valued in an open market ought to read this.
Get The Picture 
Make your question about athlete compensation and then we’ll get started. You can’t limit compensation to basketball and football in our title IX world.
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Each athlete gets negotiates his (or her) own “compensation” package regardless of sport. One person may take more cash and be willing to pay some of his or her own expenses. Some may want the full ride of education instead of cash. Another may want flexibility in the terms of their transfer in exchange for either. They all want the ability to trade on name and likeness. A free and fair market finds a way for it to work out.
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Ah, Title IX. Everyone’s favorite barrier to paying players.
Title IX doesn’t impact what non-school parties pay for players’ NLIs. As for the rest of it, schools will have their lawyers figure out what compliance requires, have their bean counters figure out what they can afford to pay and then they’ll go from there.
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and a liability waiver waves all liability from a business…….
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An open/free market would destroy college basketball. Let’s start with the institutions. The lack of discipline and the push to ‘buy’ National Championships would be out of control. Do not believe it? The NFL, NBA and MLB have put in salary caps. Why? Because they know that they would not be able to control at least a ‘select’ group of owners from spending the league out of business. And this is with 32 teams in the NFL, 30 in the NBA and MLB. There are 347 Division 1 teams – good luck. And would this ‘stop’ under the table payments, favors? I think it would actually increase it. With that said, many of these kids are from poor families and a LOT of the rule breaking is over small amounts of money. $1,000 a month on top of travel allotment home and back and some for family as well. Will it stop it? No, but it will cut a large percentage of this out and then better define what ‘real’ cheating is.
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I’m not asking if you believe an open market would be bad for the college game. I’m asking if you think the players are already receiving fair market compensation. Apparently you think at least some aren’t.
Control is not as big a worry as you suggest. First of all, unlike the situation in the pros, the courts recognize that there is competition between the conferences. I suspect there wouldn’t be a legal problem if, say, the SEC wanted to impose a limit on player compensation. The other way to go about putting a cap in place would be to allow student-athletes to unionize and then agree to a salary cap in a negotiated agreement.
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No I do not think that a scholarship is enough compensation for some players. I agree with others i have read on here that a full blown free market would ruin colloge football (basketball is already gone in my opinion).
One of the problems is determining which players are compensated the most. The 3rd string QB shouldn’t get the same as the starting QB. But should the #1 Equestrian Rider get paid more than the 3rd string QB since football is the subsidy for almost all other sports? I like the stipend idea. It should be a set amount rather you lived 5 miles from the school or 500 miles from the school. If you gave every student athlete $500 a month that would be $6000 a year. Then by the time you factor in free room, free food, free education, and free medical that would come put to quite a bit.
When i was in the Army, they use to send you this report every year showing what you made with your base pay, then what you supposedly made with all the other things (housing, medical/dental, and so forth) added in.
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With regard to your last paragraph, It’s called a “Burdened” rate. The actual fiscal cost of your service, it does not take into consideration what value you receive from your experience moving forward or the marketability that you gain from said service. However, the cost is real to your employer and must be considered as to your “worth” as a member of the organization. That being said, as an employer I always look favorably on those with military experience because of the intrinsic values they gain even if it as simple as being where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there. Thank you for your service.
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$1,000 per month? Why not $5,000 per month or $100,000 per month?
Price fixing never works, and guess why they do it in the pro sports? Because they have a CBA between the owners and the players, that little thing called a draft where the incoming players have pretty much no say in where they end up. How are you going to do that at the college level?
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College players would love to be cpensated under the NFL, NBA and MLB models. Why? Because the caps ate the produce of collective bargaining. The players compensation pool is a percentage of revenues, roughly a 50-50 split. I am are the UGA athletes would love to do that.
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I think the athletes should be compensated. While I agree the education expenses are a great inducement to play, they should get some of the money they are generating. I do worry that if it is a free agent type market many schools would be shut out. Should the compensation be governed by the money the sport brings in?
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I am in favor of giving college athlete’s a useful but not gaudy stipend.
That said, NCDawg’s point reinforces my feelings..It could be a Pandora’s Box that we would regret having opened.
Many ins and outs to the idea that need to be explored and thought out.
In other words, it has to be done right or there will be unintended and unfortunate consequences as well as fortunate consequences.
There will need to be a lot of study and thinking done to get it right, because once you let it out of the box it’s never going back in.
One of the first suggestions I would make it to say the schools don’t pay the athletes directly. They would be paid from a fund handled by an independent association or agency. Each school would pay into it, a surcharge on all college athletic events would be added…to go to the paying agency. Television would pay into it. Anyone making a buck off of college athletics would pay into it…vendors..City of Atlanta, Jax, and others, advertisors, etc.
Schools would be prohibited from paying an athlete anything directly…for obvious reasons.
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Again, that’s not a response to the question I’m asking. Do you believe that current player compensation accurately reflects their market worth?
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No, it does not reflect their true value.
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Who is the market maker? The NFL? When you ask if the players are compensated fairly and market centric, that would imply there is a median value. Who has determined that value?
My response to your query is yes. But I believe they are deserving of any capital that their likeness or name generates.
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Who is the market maker? The employer who strokes the check, of course, whether that’s a school obtaining a player’s services or an advertiser paying for the player’s endorsement.
Again, a robust black market suggests at least some folks aren’t have a problem with determining value.
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I hope this doesn’t come across as snarky or snide — but I would like your opinion. Doesn’t the existence of a black market support the idea a free market already exists? (or at the very least, free market concepts)
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The invisible hand of the free market always finds a way … whether that’s organized crime selling smuggled cigarettes from the back of a truck, a Venezuelan grocer selling bread at the back door of his store, a Heisman candidate tailback who signs autographs in the back of someone’s car, or a gift that puts a steeple on a prospect’s father’s church.
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Did you think there was a free market during Prohibition?
Black markets serve to drive up costs, because the product you’re bidding for is prohibited.
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I think you might have it backwards. Prohibited markets drive up the cost, black markets supply the demand. The elasticity of the market drives the price.
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There’s a cost associated with the risk of supplying something prohibited that disappears in an open market.
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No doubt. The assumption is an open market exists. (I would struggle to find a product available in a true open market). If the premise holds true, there would still be controls/regulations which would govern. I would speculate there would still be a black market albeit significantly reduced.
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“The assumption is an open market exists.” Dude I’ve never heard of bread or milk being sold in the black market in this country, this is not a debate on whether a PERFECT open market exists!
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No. Not even close. And some kids play for four years and never graduate or go pro.
It’s a billion dollar show and the actors are getting stiffed.
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My first thought? In a word: No.
Sony Michel’s or Roquan Smith’s name/ number recognition is much greater than, say, the starting tailback at Furman or the starting QB at Georgia State. All four have basically the same compensation package. By that line of reasoning some are “paid” fairly and some are not. However, if you want to play in the NFL or NBA, you will have to serve some sort of internship with the NCAA. In that respect yes, they are. Even if “Fair” in this case means “You all make the same” if you are to have the opportunity to play at the next level.
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No nor do I think Grad students doing research for the University are receiving their market worth.
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Senator, actually you asked “what worries us about the free market”.
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Read the question in its entirety, please.
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What would compensation be based on? Performance? Upside? Stars? How the coaches perceive a player? Sales of memorabilia? Would it be a 4 year, 3 year, or 1 year contract. Could a player leave after one year? Would athletes move when not played because someone is better? Would their money then be renegotiated for the following year? How many lawsuits would come out of disgruntled players/parents?
A Pandora’s box gets opened.
This would ruin college sports for me. Notice the qualifier, FOR ME. Not saying for all. When pro sports went to free agency, that was it for me. And I see compensation doing the same with college sports.
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What is your compensation based on?
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Retired, past performance. When I worked, performance. You make my point.
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Your compensation was set by market forces, not just how you performed, but how folks with your skill set were paid in general.
My point being players will be paid based on their perceived value, wherever that may come from. As somebody else already pointed out in this thread, we’ve received evidence of a black market in recruiting. You think the coaches involved have any question about calculating a recruit’s worth?
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You think a Pandora’s box will not be opened? Of course, the market will determine the pay. Just as in coaches salaries. Look where they are now. Free agency will be just around the corner. Coaches can leave for more money, why not players. Lets make it fair to all. A complete PC society. The players are now getting some additional compensation based on how each school determines its value. I am not saying don’t pay players, but what will happen when it is opened up to a free for all amongst the schools and players. Going to be a mess. And, for me, college sports will lose its appeal.
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I’m not asking your opinion about whether it will be messy. I’m asking if you think players are already being fairly compensated in a free-market sense.
I’m guessing from your comment that you don’t think so.
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I’m guilty too, but we should have a drinking game with “Pandora’s Box” being the trigger for another shot of hootch.
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Man, that’s all I need, an entire comments section of wasted folks. 😉
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10+ years in and you haven’t realized that’s what you have?
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Aw hell Bluto, It’ll be just like game day. 🙂
I’m in!
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Wasn’t you initial question “what exactly worries you about the free market ?” He answers that a fear of Pandora’s Box leading to a multitude of unintended consequences.
Why do you dismiss that as a valid answer to your first question and then move the goal posts to your line of questioning as if that is irrelevant ?
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If the answer is, “no, they’re not being paid what they would get in a free market setting and that worries me”, I’m cool with that. But trying to argue that they’re already getting what they would and that there would be trouble isn’t logical. So which is it?
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The current rules exist to try to prevent “purchasing” recruits to stack a team. Notice I said try. And no I do not think current “compensation” is fair. Suggest a graduation “award” based on market value provided during time in school determined by a set formula like revenue generated by your sport times a performance factor
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Here’s what the NCAA says about amateurism:
I don’t see a word in there about stacking.
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In a free market sense, no they are not. If a free market existed, I could see a vast reduction in the number of college sports teams.
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Football and basketball Players receive more than adequate compensation for their services. If they didn’t there would be a black market for their services and members of the ncaa cartel (thr schools) would and would be incentiveized to cheat on said cartel in the black market. Oh wait that’s exactly what’s going on and last I checked it hasn’t destroyed college athletics.
If you support amateurism you support socialism. Literally. Amateurism stands against all principles of meritocracy, individual freedom, and free markets.
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Then lets have the Home Depot Georgia Bulldogs/Falcons. A farm team.
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TnDawg, college football is clearly already a free farm system for the NFL (just without direct pro-team associations). I see from your posts so far that you must have strong emotional ties to the “student-athlete” concept, but you just aren’t making logical sense in defending it.
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No, but it’s also not exactly free to compel an entity in the education business to enter the semi-professional sports business. What he is saying is that if the player truly brought the value-added metric, then we probably wouldn’t be fighting about this…..if it were such a no-brainer that these people were being undercompensated then there would be a minor league for it.
Why is it the University of Georgia’s problem that they have created such a successful brand in the non-profit industry ? When the local Junior League really kills it at their Christmas sale, does my wife ask for a bump over her $0 because of all the time she put in ? Did my wife really create that financial bump or was it because little old ladies have been going to the Junior League Christmas sale for 3 generations ? Is anyone in fact making my wife participate and volunteer her time ?
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So why is money passing under the table from schools to recruits now?
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Why is that money not passing to athletes from a pro farm system?
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Er… what pro farm team?
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The pro farm system that an entrepreneur could make money off of by exploiting the salary arbitrage created by athletes not being adequately compensated by the present system.
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Because the NFL and the NBA use collegiate teams as a de facto farm system. If it’s free now what makes you think those two leagues want to pay for it?
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Kind of the old “Free milk” thing, huh?
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This is not entirely true. There have been attempts at semi-pro teams that would accept high school graduates. There is Canada. There are lots of arena teams that pay upwards of $80k a year. You could sign with an agent, get a large advance, and then train for three years. Despite these options, young men choose overwhelmingly to pursue a university education and play football as amateurs. People don’t want to admit it, but the name of the front of the jersey matters. If there were no athletic scholarships, I’d still love UGA football and I would cheer for its players, even if they lacked the skill of scholarship athletes. This doesn’t answer the question “if athletes compensation is fair, why are there payments of impermissible benefits”? This is a red herring. The payments are made by rulebreakers seeking a competitive advantage. If I accept a job as a statistician tracking plays for UGA, and I accept a salary of $60,000 per year, then I accept a $50,000 payment from Alabama in exchange for offering up the UGA playbook, my market value isn’t $110,000–I’m simply a shrew and Alabama is willing to cheat to win. The young man who decides to play college football has made a choice that a scholarship is “fair compensation” in light of available alternatives. If not, he can pursue any of the options listed above. Given that so few choose another option, it seems that the overwhelming majority of young men deem athletic scholarships as fair compensation for their services.
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Excellent post Thomas. A free market already exists.
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Obviously an open market bid for recruits or players would result in higher compensation for some players than just the standard scholarship package. I don’t know that anyone argues that this isn’t the case. Whether or not it’s a good thing or viable in college football is the issue.
Also, it’s hard to have anything truly “free market” involving public universities that receive state funding, tuitions paid with lotteries or govt sponsored loans and operate tax free. As we’ve seen with coaching salaries there are no limits other than the discretion of their leadership to what they’re able to pay. A bidding war for recruits would be ridiculous and really boil down to a small number of teams competing annually with everyone else on the outside looking in.
And before “we have that now” pops up – we do but the teams at the top change over time based on a number of factors….not just money.
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In readin above I guess some WOULD argue that players would not receive more under an open market.
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I truly love this paragraph.
Your second sentence contradicts your first one.
Your third sentence would result in what, exactly? That the biggest and most well-off programs would have a significant advantage attracting recruits? Gosh, what a sea change from what we’ve got now. (Yes, I saw your disclaimer at the end, but how would that be any different from, say, a T. Boone Pickens deciding to throw a bunch of money in the pot to make his school a big player in recruiting?)
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Maybe I wasnt clear. I think that the salaries we see for coaching and facilities have been inflated DUE to the unique funding and advantages held by public universities. The second sentence is an example of the first – not a contradiction. Or at least I don’t think it is.
Is recruiting success due strictly to the amount of $$ you have to throw around? I would argue UGA did pretty good the last two years because of a coaching change and success on the field. We definitely don’t have the #1 budget to go with our #1 class. Change this to a bid for recruits and t flips the tables on everything. Maybe the reason T Boone isn’t pumping $100M in the program is he knows that money will only take them so far.
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I tell you – being able to pay players is what will finally push down on their luck programs like Alabama, Ohio State, and Texas over the top compared to their lack of historical success since they have the most money to spend.
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Look at the last 10 yrs of CFB Champs. They’re not all teams that spent the most money. Many are – but not all.
I mean that is if you’re trying to actually have a conversation about spending vs success and not just playing the “whatabout” game to try and win the internet.
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The last ten national champions…Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Alabama, Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, and Alabama. This chart is a couple of years old, but every single school that has either won or played for a national title in the last 10 years is in that upper right quadrant of spending. Now…there’s an argument to be made about efficiency of said spending, but winning at the highest level seems to correlate very highly with spending money at the highest level, too.
It is incredibly rare that a school that isn’t already a part of the blue blood pecking order actually breaks through anymore. The only examples I can think of over the last 40 years are Florida State and Oregon, which now spend like drunken sailors on shore leave. Dumping over the table money into the equation isn’t going to fundamentally change the power structure of the sport from how it currently exists. It likely will just reinforce it and make it harder for another Oregon to show up in the next 30 years.
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I think getting a free education worth tens of thousands of dollars is enough compensation. Now, I do believe that they should be able to market themselves by selling autographs and the like. But I don’t believe a school should pay them to play in addition to giving them a scholarship.
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I get your personal valuation. I’m asking if you believe the free market would value every player’s services the same way.
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The best way to test this is to allow colleges to continue compensation as it is now (free education, food, small stipends, etc.) and simultaneously form a professional farm league for players who do not wish to attend college. Those players would be compensated according to their free market value to the team. If college players are seriously under compensated, there should be a vast influx of talent into the farm league, providing a significantly better product for fans to view. So if you believe that, there’s a huge money making opportunity out there for you. Let the market decide.
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No, every players services should not be valued the same way.
Wouldn’t schools with larger budgets simply be able to pay more for higher tiered athletes than smaller schools? If recruiting is already hard for smaller schools with limited budgets/coaches, it would be even more of a mountain to climb for them to have to pay players in order for them to attract any.
Secondly, aren’t we setting up a “race to the top” type of deal if we are paying players. School A can pay this, School B pays more than School A, and School C pays more than all of them. Without salary caps this will lead to the same issues that we are seeing with football coaches salaries.
It seems to me, that is makes better “sense” to allow players to milk the market themselves. They can sell rings, jerseys, host clinics, go and do speaking events, etc… during the offseason. There is plenty of money to be made for top tier athletes if they are allowed to market themselves. It’s dumb that they can’t do this already.
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I feel pretty certain that if the NCAA loses the antitrust cases, salary caps will be right around the corner.
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That has already happened with facilities and coaching and analyst staffs paying athletes would not change it.
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“I think getting a free education worth tens of thousands of dollars is enough compensation.”
Ok, great, that is your point of view. But do you feel we should restrict players on earning additional money because based on this point of view, or are you ok with opening up the free market? Also, let’s not forget that, for many if not most of these players, the education they are a getting is a joke, which certainly does not prepare them for a career after football. When a large % of the team are in majors like Housing and Child/Family Development, all while pressured not to select more rigorous majors like Business that will demand more of their time academically, please save me this ‘they are getting a free education’ nonsense.
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I’m fine with players selling themselves. If they want to get on social media and hold “signing days” where they sell their autograph paraphernalia then they should be able to. If they want to host camps during the summer and charge for coaching, rock on as well. If they want to sell rings on eBay, be my guest. However, my issues are:
When we say “free market” who is paying them? Are they getting proceeds from ticket sales/concession sales? Are the schools paying them as an employee and deducting for taxes?
If its a “free market” does this also mean there are no salary caps? Does this also mean a race to the top for elite player’s salaries like we are seeing for coaches. Also, won’t larger schools with massive budgets like Bama/UGA be able to pay more for better players than say Miss St or Vandy?
If the answer is “Yes” to any of those questions I guess I’m against “free market”.
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You are fine with players selling autographs but want a cap on how much a player gets for selling autographs? How do you do that?
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In what field? With a degree that is only there to keep them academically eligible?At the least the school needs to give a lifetime medical coverage. Q
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Today in where monetary compensation is of greater value than education
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It’s not of greater value, but if a kid can get paid for his good looks and winning smile, let em. He won’t always have people throwing money at him.
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I agree and I used to disagree. I previously only looked at compensation through the school provided NCAA sanctioned prism. Detaching NLI compensation from the schools is what changes my opinion
I don’t want the schools or NCAA involved at all b/c it would be another way they fleece the athletes.
For me, if Brack Rowe Chevrolet wants to put Fromm on a billboard and pay him 50K, I’m all for it. Yes, I’m aware that Little Sisters of the Poor U doesn’t have the fans or market that can do that but life is unfair and punishing Fromm does not make Little Sisters U any better.
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This. And this again.
Having spent many moons in rural (spell that “underprivileged”) areas, why can’t local businesses support the hometown hero?
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To answer your question. I think some players are receiving fair market value, some are receiving less and some are receiving more right now.
To go on though, how many of us, including the Senator, have been busting the chops of UGA over ticket price increases. Just imagine the increase over the years to pay players.
The argument coming is about non-school party payment. Look at ESPN and Disney and other outside outlets. That money is drying up too. I could go on and on but I have to get back to work.
Have a great day with this guys and gals!
Peace out. Be back to read later.
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I don’t know the answer (well, the answer to your question is: it depends. The compensation, if you will, that the eventual number 1 NBA draft choice receives is clearly not reflective of his “market worth,” while the 15th guy at the end of the bench possibly gets more than his strict “market worth.” Now, how you scale the compensation from 1-15, or 1-85? Beats me. And, while I admire the ease with which you swat away the inconvenient factor of Title IX, which I admit I am not an expert on, I suspect the old issue of “equivalent expenditures” is going to get a thorough vetting in the courts. It’s the unknown unknowns that get you in the end, n’est pas? 🙂
I guess I should just be glad to see you belatedly hop on the bandwagon of the free market, laissez faire approach to capitalism.
Seems to me the problem is we’ve grafted a semi-capitalistic approach on what was designed as a quaint amateur system. The suits in the executive suites and the athletic department gleefully take the increased tv money, merchandising money, ticket money, but it probably never occurred to them that all that money might not end up going someplace other than where it always went, ie, to them. This was fine (and kind of socialistic) when it was a relatively small amount of money being spread across the athletic program. From each according to his ability to each according to his (or her, thanks Title IX!) need. So, revenue generated didn’t matter program to program, especially with Title IX (which I take it is perfectly fine), but nowwwwwwwwwwwww, there is more cash at the window, and suddenly the players in the revenue sports want a piece of the action.
In a strict Adam Smith sense, it makes sense, but college athletics was not designed to be a mini-NFL. It has grown towards the sunlight, I guess, but the question is can it keep going toward a pro model, or is it about to get so unwieldy that it’s time to prune it way back? I don’t care for the pro model, and nobody really wants to go back to “see who shows up the first day of school and tries out,” but where is the middle ground? Heck if I know.
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“Belatedly”? Seriously? I’ve been on this bandwagon for a while.
I’m not finessing the Title IX question away, I’m merely pointing out that it’s not the conveniently insurmountable barrier opponents of the free market suggest it is. Schools will pay what they can afford to pay. It’s what they do.
And the idea that “suddenly the players in the revenue sports want a piece of the action” is laughable. There’s been money flowing under the table to recruits and street agents as long as I can remember. The only difference now is the order of magnitude.
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agree you’ve been on the “pay college athletes FMV for a while.” it was more of a gentle gibe to see that this train you are on, pure market capitalism, seems to be somewhat at odds with some of your world views. No harm intended, I may be (as accused by some law school professors) too clever by half.
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I am a classical liberal. My BA degree is in Econ from UVa, which was firmly in the Chicago School when I was there. Adam Smith wrote the Bible, as far as I’m concerned, but even he realized that free markets can’t solve everything. That doesn’t make him a socialist, either.
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I am pretty sure I didn’t call Adam Smith a socialist. or anyone except maybe the NCAA. I’m not shocked by the revelation that you are a liberal (gasp), which I understand is not quite the same thing, but I didn’t go to UVA, so perhaps my views lack a certain nuance. Clearly, I have nothing to add to the discussion, so pardon me for my observations. I will leave you with an economics joke: If you laid all the economists in the world end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.
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Didn’t say you called Smith anything. Just making a rhetorical point, which I assume is what you were doing, too.
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The University of Chicago bailed out of college football years ago when they couldn’t figure out the academics versus athletics conundrum. The guy who did it foresaw what we currently have now with uber-powerful athletic departments meddling in academics, looking at you, Auburn. A founding member of the Big-10 bailed. Prescient.
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I’m not a big CBB guy at all, but Gary Parrish nails it in his weekend column and is a must read, which certainly applies to football as well: https://t.co/2J4ceAzDdQ
To answer your question, nothing worries me about the free agent market, and athletes should be able to seek compensation for their value. If a 14 year old singer on The Voice/America’s Got Talent or 18 year old baseball player can sign garner millions for their likeness, then surely a top shelf bball or football talent should be able to do the same. Besides, the days of Vince Dooley making 140K a year, $14 per game ticket prices, and 2-3 televised games yearly are long gone, so please save me this nonsense about how we players shouldn’t earn money now because players of yesteryear weren’t able to do the same.
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I believe the very premise of the question is wrong. When the NFL negotiates with individuals or unions they are doing so with their own money. That would not be the case here. Any cost that the revenue from athletics is now covering would have to be made up by taxpayers who do not have even a seat at the table. Unless of course you believe paying players equals more revenue.
Lastly the athletes in totality are receiving more than a fair compensation for what they bring to the table. Were it not for athletics many would not be able to get into their chosen institution much less get a degree. I submit the market is as fair and free as is reasonably and responsibly wise.
So I ask you what would be the process and result of what you believe to be the proper path forward?
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So how is your reasoning distinguished from what schools pay athletic administrators and coaches? Or spending multi-millions on ever more opulent facilities to attract recruits?
You are trying to have it both ways here. If things are truly fair and free, as you start with, then how would a true free market change things?
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“So how is your reasoning distinguished from what schools pay athletic administrators and coaches? Or spending multi-millions on ever more opulent facilities to attract recruits?”
The athletes benefit from both do they not?
” You are trying to have it both ways here. If things are truly fair and free, as you start with, then how would a true free market change things?”
You left out the last part. The [as is reasonably and responsibly wise] part.
Also please answer the “So I ask you what would be the process and result of what you believe to be the proper path forward?” question. I really want to know. Maybe you have thought of something I haven’t
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They’d benefit from a pay check, too.
Which part of “having it both ways” didn’t you get?
The process and result isn’t relevant to my question, but if you’re dying to know, watch the antitrust lawsuits, because the NCAA isn’t going to do anything until it loses.
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Need to break it down more. For the football starters no. For bench warmers, yes. For any sport where their likeness brings marketing dollars, no. Should they be able to cash in on likeness yes. Should they get paid more for suiting up when they have books & tuition housing, medical care, tutoring, nutritionists, concussion drs, mopeds, insurance policies, or any resources that the academic only scholarship students have but they can go pro and become millionaires in 1-3 years? Tough to say. Keep in mind, basketball players that are 1 and done don’t necessarily drive a staying brand with their school. Can you name one Kentucky player over the last 5 years?
Lots to be sorted out……
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Oh boy… I almost hate to even get into this conversation because of the wide variety of opinions. It’s almost as bad as the gun control debate.
But I do think I have a very simple resolution to your question that will NOT destroy the game. But first I’ll answer your question, yes… and no.
Wait what?
No one had this altruistic look at this until the coaches started earning obscene money. So I think we still have to look at this as two separate situations. Yes coaches salaries are basically out of control but so far there hasn’t come a tipping point but there will. Players are being taken advantage of to an extent, but not entirely.
Every scholarship player gets something I didn’t when I went to UGA. A quarter-million dollar education, room and board, meals, even tutoring for free. On the 17th of every month my student loan payment is still drafted from my checking account– I’m 41 years old. Sony Michel will never have to write that check nor should he.
But there is still a way to reward players like Sony who separate themselves over the course of their careers on campus that the free market would support and even control it under the NCAA rules. Allow the players to profit on their own likeness to a point.
Players jerseys are sold everyday in the on campus bookstore, books, pictures, signed helmets, you name it. They could attend athletic department sponsored and controlled autograph signings, photo ops and so on. Anything with that players likeness on it should have some reasonable percentage (15-25%?) stowed away in an escrow account until he or she has exhausted their collegiate eligibility at which time they could withdraw all monies still accrued with interest. In the meantime I would allow measured withdrawals monthly from the account assuming it had funds available. Couple hundred bucks or so.
Remember college kids are supposed to struggle at least a little bit, it builds character. If AJ Green or Todd Gurley would have had access to a couple hundred extra bucks a month they likely wouldn’t have done it “illegally”. But the flipside is if they had access to a couple hundred grand I don’t think they’re mature enough to handle that either. Just look at what happens to NFL rookies.
But in this model the better players are rewarded commensurate with what can be generated on the market. An open market would just destroy the game which may not bother some people. But it’s not something I would ever support. I agree that players are being taken advantage of to some degree but I’ll stop way short of acting like they’re slaves. They get to do something few of us ever get to do and if they’re smart they leave the place debt free unlike me. I still think that’s worth way more than we give it credit for.
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This is where I suspect most of the “they’re already being compensated fairly” folks are coming from. The catch is that when you were in college, nobody wanted to buy a season ticket to watch you perform. 😉
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I was in Hal’s camp at one time … AJ and especially TG3II turned me completely in the other direction.
Is the 4-year college education worth something? Yes. Is it sufficient for a number of student-athletes across all sports? Yes. Is it insufficient for some? Also yes.
For all of those who talk about how this is going to sink college athletics as we know it, most of the sports (outside football and basketball) have to offer partial athletic scholarships to their student-athletes. They aren’t getting a free ride now. Nothing likely changes for any of them.
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Agreed, but isn’t that the fundamental basis for the discussion. They are paying to watch Sony play, and Sony is getting something invaluable in return. What we are quibbling over and trying to establish is “is he getting enough” right? I think we both agree that he isn’t. So I think mine is a common sense approach that doesn’t require recreating the wheel.
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I’ll give you the room and board part – but remember that these athletes were not allowed to earn additional money, whereas you and I are. Not sure about your UGA experience, but my tuition was paid for by the hope grant, and I worked both during school and in the summer to pay for housing, food, BEER, etc. In the end, I graduated from UGA with exactly $0 in loans or debt.
As for the education piece, again many of these athletes are pushed into utter joke of majors, and thus leave UGA with a pointless piece of paper that is not transferable in the real world. At the same time, some athletes who want to take on a more challenging major like business are pressured not to, given the commitment involved, and again guided towards easier majors like Housing, Communication, etc.
I’ve told this story before, but my wife used to work with UGA athletes back in the mid 00’s (’06-09) in the area of career placement, and the stories she shared with me were both shocking and sad. Many football players in particular were being churned through with these pointless Housing and Child/Family Dev. majors, and simply put they were not prepared for the transition to the workforce. It was also her strong view that they garnered little from their major/studies at the time also.
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I’ve heard this about them not being allowed to earn additional money and it’s a misnomer. They are allowed to work and most do. D.J. Shockley waited on me once when he was a waiter at the campus hotel dining room.
Agree that there’s a ton of bullshit going on as well but that wasn’t the question posed.
Are they compensated enough? No. But we absolutely need to be very thoughtful when we decide how to break that barrier.
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Regardless of whether athletes can work – most can’t as there simply is little/no time, I’d like for you to address the education component of this, which IMO is critical. As mentioned, many, if not most football players are in these rather pointless majors, in which many classes require 1-2 written or verbal exams, and that’s it. Certainly you know full well that they are not getting anywhere near the quality of education that you and I did in our respective, chosen majors with an end goal in mind.
My niece is a current rack and field athlete at an ACC school with very good academics, and even she was pressured by both her coaches and councilor to not pursue Biology, but to instead choose a major that would be less rigorous so she could focus on athletics. Now, if a female T&F athlete, with a 3.8 high school GPA at an esteemed academic institution is pressured to choose an easy major, I can only imagine how many other athletes are literally herded into majors that require little effort with little redeeming value.
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@3rdandGrantham those are valid concerns. But honestly they weren’t the basis for this discussion. But since you asked… Let’s be honest, brutally so here for a minute, a good number of the kids you’re talking about wouldn’t make it through biology so yea I’m sure that there are courses made up just to help ease their academic burden. This could turn into an entirely different discussion but since you asked, again if we’re brutally honest a high percentage of these kids belong nowhere near a college campus if all we’re going to talk about are academics. It’s a bit naive to think these guys are going for an education. For a good many of them the education that they do end up getting is a side product of being in college. A place that were it not for their god given talent they would have never had a shot at in the first place. They come because they all think they’re going to make the league some day. And if by chance they get an education along the way then fine. Is that true for all kids on scolly? No of course not. I’m sure it’s not true for your niece who sounds like she’s very intelligent. But nothing is true about everyone. Bottom line is if they didn’t “make” some of these guys take some of these courses they wouldn’t remain eligible anyway and would end up not playing and not graduating with anything. So I don’t know what the right answer there is.
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First, I think many of the rules the NCAA enforces on students making money are ridiculous. But in a very broad sense my objections are purely selfish. I see the pro game and paid players and I honestly don’t enjoy it as much. I have no interest in minor league professional sports, so exactly why would I want another one. My thoughts are that a totally free market system (which NO professional sport has) might be ok. The chaos would really be the sport. In that real free market only binding contracts with individuals would hold things together. The argument for a free market really is an argument for a “more” free market. But the entire discussion becomes like a political one. I believe XYZ so the reality is never considered. But I bet you get some long posts. Lol
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How free do you want that market to be? If a guy can’t fulfill his end of the contract due to injury, can he be cut loose? If someone outperforms his salary or signing bonus, can he renegotiate his deal? Can players freely be hired away by a higher bidder?
Are the players still to be held to academic standards? If so, why?
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Fwiw: I think Greyson Lambert was grossly overpaid.
Across the board though, I don’t think that any four star or higher rated player would have any trouble negotiating for more compensation than what is currently provided for. Mainly because there is such a shortage of them. If you think about it the arkansas’s and Mississippi states of the world would benefit from an open market as you’d expect a “flattening” effect. For example if our 12th best player in our 2018 recruiting class would be the jewel of Kentucky’s class, wouldn’t they be willing to pay a lot more for him than we would? You’d think so.
That said, I prefer my plan of playing college sports with college students. That would likely create a need and a demand for semi pro football and basketball and our college game could continue without all the mutual exploitation that currently exists in it.
Let’s play with kids who want to be in college and who are accepted like every other student.
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I agree with your proposed solution if college sports decide to remain “amateur.” The problem is the professional sports leagues who benefit from the current system know a minor league product will be a cash drain on them. I would never pay good money to watch the Atlanta Falcons’ farm team … I just don’t care about professional football. I suspect the NFL owners know that minor league football is a big loser, or they would have set up a competing system a long time ago.
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It’s a problem we’ve never made them confront isn’t it?
If baseball can support 5 levels of league play, I think they’d be ok. Not that I care if they aren’t.
I think you’d be surprised at what money and marketing and picking the right places would do.
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Minor league baseball is a money loser and is the result of how the professional level of the sport began in the 1800s. The major league teams would kill for a free system like the NFL and NBA have rather than the system they have to subsidize heavily now. Even MLB would more heavily lean on the college system if colleges went back to the wood bat versus aluminum.
Every experiment with developmental league football (or other leagues) has failed spectacularly … AFL (only survived because of the NFL merger), WFL, USFL, NFL Europe, and the XFL.
Just my thoughts … I agree with you. The powers that be have never had to confront it. If the NFL owners (all super wealthy) thought they could make money on minor league football, they would compete with the colleges in a heartbeat. They know they can’t and don’t want the capital investment it would take to compete.
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Not true at all. Minor leagues were free for the first three or four decades of organized baseball. The Red Sox bought Babe Ruth’s contract from Baltimore’s minor league team, for example. Branch Rickey is the man who changed things in the thirties. Over time afterwards, as Bill James put it, the minor leagues became fully owned vassal states.
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If basketball and football farm teams are money losers, doesn’t it follow that college teams are paying fair market compensation? After all, if they’re not paying enough, you could outbid them for the best talent and put a superior product on the field and make a lot of money. What is the flaw in my reasoning?
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Exactly. The reason Jake Fromm could make money doing a Carhartt commercial is because he is the quarterback for the University of Georgia. As the Great One once said: “you didn’t build that. Somebody else built that.”
Also, I think Jacob Eason was fairly compensated for what he did over 2 seasons of football for UGA.
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So you’re saying that every quarterback on Georgia’s roster could get an endorsement contract of equal worth to Fromm’s?
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Are you saying that if Fromm was the backup QB at Bama behind Tua he’d get the same deal?
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Quite the contrary.
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My point is the major league franchises heavily subsidize their network now. Go to a minor league game and you see a lot of fans disguised as empty seats in stadiums subsidized by local taxpayers. I bet that’s exactly why the NFL owners say, “Thanks but no thanks to minor league football.” They served a purpose when they started. Some teams may make money or break even now. Are they the way the major league teams amass and mange talent now? Yes. Would MLB love to have a free system like the other two sports have today where prospects are considered ready to break in when they are drafted? I would think so.
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Not college’s problem. If the nfl won’t catch their talent, jucos and division 3 will. That’s should be fine with everyone. The colleges don’t owe it to anyone to provide an opportunity at a free education for guys who can’t get into college.
As it is the colleges use people who don’t care about the education and the players complain about being used. Both sides are right and they need to go back to first principles. A university’s primary mission is education. It’s mission isn’t to field a sports team. Sports is a tertiary function and should be played, if at all, by students majoring in things other than football.
I think one fall out of this would be that athletes in bb and football would become better students. Kids that play soccer or run track or play golf understand that they aren’t getting a scholly if their academics aren’t in order. The non-revenue sports far outperform the student body in academics because those kids are mature, organized, focused and goal oriented not pampered and told they can fuck off because they can run a 4.3 40.
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Your opening sentence is the funniest thing I’ve read today. Bravo my man.
I also agree with only allowing kids meeting the true academic requirements at their universities to compete. It will be fun watching the Delta State “Fighting Okra” Win the SEC their first year in conference play. Jacksonville State will be a perennial powerhouse. UGA- Auburn would generate all the excitement of the Harvard vs Yale annual contest.
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Rest assured, we are already in front of this.
On the surface, we indeed have the most cost-effective COA stipend in the conference. But if you look deeper, you will see that no other conference school includes the moral guidance and supervision of The Georgia Way.
You just can’t put a price on this.
#YETANOTHERBULLDOGPOINTOFPRIDE #COMMITTOTHEG
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“I’m asking if you believe the free market would value every player’s services the same way.”
Do we “think that football and basketball players are fairly compensated under the current NCAA amateurism protocol”?
The answers to thew above questions will differ depending upon whether you are asking about individual players EACH being valued the same under the current system as they would be under a ‘free market’ system, or asking about the players AS A GROUP being valued the same under the current system as under a ‘free market’ system. The answer to the first is certainly ‘no.’ The answer to the second is almost certainly ‘yes.’ If these answers are accurate you would have numerous players that are non-stars or that play at non-profitable schools who would receive less lower value compensation in a free market than they do now, while a relative few players receive much more. While each method of valuation (group vs individual) may be viewed as fair, the second way will kill lower programs and condense college football down to 25-35 programs.
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That’s already the case with walk-ons and all players at lower classifications where there are no athletic scholarships granted.
Careful. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re admitting that we’re CFB fans for more than just the name on the front of the jersey.
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Yes, but walk-ons and the non-scholarship classifications are a small minority of players and teams. The compensation discussion really centers on those f/k/a Div. I-A and Div. I-AA.
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There are 249 NCAA Division III football programs in the United States. That’s some “small minority”.
Approximately 40% of all NCAA student-athletes compete in D-III.
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OK, it is a regular, plain, run-of-the mill minority. The point is that those are not the programs that have instigated or have anything to do with the compensation discussion. Those kids are willing to play for free while also paying for school. Evidently, playing football has some level of intrinsic value to them. Does any of this intrinsic value translate to the higher divisions?
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I’m sure some of it does. But do you think Kirby Smart would be head coach at Georgia for a teacher’s salary?
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If all coaches were paid teachers’ salaries, he would.
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But they’re not. Because it’s illegal price fixing to do so.
The money that rolls into college football does so because we put an absurd value on sports entertainment. Coaches’ compensation reflects that. Players’ compensation doesn’t.
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How can we judge whether we think they are compensated fairly if we dont know what they are compensated. What is a full scholarship plus all athlete benefits worth at UGA and other institutions? How do we know player’s compensation doesn’t reflect that in most cases. College tuition, fees and COI has gone up exponentially too.
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This isn’t hard. Do you think they’d receive more in an open market environment?
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There are lots and lots of kids on college football rosters, but there are only a limited amount of star players. So my answer is that the vast majority receive fair compensation, compared to what they would receive if paid after this big pot of money starts getting divided per the player’s value, i.e. free market. Anyway, the annual cost of attendance is around $26,000 per year at UGA, correct? Rashad Roundtree got one hell of a deal if you ask me. Nick Chubb, not so much. I could argue that not a damn player at Tenn or Florida earned their keep last year. They stole that money.
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You realize this is more of a paper entry on the books than a real cost to the school, correct?
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I do not understand this reply. If I want to send my kid to UGa how much does it actually cost me? Also, how much does it cost the university (and state and federal governments) to provide the education?
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Those are two very different questions. With regard to the latter, there is no real tuition cost from the school’s standpoint.
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I posed it as two different questions. As for your answer, professors do not work for free, and the buildings do not maintain themselves. How can you say “there is no real tuition cost from the school’s standpoint.”
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How many of those teachers would be laid off, or those buildings not be maintained if there weren’t 85 scholarship football players on campus?
There is zero marginal expense.
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First, even accepting your premise that there is no marginal cost, this still does not mean that there is no value to the student athlete. A college education is still valuable in the U.S.
Second, your premise would shift all costs to the university as a whole and eventually would lead to exploitation a la the ‘tragedy of the commons.’ Just one more sheep will not ruin that pasture, but 50, 100, or 500 may.
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I realize that tuition is a part of it. The remainder is fees, books, room and board. This is a reasonable estimate of what a parent can expect to pay per year for their kid to live on campus and attend school in athens with no other financial help.
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https://www.admissions.uga.edu/prospective-students/tuition-fees
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Not exactly correct Senator. The UGAAA pays the university for the cost of tuition (including out of state tuition for out of state players), room and board, books, tutors, etc.. The actual university incurs no cost, the athletic association does.
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Moving money from one bank account you own to another you own isn’t a real transaction.
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I guess I read this wrong the first time. You pointed out the cost to the school? You mean they are charging phantom fees? Not sure where you are going with this. Either way, it is about the value to the player, what is given now and what would be given if paid cash.
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As I just pointed out, there is zero marginal tuition cost. Schools don’t enlarge the overall teaching pool or spend more money on maintenance because of 85 football players on scholarship.
Yes, there are some added expenses — things like boarding and tutors — but add it all up and it’s not anywhere near the stated tuition amount. It’s just numbers in a ledger.
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So your point is that the school does not spend additional money to produce 85 football playing graduates, so the scholarship has less value? I wish car companies thought this way. Riddle me this Batman. Sheriff Roundtree paid zero dollars for Rashad to attend UGA for 3 years. How much would have he paid minus the scholarship? The answer is the amount Rashad was compensated. The real question is whether he would have gotten more or less in a free market. At least, I thought this was the question wasn’t it?
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I’m not arguing that there isn’t value in a scholarship from the student’s perspective. What I am saying is that (1) schools cook the books and (2) the market value for some student-athletes exceeds the value of that scholarship.
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If they are cooking the books, and it is that obvious, then one of these lawyers around here should make inquiries and put together a class action lawsuit….just say’in.
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Sue ’em for what, exactly?
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False advertisement.
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I love that part that everybody conveniently misses with the “They get a $25K worth of scholarship every year for tuition!” banter. The economics of adding 85 additional seats at a school the size the University of Georgia surely isn’t $25K per head. The overhead for campus facilities and instructors are already sunk costs. Stated another way – UGA isn’t going to build a new building students out of a general fund or hire new instructors just because they had to add 85 new heads per year.
In that sense – the cost to educate these 85 guys is being subsidized by the tuition that Joe and Jane student pay. If the only way we can objectively value a scholarship is based on the actual cash outflow from the school, then I’d argue the value for a scholarship athlete is next to nothing. I get that everybody has their own feelings about the worth of a scholarship, but from a purely economic standpoint – those personal biases grossly overstate any intangible value a scholarship holds.
Hell – we’re already at the point where companies like Google and Amazon are looking to provide education for prospective employees that teaches what skills they want their employees to possess that would circumvent the traditional University model. Depending on how large those types of companies continue to grow be from an overall skilled labor standpoint, we might not be that far off from traditional higher education being slightly irrelevant anyways.
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Outstanding; well said. Let’s face it – the current college model is broken: we are loaning money we don’t have, to kids who will never be able to pay it back, to study in a field that often has no relevancy in the real world. This is why all those jokes about those with history or art degrees working at Starbucks are prevalent.
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“…to study in a field that often has no relevancy in the real world. This is why all those jokes about those with history or art degrees working at Starbucks are prevalent.”
Interesting. My sister graduated from UGA in ’74 with an art degree, and for the past 44 years she has worked as an…
…artist.
Maybe she’s unusual.
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Excellent post. My daughter graduated UGA with a degree in History; she’s working in a field she loves, making a great living.
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My daughters graduated from his high school it is very academic school. I am sure he earned hope so subtract that when you figure out if he got one hell of a deal. He may deal with CTE because of his football career at UGA.
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Lakeside is a good school, true, but many, many smart kids get into UGA, and get their doors blown off by freshman Chemistry or Biology, losing their Hope Scholarship at the first 30 hour checkpoint, so we should not assume he would have had Hope after the 2nd semester. As far as CTE, I agree, it should be factored in.
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Yeahhhh. Some of us that exempted the first tier science and math courses took it on the chin taking 200 level courses first semester freshman year. to this day I would like to find my high school counselor and kick him in the nuts.
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The kids I knew from Lakeside all kept their Hope. His mom is a school counselor. I am sure Roundtree would have kept his too.
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I’m sure he got better advice than I did. My kids damn sure did.
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Intellectual dishonesty always dominates these discussions.
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What conversation doesn’t “intellectual dishonesty” dominate?
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You have me there.
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It’s not a free market. It’s another one of those public sector/private sector monstrosities like private prisons or the Federal Reserve
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Alright, I’ll take the side that players are being compensated fairly. You have to include everything in the compensation package; nutrition programs, weight rooms, tutoring, coaching, education, housing, etc. These are all part of being compensated for being a college athlete.
In a perfect world, players would compare this compensation package with what other ‘companies’ are offering. For a non-revenue sport athlete this seems like a generous package considering there aren’t many places to find this level of compensation. So let’s look at the revenue sports of baseball, basketball, and football.
In baseball, a player can go from high school to college or the pros. They can enter the draft and skip college to go to the minors. Compare the compensation packages and take the best offer. Many go to college and many go straight to the pros. What is the problem with that?
In basketball, the only issue I have is you can’t enter the draft as a high school graduate. A basketball player has the option to go play pro in another country, they should be allowed to enter the draft and play in the d-league, or they can take the college’s compensation package and play for a university. What is the problem there?
Football is the biggest issue. It is by far the highest revenue sport and is basically run like a monopoly. A player who plays in high school can only go to college and play. They cannot enter a draft for 3 years, there is no development league, and there are no leagues in any other countries where they can be paid to play (forget the CFL, almost a different sport). This is a problem but it doesn’t mean colleges need to change their compensation package. It seems like an NFL issue to me, they should either allow high school grads to enter the draft or start a D-league.
Football players need more money and opportunities. If you want to say they should be allowed to take outside money I disagree. Once the player accepts the college compensation package then they must abide by all rules of that contract. I am not a lawyer but the NCAA should be allowed to specify in their contract whether the player can take outside money and they say no. Don’t like it then don’t sign the contract.
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That isn’t how antitrust law works, man.
Also, remember that players lose their eligibility if they retain professional advisors to “negotiate” that contract. Such a deal!
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I am proudly not a lawyer so I don’t know exactly how antitrust laws work. I do know my employer can make me sign non-compete agreements and prevent me from working with competitive firms while I am under contract. Why can’t the NCAA prevent a player from working with an agent while under contract? Shouldn’t the anti-trust laws be focused on the NFL and not the NCAA?
Are you saying that a high school player cannot hire a lawyer to negotiate their NCAA contract?
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So now you’re agreeing that student-athletes are employees?
As far as your last question goes, that is in fact the case.
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I am not sitting here saying this is perfect but it is not as bad as some make it seem. Student athletes are employees in my eyes. They have standards directed to them by the school and if they fail to meet them they lose their compensation. Seems like an employer to me.
A high school student should be able to negotiate a contract. On the other hand, if the other party decides to not alter the contract then they can take it or leave it.
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Take a look at these and see if a Grad Student should be able to negotiate their contract.
https://research.uga.edu/about/fast-facts/
How much many is the University making off of them while they are often times paying the University?
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*money
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I agree a grad student should negotiate a contract and in some ways they do. They agree to pay the university for what the university offers. I wouldn’t recommend signing a one sided deal but clearly these grad students see value that I don’t.
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By the way, why don’t you respond to the argument as a whole? You always cherry pick some detail and think that it proves the entire argument as wrong. It probably makes you a very successful lawyer but it is annoying in real life.
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I wasn’t casting aspersions on your overall argument. But, again, I asked a narrow question, which you answered in your first sentence. Didn’t see much need to respond to that.
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I am more playing devils advocate. I think the scholarship is pretty fair for most athletes. Football is a whole different animal. I see NFL as a bigger issue than what colleges pay. I can’t wade through all the legal issues in college to fix it. Title IX, non-profit status, anti trust, monopoly…..All just barriers to helping the people. It exemplifies how laws seem to work while a lot of people make a lot of money arguing about them.
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There is a lot of wisdom in your last two sentences.
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This seems like a good time to point out that when James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, lawyers were initially banned.
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I’m sure you thought AT&T before the Bell break-up was a great deal for telephone service, and I imagine you love OPEC whenever you go to the pump to fill your gas tank. I know you would have loved to sign a contract that restricts your ability to even get a job outside of your academic & athletic pursuits or to sign away rights to your name & likeness.
Price-fixing cartels suck no matter the circumstances.
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AT&T was a monopoly and deserved to be broken up (just like the NFL?). OPEC is a price fixing cartel but not subject to US laws so what is your point?
If I signed a bad contract then that is on me. Read and don’t sign bad contracts.
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My point is cartels suck and place artificial restrictions on the supply or demand for a particular good or service. The NCAA should be broken up as a monopoly.
Regarding your question about the contract, you can’t retain representation to negotiate said contract. Once again … that’s anticompetitive/antitrust behavior.
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Until you aren’t allowed to have a lawyer negotiate and advise you on that bad contract you signed, you’re not really comparing apples to apples here.
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The NCAA contract seems pretty non-negotiable. Some contracts are just simply take it or leave it. Why do you need a lawyer to negotiate this?
Think of it like a cable or cell phone contract. What would happen if you paid a lawyer to negotiate it? The company would just laugh in your face. You either sign it or move on.
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You don’t see a bit of difference between a widely available, standardized service such as cable / cell phone and a personal services contract? If so, there’s no point in having this conversation with you because you’re just being willfully ignorant.
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If the other party isn’t willing to negotiate the contract then you can either take it or leave it. Why does it matter if it is a standardized service or a personal service?
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I have a question for you…
You are aware a personal service contract is a form of employment agreement between a contractor and a business, right?
Two more questions:
1 – While most people don’t do it and it’s the business model that internet companies, cable companies, insurance companies, etc. thrive on…you are aware that you can call up a company that provides you these services to threaten to quit your service in order to negotiate a different fee?
2 – You took the first offer your current employer threw at you and didn’t try to negotiate a better deal?
It amuses me all the crap you guys would not put up with for one second in real life that you just expect college athletes to take at face value.
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I don’t put up with it. It is the way it is. Try to make a change on a cable company contract. It says in the contract that you can’t alter it or its void. You can make changes to your plan when the contract period is up.
If I declined the first offer and the employer refused to negotiate then what do I do? I take the contract or leave it. I don’t see why this is so complicated. I don’t have to like it.
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The top players are already being compensated. Well at least family members and handlers.
UGa Or Bama Or Auburn Universuty cutting them a $2500/month will not stop BillyBob Booster from dropping a wad of cash at a prospects house and say “we’d like you to select Tennessee as your college of choice.”
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Some yes some no. Last year- Chubb, Michel, etc- no.
Laguins- yes.
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A few reasons for my upcoming opinion:
1. At power 5 conference schools, a football or basketball player that doesn’t blow large amounts of money on drugs, alcohol, or a shopping obsession is currently able to save a good amount of money under the current system with the FCOA stipend. This, however, is based on the athlete having a family that is not dependent on the athlete and can provide their own travel expenses etc.
2. The vast majority of these athletes are complete morons when they get extra money in their pocket; estimating about 90+% here based on observations of our kid’s teammates.
3. Directly from the school, some are currently getting more than market value (education + FCOA for someone who rarely plays or becomes medically disqualified), and some are getting less (those that star for their teams).
4. Let’s just accept the fact that star players are, if they ask for it, getting fair market value (and often more if they are highly recruited but don’t pan out) outside the system. Highly recruited players get it on the front end, and performers on the field get it on the back end.
So, my thoughts are to set up a system that is more of “benefits not consisting of cash payments” in school with a trust for after. It would look something like expanding family housing on campuses so that athletes can bring families that live in poverty with them. There can be some volunteer work with the school or community and drug testing required for families to maintain the benefit. Same thing with a family meal plan for those that move with the athlete. Travel assistance, etc. would be other benefits that could be added to this model. Rehab facilities could be made available for family members struggling with addiction. There are many more possibilities that involve the athlete more directly (more individual medical and nutrition benefits, etc), but relieving the burden of a struggling family is the biggest.
The cash part would have to be based on multiple factors and be available to the athlete upon graduation or completion of at least 3 years active playing (leaving after 1 year would relinquish benefits). There should be exceptions written for those that become medically disqualified. Trust deposits would be made based on several performance factors, both on the field and in the classroom, possibly for community leadership accomplishments as well. If a student athlete knew he was getting a nice deposit for an A or B average this semester, would he be better student? This would be a nice incentive for players that won’t receive a lot of playing bonuses, but are smart kids that help lead the team in practice and off the field. Possibly even deduct for failing grades? There are endless possibilities here, but the key is not to allow a typical college age athlete have access to $ at a time when he will blow it on crap while all his needs are being taken care of at a high level. This would also help more athletes avoid the trap of 25+% interest loans from agents between school and the pros if they make it. Why do you think so many athletes get these awful loans? Because they blew $200k+ cash they got throughout school on the black market and now think they are entitled to live that lifestyle forever whether they can play or not.
Any system would take a massive amount of planning, and there will always be those that game it, but these are just some ideas. At the very minimum, athletes need to be required to pass a personal finance class every year. Hopefully, when they can access the trust, they will have a little more sense.
As a final note, we are on a slippery slope here. Whether athletes end up getting paid or not, they are being given an incredible benefit right now that seems to be taken for granted more than ever. There are a lot more student athletes that would never have the opportunity to earn a college degree without sports than there are athletes that will be professionals in their sports and would get more out of being paid in college than the degree. The degree makes it possible for these athletes to start out and rise to much higher income levels than they would without it. How does the increased potential income factor in to the equation? And whatever happened to just knowing life isn’t always fair, but being content and joyful with the blessings we have? Or having to “pay our dues” for a while before making huge $? There is a societal attitude that needs to be changed or nothing will ever be enough.
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Maybe I’ll try that argument the next time I have an employee salary review.
I never cease to be amazed at the things some of you expect these kids to put up with that you’d never accept in your own life.
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The “life isn’t fair thing” actually cuts both ways.
Wouldn’t students benefit from the lesson that life isn’t fair, and that higher rewards tend to flow to people with higher potential/performance/skills/charisma?
When I hire people, I tell them I treat everyone like Las Vegas… differently. If they bring a lot of value to my team, they get the high-roller pay, perks, and opportunities to match.
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So why are students who aren’t student-athletes allowed to market their skills freely? Wouldn’t they benefit from that lesson, too?
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Are those students also receiving full scholarships, Cost of attendance stipends, meals, thousands in clothing and shoes, etc already from the school? If given the choice between whatever the regular student can earn on the free market based on their current skills vs what an athlete is paid, what would they choose? Do they think what athletes receive is fair?
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Why do they get a vote?
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I didn’t say they should get a vote, just pointing out that “fair” is a very subjective term.
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Sure. And there are starving children in India, too. They’re equally irrelevant to my question.
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The subjective nature of the word “fair” in today’s society is exactly the point we are discussing, which if you look at my reply right before this one is not the topic we should discuss, because no one in or out of college athletics will ever come to an absolute agreement on calculating “fair.” I’m not even saying I’m right and your wrong. The truth, as with most things, probably lies somewhere in the vast middle. In my last reply, I get back to the main topic of compensation for players and ask your opinion of the “more direct benefits to player and family now, cash later” approach, details aside.
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No, what we’re discussing is whether players would receive more compensation in an open market setting. Do you believe they would?
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Just like your example of other students marketing their skills is totally irrelevant to athlete compensation.
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How so? One group operates in a free market environment, while the other is prohibited from doing so. Both are students.
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Are they not already receiving quite a bit more than any other student based on their athletic talent?
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I never cease to be amazed at how someone cherry picks one sentence out of the entire context to slam. In case you couldn’t tell, put in the broader context of my entire post, no system will ever be considered “fair” to everyone, and what some people consider “fair” is basically being handed everything they want when they want it whether they earned it or not. It was part of the slippery slope with any system paragraph. Hence, the societal issues playing a part.
Also, you have no idea what these kids are “expected to put up with.” That is an entirely different issue that is much broader than compensation. For instance, it encompasses transfer rules for kids that have their 4th position coach in 4 years. Is that something they “should have to put up with?” No, but the transfer rules are what they are right now, and there are other factors in play, like their loyalty to teammates, overall experience, etc. There are areas in most programs, even power 5 schools, that are woefully inadequate. Some have a crappy S & C staff and a head coach who doesn’t care, some have toxic locker rooms with players that quit on each other, and on and on. You will never address everything kids “shouldn’t have to put up with,” and to cherry pick the one issue of compensation and think it’s a fix is ridiculous. So yeah, life isn’t fair when you’re dealing with all of these issues at once, but if you ask the kids that haven’t been solely influenced by the type of victim mentality you seem to espouse for them, they still wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.
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LOL. “Victim mentality”? Maybe I’ll use that in the next employee review, too.
I can’t speak to playing for a crappy coach, but a cartel enforcing below-market compensation is a violation of federal law. Not sure life ain’t fair is supposed to cover that, but I suppose your mileage may vary.
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In your opinion this is like a cartel enforcing below market compensation. However, there are many opinions on “fair” market compensation. A brand new employee at a company may be doing the exact same job as someone who has been there 25 years, but rarely will they start immediately at the same amount, regardless of how much the company profits from that employee’s department. And, as I stated in the original post, I am not opposed to further compensating players and think that certain methods of doing so, namely the more non direct cash compensation now, cash later approach, could address a number of issues if done properly. My exact examples may be completely unattainable; I don’t know. But instead of cherry picking an argument based on my side point of societal attitudes continually changing the meaning of “fair,” what do you think of the main idea of the direct benefits now for player and family, cash later approach?
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No, damn it, not in my opinion. The NCAA has already had the federal courts declare it’s an illegal cartel with regard to player compensation.
You can put fair in scare quotes all day long and it won’t change that. And you’d better be braced for what’s coming down the turnpike next.
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In direct answer to your question a few posts above, a small minority of athletes in my opinion would earn more in the marketplace. You have the approx. 2% that could earn more playing professionally and another 5%, maybe 8% on the high side that are big enough stars in college to make more off of marketing their name, likeness, etc. They would also have to have the business sense to establish that branding, etc, production of merchandise, and on and on. It’s not as simple a question as you make it out to be. There may be more that could make more money for a year or two, but then what? What about my question of increased income potential with a paid for degree over a lifetime? What about my thoughts on different types of compensation in college vs. cash when the college playing is over? And as you mentioned in jest with McGarity using a nuanced argument to get out of compensation, it really isn’t that off base. Just like people work around court decisions, tax law, and other “rules” all the time to suit their personal financial situations, it can happen in this area as well. “The devil is in the details” seems to be an accurate way to conclude.
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One is already being paid by the school, the other is not in your student comparison. Anyway, some of my replies won’t post. I tried to say that I think less than 10% of athletes could make more in the free market, between those with extreme talent and those that can make money off name & likeness, merchandising, etc. Most would have a very short term profit though, and they would have to have the business sense, etc. to set up these profitable entities. And there are way too many arguments for schools to make about future income potential with the paid for degree, etc. that make setting a compensation level difficult. Is there a reason you won’t give an opinion on the direct benefits for athletes and families now, cash later model? It’s certainly shows a point of agreement we have that there are compensation models that could be beneficial. And, the cash portion isn’t preset for everyone, instead based on performance of “the job” during school. Kind of like base salary of scholarship and COA, etc. then a big performance bonus at the end.
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Do you not think there are salary reviews every day where and employee is told they are doing a fantastic job, but they won’t be able to increase their pay right now because overall company business is down or some other expense has increased? Or, as I mentioned as a possible method of compensation for athletes, are employees not sometimes rewarded with other benefits than straight compensation? Do they not appreciate increased health benefits at a lower cost or a higher 401k match? Improved working conditions like a free or low cost café for employees, or maybe a plan where they can work from home part of the week?
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What’s that got to do with illegal restraint of trade?
Although, now that you mention it, I can see Greg McGarity making that kind of argument to a star football player. 😉
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Damn. Seventy-eight responses and all you have to do to answer this question is ask Auburn. They have been paying their players since the 50’s.
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I would say these kids with zero experience coming into college are being fairly compensated in a free market – the value of an education, superior room and board, excellent healthcare, and all the other perks that the average college student does not get is extremely generous for a member of an 85 player team.
Why does a player choose to play at say, Alabama and not Harvard? Unless you are one of the tiny percentage that will have a long pro career with multiple endorsements I would argue most college players accept what the market offers them with little thought to market value. The future earnings value of a Harvard education and the opportunities through connections it presents far exceeds that of say Alabama or Clemson, or Georgia, or pick your own powerhouse athletic program. Why do athletes pass on better offers?
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Harvard doesn’t offer athletic scholarships.
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Forget Harvard, I am using that as an example. There are plenty other schools of similar caliber that do offer scholarships and makes the point valid.
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That’s a deep rabbit hole. Outside of Ivy Leagues not offering athletics scholarships, it’s really difficult to get accepted to those schools in the first place. It’s not like every SEC player turned down offers from Yale and Dartmouth, in other words, most of them don’t have the choice that you’re assuming in your hypothetical. To your first point, I would submit that most college athletes are fairly compensated at with a full COA (some over compensated), but in a select few cases they are egregiously under-compensated. Take a look at players like Cam Newton, Todd Gurley and Johnny Manziel. Yes, they went on to sign for millions of dollars in the NFL, but the NCAA got to market them and cap their expenses at well below market value. Furthermore, look at players like Marcus Lattimore and Nick Chubb, college stars who sustained significant injury during their careers. Lattimore never recovered enough to compete in the NFL, and Chubb who was a shoe in the be the first runningback taken no matter the draft has had to work has way back and will be lucky to be taken prior to the 3rd round. That means lost wages as a result of his injury. Open the market and see what they can get, if they are fairly compensated then nothing will change outside of self reporting golf cart ride violations.
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Much of this problem would be addressed if the NFL simply allowed players to go straight from high school. If a kid does not want or value an education or thinks he could make a better ‘deal’ in the NFL, let them go.
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This is the heart of it. Why is the NFL not violating age discrimination rules when it says you can’t sign a player until he has been out of high school for 3 years? What does that have to do with being qualified for the job? The NBA is on firmer ground here it seems to me. Can anyone enlighten me as to the legal ramifications?
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That’s already been asked and answered in a court of law. Clarett lost. It’s something that can be negotiated and enforced as part of a CBA.
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It doesn’t appear from the article you cited that the case was litigated as far as it could go. Perhaps this precedent could be overturned in the future. I don’t think a union should have the right to discrimimate any more than an employer.
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He lost on appeal and the Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal from that. Clarett v. Nat’l Football League, 369 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 125 S. Ct. 1728 (2005)
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I just lost a long response to this by hitting the wrong key just as I was going to respond. In answer to your question, yes I feel they are adequately. Attempted to guess that value a few days ago, but it varies by school, and whether they are in-state, or out.
Briefly what I was stating: Feel players benefit greatly from the platform the university provides. Don’t like some players getting individual money while most others get zero. Feel if these players do get what you want added, they could make money initially but bring down the sport where many others in the future would be denied what is currently available. Fans buy jerseys because they play for their specific team more than the players’ individual performance and personality. Also, many schools do not make money already, taking money away would hurt other athletes, or even the school’s ability to field a team.
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That wasn’t my question. My question was “those of you who think that football and basketball players are fairly compensated under the current NCAA amateurism protocol, what exactly worries you about the free market?”.
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How do you envision this “free market” working? Players under NCAA contract can take money from anyone they want? If a strip club wants to sponsor an athlete that is OK? The NRA want to have a player as the face of their organization?
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As long as everyone is playing by the same rules, fine by me. If the NRA wants to pay Todd Gurley to be its face in Georgia, go, dog, go.
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I tend to agree with you but you know it won’t stop there. Offshore gambling sites, porno companies, drug manufacturers….. In then end you wouldn’t want to see players at your university representing these companies. The NCAA and Universities have the right to protect its brand.
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Doesn’t appear to be a problem in any other sports league. Not sure why college would be any different. You can right standards into the players contracts, we’re not talking about a free for all.
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You also have constraints from the players themselves that have a brand to represent. Yeah – they could accept money from a nefarious organization, but wouldn’t do it because it could cost them more money down the line from far more reputable organizations.
I’m amused that the concern trolling language has evolved from “they’ll just spend it on tats, Xboxes, and weed” to “they might associate with some disreputable organizations.”
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Bs. Don’t compare the two. They can spend their money on whatever they want. No company or organization is going to let their representatives promote any business or products that don’t represent their values. So you don’t think an 18 year old would make a decision without considering their future? Surely your smarter than that.
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These players would have representation, There are 18-19 year old in the NBA and MLB and it’s not a problem. What’s the difference? There isn’t one. We’re just being dramatic.
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I think that we can all agree that wrong key just did the lords work for all of us.
Thank you wrong key for saving us all.
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A lot of discussion for an obvious point. In a free market, some athletes would command compensation, benefits, exposure, and experiences over and above what they can currently access (legally). Period. Everything else is emotional/irrational pseudo-justification.
I think we are actually very close to an equitable solution, and it doesn’t have to be that messy. Keep the scholarship + stipend system in place, and create a licensing/sponsorship clearinghouse that all college athletes can access to negotiate name/likeness/skill-related deals. The clearinghouse could actually become another profit center for the schools.
When I was on scholarship at UGA, my primary professor would hook the best students up with freelance gigs, and take a 25% booking fee. Did every student get gigs? No – you had to be good enough. Did students have to forfeit their scholarship to take the gigs? No. Did students mind the professor taking 25%? No – he had better connections and got higher rates to better gigs than students could find on my own, and the deals never fell apart.
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One major difference in your professor’s “brokerage” system and scholarship athletes is that you and your fellow students were not admitted to Georgia with drastically lower grades and test scores than the rest of the student body.
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Ha. And you know this how? At least when I was in school, I know for a fact that waivers were available for several of the schools and colleges to take in students that are skilled/valuable in ways that GPA and SAT do not reflect.
More importantly, what difference does a student’s entrance credentials make to the free market argument? Those allowances are made precisely because of value, and it more benefits the school as much or more than the student. And once a student is enrolled, it is up to the student to succeed or fail academically regardless of entrance credentials. Based on a quick google search 83% of athletes graduate UGA in 6 years compared to 85% for the UGA student body overall.
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This is slightly anecdotal, but when I was an undergrad 12 years ago or so the law school was willing to take students with lower GPA’s / LSAT’s from lesser populated areas of the state than what they would require of students from the metro-Atlanta area to ensure it was being properly represented by students from across the state as the premier state law school in the state of Georgia.
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It’s no secret I think they are all more than adequately compensated for being a college athlete. The roots of the problem are the NFL and NBA’s union contracts that restrict legal age adults from pursuing the career of their choosing. 18 year old football and basketball players have no real option outside of playing college ball to have a chance at a professional career in their chosen field. High school baseball players have no such dilemma because MLB has a farm system and will pay a young adult to engage in the career he would like to pursue if he is talented enough.
The 98% of college football players who never play a down of pro football are more than fairly compensated. In my opinion, the 2% who are drafted are also more than adequately compensated since they have no other avenue to develop and display their skills for their future employers, the NFL and NBA. Without the scholarship, the greatest 18 year old football or basketball player of his generation has nothing more than a bunch of great stories about his high school football glory days. If the players who aren’t drafted choose to squander their educational opportunity and pursue a worthless degree in college, that is their problem. They are in the same situation as the non scholarship student who chooses a music history or art appreciation major.
Outside of football and men’s basketball, college athletes do not enjoy the absurdly low entrance requirements required to be admitted to the universities. Do away with the lowered entrance requirements and you will do away with the de facto NFL and NBA farm systems and the player compensation issue will go away. Once college coaches are no longer developing and showcasing future NFL and NBA stars the coaching salaries will fall too. The academic dishonesty surrounding many of these “college students” is a major driving force in this debate.
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“The 98% of college football players who never play a down of pro football are more than fairly compensated. In my opinion, the 2% who are drafted are also more than adequately compensated since they have no other avenue to develop and display their skills for their future employers, the NFL and NBA.”
Ding, ding, ding – You hit the nail on the head.
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So, you guys are in the “we welcome our new free market overlords” camp, I take it?
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“If the players who aren’t drafted choose to squander their educational opportunity and pursue a worthless degree in college, that is their problem. They are in the same situation as the non scholarship student who chooses a music history or art appreciation major.”
Non scholarship students aren’t typically herded into worthless degree programs by coaches they have put their full trust into who are just trying to keep them eligible. Non athletes also typically have a little more support from home which generally equates to having parents and guardians with their best interests in mind who has a better understanding of how the academic system and the real world actually work. Also, the non athlete (including those on scholarship for academics) is free to pursue any compensation or endorsement they desire.
In summary, that’s a bad comparison.
You’re correct about the admission standards, and your suggestion might be the best route to take, but I’d hate to lose so many great football players age 18-22 who would never get to realize their full on field potential. How many former and/or current Georgia greats would have fallen below admission standards? It’d be a shame to miss out on that.
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There is no two year rule in basketball or baseball or tennis, etc. Any kid out of high school or not can take their chances as a professional. There are no problems with baseball or tennis under this scenario… only basketball and it appears to be a cesspool of corruption.
Offer the same path to football players. They would have the same choice as anyone else… play in college and get a free education or go straight to the grid iron and start getting hit by grown ass men.
Make it where you can’t do both… but you have the freedom to chose… and enforce it.
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NBA has a 19 year old age limit. They force players to have a one year audition in a college program, hence the “one and done”. I guess a dumb as a hammer high school star could go straight to the NBA if he was 19 or older when he graduated. Of course, the high school “no pass no play” rules might trip him up.
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Thanks… guess we can see how that’s working out. When a kid is 18 he should be able to try out for anything he wants. Freedom and transparency would appear to be one way to address the question.
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I think people are right to be skeptical of broad, institutional changes that can destabilize good things in the name of making them “better” or “fairer.” Utopian philosophical “ideals” involving major economic restructurings historically fail (See communism; German hyperinflation of the 1800s, Supply-side economics) when they are implemented or the unforseen consequences of human nature and unanticipated circumstances (Social Security; War on Poverty; Glass Steagall repeal; credit default swaps) should have been anticipated but weren’t because really passionate people disregard rationality in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement.
I’m not a political conservative. But this is good old-fashioned conservatism. And it is a good thing. If anything is to be done, it should be slowwww and deliberate, giving ample time for the dust to settle.
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See Jordan Peterson’s explanation of Postmodernism. That’s what is at work here!
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not sure anyone actually answered the question of what they are afraid of if Todd Gurley was able to sign autographs for money.
My fear is that if Todd Gurley could have legally signed autographs for free that CMR would still be coaching at UGA.
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Georgia would also have had a Heisman trophy winner. Although ADGM was the real problem in that situation. Should have gone the FSU/TAMU and told the NCAA to prove it.
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My opinion is that it won’t really matter in the long run.
In 50 years or so, college football and basketball will be shells of what they are today. Football’s popularity will just continue to decline over the coming decades. Basketball’s popularity will remain steady or increase but the sport will have minor leagues and development academies right here in the US. And as the world continues to become smaller, all of the foreign basketball leagues and academies will become more intertwined with the sport here. If you want an example of basketball’s future, look at how the sport of soccer functions worldwide.
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I’ve answered this ad nauseam. The answers to your question are so obvious that it hardly warrants a response. The problem is you just don’t want to L-I-S-T-E-N!
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That’s a funny thing to say about a post with a comment thread approaching 200.
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Free markets exist when exchanges between parties are truly free. It’s an efficient system when left alone. The NCAA will never leave the system alone. So I think you’re asking the wrong question. The better question is, when will another system arise to compensate 18-22 year old kids to play football?
I’m not pretending to have the answer, but my guess is we’d lose a few quality players to a system that actually paid the player. Of course, the free market also requires customers to pay market value for an exchange. So my guess is the risk has always been too great for an entity to create a competing model. But in my opinion, almost every 18 year old kid would choose a separate system that involved compensation. But would the customers? I don’t know, it’s doubtful…because we care more about UGA than we care about Athens. And for that, the NCAA wins and gets to set their own terms. So we get back where we started, college scholarships with no other compensation because the NCAA says so.
My two cents….
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Are players fairly compensated? What is their compensation?
Student athletes on athletic scholarship fairly compensated if “free tuition, room, meal plans, and some money for books and miscellaneous expenses. At the bigger, more successful universities, athletes also receive academic counseling, tutoring, life skill training, and even nutritional advice. Certainly, not all student athletes are on scholarship and not all are on full scholarships but the student athletes in the revenue sports are receiving compensation in the form of educational benefits and living expenses and more if there are medical issues outside of football ” Is this fair. How is that valued To an Economist, this is “pay.”
Are they paid what they are worth? How do you decide worth?
Well a senior Nick Chubb was worth more than a freshman Nick Chubb this year? IMO. So Nick was due a raise. 😉
Was having Chubb on the roster worth more than Blazevich?
How much $value do either of those two DGD bring to UGA because they play?
How do we measure that anyway?
I understand Coach Saban’s salary is well deserved because when he wins the school win$ and the state economy prospers.
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Senator, your question only exists because of television monies. So, the television networks should pay the players royalties, compensation for appearing on their network. I think that there would not be a large surplus of money in college football if nobody was on tv. So yes, some players are not currently paid their true value.
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That would be an NCAA violation.
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Isn’t that the point?
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The money is essentially generated by the players. Everybody comes to see the players. So I firmly believe they should be compensated.
Now that seems simple enough. But I already have a loathing for what the current big money system has done to college institutions. I hate to see coaches, and particularly Greg Mediocrity, get paid far beyond what professors and school staffers make – and get pensions to boot! I hate to see ordinary students ripped off with athletic fees when the athletics coffers are overflowing. Then we would have to discuss market values, free agency, etc., etc.
Every step taken gets us further from a school’s mission and closer to a money grubbing professional sports apparatus. From a school mission/moral viewpoint, its equivalent to the difference between sweet 16 and a 30 year old hooker.
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The answer to your question of whether they are being “fairly compensated” is first off misleading. What is the definition of fairly?
But if your definition is what the market will bear, then it leads to your question, what am I afraid of with an open market.
Simply asking that question is enough of an answer.
I honestly don’t know what you beat this drum incessantly but its your blog and your blog is the best so I can’t fault you. I just don’t know why.
Its like the gun control argument. Everyone is arguing about the solutions and nobody is really looking at the TRUE causes.
College athletics is a contractual agreement. You want a free education then sign here and we give you these benefits:
1-Tuition
2-Housing
3-Food
4-Books
5-Monthly stipend
6-Incidentals and bowl gifts
7-Extra benefits (boosters, agents, what have you as you say under the table–it happens everywhere).
So even if you are the 3rd string LB at Vandy who has very little individual market value……you get the above. Same as a womens gymnast or men’s lacrosse.
And we are asking you to sign knowing in full disclosure the university is making hundreds of millions of dollars.
If not wait 3 years and then go pro. That’s it. No manipulation. No coercing. Nobody made you sign up.
It’s not the NFL. The $$ that is generated still goes to the schools in better facilities, better professors, higher enrollment (just ask Bama). It doesn’t simply go into an owners pocket. Kirby Smart can win without any individual player. Todd Gurley and AJ Green won nothing for Mark Richt. Kirby is the one that put it all together. Do agents and shoe companies and coaches get paid more and more? Yes. Coaches get paid more because there are very few and they have tremendous risk and family upheaval…..and Saban and many other coaches are worth it. Who is worth more to Bama’s program, Nick Saban or Julio Jones? And in fact to the entire state of Alabama. The agents make a bunch of money of course but the kids and parents can say no. Just say no. But that is naive so I will assume for you they say yes. Who can resist? Would paying players solve that? Not a chance. They will always want more, there will always be a handout.
Or we open up the market. That is your solution.
I won’t get into the countless unintended consequences, the impossibility of managing it (versus the NFL 32 teams in the NFL, collective bargaining with owners) and Title IX. And do you have free agents? Its ridiculous to even have this conversation. Why not just open it up and say if you can get paid out of high school, you can go pro. No waiting. There is your free market.
We are seeing a radical and fundamental shift in sports and entertainment. The money (and politics and a rapidly shrinking talent base) will ruin the NFL, it has ruined baseball (cannot sustain the economics with the dwindling ratings) and the money will eventually ruin revenue generating collegiate sports. The salaries are out of control. The inequities are astounding. It will all crumbling down. Very sad. There is no doubt. Its only a matter of when. The Dawgs will go on an epic 4-5 year run but in the next decade the whole $hithouse will go up in flames.
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You realize the black market stuff embroiling college basketball right now involves recruits being paid before they’ve signed LOIs, right?
As far as your coaches get paid more argument, how many five-star recruits do you think there are running around every year?
I bang the drum, as you put it, because I don’t understand the rationale for treating student-athletes differently. And I don’t understand the logic that some of you apply to defend the system. This comment thread is a perfect example of that. Most commenters can’t bring themselves to answer the question I raised in the post directly.
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Senator your question seems to me to have many facets. It does to me anyway.
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Aren’t the people in the basketball scandal projecting future net worth not current value? Agents are giving ‘loans’ so they can negotiate their nba contract and future endorsement deals. They are not necessarily worth the 100k now. It’s like a company investing in research and development.
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Rick Pitino and Sean Miller do not give a rat’s ass about the recruits’ future net worth. They want $100,000 plus funneled to recruits because of the recruits present value as players.
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Women’s gymnasts and men’s lacrosse players (and other non-revenue sports) do not get the same benefits as football and basketball players due to the cartel’s (the NCAA’s) established scholarship restrictions … therefore, said student-athlete is likely paying part of his/her own way.
I have a good friend whose son is playing golf on scholarship at one of the traditional men’s golf powers. Since they have to split the scholarships up to have a team, it’s still costing my friend more to send him to this school than it would for his son to have attended State U in-state without playing sports.
It’s not equal … nor should it be.
If the universities had not gone chasing every last dollar they can vacuum up, it’s likely no one would have batted an eye at the amateurism protocol in college sports. With coaches making Fortune 500 CEO money as glorified PE teachers and the pressure to win that brings, no surprise … there’s a whole lot of exploitation and corruption in the system. When the student-athlete would like to be able to participate, everyone says it’s going to end college sports as we know it. Sort of the same things people said when Curt Flood changed MLB … surprise, the clubs adapted and the players got their fair share of the pie.
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Allow athletes to have representation (registered agents) to facilitate endorsement deals, signings and the like. This would be outside of the university (title nine compliant) and the NCAA with minimal over site (report earnings). This model would also be completely market driven men and women from all sports have the same opportunity (Olympic swimmers and gymnast).
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I’ve skimmed the comments. Haven’t read all of them, so this may have already been said. I’ve seen a lot of things said about being fair to players in regards to compensation. But if we are really being fair, most of the players who would justify a significant compensation would not qualify for admission to the University where they play. That would pretty much solve the problem. You’re welcome.
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How ’bout them Okras?
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Concern #1: Bidding wars by boosters promising “market value” payments for signatures or likeness use or endorsement contracts “after signing with their alma mater”.
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I believe it does reflect what they are worth. As revenues in the sport have gone up – so has the quality of education , training, nutrition , and other luxuries produced by the facilities races. For the relatively extreme few that could argue their likeness is a substantial lost value – they have leveraged their compensation into exposure to a league that will pay them rich sums.
If they were paid dollars for all of their value , there would necessarily be cutbacks in other benefits they receive.
What they get in total may not be how they would choose to spend their value , but they get their full value.
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Your original question is moot, because there’s no possibility of a free market system…unless you completely start over, in some sort of world where athletes could use the values of potential performance to fund the building of stadiums, the purchasing of equipment, the marketing necessary to attract a paying audience.
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Get back to me after Jeffrey Kessler is finished, will ‘ya?
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Question 2: Most college athletes are fairly compensated for their contributions to their schools. However, there a very few that are compensated below their value. If somehow a market could be opened I believe that it would show this to be true. I also believe that schools could easily handle this monetarily as well as from a policy standpoint. The only reason that they do not currently is that it would diminish their overall profit margin. If anyone really believes that colleges are non-profit in any sense other than for tax purposes; they are kidding themselves.
Question 1: I am concerned that if a free market was allowed in college football my enjoyment of the sport would be diminished. Hypothetical case follows: Sony Michel was the number one back in his recruiting class and a five star recruit. Nick Chubb was the number four back and a four star. Assuming that they were both compensated for their potential at signing; lets say that Michel gets $200k + scholly and Chubb gets $100k + scholly. After their freshmen season, it is clear that Chubb is going to be the starter going forward and his agent duly engages UGA for more money to compensate for the disparity between his pay and Michel’s. If he is not paid, then Chubb will look for other colleges, hold-out etc. Even if UGA accedes to this request, my view of Chubb would change. What I enjoy about college football is the small things like the relationship between Chubb and Michel. How they were team-mates that pushed each other to be better, picked up each others slack, strived for excellence over the ups and downs of their college careers. Money ruins all that. Money necessarily changes the relationship between players and schools, players and other players, players and fans. I know that money is choking out the life of college football but I don’t want it to. The chase for money has killed NASCAR for me and it undoubtedly will kill college football as well but I hope it takes a while longer. I guess I prefer blue pills over red…
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Why wouldn’t Michel and Chubb be friends if Chubb held out for more money? Why would that effect Michel? If anything it could afford him more playing time. It could be argued that over the past two seasons Michel was the better back, but he was still the back up. Yet, it didn’t effect their friendship because both of these young men are high character guys. That would be the case whether they were fairly compensated at their market values or not.
Players in the professional sports hold out for more money all the time. Yes, in isolated cases it has caused dissension among teammates, but for the most part athletes are supportive because they are all in the same boat. They understand that they all have a high earning potential, but it lasts very short amount of time. The money is being made regardless the question is who do you want to get the money? I answer that question by asking myself who deserves it? Do Kirby Smart and Nick Saban deserve all of it? Or do the players deserve their fair share? Everyone is always complaining about the facilities arms race, so why not divert some of that money into the players pockets? Athletic departments erect unnecessarily opulent facilities that serve two purposes, they attract recruits and they allow them to say that they have no money. I think recruits would be just as enticed by money they could use to help their families as they would by a putt putt golf course or an XBOX in their locker.
I honestly believe that their are reasonable parameters that could be negotiated and put in place to ensure that players are compensated fairly while maintaining the spirit of college football and ensuring that it remains the separate and unique entity that we all love.
Athletes could be allowed to sign endorsement deals, if Chubb is in higher demand than Michel then he’ll make up for his lack of contract money on the back end.
Incentive based contracts would take a lot of the guessing out of the process.
It’s also important to remember that good coaches don’t really look at how many stars a player has by his name. Which means that they may have known from the get go that Chubb was better than Michel and that Gurley was better than Marshall and contract offers could reflect that (I’m being speculative here).
Perhaps it could be mandated that a player is required to play their freshman season before negotiating a contract, further incentivizing them to prove themselves on the field.
Academic standards could be written into the agreement allowing for athletes to earn bonuses based on their GPA’s and being on track to graduate. There could also be fines for low academic performance. This would perhaps be one of the best things that could happen with regard to athlete education (I believe there may already be some form of this in existence, as I recall from my time as a collegiate athlete we were afforded what essentially amounted to scholarship bonuses based on grades). The current eligibility standards could also be kept in place so that coaches don’t neglect academics.
If the signed contracts are for the entirety of an athletes college career then transfers wouldn’t be as much of an issue, unless mutual agreed upon by both sides. IE Jacob Eason is getting paid 5 star money at UGA to be a career back up, both sides would likely agree to allow him to pursue free agency. UGA gets his high salary off the books and Eason gets a chance to play somewhere where had can compete for playing time. This would also cut down on kids getting “processed out” by programs. (I think all sides would agree not to incorporate a trading market for players).
Finally, we continue to limit the amount of time that players have to spend on their respective sports.
I’ve only touched on a few of the vast amount of ways to structure the market, salary caps could also be discussed as well as luxury taxes for programs who over spend.
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CB,
I agree there are many policies that could be put into place to competitively balance the equation. However, my presupposition is that money changes relationships. Big money changes relationships…bigly. BTW don’t try to argue exceptions that prove the rule. I know they exist. Just because there are a few David/Jonathan relationships does not change the fact that most are closer to the Tudors or Hapsburgs. By the very fact that you had to argue all sorts of NFLish contractual clauses, you show that paying players will de facto change the player/school relationship. That will impact the player/fan relationship in a way that no one can predict. This is a “wicked problem,” one which unintended consequences of engagement cannot be determined due to the number of variables including unknown variables. I am sure that UGA and OU did not anticipate that they would ever be contemplating seven million dollar coaching salaries when they sued for tv rights. I am stipulating that a small minority are getting screwed under the current system. If this sport were soccer I would be on the other side of the argument. I am libertarian right up to the moment it significantly affects my favorite sport…
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CB,
Not trying to argue the eaches for equitably policing the sport. Just by arguing contract clauses/policies that could/might be used you have shown what money normally does to relationships. Surely exceptions prove rules. Just because David/Jonathan relationships exist does not mean that the overwhelming majority are not Tudor or Hapsburg in nature. I stipulate that some are getting screwed; I just believe the number of players is small enough and the screwing is small enough to not make a change that has unknowable consequences. College football equity between players and schools and fans is a “wicked problem,” there is no way of predicting the outcome of an engagement of the problem. Any energy introduced into an organic system will inherently produce previously unknown and unpredictable results both positive and negative due to the number and obscurity of variables in play. Power and money have already changed the sport; UGA and OU did not intend to have coaches with seven million per year, 10 year guaranteed contracts but those contracts exist now tracing back to those schools’ lawsuit. Any change to player compensation will have some type of unintended consequences and the likelihood for them to negatively effect the sport is such that I am willing to root for things to remain the same. Only in college football…pay soccer players as much as you want…I dgas about soccer…
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I wasn’t using an exception to prove a rule, I was just using the example you gave. Also, I don’t believe that to be an exception, across the landscape of professional sports player contract negotiations (or re-negotiations) usually do not have negative implications among teammates. That’s my point. Also, to your other point, we don’t know exactly how much college athletes are getting screwed because we don’t know exactly how much money they would bring. This study suggests that some could be worth as much as half a million in an open market..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2014/04/15/whats-a-college-athlete-worth/?utm_term=.f0819ab0c06d
That is no small screwing as you put it. Especially for players who are stars in college, but don’t make it in the NFL. Yes this is only a small amount of players (a minority if you will), but it’s important to look not only at who is getting exploited, but we also need to take into account the amount of people doing the exploiting. Coaches and staffers at every level of every major college football program are paid off of the backs of these players, not to mention AD’s, administrators, entire athletics staffs, conference commissioners (and employees), NCAA administrators, TV networks, and for years video game companies. Hell, even non-revenue sports have their scholarships funded from football and basketball money. The amount of blood suckers (most of them unwitting) is almost too high to count, and the assumption that big changes may or may not have negative implications that would effect our own personal senses of nostalgia as grounds for maintaining the status quo is a sickeningly weak justification IMO.
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Correction, you didn’t give the example, the Twogundawg did.
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Apologies for the confusing naming convention. Twogundawg and I are the same. For some reason my phone has changed my moniker to an ages old blog I used to have on WordPress…You have hit the nail on the head between you and I. You have greater concern than I about the level of inequity between players and the rest of CFB. I just believe that if we are going to argue for keeping CFB the same we have to look in the mirror to see why that is. Unfortunately that may sicken some…I have seen enough real inequity to not be fazed by that which exists within CFB.
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Sure, I’ve seen homeless walking streets and people who live in the dumps of Tjuana,Mexcio who would gladly trade places with these collegiate athletes who are being exploited. However, those are completely different issues. Also, I would add that their is some element of “clean your own house before you tell others they aren’t doing it right.” Most of us on this blog some sort of affiliation with (or at least affection for) UGA and college football in general. Not that we can facilitate a great deal of change in the comment section of a blog, but I believe public consciousness has to be present before we can pressure those in charge into taking action. At least you acknowledge your apathy as opposed to making weak justifications for keeping things as they are. I can at least respect that level of honesty as we agree to disagree.
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There*
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You know, there are 21 media markets in the US that are larger than the ones the Bills or Saints have, and are unoccupied by NFL teams. An independently owned developmental league could leverage several features of the NFL and college game to make money. It could be structured so that one entity owned the whole shebang, therefore having control over its salary structure. It could recruit like colleges rather than draft like the NFL. It could hire folks that were good at recruiting but who were not coaches, unlike the colleges. It could outbid colleges for the best players. It could even offer to pay tuition from online universities to players that also wanted a degree. It could rent small stadiums rather than build them to cut down on costs. It could play from the week after the Super Bowl until the week before the first exhibitions in the fall. It could play 7 days a week so that no prime time was wasted, playing only one game at a time so it didn’t compete with itself. It.
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It doesn’t exist. I guess “it” could issue imaginary paychecks to kids who want an option other than college football.
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It would be able to be a better product than the college game because it would have most of the best players. It therefore would attract a large audience and make a lot of money IF your premise is correct. The solution is to form a league like this, not to force the ncaa to be something it doesn’t want to be.
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Even if what the NCAA does violates the law? Interesting take.
Your dream doesn’t exist. Are you suggesting that someone should be forced to create it? Or are you simply arguing that since you believe something should exist, that lets the NCAA off the hook?
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My point is, if things were as inequitable as you claim, “it” would already exist. The USFL tried something like this (remember Trump and Herschel?), and it didn’t work. Maybe things are little fairer than they seem to you.
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Of all the arguments to make, that’s certainly one of them. And I’m sure it’s the only possible reason “it” doesn’t exist.
Maybe the NCAA can use it to successfully rebut Jeffrey Kessler.
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Thank you Senator for a very thought provoking discussion.
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If the USFL competed with the NFL not the NCAA. If they offered money to all of the best players straight out of high school you’d be singing a different tune. College athletics would have basically become club teams that nobody wants to watch.
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The USFL competed with the NFL not the NCAA***
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Your question:
I’m asking if you think players are already being fairly compensated in a free-market sense.
Answer: NO
Now for God sake let’s talk about something else…
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I make no promises. 🙂
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