Lemme see if I’ve got this straight.
- If Nike paid Kyler Murray $4,761,500 for his endorsement, the NCAA would declare him ineligible to play college football.
- If Oklahoma paid Kyler Murray $4,761,500 as its starting quarterback (assuming it could — stay with me here), that would be disastrous for team morale, as each offensive lineman would be consumed with jealousy because he wasn’t getting the same check.
- If the Oakland A’s pay Kyler Murray $4,761,500 and he starts for Oklahoma as its quarterback, it’s all good.
Amateurism romantics, help me out here. In what world does that make logical sense?
Get The Picture 
Wait, wut? Didn’t Bo Jackson have to give up his eligibility when he signed a pro contract?
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Not in football; he played four seasons at Auburn.
His senior season in baseball was cut short because of a visit to the Tampa Bay Bucs that ran afoul of NCAA rules then, but that didn’t involve signing a contract.
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Thanks for the clarification.
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And I think he still holds a grudge against TB to this day. The 30 for 30 on him was pretty good.
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It was auburn, so…………
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I still remember watching Bo play baseball at Foley Field for the first game under the lights. He hit 3 towering HRs and a double plus he scored from first on a single when we intentionally walked him. On his last HR you could see him intentionally direct it towards the right field fans in the kudzu who’d been heckling him all night. Even they started cheering for him at the end of the game.
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I was at that game. It was unreal to see a ballplayer like that. I was amazed.
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Waiting for the reasonable, logical responses to this … this should be good.
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Reminds me of Bill Watterson’s Calvin, playing his own sport after Dad hit him accidentally with a baseball………
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Also: To quote my man Steve Miller “Take the money and run”
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I ain’t touching that with a ten foot pole.
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It makes no sense, in any universe. My position on paying football players is that they should receive any money their image/likeness generates. It should be outside of ncaa policy perview and a player could have someone manage this for them. What I’ve never gotten is this. Do you want the ncaa setting pay scale/rate? Or is it free market? Every school sets it’s own pay schedule? How would that work?
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^^This.
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Every school could set its own pay schedule just like it does for every other employee.
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That’s way too simplistic. Texas and tOSU could/would pay much more than VaTech or Rutgers. Blue chip 5*’s end up at predictable locations based on ability to pay top salaries. Not good.
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Just to be devil’s advocate, how many 5 stars do VaTech and Rutgers get now. I really don’t think the rosters would change much.
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Rosters would absolutely be affected. You don’t think there might be bidding wars over a valuable player at a needed position?
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You’re arguing that if players were paid, OSU would have a better team then Rutgers? That’s already happened, so I don’t know what you’re worried about.
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This is my single-favorite argument that gets trotted out against paying players. The programs with the internal wherewithal and deep pocketed boosters that could pay the best players the most money already get the best players anyways.
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I’m not trotting out anything. Do you believe the ncaa will stand by and let schools under their umbrella pay whatever salaries they want? You’re dreaming if you think that. They will set schedules and it will make no one happy.
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Without an antitrust exemption or a CBA with a student-athlete union, the NCAA won’t be allowed to. It’ll be the conferences that set caps.
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Oakland is giving him $4.7M and gambling that a 5’11″/190lb dual threat QB doesn’t get a major knee or shoulder injury. This seems like someone is challenging the cosmic order of the Universe to a game of chicken.
As far as the money, that dual sport pseudo amateur bridge was crossed a long time ago so this isn’t really news in that sense. Quincy Carter had a few zeros less but $450K was more that Auburn paid Cam Newton’s dad as far as we know.
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“…that dual sport pseudo amateur bridge was crossed a long time ago so this isn’t really news in that sense”…which only makes it more ridiculous, frankly.
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This. Why would the A’s take such a chance?
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If he plays, he’s an idiot imo.
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Lincoln Riley is banking on Murray come this fall…..or OU is up shit creek.
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Although it was a more innocent time, I don’t recall much hand wringing when Quincy Carter came back to play college football after getting paid to pay professional baseball…. Hard to believe it was twenty years ago!
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Man, I feel old.
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At least he isn’t collecting revenue from his youtube channel like the Central Florida kicker last year.
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Exactly, no Youtube or Olympic skiing, or else your college career is forever tainted and you’re banished from the purity of the sport.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bloom
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something something summer job
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So, he’d rather be exploited by the NCAA than work full-time for the employer willing to give him $4 mill up front?
Where’s the logic in that?
Point: none of this is logical. Which is how the NCAA gets away with it. Which is how our politicians get away with it.
We need to make rhetoric and logic classes core curriculum again.
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There’s absolutely no difference between having money from a source other than from playing football and making money playing football ergo let’s play college football players!!
Allowing a rich kid like Johnny Manziel to play at A&M or Peyton Manning at UT is literally no different than CKS handing a kid a sack of cash for his signature on a LOI. None. After all isn’t the center going to be jealous his daddy ain’t rich too?
Sounds like a good defense of Cecil Newton. Literally no difference between holding a half ass slave auction for your own son and winning a scratch off ticket in the GA lotto. None. It’s all green right?
“Doesn’t anyone care about the fucking rules!!!!”
Walter Sobchak
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What if the fucking rules don’t make a bit of sense? What if the rule makers are as corrupt as Cecil Newton?
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My suggestion is to advocate for a better system or stop watching altogether.
Inasmuch as I recognize the tension between the haves and have nots here, and would support compensation over the current system, my strong preference is to play college sports with college students.
Additionally I think that once you open up compensation to the free market that there are going to be some substantial unintended consequences that will destroy the game.
You give me a choice between a college draft, unions, agents, strikes, hold outs, etc, etc, and a 30k a year gym coach leading a few dozen UGA students to victory over Auburn and I’ll take the latter every time.
Again I’m not pro current system. I just think we should go back and not assume plowing forward will be a panacea. It won’t be. It will be terrible.
It would be “fair” but it would be terrible.
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D-III football is ready to fly whenever you are.
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I’m a life long fan and an alum.
I’m not going anywhere.
Besides I’ve never believed that if you played with students that the fans would notice much of a difference. When it comes to football, they’re complete morons. They just want to win. If it’s a level playing field, very few would notice. Also there actually are some smart kids that can play football.
The army/navy game attracts pretty good attention with that model and you can’t tell me that if you put those guys in red and black and orange in blue in a stadium in Jax that people would watch. They would. No doubt in my mind.
In short we don’t have to pay them, we just have to stop exploiting them. The colleges offer a free education to kids who are good at sports and the pros offer money. That’s the model I endorse and there are thousands of kids who are excited about that opportunity and who won’t feel cheated. If they do, they can write the ck for tuition or go pro. Easy enough it seems to me.
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This is another form of romanticism that isn’t realistic.
Boosters have been paying players under the table since the dawn of the sport.
Nobody to speak of watches D-III football. The idea that with a radically changed sport, viewership won’t take a hit is wishful thinking. Certainly you’re entitled to it, but the reality is that nobody in college sports is giving up the golden teat any time soon.
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Just because there have always been cheating doesn’t mean the solution is to normalize the behavior.
I don’t know what drives the schools to avoid the obvious option that I present. Your suggestion is money. Could be. That seems to be THE motivator for most people these days. I think it’s also a lack of leadership and courage. There was a lot of push back when they established “any” academic constraints in the 1980’s when guys could sign their SAT, miss every question and still get into NC State.
The sport survived that and would survive another raising of standards such that those who are in college as a mere stepping stone would have to find another way to the big leagues and the big leagues would have to find a way of incubating their future talent.
If the NCAA continues to lose in court don’t be shocked if my solution comes to pass as alternative to nfl-lite. Why? Money. It will cost too much.
Imagine Herschel Walker’s recruitment in an open market. Good bye reserve fund.
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A. Players are already paid under the table. It’s a black market and it’s wide ass open so there is no need to imagine anything.
B. There was only one college football game per week on TV when Herschel Walker was being recruited, now there are billions of dollars in TV contracts flying around. Sorry, but the argument that there isn’t enough money is completely brain dead. Nick Saban makes damn near double what the best coach in the NFL makes. Also, the reserve fund has $43 million last i checked, just how much do you think these players are going to get?
C. As the Senator said nobody watches D-III football. Period. If you really want to see the money drop off a cliff let Georgia field a team of private school scholars. TV won’t buy those games and fans damn sure won’t pay the current ticket prices to watch runningbacks that run 5 flat 40 yard dashes. It would be like college sports in Europe, nobody attends them because they are little more than intramural leagues.
D. You can bet your ass if the entire NCAA went to a D-III model Bama football and Kentucky basketball would still find a way to get pros into their programs. A quick review of history will tell you that. Sports clubs were first invented so that rich people could entertain themselves during their leisure time. It was even considered cheating if you practiced back then because it gave competitors an unfair advantage. Anyway, human nature eventually took over, people wanted to win, and they started paying ringers from the working class under the table so they could win, and that’s exactly what would happen if the highest level of college football tried to scale all the way back to 1899.
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I understand that you can get better performance if you load them up on steroids and cocaine. Everyone’s doing it. Don’t be naive.
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Your response was to half ass for me to get your point
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You’re either dumb or stubborn.
Rules and principles cannot be conflated with what everyone does and expediency, financial or otherwise, else you cease to have either.
The point illustrated is not that you completely lack standards its just that they are well below mine but for reasons known only to you do not include using performance enhancing drugs, but who knows when you’ll decide that you’ve “evolved” on those issues? You draw your lines and I’ll draw mine.
For me the right thing has nothing to do with either popularity or profit. They are welcome by-products if they exist but are not the reason for the activity.
If football were outlawed or ceased to be tomorrow there will be plenty of track athletes and soccer players and volleyball players and swimmers participating contentedly within my model as there are today and have been for generations. That football is profitable and popular is not a reason to compromise rules or principles or else you’re just a whore shopping for the best price.
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LOL. C’mon, man.
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I’d like to see the financial costs of Prop 48.
If insisting on higher academics costs money and that’s all they focus on then why do they have Prop 48?
If Prop 48 were more stringent, how much would it cost? At what point does interest wane?
If you slowly increased Prop 48, as has been done for over 30 years, but at a greater pace, do you really think bammers are gonna watch the fucking Jets instead?
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If, if, if isn’t an argument. It’s a wish list.
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That’s not a response either.
The ncaa put academic restrictions in place. Popularity went up not down.
I’m not arguing correlation, you are.
If all they care about is dollars why put prop 48 in place?
If fans want the absolute dumbest why didn’t they care that some good players have to go to juco or are lost forever?
If we raised the requirements some more, why would the result change?
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What I’ve seen over the last two decades is a relentless dollar chase evidenced by postseason expansion, conference realignment and conference networks.
Compared with all that, Prop 48 is a wart on the ass of a gnat. But feel free to chase your dreams and speculate otherwise.
There is no school that is going to give up a nine-figure revenue stream to present you with a purer academic product.
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Ok. So the answer is that they went with Prop 48 in 1986 because they weren’t making enough money then? Fine.
I’d note that there were additional Prop 48 stipulations added in 2016. The APR was added in 2011.
I think they can do both and in actuality they have done both just not to the degree I’d prefer. What they haven’t done is raised the standards to the point that it finally separates those who want to be pros at 18 and those who are realistic enough to know they either ain’t cashing any checks in the league or it’ll be so few they’ll need that degree.
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No, the answer is that Prop 48 is an irrelevant fever dream on your part.
Look if you want to minimize the role money plays in present day college athletics, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to continue the discussion with you.
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I remember my last fever dream: that the conference would limit scholly numbers to 25 per annum over saban’s objection.
A guy can hope.
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Lots of them are complete morons outside of football, too. 😉
Navy’s home attendance averaged less than a third of Michigan’s. 77k tickets is a lot of bread to sacrifice on the altar of being holier than thou.
But as usual, I like your enthusiasm. As long as we ignore history, economics, logic, and human nature, there’s nothing stopping us from creating an amateur Utopia!
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Why does idiotic and insane always show up to the discussion?
Why have academic admission standards at all?
Why make them go to school at all?
If the idea is that NFL-lite is the most financially rewarding product and nobody gives a shit, why not just let them be professional football players for a private company called UGA Football?
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As for paying players to be quasi-professional football players, that’s what is already happening. I’m just suggesting stripping away the layers of hypocrisy that morons like you so enjoy and acknowledging what is happening. But if you want to continue the system of rewarding the coaches who cheat best, as long as they’re savvy enough not to get caught without plausible deniability, knock yourself out. But you’re really just fooling yourself. SEC football ain’t intramurals. It never has been. It never will be.
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Too bad no players have ever taken coke or steroids prior to competitions otherwise we could use the “it’s already happening” principle to normalize it.
Why doesn’t the “it’s already happening” rule apply to your position on abortion?
The womb isn’t safe dude. Never has been. Give it up, dude. It’s like over and stuff. You’re such a naive moron.
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I think you’re making good points Derek. Just because something is done in a certain way and there are entrenched powers who make big money keeping the status quo doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t change. The history of smoking in this country is a good example. Young folks now would not believe people could smoke on airplanes, restaurants, just about anywhere. When the anti smoking movement started, I remember thinking there was no way it would change anything. Man, was I wrong. I don’t think that we are going to be happy at how this ends, but keep up the good fight.
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You want to argue that allowing a team and a player to engage in voluntary exchange is the same as murdering an unborn child? I mean, I knew you were dumb, but you never cease to amaze me, dude.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRkhqO2Ui7VskTRLpcEpXvaM3es6Ma1SeiOfmTxxsO9GhGw_6EEeg
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I guess your position on abortion is based on something other than “they’re doing it anyway.” You made such a good case for that argument in another context.
You know what can be said of an argument that can’t easily be applied in another context? That it probably came from a moron.
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Yes. My opposition to abortion is that it is immoral. And because people engaging in voluntary exchange isn’t immoral, I support it. So I’m consistent moral.
You support abortion, in spite of it being immoral. And because people from engaging in voluntary exchange is morally fine, you abhor it. So you consistently support stupid and immoral positions. Which we already knew.
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I do not support abortion. Nor do I support lying. Nor do I support adultery. Nor do I support covorting with professional sex workers. Nor do I support people for whom a NDA is required of everyone out of fear of embarrassing disclosure. I do not support drugs. I do not supporg prostitution. I do not support gambling.
Nor do I think any of those should necessarily be punishable by jail.
It is quite moronic to think that you support anything for which you do not believe should be punishable by jail. But you are that moron.
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Derek can’t make a rational case for his evil positions and has to resort to trying to hurt my feelings?
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As someone said above, I think I’ve evolved to a position that I don’t want universities or teams paying the players directly, but that they should have every right to go out and make as much as they can off their likeness and name while they are part of the school.
If that results in lower donations to schools as big boosters are putting that money directly into players’ pockets, well, then them’s the breaks.
That the kids on that Maryland Junior College team didn’t get a PENNY from their NCAA cinderella run is a travesty when compared to the billions of dollars generated from that run. That was the single greatest opportunity those kids will ever have to get national media money.
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Senator,
Could Murray walk away from football and return to OU in four years when his pro baseball career is over and still have eligibility?
BTW, Kyler Murray to Oakland at #9 was a huge reach. But, good for him.
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To play football? Yes.
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No. Once you enroll in college, you have 5 years to use 4 years of eligibility, not including medical exceptions. Players who go from high school to pro baseball, will have eligibility remaining after their baseball career, but Murray will not have eligibility in 4 years.
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Highest paid college quarterback since Cam Newton.
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Then I would say Murray is crazy to play football this year. Oakland, as his employer, should put their foot down and tell him baseball is your job now.
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They’re not currently his employer.
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True, but if someone offered me $4million to play a game, I’m there in a jiffy with my own pen.
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I don’t disagree with that. My perspective is that Kyler Murray should do whatever the the heck he wants and that is great for him. But if I were going to get $4M to play baseball, my future in football would consist of Madden and backyard throwing sessions.
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Nuh-uh. 4 million? I wouldn’t risk breaking a finger tossing the old pigskin with my 2 year old.
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So…if the next Todd Gurley is coming up from HS, then me and some UGA booster friends can create a “professional” tic-tac-toe league and sign him for $250k to the “Athens” team. And hey, since he’s in town anyway, why not sign with Kirby and play football for UGA!….?? Honestly, why do bagmen bother hiding in the shadows when the loopholes are big enough to drive a truck through?
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I could be misreading, but I’m pretty sure that’s the Senator’s point with this post. Defense of amateurism really boils down to nothing more than “we prefer large gobs of money go to certain people instead of others.”
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I have never understood why Bama doesnt have a minor league baseball team. It seems like the most obvious thing to do and you could likely turn a profit on it.
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Came here for AusDawg’s and DawgPhan’s comments. Thank you. We should start an all-Georgia e-Sports league for promising high school and college talent. Students get paid to play in football video game tournaments, then on their “off season” could be available to play tackle football as wholesome amateurs, as long as they maintain residency in the state of Georgia, that is. 🙂
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You’re right. Make it where athletes who are professional in one sport are not eligible to receive a scholarship in another sport. If Murray gets a million for baseball and wants to play football he should have to pay to play. Maybe he could be a preferred walk on but I doubt he would.
Problem solved.
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We’ve got history with dudes like Quincy Carter playing professional minor league baseball before going the college football route. Different than signing a future pro contract while playing college football, but just another example of different situations being treated differently. I am not sure if the situation of some guys trying baseball for money and going to college football is a special baseball situation or merely a situation where you can be paid in any sport without losing eligibility in another sport in college.
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Maybe if Quincy had to pay his tuition he wouldn’t have had as much jack to throw around Athens. Regardless the outliers such as Murray probably total a couple dozen or so in division 1 today. A rule change by the ncaa would have negligible effect and probably open up a few more scholarships for other kids who aren’t getting paid thousands or millions of dollars already.
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Ain’t no good answer. Big problem with NCAA setting a pay scale (without an antitrust exemption from Congress). Without that pay scale you have a problem of rich schools having all of the really good players. I don’t mean Alabama or Auburn. How about Harvard deciding they need a National Championship in football. They have a 3000 Gazillion dollar endowment fund that could buy every high school AA in the country. Their only competition would be the Dallas Cowboys. That would mean schools would play for the, fuck I don’t know what you would call it, every year. At what point would TV’s turn off? I don’t know and I am pretty sure no one else does either. I also don’t know the answer to this problem of players being paid for their likeness (it does seem like a better idea, lots of cheating but nothing new). Someone had better figure it out pretty quick. Our court system is going to figure this out for us and we will probably not like their solution..
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Plenty of people watch professional sports. Every day.
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If Harvard wants to start a big time football program, they can do that right now. All it takes is money.
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I really do not know why this keeps coming up. If you want the players treated like NFL Players then be prepared to have the upset stomach and foul smelling crap that comes with eating that meal. Do you really think Alabama should be allowed to trade Jalen Hurts to UCLA in return for selecting UCLA’s top recruit the next year? That is just one small point to consider.
To answer your specific question: “In what world does that make logical sense?” The world where it is Known that their are many times over more 17 and 18 year old kids ready and able to play Professional baseball than Professional football. If your beef is that there should not be an NFL age/class restriction then take that up with the NFL since it is their restriction.
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That is one awesome, giant non sequitur. Thanks for sharing.
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Actually, it it is a perfectly logical conclusion. To me you want to dance around the edges of the issue by throwing up nascence points that naturally flow into a cesspool. But you only want to deal with those points and not the cesspool they create. I’m not saying that it is impossible to clean up the cesspool but to deny it’s existence borders on absurdity. But you’re welcome.
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I’m not the one in denial. That would be the folks at the NCAA.
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