A starting college quarterback is just askin’.
Longhorns quarterback Sam Ehlinger wants you to think for a moment.
“Consider a full-time unpaid internship that requires 1-4 years of participation with a minimum 40-hour work week,” Ehlinger tweeted Thursday evening. “This internship generates millions of dollars for your company, and billions of dollars for the broadcasting companies that cover your industry.”
The case to pay collegiate athletes isn’t new. Nor is the parallel that Ehlinger, a junior in UT’s McCombs School of Business, make. But Ehlinger continued in follow-up tweets:
“Within this internship, you risk your short-term and long-term health on a daily basis. You endure this internship with less than a 2% chance to advance in your industry and obtain a full-time paid job. Would you accept this position?
“Now consider the full-time unpaid internship as College Athletics and the full-time paid job as Professional Sports.”
But some of the side benefits are awesome. Why, just this week, the NCAA generously agreed to extend the unpaid internship period for a couple of teams another week! I mean, helping ESPN make a few extra bucks is bound to look good on the ol’ resume, amirite? You sure can’t put a price tag on that. Where’s the gratitude?
Get The Picture 
Does the theoretical, full-time, unpaid internship get you laid by the finest women on the U of Texas campus? Asking for a friend….
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Well, there’s that. Hard to put a price on it
🙂
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Not if he interviews wit the Patriots…
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I see what you did there.
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Weird. My unpaid internship with a marketing firm never included academics, housing, dining, clothes, national exposure, etc for up to 5 full years.
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How much risk of bodily injury did you face there on a daily basis?
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Daily? Sam wears a red jersey and isnt touched except twelve (12) days out of the year. Let’s scale back the drama. Not like dude is wakes up in Afghanistan every day.
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I didnt type “is”….lol
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Oh, sorry. I guess he doesn’t practice.
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I’m assuming that’s the “red jersey” (ie, no contact)
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Two words: Jordan. Fucking. McNair.
OK, I guess that was three words.
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I understand he is wrong about the internship being unpaid. It is a paid internship. However, when your semester with the marketing firm was up you could look for a paid internship with a different form that wa sc willing to pay more.
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He’s still free to do that, it just wouldn’t be in football. If he doesn’t like the deal, he’s free to find another deal that pays better and/or has less risk of harm. This makes it sound like he has no choice. Bil Gates started his own league, so to speak. Is playing college football now an inalienable fundamental right? Maybe if all the players quit playing, the people with the checkbooks would offer a deal more to their liking. Isn’t that what the rest of the working class does? Sam wants all the benefits he believes he should get, he just doesn’t want to sacrifice the benefit of being a Longhorn QB to make things better. He’s not a slave. The issue of benefits equaling the revenue is a fair question, for sure. Pretending he’s a victim of involuntary servitude f I esnt advance his position.
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“It just wouldn’t be in football” –kinda the kid’s point, no? It’s an “internship” with a 90+% chance of leading to nothing at all.
Obviously we’re ALL “free to find another deal that pays better and/or has less risk of harm.” Duh.
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What exactly makes “the deal” a deal? Did the two sides negotiate something you’re privy to that the rest of us are unaware of? Or is take it or leave it = the deal?
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I’m sorry. Does he have to sign up for it? He may not have great negotiating power, but he can go somewhere else. Or he can not play if he thinks the risks outweigh the benefits. I guess a Texas business degree is a job impediment, or a benefit of no value. Could Sam have gotten into Texas without his football gig? Could he have afforded college at all? Is there a shortage of people who’d take his gig if he declined? Of course not. Are they all as good as him? Maybe, maybe not. Oversupply of labor affect the benefits offered? Maybe. Don’t take the gig if you don’t like the deal…. Unless you see the gig as a stepping stone to a much better deal. Maybe it pans out, maybe not. Does he owe Texas anything if he scores 1st round draft money? Of course not.
I get that he doesn’t like the deal, but as long as he has a choice to accept or reject it, it’s still a deal between him and Texas. Just like if he was an unpaid intern at Google, looking for a 1 or 2% shot at a paying gig (with added chance of injury). Football is not the entire universe. He’s free to find like minded folks and build his own league, he’s free to not play, he’s free to pursue other interests, or he can accept the current deal. Pretending he’s a victim of involuntary servitude is a stupid argument for him to make. If enough people agree with him and quit playing, maybe the market will adjust. He has a good point about the income/benefit ratio, but the solution isn’t to claim he’s unable to walk away from a bad deal. YMMV
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That’s the point of an illegal cartel, last time I checked.
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it’s not illegal until a court calls it a cartel. And if a court does that, he has a remedy. In the meantime, nobody is making him risk life and limb for a mere guaranteed admission to a top school, paid tuition, books, food, housing, training and gear, a chance to improve his skills against top flight competition. He has to work hard for it, no doubt. There’s a ton of money flowing, more than ever, no doubt. He may have a perfectly good claim to a bigger share of it. Life is full of trade offs. Nobody is making him accept this one, and if the deal is a cartel deal, he has the same remedy any other aggrieved party has. The fact that he doesn’t have more leverage doesn’t make him a slave. I hold no brief for guys like Jim Delaney or Greg McGarity. Sam is just making a bad argument on his own behalf, and one that overlooks a few things that argue against him. YMMV.
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A trial court and an appellate court already have.
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Key difference being: 1) you didn’t generate literally millions of dollars of revenue for said marketing firm and 2) said marketing firm didn’t collude with all other marketing firms to not pay said revenue generating employees. Other than that, yeah it’s the same.
#isupportamatuerismbecauseilikesocialism
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Serious question – under your compensation plan, would the student athlete pay his/her tuition out of his/her own pocket?
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Serious answer: I don’t have a compensation plan. I simply want an end to the NCAA’s amateurism protocols. What the schools and players negotiate is entirely up to them and I’ll be fine with whatever comes as a result, as long as there are real negotiations.
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What if the answer is that Georgia is so popular that, sorry, we’re actually not going to be offering free tuition to be on our football team ? I realize that’s a crazy hypo, but be careful what you wish for is always real…
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They’d still have to run off players and we all know it.
No doubt you could round up 110 walk ons who’d be happy with the deal.
You don’t need a free lunch to play on Friday nights and I’m damn sure the going rate to play in the Granite Bowl in Elberton will be sufficient to put on a UGA uniform and play between the hedges.
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So popular to who? The players who are being sought by every other major program in the SEC as well? The players to whom boosters are right now willing to risk NCAA violations to give cash? The players for whom schools spend millions in unncessary upgrades to facilties to try to make their school just a little bit more attractive?
You were right, that is crazy.
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It’s a shame these kids are made to play sports.
Where’s the 13th amendment when you need it?
Too bad they don’t have the option of paying tuition out of their own pockets and getting in school on academic merit alone.
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It’s a shame these kids can’t accept the concept that it’s a privilege to entertain you.
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They don’t have to. And as you well know, if it were up to me, a large percentage of them wouldn’t be.
The idea that I could both change places with Jake Fromm and feel victimized is fucking hilarious on its face.
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Neither do you. Don’t follow the sport if the idea of negotiated compensation bothers you.
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But muh tradition!
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Not to be a smart butt, but yes, he did. His question was supposed to be a smack at the present system, but he did in fact take that internship. Doesn’t sound like a great deal, but he must have thought it was good enough.
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Victimhood, for the win!
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In fairness, he didn’t have a lot of options, but that’s not UT’s fault.
No one is paying to watch him play without that UT uniform on. Them’s the facts. No one else wants him…for now.
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Yes, i love the “let the market decide” argument… well, the real market for an 18yr old is the whole world (not just the university of texas) and that market ain’t gonna pay them shit, good at football or not.
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How do you reconcile that with the idea that the head coach of LSU is talking about “a [expletive] strong-ass offer about a month ago. [Expletive] strong.” ? Is he talking about a great course offering from LSU’s biochemistry department?
Clearly there is no market beyond just tuition, room and board (oh, and that stipend too).
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There’s a market for cheating? In sports?
Well fuck! Why don’t we encourage bounties! There’s a market! I mean if you’re gonna give a guy money for breaking a guys leg at least make sure it’s a fair rate.
The next thing you’ll tell me is some guys use substances to maximize performance and all the while the producers of those substances are forced, by the powers that be, underground!
Oh what an unfair world this really is!
Let the market rule!
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You have made a circular argument. Yes, it’s cheating. It’s cheating because the NCAA says so.
Do you think if it weren’t cheating the $$$ wouldn’t be there? That’s a market. It is currently a black market. If the regulations changed, it would just be a market. Tony is saying that the market today actually OVERVALUES the players. Rubbish. You then went on to compare a booster paying a kid to PEDs. More rubbish.
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Just because there is a market doesn’t mean it has to be recognized, legalized or normalized.
Second, nobody wants to admit how many good students and players in all sports are going to get fucked because their talents are worth, or become worth, less than the COA while a few stars reap all the rewards of this proposed insanity.
A cross country scholarship is in many ways a gift. Many a college student have worked to get, and then relied upon, that gift.
While as a matter of sheer happenstance football generates cash and cross country doesn’t these circumstances fail to change the fundamental nature of the arrangement: you’re being given a gift by a university due to your athletic talents. Its your decision whether you want to accept it or not.
I’m sure the work week at Division 2 is shorter, the education is good. Your capacity to garner the attention of future employers? Somewhat lesser.
In a real market, some players would have their agents front money to Notre Dame so they could potentially play on national tv every week.
Alas, the way it actually works you get a better financial deal to sign with Vandy. Tuition is much higher and the value of the degree is more cherished than say, Louisville, so where is this market that you speak of?
The market that exists was built by players and schools and coaches from long ago, not some kid born in 2002 wanting his damn money now.
I say go work on your game and show up at the Combine when they allow you to. In the meantime, shut the fuck up! I’m watching college football.
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Well that’s the crux of it isn’t it. In this country of capitalism uber alles in this context you choose to I do not feel any guilt on this market not being legalized, normalized, or recognized because it might impinge on your enjoyment. I am free to say that it is immoral for the USA to single out this industry and treat it differently than every other industry in terms of how it treats labor.
The fact that this labor is predominantly composed of minorities and come from impoverished backgrounds, I leave to others to make their own conclusions.
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Selling your likeness should be allowed no doubt, his comparison is spot on. However the greediness won’t stop…schools will want to force co-branding, licensing and royalty deals on the kids which will keep feeding the Athletic Department millions. Now the question remains, would the Academic side of the school have a strong enough case to join in the same fun?
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“With a less than 2% chance to advance and get a full time job” You can’t get a job out of Texas’ business school there’s days ? Man, that full ride really isn’t worth it !
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these*
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But how many UT fans would buy an insurance plan or take out a loan from agent Sam Ehlinger if he didn’t play football?
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There are quite a few insurance agents, stockbrokers, bankers, etc. that do very well and have never played football for any college.
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Reading comprehension izz hard.
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Young Sam seems to think the UT Business School offers some sort of NFL degree for him.
He’s on scholarship because of his athletic skills to obtain a BBA degree. If he doesn’t want to risk bodily injury, he can pay tuition like everyone else. Or he can wait three years out of HS and join a private business that specializes in the risk of bodily injury.
But no, he’s the victim here…
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No, no, you’re the real victim here. The nerve of these kids…
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I don’t get your retort. You and Ehlinger can say the analogy is perfect, but it’s not.
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What if you really love playing your internship? What if no one is making you play your internship? What if other people wish they could have your internship and would do anything to get your internship? What if you had your internship at a job with a shitty weight room and a fucking insect was your mascot? Boo Hoo.
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What if your internship was solely about bettering yourself and not for the entertainment of others?
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Every internship benefits someone besides the student doing the internship. Coca Cola, IBM, Travelers Insurance, etc. do not have internships because of some sense of social obligation. The company/organization providing the internship and their customers get some benefit from the internship. In return, the student benefits from the training and education they receive during the internship that will serve them in their future careers.
If Sam thinks his “four year internship” is such a bad thing, he is free to quit and choose another career path for his future. He can arrange to pay for college, if his new career requires a college degree, on his own and be free of the indentured servitude placed on him by receiving the scholarship money from playing college football. One of the great things about this country is the ability to change your path in life if you aren’t happy with the one you are on.
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I’m glad you made this point. It’s a weak analogy, but it does cut to the heart of the discussion.
Nobody would care about Sam’s “internship” issues, including Sam, if it weren’t for one thing: we customers pay a shit ton for those benefits. It’s our financial enthusiasm that fuels his internship, as well as the black market where Will Wade pursues talent. Take all that away, and you’ve got Division III athletics, where neither fans (what few there are) nor players have any complaints about the situation.
How many interns at Travelers have a market for their services that is comparable to Sam’s situation? You and I both know the answer to that is zero. Nobody is lining up to watch that IBM intern ply his wares on television.
You guys look at the Sams of the world through your own prism of him getting to play a sport in a setting where you would kill to do the same. Sam sees his world through the prism of enormous sums of money flowing through a big time business built on the backs of him and others and questions the rationale for doing so without having a real say in determining his worth.
One thing I’ll give him credit for — he’s a lot less patronizing in his world view than you are.
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Bingo. Say JC is an intern for Travelers and he has some really awesome family connections. Because of these connections he is able to bring a multi million dollar contract to Travelers, with more down the road. JC has become a lot more valuable to Travelers and would be appropriately compensated.
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Not as an unpaid intern. If I decided to quit my internship and take a paid position at Travelers, they would compensate me appropriately. I could not be an unpaid college student intern and be compensated. Sam does not have this option because if he quits his unpaid internship job he is prohibited by a collective bargaining agreement from being paid for his skill set until he turns 21 or is three years out of high school. Travelers can hire any 18 year old they desire if hiring that 18 year old would bring a multi billion dollar account to them.
Do away with the 21 year old age requirement and Sam can declare for the NFL draft right out of high school and avoid that unpaid internship he seems to dislike so much. If he doesn’t want to go that route, Sam can hire a private quarterback and strength coach to train for three years after high school and then declare for the draft and not risk injury or feel he is slaving for the entertainment of others. If Sam wants a college degree, he can choose the path 99%+ choose and pay his own way or borrow money to obtain his degree without having to endure the four year unpaid internship that risks his life and limb.
The truth is; Sam is getting a great deal out of his unpaid internship and if he doesn’t think so, he is free to leave at any time. I’m sure he would have many job offers in the field he is interning for since he is such a rare talent.
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“Nobody is lining up to watch that IBM intern….”
I don’t know man, I hear crazy things about e-gamers these days 🙂
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Any solution that is fundamentally fair to the players will end college football as we know it. ( collective bargaining agreement, free agency, etc.) I don’t want college football as we know it to end, but it is not anyone’s right to tell someone else what their skills and time are worth. The market should determine that.
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The natural follow up to the rhetorical question “Would you accept the position?” is to ask the writer or interviewee “So then why do you, personally, play?”
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Thoughtful or difficult follow up questions by interviewers are a thing of the past. Sycophants posing as “reporters” fawn over their interview subjects and dare not make them uncomfortable at all or risk losing “access”. Maybe if reporters would ask some difficult questions to these snowflake experts on life, the snowflakes might think something through before running their mouths about it.
Hearing a college athlete bitch about his situation would be comical if it were not so sickening. If they think their life is so bad and they are being treated so unjustly, they need to empower themselves and quit. College students take unpaid internships all the time with the goal of getting a better job when they graduate and they don’t have their entire college degree and experience paid for. For a regular student to have everything a scholarship football or basketball player has would cost between $50-100,000 a year depending on where they went to school. I would imagine most every student would sign up for that sort of “unpaid” internship.
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How many of those college students, whom take an unpaid internship, generate millions of dollars for the work they put in? The answer to that is not a single one.
Also, the answer to the thoughtful follow up question about why Sam decided to play is because you have to play in order to make it to the next level. You can’t tell me there’s a realistic alternative to playing college football that gives the players the same opportunity to make it to the NFL. Take 3 years off and hire a trainer? Move to another country and play in a league that has zero exposure and actual competition? Hell, it’d probably be better to just play flag football at your local YMCA. There have been only a handful of people who didn’t play college football and have made it to the NFL. And 99% of those were kickers.
It seems like you are inserting yourself or an average Joe into Sam’s position and viewing it as a great deal. You aren’t Sam. And neither is 99% of the population. Sam has a skill that you don’t have and that skill helps produce millions for almost everyone around, except for Sam. Hell, even though that skill has helped make him famous, he can’t use that fame to make a single dollar. But the billion dollar TV companies use Sam’s fame to make a shit ton of $. Yet Sam should just be happy and shut up because he gets his schooling and living paid for?
You can’t honestly say that you would be happy to receive $100,000 in exchange for something you have that’s worth millions. If you would be happy with that then I can honestly say that I hope you aren’t in business for yourself or else you will have a hard time staying out of bankruptcy court.
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Unfair to call it an unpaid position when kids are graduating with $250,000 debt in student loads.
“Would I accept this position”? … YES
Is it fair that “Amateur Athletes” are prevented from profiting from autographs or paraphernalia? … Probably not
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Autographs for sure.
Paraphernalia, eh, probably not. Tom Brady can’t sell NFL licensed apparel on his own.
Commercial spots though, go for it, as long as you aren’t wear team gear. If you are, School needs their cut.
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If he thinks it’s that bad he should quit.
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I weep for these kids.
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I’m with Sam. They are being robbed, and it’s a shame.
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It’s the wrong analogy.
Revenue-generating college athletics is more like a company town than anything else. The workers are “paid” but in script that they can only spend at the company store and they aren’t allowed to test the market value of their labor. Meanwhile, management can’t spend all the profits fast enough while constantly repeating the trope that labor doesn’t know what’s good for itself anyway.
It’s roundly un-American. Or exactly on-point depending on your point-of-view.
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That’s the one, Stoop.
And it’s more “American” than apple pie. How many Robber Barons have there been in U.S. history?
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Let’s modify Sam’s question: Would you put in a 40 hour work week as an intern in order to get a full ride scholarship? Many would say “Hell Yes!”. The personal injury risk is real and a mitigating factor, but he’s flat wrong about the 2% chance at employment. He may not get his desired job with his desired employer…few do right out of college…but he’ll get employment if he chooses to balance his work / study appropriately.
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Gotta go with Gurkha Dawg on this on….. Medicine is not my field but I apply the Hippocratic oath in all my life endeavors……Is the cure…letting the market set some level of compensation…….worse than the disease…….star college athletes being under paid or exploited. Answer: yes The cure creates so many ancillary problems that the only sport I regularly follow and care about goes away as we know it.
As several have have suggested it seems the if it is that bad Sam needs to quit….I expect UT will find a replacement….supply and demand being what they are and all
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I thought they were limited to 20 hrs per week by the overlords ? NOW I KNOW WHY WE LOST THE SUGAR BOWL ! ! TEXAS CHEATS !
#investigatetexas
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It’s so cool that you know more about his week than he does.
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It was a joke, crusader.
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So was my snippy response. 😉
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….and I’m also warming to your suggestion of just saying “I don’t like paying players.” It’s a very clean and simple position.
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It is.
And it’s one I respect.
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the reason I don’t like it is fear of the unknown, not keeping kids (especially poor kids) in their place. My fear is that it invites the overlords to go full(er) steam ahead on an NFL-lite model of expanded playoffs and diminished regular seasons……… that is to say, paying players in itself won’t make me dislike Georgia football, but if it turns into the monolith that pro sports is to me, Saturdays won’t be can’t-miss like they are now. I don’t hurry to the kitchen or bathroom during breaks in NFL action.
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This is my stance. I have no problem with paying kids to play, but I just don’t see it bringing any positives to the fans, only potential negatives. Selfish, I know, but this is the last sport I give a shit about, and Striper fishing is really great in the fall. Just saying….
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And if you pay all of them the same thing across the board and the girls in equestrian get the same, fine.
Not much of a market, but i can live with that result.
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I don’t really know where I stand on this topic. Should they get paid…..I guess. How and from whom should they get paid……..I don’t know. If the future does provide payment above the scholarship I would say that the NCAA or university would get involved somehow. For example, when I took my senior engineering design class at UGA, in order to take the class, I had to sign an agreement that stated if a design was patented UGA would receive 90% of all royalties and the student 10%.
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Damn, that’s harsh! Back in the olden days when I took it, I assume we could have kept whatever we wanted to patent, though I’m sure UGA’s legal eagles would have seen it differently. But we didn’t sign anything (this was early 80’s).
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“Now consider the full-time unpaid internship as College Athletics and the full-time paid job as Professional Sports.”
That is a completely false premise and he admits it with “less than a 2% chance to advance in your industry” The whole point of being a STUDENT athlete is to prepare them for the likely hood they are in the 98%. That is what always seems to be lost on the pay the players crowd. That is why they are encouraged to attend class, and get their degree. Helping some obtain that degree that might not otherwise have the opportunity is how athletic scholarships started in the first place. This really should not be so hard for some seemingly otherwise intelligent people to understand.
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Oy. Presumably every student is in school to prepare them for the future. Some of those students are on scholarship and some of those scholarship students are free to make money in any legal way they see fit… as long as they’re not playing collegiate sports. That appears to be lost on you.
You really should take Tony Barnfart’s advice about stating your personal preference and stopping there.
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“some of those scholarship students are free to make money in any legal way they see fit… as long as they’re not playing collegiate sports. That appears to be lost on you.”
Not at all. I just happen to remember how it was before the current rules and therefore support why they are what they are. I also know those student athletes not allowed to work per NCAA rules have many benefits not afforded those that can work.
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The question is why should the colleges find any value whatsoever in a 1/50 bet?
The premise assumes that 98% are worth $0 on the open market so how is the cost of attendance too little?
The players only have potential value to the schools in a system where someone else is paying. If they decide: we can pay, but we won’t pay, and if X schools pays, then we ain’t scheduling you, aren’t we in exactly the same spot?
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The obscene amounts of money these schools get and the obvious trouble they have in spending all of it (Texas spent millions ripping out 5 year old lockers because they didn’t use the coolest wood) tells me the players should get more. How they do it is the sticking point. I really don’t like the way CFB has become NFL-Lite and just flat out paying the players really has the potential to make that aspect worse. Maybe a chunk goes into an NCAA pool that the players get after they finish school? Maybe a bonus for graduating? Separate pool for career-ending injuries? As much as I hate the NCAA, I’m not sure I’d leave it to the individual schools.
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I think a point that is often missed is that a lot of schools get obscene amounts of donations — until this year 80% of the donation was tax deductible. I am curious over the next few years what the “revenue of donations” is going to look like and how will it change the math on revenue generation.
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I’m thinking of ESPN/TV money, but I get your point on donations. I think I’d handle them separately at least.
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I think a big piece missed in the “Obscene amount of money” schools get is how much is done through donations. Until 2018, 80% of donations could be deducted off your taxes. That might not impact the average fan but the big time donors might move on. I will be curious to see how that impacts “Revenue generation” in the coming years
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Mr. Ehlinger’s analogy is imperfect, as are most analogies. However, what I think most people can agree on is that it highlights that the NCAA/University/Athlete relationship is transnational in nature. Whether you think the scholarship is enough payment or not, I think it is certainly payment for services rendered. This in itself is not an issue, except that it undermines the NCAA fiction of amateurism and all that goes along with it. If the NCAA did not have amateurism to cling to, their house of cards would fall. Although it is hard to put strict definitions on a term like “amateurism”, the amount of money floating around is making it harder to pass they eye test.
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Bullshit. Is a women’s soccer scholarship a business relationship?
No. Its a gift, stupid.
The school chooses to expend vast amounts of resources to send girls around the country to play a game that we can all watch for free and for most that’s too damn high.
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It’s a gift? You mean the soccer player gets a scholarship and doesn’t have to provide anything in return?
Because otherwise, I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
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If you are already doing it. Like doing it. Enjoy doing it. Got good at it so you could get a scholarship, that’s exactly what it is. It’s kinda like an engagement ring ain’t it? Is that a gift or an arms length transaction?
I mean at some point your wife’s a whore if you really want to dig into the weeds right?
I mean why ARE you buying those “gifts?”
It’s silly and absurd. And stupid.
Just because a relationship can be mischaracterized to make some rhetorical point doesn’t mean that a marriage is a closed prostitution market between two economic actors, but the argument can, and has, been made.
There’s sorta more to it ain’t there?
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The school imposes conditions for the scholly. If the player doesn’t meet those conditions, then the scholly isn’t retained. That’s not my idea of a gift.
You lost me with the wife/whore argument. If you’re married, I hope you haven’t tried that on her. 😉
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For realz. What a shitty and offensive way to try to analogize. Sorry she broke your heart Dude.
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I said it was stupid. Don’t suggest that I’m the first one who has made the absurd observation/argument that a dinner date is an economic exchange for sex.
Again, it’s stupid. You know, like you.
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I’m suggesting nothing of the sort. What I’m saying is that in your zeal to prove your point you’ve managed to make yourself look like a complete fucking idiot. Again.
Keep on keeping on, Bro.
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In your zeal to be a fuckhead you proved yourself stupid…again.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/12/women-prostitution-marriage-sex-trade
A woman 11 years ago made the point fuck face. I disagree with it. I think it’s idiotic, as I said. But I didn’t invent it, you idiot.
Quote, since you’re too fucking dumb to read the article:
“This belief is reflected in The Industrial Vagina in her description of marriage as a type of prostitution; a legal transaction that has traditionally guaranteed sexual access to women’s bodies in return for subsistence. “Prostitution and marriage have always been related,” says Jeffreys.
Oh and btw, gfy.
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Hey moron:
“What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?”
Angela Carter
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Fucktard:
Also authored by a woman:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/allwoman/Marriage-and-prostitution–what-s-the-difference-_19231218
Quote:
“IT has been argued by many that marriage is long-term prostitution, wherein women are trading sex for economic security.“
Many it says. Many.
Did I mention you should gfy?
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Oh hell no! I like oxygen.
There are conditions in marriage too. Doesn’t change the voluntary nature of the arrangement and the fact that there are mutual expectations.
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Absolutely it is an economic transaction! Just like getting an academic scholarship is an economic transaction. There is value to the university in offering a standout student a scholarship. It is important for rankings, prestige, research etc. that the university attracts the top students. The student benefits by getting a reduced cost of attendance.
The difference between the academic student versus the athlete is the former can work at another job, accept scholarship money from other sources, still retains the rights to their own names and likenesses, etc. and the latter cannot. The reason the athlete cannot is not because an individual university doesn’t want to allow these things, but because a third party organization imposes restrictions, in a monopolistic way, on the whole process.
Now, I fully understand the athlete can reject all scholarship offers from member universities – but in reality it is only one offer (the NCAA’s), and it is a morally repugnant one in which the NCAA gains much and the university “student athlete” gets to attend school for free. Now, that would indeed be a big benefit for the academic student, but most of these scholarship athletes, due to the commitment on the athletic side, find it very hard to get a quality education while fulfilling all the requirements of the “job” they were recruited for.
Case in point, a friend of mine at work had a daughter who was a standout prep track star. She was offered a scholarship at a small school and wanted to study biology. When the coach found out her intended major, he strongly discouraged her from picking something so hard. We are talking track, at a small school. I can’t imagine the pressure on D1 football players and the commitments they have.
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My first cousin played on a SEC championship soccer team and finished with a 3.8 in pharmacy and there were students with better grades than her on that team. She also didn’t have the most challenging major.
Her father once told me it would have been much cheaper to have just paid for school than to have done all it took in years club and HS soccer to get there.
Which is the point that gets missed. The kids want this desperately. The parents want it for them. I wanted it desperately. My cousin got to do it on scholarship. I did it on my (parents) own dime. It transcends any economics to want to represent your school in a sport and go to school free to do it. I’m glad that opportunity was there for me and for others.
As far as some coaches being assholes about academics? Seen it myself. It’s shitty. And unfortunate. It’s not universal.
Finally, UGA is not a for profit entity. They arent giving out academic scholarships for $. Prestige? Rankings? Maybe, but it’s not straight economics.
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The thing I can’t figure out, is how you decide how much to pay all the student athletes. Are you paying market value for Johnny Football and Emily Equestrian Queen? If so, how is that decided? If you pay them the same, is that socialism/don’t they already get a stipend? What if players on the same team, Timmy Tailback and Lenny tha LongSnappah, get paid differently? Maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe some guys see how much one of their team mate gets paid and works harder. Maybe it makes him mad and he enters the transfer portal.
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You pay student athletes the same way you pay everyone else on the payroll. It’s not dark magic.
People are making decisions every day on how to pay players. It’s called the black market.
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I’d be shocked if it was that simple.
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Why? They pay coaches and ADs now. They spend vast sums on facilities. And they pay players over and under the table. What’s so difficult?
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It is that simple. Olympic model for revenue generating sports. Problem solved.
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I really hope you get your wish and all these kids get paid. When (not if) it irreparably screws up all NCAA athletics and you see the swim team and track teams being cut so we can give that sweet new RB from South GA a $750,000 contract for 4 years I hope it’s worth it.
How about the NFL pay for its own minor league and we go back to the Division III model.
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Why is it a given that player compensation is a zero sum game, that only players will get screwed? There is tons of money plowed into administrative salaries and facilities that could easily be redirected.
You a big fan of the track and swim teams like you are the football team? If so, show your financial support. Why should that be up to a star football player?
As far as your final suggestion goes, neither the schools nor the NCAA have financial incentives to go down that road. That’s probably the players’ fault, too, amirite?
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As a father of a track (and football) and my other kid is a swimmer yes I am huge fans of those programs and don’t want to see them go away so some football player can “get his”.
College football and men’s basketball are what drive the bus for all NCAA sports. When you start paying players that money has to come from somewhere. My guess is that Kirby ain’t giving up his salary so we can sign a couple of more D-linemen. So by default that money comes from cutting other programs where kids who may or may not get the chance to attend college (or a school like UGA specifically) are using the athletic scholarship how it was intended as a means to a degree. TV has perverted the football and basketball area of NCAA athletics to the point where it should be its own entity. Thankfully the NBA is putting into place provisions for kids who don’t want to go to college to play in the G-league and get rid of this “one and done” farce that major college basketball has become. I pray that the NFL will eventually do the same and we can get back to kids playing sports for their school in order to further their education.
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“There is tons of money plowed into administrative salaries and facilities that could easily be redirected.”
In a fantasy world, maybe. But as a faculty member at one of the many colleges and universities in the U.S. currently in dire financial straits, I can assure you: this money will be “redirected” only when you pry it from their cold, dead hands.
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I’m not really sure why anyone fan would favor paying players.
It can only have a negative impact for fans.
Players I can see, of course. But you’d have to be stupid as a fan to lobby for something that just results in you paying more for a ticket or tv game package.
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The only thing wrong with the intern analogy is that it leaves out the part about coeds throwing themselves at you and being potentially famous for decades even if you don’t pan out as an nfl guy.
But yeah. Lots of great points.
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I wouldn’t pay players. I would let them profit from their likeness.
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The problem with that is abuse.
Those things would get negotiated as part of signing a LOI.
Every team would be competing over who can promise the most sponsorship money.
If you could do it as a total organic arms length transaction, fine, but I don’t know how you write rules like that.
No doubt some guys could get an agent to sign a shoe deal. No question.
But how do you keep every business in Alabama from agreeing to sponsor kids if they sign with Alabama?
How do you keep Phil knight from ONLY signing kids who go to Oregon or offering those kids more?
How do you police it? It’s seems rational and fair on it’s face. I just don’t know how you limit it.
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Why do you care? Kyler Murrey got a multi-million dollar bonus from the As and played for Oklahoma last season. As far as I can tell, the sky didn’t fall because of his good fortune.
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Because I’m not stupid.
It’s not that I care that they get the windfall.
I don’t think we want to live in a world where 17 year old kids are fielding purely economic opportunities and making purely taking economic considerations into account in deciding where to go to college.
You can promote a world where the top 100 players in the country go to Alabama on either scholarship or on a “sponsor’s exemptions” but most people wouldn’t be interested.
Because they’re not stupid.
The competive balance in football is already way out of balance. Developing a system where only the 2 or 3 greediest schools survive isn’t an improvement for anyone.
Did kyler get paid by mlb to go to Oklahoma? Do I care if a kid buys a lotto ticket? It’s not about kids having money. That’s a simplification.
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If what you are describing happened regarding sponsorships then That would ONLY happen because it would be their fair market value.
Why shouldn’t a person in a capitalist society profit from their likeness and earn their fair market value?
It would cost the school nothing.
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I would REALLY like to see a statistic about how many P5 football players would be admitted to the school that they attend based upon the same factors as the rest of the student body.
And then another statistic about how many of them could afford to attend if they could get admitted.
They are getting an opportunity they would not otherwise have because of their athletic ability. Having said that, there absolutely should be a lifetime provision for them to be able to attend classes to get their degree because of the extent that football actually prevents them from getting a degree – or at least getting a degree in something they want or is worthwhile. That way the scholarship actually enables them to become a scholar.
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I could not agree more with your last paragraph. Schools also should be required to cover medical expenses for injuries that occurred while playing for as long as needed.
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This is also key. The NCAA was founded to avoid Workers Comp.
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Medusa’s head………. Inagrre athletes should be and probably are depending on the # of stars on 247. May I ask what’s fair ? Does the 5 star DT get more than a Gym Dawg who might I say assumes as much danger daily in practice as well as meets. What about baseball, they have 11-12 scholarships to field 20-24 team members golf even less. Because they are non revenue sport athletes do they get compiled less or not at all.
It’s pretty much a known fact that AAU basketball teams as well as coaches are well compensated.
#1) If you want a kid at UGA or any school give a 4-5 scholarship. Not a one year if you make it you can stay. The kid sign a series of one year scholarships as now except for Stanford and maybe 2 other major 5’s.
#2) all players are covered by insurance for serious injury. The school does not pay first in average injury cases. (family insurance) The worm in the wood here is what happens with later proven concussive issues as the NFL deals with now cause it’s coming NCCA.
#3) Do all Power 5 schools just allow the same amount of compensation.
If not the school with higher tuition offers a larger stipend so if I want more money I go to a institution ( not Tech ) where the cost is higher. Does that equal cup cakes becoming even more cup cakeier. ( is that a word ) The stronger get stronger. Pretty much as it is now.
#5) How do you coach kids if they are compensated for their name where the *RB, *QB, *LB, *DT makes a ton from autograph signings and personal appearances when the 2 backups get nothing for the same amount of sweat, blood and bruises and time spent. You think there was a tough locker room in 18’. It was no secret of those leaving early or desention in a divided locker room and some was media related. 3 of those kids could have gotten I would think by another year, not UGA but the kids would benefit but they wanted out of dodge. ( worries of 20’ TBC )
These young men have it pretty good but they pay dearly for it. Senator I am with you but this can of worms is over flowing. I am not that smart how do you level these issues between different sports, Title 9, different schools. The money is there Sanford just won’t get a bathroom upgrade till eh….after the Texas series is played in 28’-29’, prolly won’t be around to see that. Figure it out
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You know, the NCAA could just adopt the Olympic model for revenue generating sports, and it would basically end this debate.
The idea that this is some conundrum too complex to ever solve just isn’t true.
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Alot more than 2% of major college football players make the league. I would guess at least 1 in 3 UGA signees takes an NFL snap at some point.
Kids should get paid market value and a lot of the athletic department “costs” are an accounting shan where funds are simply transferred to the academic side via tuition payments. While the tuition is paid, there is almost 0 actual cost to the academic side to teach the athletes. Marginal cost of 1-3 students in a class is minimal. (Of course this is not the case if you create majors solely for athletes like UNC and Auburn.)
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Getting really tired of this debate (like all debates …) being forced into some sort of ridiculous either-or framework. Hard as this may be for some of you to accept, it’s possible to believe both (a) that the current NCAA amateurism protocols need some rethinking, and (b) that this “unpaid internship” line is a pile of horse shit.
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Then quit school and go get a real job, Sam. This isn’t an unpaid internship. This guy is raking in over $100k a year in benefits and wants to whine about it. Spare me.
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