This is power speaking to truth.
“They’re never more marketable than the four years they’re in college” is the reality for most college football and basketball players, not the bullshit the NCAA peddles.
- Bloviation for the Dawgnation
-
Quote Of The Day
-
“And Georgia fans, don’t be turds. Enjoy this. Soak it up. It’s awesome. If you don’t win this year, it’s still not a failure. It’s a heck of a run. Back-to-back in the Playoff era hasn’t been done. So, to ask for a third I feel like it’s gluttonous. I feel like it’s not OK. But we’ll be in the mix.”-- David Pollack, On3.com, 5/9/23
Search
Categories
Archives
Blogroll (ND)
- 82 Sluggo Win
- And The Valley Shook
- Banner Society
- Black Heart Gold Pants
- Black Shoe Diaries
- Blatant Homerism
- Braves & Birds
- Brophy Football
- College Football Talk
- EDSBS
- Eleven Warriors
- Lost Angeles
- MGoBlog
- RazorBloggers Network
- Rock M Nation
- Rocky Top Talk
- Saturday Down South
- Saturday Tradition
- Shakin The Southland
- Smart Football
- Team Speed Kills
- The National Championship Issue
- The Wizard of Odds
- Tide Bits
Dawg Blogs
Dawg Links
Media Links
Stats/Info Links
- All-Time Division 1-A CFB Standings
- American College Football
- American College Football – Rankings
- cfbstats.com
- College Football at Sports-Reference.com
- College Football by the Numbers
- College Football Data Warehouse
- College Football Recruiting Map
- College Nicknames
- Football Outsiders – College
- Football Study Hall
- GBE College Football Ratings
- MapGameDay.com
- NCAA Division I Football Statistics
- SEC Statistics
- Statistically Speaking
- Strangestbrew's College Football Schedulizer
- The Helmet Project
- Varsity Numbers
Useful Links
Time, time…
GATA
Blog Stats
- 70,401,109 hits
Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
Wow, that was perfectly said, and frankly there needs to be some sort of a revolt soon. Whether players across the country come together and protest by choosing a particular Saturday to not play, or something else that royally screws the NCAA and their precious TV deals, I’d love to see something big happen soon.
And please save me this ‘they get a quality of education for free’ nonsense. First, the actual cost for the Univ to provide the scholarships is trivial, and second, the majority of players are getting an utter joke of a degree that is meaningless in the real world. Think Housing and Child/Family Development degrees.
Lastly, many athletes leave school in no better shape than when they came in. I’ve told this story before, but back in the mid/late 00’s, my wife worked with UGA in career placement for former athletes at her firm. The stories she would share with me about quite a number of the football players not only was sad, it actually made me angry. Simply put, they were woefully prepared compared to the typical UGA grad.
LikeLike
Would you be ok with a player walk out/boycott of a game, that then cost UGA a natilnal title?
LikeLike
Absolutely. After all, to be for something (a boycott), but not if it means not winning something I personally care about (a title) would extremely selfish if not narcissistic. Simply put, I care what’s best for the players, not my own personal gratification at their expense.
LikeLike
Most are woefully prepared coming in as compared to the typical UGA grad. I think many are better prepared than they used to be, but there’s a reason the recent college admissions scandal used athletics as the doorway.
LikeLike
Absolutely true and it helps to make my point, which is that most have no business at a top academic school like UGA, yet we accept them anyway due to their athletic talent and put them in these easy, pointless major programs like Housing, etc.
LikeLike
Hammer meets Nail.
LikeLike
I don’t think you’ve got the hang of that cliche. Keep trying, though, and maybe one day you’ll get it.
LikeLike
Oh I get it – “someone is getting a raw deal” is fairly common in my world.
LikeLike
If that’s what you think it means, you need more practice.
LikeLike
Would you be ok with a player walk out/boycott of a game, that then cost UGA a natilnal title?
LikeLike
Interesting hypothetical.
If you’re not okay with that scenario, aren’t you saying that you being entertained is more important than student-athletes’ financial opportunity to better themselves? (An opportunity that you and I enjoy, ironically.)
LikeLike
Correct. I don’t think my happiness should supersede their opportunity.
LikeLike
You know, the funny thing about this is the part that should resonate the most with us fans is “until you start paying them, they’re leaving”. How many of those borderline early departures for the NFL draft would stay in school if they were receiving more economic benefits for doing so? And wouldn’t that be better for the college game?
LikeLike
I guess a college degree is not an “opportunity to better themselves”? I guess all of the teachers in high school and the parents and even business are lying to us.
LikeLike
As stated above when the kid shows up academically behind and is guided into a bullshit degree by a college coaching staff then no. Auburn is a perfect example. What UNC was doing with their basketball team is another. What value and job skills are they being providied? BTW those kids aren’t given a choice, they were told by the staff to take that major and classes.
LikeLike
“academically behind and is guided into a bullshit degree by a college coaching staff”
You don’t think that the fact that the kids know they can do that makes it much more likely that they do both in high school and beyond?.
LikeLike
An NFL exec talking about this makes me laugh. Their rules are what created this monster.
If the NFL wanted to fix this problem, they could, but they know minor league football would be a big, fat money losing proposition for them.
This coming from someone who advocates for more than the full cost of attendance scholarship.
LikeLike
How many high school kids do you think the NFL would sign for a development program? Even if it created one, there’s no way the numbers add up to make for a full-blown “fix”.
I watched Ja Morant last night. Fantastic talent who had exactly one P5 offer coming out of high school, from the home state ‘Cocks. How would the NBA doing away with one-and-done have fixed that kid’s chance to monetize his last two years?
LikeLike
I know … I just think it’s really hypocritical of the NFL to discuss this situation when honestly they are the customers of the product (the players) the system turns out.
If the NCAA wanted to fix this, implement the Olympic model.
The problem today is the NCAA (and D1, in particular) has too many members. The P5 has allowed the mid-majors and the schools who don’t play D1 football to tie them down like Gulliver and the Lilliputians.
LikeLike
Well, first of all, this isn’t “the NFL” saying it. It’s an individual executive who sounds like he feels a little guilty.
I really don’t have a lot of respect for an argument that blames the NFL and NBA for the NCAA’s greed. There’s nothing stopping the NCAA/schools from acting differently, other than their own selfish interests. Makes for good PR, though.
LikeLike
I’m not giving the NCAA a free pass. There’s a hell of a lot hypocrisy on this issue across the colleges and the pros.
LikeLike
It’s that last sentence almost no one ever tells them: throw in the fact that the average NFL career is three years. Three years. Even the very, very few who are lucky enough to get to the NFL will likely have an extremely abbreviated “career.” Then what? The average player with enough talent to be considered an NFL prospect often considers class nothing more than a distraction that must be managed. And the Athletic Department pretty much takes of that for them. The truth is, it’s those next 50-60 years after your three year NFL career you need to be thinking about.
LikeLike
While I agree with you 100%, what I think some of us are forgetting is that these kids love the game, they love to play, and the game makes them special. Exploited or not (And I think they are) it’s pretty rarefied air to be able to step onto a field in front of a zillion screaming fans and compete. For an athlete there is a large measure of reward in that alone. Why does the third string kick returner keep busting it knowing there is no NFL roster spot waiting? Why do swimmers keep swimming knowing that it’s a one in a million shot that they ever get their picture on the Wheaties box?
My point is: Fair or not, financial compensation and education are only part of the equation. To be talented and driven enough to reach that next level whether it be High school varsity, D-2, D-1, or even one season in the NFL brings with it experiences and personal gratification that does not have a price tag.
We look at profitable D-1 football programs and say “Look at all that money they are making off those kids, that’s not fair.” And it’s not, especially from an adults perspective. But you take a kid whose worked for something their whole life? This is a dream realized. They are living this moment, this experience, right now. When you’re 18, tomorrow is a long way away and to be part of that team is what matters right now.
Pay them or don’t. But don’t screw it up so much that you take opportunity away from the kids who actually want to be there, who’ve earned it.
LikeLike
Look! A perished equine! Shall we pull over and repeatedly strike it? We shall!
LikeLike
Judging from the overall level of debate, it seems the horse ain’t dead yet, podnah.
LikeLike
Truth. I don’t necessarily agree with what Hobnail said, but I do like the way he said it.
LikeLike
This executive is obviously right in what he says about the NCAA’s system. Instead of saying it to a reporter, he should be saying it in meetings of every NFL committee in front of which he can get. The NFL is every bit as guilty of exploitation of college athletes as the NCAA is because they are among the biggest winners in the arrangement. They have a minor league for which they invest… nothing. It’s the NFL’s rule that keeps the players from entering the league until their high school class has graduated three years. The NFL, the AAF, and the coming XFL are all complicit until they either set up an alternative minor league, development system, or simply start drafting the best players out of high school or after one or two years of college play. This guy is, as the Senator notes above, just one executive with a conscience and not the entire league, but unless he’s using whatever power he has to agitate for change on his side of the fence…
The NCAA needs to be paying players in the revenue sports more than simply a scholarship and cost of attendance. But I’ll take my lecture on the evils of drug abuse and addiction from someone other than Pablo Escobar.
LikeLike
What are the downsides? You have obviously looked at this a lot. Why don’t you ever address what could go wrong? What about the fact that football props up all other sports financially, and redesigning the business model could impact women’s sports? How will agents be handled?
LikeLike
You know, I read stuff like this and wonder how the rest of the economy functions.
You have a budget and you spend in accordance with what you take in. It’s not rocket science; if it were, nobody would own their own business.
LikeLike
“This is power speaking to truth.”
WTH does that even mean? I must have missed the Political Correctness Speak course at UGA that would’ve covered such phrasing.
This is just more pay for play claptrap. You guys are great with Utopian dreams, but once implemented they never turn out like you imagined. Something to do with unintended consequences.
LikeLike
What are the unintended consequences of you earning a living?
LikeLike
National Communist Athletic Association…FTHEM. I have NO issue with kids leaving for greener pastures.
LikeLike