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NCAA Votes To Allow College Athletes To Profit From Name, Image And Likeness


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Look, this isn't just the National Collegiate Athletic Association's fault. Don't get me wrong... the NCAA is most certainly complicit in the problem. That said, there's plenty of blame to go around.  
 
The responsibility of a college or university is to provide matriculating students with an education. The opportunity to participate in institution-sponsored intercollegiate athletics competition? At best, it should be an extracurricular activity open to those amateur participants who are in good academic standing at the institutions in which they're enrolled. Athletic scholarships? Monies earmarked towards a student's tuition, room and board in exchange for his or her prowess in a sport? Ridiculous. Scholarships at academic institutions should be granted in recognition of academic achievement. If you're someone who is looking to be compensated for your athletic ability, then go pro.

Of course, "the genie's out of the lamp". The leaders of academic institutions in the United States have long since abrogated their duties, seduced by the siren song of "raising the profile" of their schools and "generating ancillary revenue" via "big-time college sports". And professional sports leagues have been only too happy to reap the benefits - both in terms of athletes produced and money saved - of allowing college and university athletic departments to operate as minor leagues.

When, as was revealed in a 2018 ESPN story, the highest-paid public employee in 39 of the 50 United States in 2017 was the head basketball or football coach at a public university, the priorities at academic institutions - and, in the halls of state government - in this country are seriously out of whack. I mean, it's all well and good for California state legislators to engage in the posturing of putting forward the "Fair Pay to Play Act", but why wasn't anyone at the state house asking whether Jim Mora's $3.6 million salary to coach UCLA football in 2017 was an appropriate outlay of taxpayer dollars?

Bottom line? America's academic institutions need to get out of the "big-time college sports" business.             

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1) I agree with every word of your post. 

2) you issued me a warning for working around the swear filter. Just sayin’. 

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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The current system allows everyone to benefit except for labor. It's really the endgame of most American corporatism, so if you want to change all of that, it might make sense to start somewhere.

 

If the product has value, so does the labor that creates it. My harebrained solution is to pay collegiate players, but deduct the cost of tuition and/or room and board from their payment. If a football team brings in $10 million per year, deduct the operating costs of running the program (and maybe take another look at the coaches' salary), and distribute the rest among players. We can do this; we just choose not to.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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I'm all for the players receiving checks too, but there's no way to implement any fair system that doesn't result in either rich/poor players or some colleges getting all the blue-chip recruits.

 

You'd have to do it level across all teams in D1 - almost like a "salary cap"... which would mean that conferences would need to have some kind of revenue-sharing agreement... and then you're essentially making another NFL.

 

The players really need a union.

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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3 minutes ago, BringBackTheVet said:

I'm all for the players receiving checks too, but there's no way to implement any fair system that doesn't result in either rich/poor players or some colleges getting all the blue-chip recruits.

 

You'd have to do it level across all teams in D1 - almost like a "salary cap"... which would mean that conferences would need to have some kind of revenue-sharing agreement... and then you're essentially making another NFL. 

  

The players really need a union. 

 

If some schools can't compete with big-time athletics...then maybe they shouldn't have big-time athletics.

 

Does Akron need a football team? Air Force? Buffalo? Bowling Green? Maybe so, but they do they need to be competing with Alabama? Likely not.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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No one throws a fuss when a student at a university also works in the bookstore. 

Which is how they should treat this sort of thing. The players are students, and also employees of the school. It’s just that their job is football player, basketball player, etc. 

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35 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

If some schools can't compete with big-time athletics...then maybe they shouldn't have big-time athletics.

 

Does Akron need a football team? Air Force? Buffalo? Bowling Green? Maybe so, but they do they need to be competing with Alabama? Likely not.

The military academies are not a good example as every cadet and midshipmen are on scholarship and get paid.  They get $1,062/month then their expenses are taken out. 

They were getting that even before the Full Cost of Attendance bylaw went into effect in 2015.

 

And the schools which offer the most in Full Cost of Attendance money are ones which you wouldn't think of: Cincinnati, Florida State, Tennessee, Louisiana-Monroe, UAB

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51 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

If some schools can't compete with big-time athletics...then maybe they shouldn't have big-time athletics.

 

Does Akron need a football team? Air Force? Buffalo? Bowling Green? Maybe so, but they do they need to be competing with Alabama? Likely not.

 

I don't disagree, but what will end up is that the top schools in the top conferences will be engaging in bidding wars for 16-year-olds, creating a situation where a star recruit to Alabama, Georgia, and the other bigtime hick schools is making hundreds of thousands or more, and good players only want to go to schools like that.  It also creates a situation where you pay a kid to sign, then he redshirts, then what?  Is it a raising scale where he only gets paid if he becomes a starter?  Can school B decide to offer him more money to flip sides after a year or two?  If he's riding the pine because every superstar recruit is on the team, does he not get paid as much and then can he go back to being a free agent?

 

The answer here is to simply drop the "student" part from this, and just have football be something that the school offers as entertainment for its students and local fans.  They're paid performers - like a circus - but can finally drop the pretence of being "student athletes" and be what they are - revenue-generating workers who deserve a cut of that revenue equal to the amount they contribute to it... which is most of it.

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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1 minute ago, BringBackTheVet said:

 

I don't disagree, but what will end up is that the top schools in the top conferences will be engaging in bidding wars for 16-year-olds, creating a situation where a star recruit to Alabama, Georgia, and the other bigtime hick schools is making hundreds of thousands or more, and good players only want to go to schools like that.  It also creates a situation where you pay a kid to sign, then he redshirts, then what?  Is it a raising scale where he only gets paid if he becomes a starter?  Can school B decide to offer him more money to flip sides after a year or two?  If he's riding the pine because every superstar recruit is on the team, does he not get paid as much and then can he go back to being a free agent?

 

The answer here is to simply drop the "student" part from this, and just have football be something that the school offers as entertainment for its students and local fans.  They're paid performers - like a circus - but can finally drop the pretence of being "student athletes" and be what they are - revenue-generating workers who deserve a cut of that revenue equal to the amount they contribute to it... which is most of it.

That's at least a decade old idea.  Mark Cuban talked about something like that in the -00's, but the earliest article I can find is from 2011.  

A former Nike Executive and current professor of economics at Stanford, Andy Schwarz is trying the same with basketball to the point he co-founded the Historical Basketball League.  

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10 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

No one throws a fuss when a student at a university also works in the bookstore. 

Which is how they should treat this sort of thing. The players are students, and also employees of the school. It’s just that their job is football player, basketball player, etc. 

 

How many students picking up shifts in the campus bookstore are recruited by their university specifically because of their ability to ring-up orders at the check-out stand? How many of those campus bookstore workers are students who were unlikely to have been accepted to the school of their choice based purely upon academic standards, but had admissions standards tweaked in their favor because the school just couldn't run the risk of their skills receiving, folding, and stocking t-shirts winding-up at another college? How many of those campus bookstore workers received scholarships because of their prowess at such tasks? How many of those campus bookstore workers are being housed in dedicated bookstore worker dorms?  How many of those campus bookstore workers have access to tutors and specific class sections dedicated solely to bookstore employees.


The problem with collegiate athletics in this country is that school officials have allowed the "tail" of sports to "wag the dog" of the colleges and universities. In doing so, these officials have abrogated their responsibilities. Sports on college campuses were meant to be an extracurricular activity... a pursuit outside the core responsibilities and objectives of academic institutions. Now, to hear people talk, it far too often feels that college sports have become the reason for the very existence of the schools.

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39 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:

The problem with collegiate athletics in this country is that school officials have allowed the "tail" of sports to "wag the dog" of the colleges and universities. 

You’re right, and there’s likely no going back on that. So the best thing to do is to make the best of the situation as it exists now- which means ensuring the athletics get a fair cut of the proceeds of the money their talent brings to the school. 

 

If that means making them highly recruited and paid “students” who also work for the university as football, basketball, etc... players? So be it. 

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1 hour ago, BringBackTheVet said:

The answer here is to simply drop the "student" part from this, and just have football be something that the school offers as entertainment for its students and local fans.  They're paid performers - like a circus - but can finally drop the pretence of being "student athletes" and be what they are - revenue-generating workers who deserve a cut of that revenue equal to the amount they contribute to it... which is most of it.


When people are arguing that collegiate student-athletes should have the "student" portion of the descriptive dropped and instead be paid as "athlete"-employees who are on campus solely to provide entertainment to actual students and alumni... well, we've completely lost the plot, folks.

You know what would be a better solution? The sports apparel and equipment manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, restaurant chains, and other consumer brands that spend so much of the money in advertising and sponsorship revenue that has heretofore been splashed on the broadcast partners of big time collegiate sports and the universities... those companies should pool their resources and launch their own branded sports competitions to replace the morally-compromised cesspool that so-called "Big Time" college athletics has become. Pay the athletes... provide those who are interested with training in fields of study that are crucial to your individual industries... pledge employment after their playing days are over to those who show the most aptitude for careers in your industries.

As for the colleges and universities? They can go back to serving those students who are attending said institutions with the goal, first and foremost, of receiving an education. Any athletic competition that takes place at colleges and universities can take its rightful place as a secondaryextracurricular pursuit... the way it was intended.         

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But seriously? What do you think is more likely? "Equipment manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, restaurant chains, and other consumer brands" create a new football league? Or the NCAA changes its practices?

 

Either are unlikely, but one is a whole lot easier to make happen.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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12 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

You’re right, and there’s likely no going back on that. So the best thing to do is to make the best of the situation as it exists now- which means ensuring the athletics get a fair cut of the proceeds of the money their talent brings to the school. 

 

If that means making them highly recruited and paid “students” who also work for the university as football, basketball, etc... players? So be it. 


There is no "best of the situation" when academic institutions have whored-out not only their athletic departments, but the young men and women who participate in intercollegiate athletics in their names.

Frankly, consumers of the "Big Time College Athletics" product bear a fair share of the culpability for the sorry state of affairs, as well. After all, God forbid if we don't get our annual heaping helping of televised "Kick-Off Classics" and "Tip-Off Classics", "Rivalry Nights" and "Conference Showdowns", "Bowl Games" and "Roads to the Final Four". 

If it weren't so sickeningly pathetic, it would be laughable.

    

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7 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:

There is no "best of the situation" when academic institutions have whored-out not only their athletic departments, but the young men and women who participate in intercollegiate athletics in their names.

You’re not wrong. I’m not arguing your point. I’m Canadian. This crap doesn’t happen on the same level back home as it does in the States. 

 

What I’m saying is wallowing over the situation as it is won’t ever make it better.

 

So while ensuring that players are compensated fairly doesn’t undue the disproportionately large influence university athletics have on their institutions? It at least ensures the athletes are treated fairly. 

 

It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the current situation. 

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41 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:


When people are arguing that collegiate student-athletes should have the "student" portion of the descriptive dropped and instead be paid as "athlete"-employees who are on campus solely to provide entertainment to actual students and alumni... well, we've completely lost the plot, folks.

You know what would be a better solution? The sports apparel and equipment manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, restaurant chains, and other consumer brands that spend so much of the money in advertising and sponsorship revenue that has heretofore been splashed on the broadcast partners of big time collegiate sports and the universities... those companies should pool their resources and launch their own branded sports competitions to replace the morally-compromised cesspool that so-called "Big Time" college athletics has become. Pay the athletes... provide those who are interested with training in fields of study that are crucial to your individual industries... pledge employment after their playing days are over to those who show the most aptitude for careers in your industries.

As for the colleges and universities? They can go back to serving those students who are attending said institutions with the goal, first and foremost, of receiving an education. Any athletic competition that takes place at colleges and universities can take its rightful place as a secondaryextracurricular pursuit... the way it was intended.         

While college/universities are in the sports business, they are in other industries too which are ancillary.  Should the also not be in those too?

Examples:  Real Estate via hotels on campus?  Parking/Garage construction? Supermarket business?

Everything commercial?

 

Point being, the university missions haven't really changed in terms of prose, but they have changed in terms of the balance sheet. As long as there is a tax benefit to do such things, they will continue.  Hell, colleges/universities have no idea how to deal with most recent tax reform was signed into law.

https://publicintegrity.org/business/taxes/trumps-tax-cuts/the-trump-tax-law-has-its-own-march-madness/

 

The reduction of a tax write-off for season tickets has already hurt many athletic departments

 

Intercollegiate Athletics can basically be seen as advertising/marketing as opposed to the others. 

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48 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

But seriously? What do you think is more likely? "Equipment manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, restaurant chains, and other consumer brands" create a new football league? Or the NCAA changes its practices?

 

Either are unlikely, but one is a whole lot easier to make happen.


It's precisely this sort of mindset that finds collegiate athletics in the state that it's in.

Why are we counting on the NCAA to solve the problems plaguing intercollegiate sports? The organization has been around since being founded as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States in 1906. Since then, they've proven woefully incapable and/or unwilling to prevent the "tail" of intercollegiate athletic competition from "wagging the dog" of higher education. At this point, they're part and parcel of the athletic leviathan that has overtaken so many academic institutions. The NCAA's practices would have to undergo wholesale, systemic changes to cure what ails athletic competition at our nations colleges and universities. Good luck with that.    

In the pursuit of stuffing ourselves to the gills with good ol' All-American, Big Time, College athletics, we've allowed - indeed, clamored for - our nation's academic institutions to abrogate their duty. A significant number of Americans now regard the country's colleges and universities, first and foremost, as a source of athletic talent for the various and sundry major-pro leagues that dot the landscape. Frankly, that's nothing short of tragic.

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What will this do for all of the D-2, and 3 schools? I mean I understand that people do deserve money that they work for a bring in, but as a broke college student, it honestly makes a lotta sense to just leave it how it is. You play for like a max of 4-5 years, and move on. If you’re really trying to go pro, you have that to look forward too, otherwise, use the degree that you get and jump into the real world like everyone else. 

 

Honestly the NCAA should fix its focus on helping student athletes graduate, instead of get paid...

"And those who know Your Name put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." Psalms 9:10

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