As I type this, over 100 lawyers are in an Oakland courtroom arguing that the O'Bannon case should be changed to a class action lawsuit. For those of you who don't know, the O'Bannon case is arguing that EA and the NCAA shouldn't profit from using former players' likenesses without paying out compensation (O'Bannon played hoops at UCLA). The judge dropped a bombshell though when she ruled current players could also join the suit and seek compensation for the television contracts that have ballooned into the billions. That would make it not just an NCAA thing but affect all conferences and their media deals which have already altered the landscape of college sports. Obviously, this could have massive ramifications for the college sports world.
So what say you TKP'ers? Is a full ride scholly enough compensation? Should schools pay the athletes? Should the swim team get paid as much as the football team? Should all schools be made to pay the same amount to their athletes? Or would it be a free for all with the big schools with deep pockets just laying waste to the little guys?
A pretty good breakdown of the legal arguments both sides are making:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130619/ncaa-ed-...
Comments
Well, if you're going to pay players, you certainly would have to give some more than others - no way a member on the swim team gets anything close to what a football player does...
It's certainly something to keep an eye on. I'm curious to see what happens, because this could be a big deal.
but the argument there is that you would be discriminating against other sports. The swimmer trains and competes just as hard however because football is more lucrative for the school so they get more.
As with any capitalist enterprise, pay should be based on output, not input. Both athletes put in the same amount of work, but only one is really profitable. That's why I'm against paying any athletes. They all work hard, and are rewarded equally: with an education. That should be enough. Furthermore, it should be a contract that requires them to either get a degree or pay back the scholarship if they leave early to go pro.
Virginia Tech isn't a capitalist enterprise though. It's a land-grant college. It's very nature is non-profit, which is why in-state students pay less (they already subsidize the school through taxes).
Whatever "profit" the football team makes is reinvested into the athletic department, and into Virginia Tech as a whole.
I was referring to the NCAA, and if you don't think that's a capitalist enterprise, you're deluded.
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Finances/Revenue
96% of all NCAA revenue is given back to schools or used for other programs (like tournaments and championships) which directly benefit student athletes.
A non-profit is defined by what an org. does with it's money, not how much money it makes.
And the other 4% (not that I necessarily trust the numbers the NCAA puts out about its own revenue usage), that's definitely not profit that goes to fill the pockets of executives. Except it is: http://chronicle.com/article/Pay-for-Top-14-NCAA-Executives/124358/ And those are old numbers. The point is, no matter how much the NCAA wants to pretend otherwise, it IS about making money, since it's not government owned, that's capitalism.
Sounds to me like that's a pretty efficient non-profit organization actually. Many, many, many other non-profits have much worse margins than 96%. Only 4% of income goes towards non-athletic expenses? I'm
surprisedshocked it's that low.There are tons of non-profit organizations where the top executives earn a large salary. That's often necessary to keep top talent in the organization.
Is the NCAA about making money? Yes.
Is it a for-profit organization? No, because all it's excess revenue goes back to it's member's schools (the majority of the schools are non-profit also!). It is, by every definition in the book, a non-profit organization.
I think both of you are right in different ways. You're just debating about different things: technicalities and PR vs. reality and public perception. That's what I'm gathering at least.
I'd venture to say you're correct.
money paid out to executives = expense, revenue - expenses = profit.
all a non-profit means is that they spend everything so they have no profit. It doesn't mean that you can't make money and pocket it.
Oh man, I don't want to turn this into something not related to football...
But I can't help myself.
Money paid to executives = expense. Think about it this way, if you hire a secretary to answer your phones, is her salary an expense or revenue? It's an expense. Whether or not you make any money that week, you'll have to pay her what she's earned. Similarly, the salaries of the NCAA executives are expenses.
This is not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization
A non-profit is an organization which uses whatever "profit" it had at the end of the year and donates it towards a cause, whether that be cancer research or college athletic programs. It has NOTHING to do with how much money an organization makes, but rather with HOW IT SPENDS the extra money at the end of the year. There are tons of business that lose money every year, but they don't get non-profit tax privileges.
In short
Profit sent to shareholders=For profit
Profit sent to "cause"= Non-profit.
Actually that's exactly what it means.
However, you can pocket it through wages; there's creative ways around everything. If one categorizes work done towards something as "for the cause" then one can pocket that money and classify it as "for the cause." Like I said earlier, technicalities vs reality.
Edit: Not sure if this necessarily applies to the NCAA. Just speaking from experience - I worked non-profit before.
sorry that was a typo, i meant expense. and exactly what 757hokie said, sure all profit gets donated but you get to control profit.
Again I think 757 is exactly right, same argument from 2 different sides. At any rate the NCAA makes a TON of revenue off these kids. If we you think a scholarship is fair enough compensation for that then fine. In most sports I would agree, but in football, it truly is a minor league system for the NFL. I think that adds a lot of weight to the pro compensating athletes argument. Either way its a MESS to figure out.
I have to speak form my own interests. May it never be. It would take college football as an amature sport and make it professional. Bama, LSU, Georgia, would have high school players lined up hoping to get a piece of that big ESPN cheese. Where schools like VPI, with its good coaches, wouldn't have a chance. We just don't have that kind of green. Let all that SEC money stay in the dark. I see this mans issue, but if he has his way, it would change college football more than ESPN, and its favoritism, has already. We would be left on the outside looking in more than we feel like we are now.
Football players do make more than swimmers when the make it to the NFL as professionals.
A full ride, some already get paid, the perks of being a college athlete (girls, fame, and girls), the free gear, the business trips, opportunity to play pro, networking opportunities, etc etc... IMO that's compensation enough
If they don't like the idea of not being allowed to be paid then there are some semi-professional leagues they can join. These are the rules of the NCAA. You are not being forced into being a NCAA athlete, you chose to be one.
This is the key point IMO. The players freely choose to play as amateurs in College, knowing that they'll never see the money that they produce for their schools. No one got tricked or lied to, the kids knew the deal when they signed their LOI.
I believe that athletes should get paid. The problem is, how in the hell do you establish a fair system that rewards players like they should? Generally speaking, football makes a school money so logically, those players should get paid. But then there is the problem of compensating a player like Johnny Manziel who has already made A&M millions of dollars versus some of the scrubs who will never see the field. Would they all get paid the same amount? If so, how is that fair if they as individuals are making the school nothing when an all-american in lacrosse might actually be bringing the school something.
The only way that a fair system can be established is if player's make money when their likeness is used (jerseys, merchandise, video games, etc.). Anything else would ruin college sports.
Again, the team with the larger fan base pays thier players more (above the table). Alabama doesn't have a pro team. I know this may seem unreal to Redskin and Raven's fans in VA, but they don't buy pro jerseys in Bama. Everybody out here either has bama gear or they went to Auburn or some other school (like me ;-). I kid you not, the majority of Alabama fans did not go to Alabama. In Virginia, if you didn't go to VT or some other college in VA you pull for a pro team. UAT is there pro team here. They don't pull for pro teams in SEC country, they pull for college teams. That is why ESPN sells them so much. We don't need this, it will totally screw up college football's recruiting demographic more than it already is.
+1 for the uat reference
I think they just add $5000 to their scholarships and call it "living expenses" instead of paying them. That would allow them to pay for gas, groceries, laundry, and whatever else they want. Then, it's an across the board thing. If you make it too high, small colleges can't pay them and it's unfair to those guys.
Considering they already get a per diem and/or stipend, I see this being the most logical. Most don't use all their money on road trips so they end up using it for personal expenses. They could put it on the scholarships or call it a grant and it would be refunded to them just like a regular student would get from financial aid.
A lot of thoughts ahead...(sorry)
I'm going to skip the issue of whether a player/all players in a sport/all sports should be paid and suggest that no one outside the university can use the players' likenesses. So the school can still sell jerseys but EA can't use their likenesses. Kinda sucks for the consumer like any of us, who may want to call scramble drill with Tyrod in NCAA '11 or Logandozer with LT3 in NCAA '13. Plus, part of the fun of playing the game is to play with your favorite players. Would suck for us, but would be fair to the student athletes. If EA can use their likenesses, then pay the kids.
All in all, I think the best free market perspective is to keep all the television and ticket sales for the school but to split somehow the merchandise that can be directly tied to an athlete. Tebow jerseys make the university money, but Tebow should get a cut because people wouldn't be buying his jersey unless it was for his effort/personality (they'd buy another, or no jersey at all). If paying some student athletes is a big problem, stick the money in a trust fund for the kid to get access to after graduation. Or provide a match to the kid if he/she is willing to donate it to the general scholarship fund (or some other university-funded initiative, like new buildings or departments). At least give the student athlete some say in how the university will use the revenue they generate.
For non-revenue sports, it would be harder for the athletes to get enough notoriety to generate any sales unless they were superstars. I could argue that some of the more popular wrestlers and women's volleyball players up here at Penn State could generate a little revenue for themselves. But in those cases, I think it would be easier for the university to offer wrestling and/or volleyball gear with the Penn State brand where you can customize it with current players' names, as opposed to trying to market the student athletes images and keep their jerseys in stock (as UF could have easily done, or did, with Tebow).
I also think that players should be able to get sponsors while they are in school, and appear in ads for their sponsors. If not for their primary sport (as in RGIII sponsored by Adidas, for track or football), but in other sports. For example, former Colorado player Jeremy Bloom was an Olympic-caliber skier, so I think he should have been able to accept all of those sponsorships/endorsement deals because it wasn't related to his football playing.
For anyone who hasn't seen it, there is a South Park episode (Crack Baby Athletic Association) does a pretty neat job of poking holes in the NCAA.
lol i loved that episode of south park
I'm against schools paying the student athletes but you bring up a good point in regards to sponsors/advertising. I don't see why they can't get paid from sponsors. They work hard to make a name for themselves and if they want to cash in on their name they should be able to. As long as it's not coming from the school that already gives them a free ride, I'm for it.
That would help ease the argument of non revenue sports vs revenue sports as well because not only would non revenue athletes not get paid but the large majority of athletes in revenue sports wouldn't get paid either. It's pretty much a level playing field. If you ball out and gain stardom, you reap the benefits. If not, shut up and take your free education.
I'm not so sure I agree with that quite so much...
First off, that sort of situation could harbor some discord in the locker room. Imagine a locker room where one guy makes $2 million per year off of endorsements, and almost everyone else is making enough to get by, sounds like you're asking for trouble.
Here's another scenario: imagine that Nike comes in and signs Johnny Manziel to a huge deal. Manziel starts playing absolutely terribly for the first couple games, and gets benched. Now Nike is suddenly spending tons of cash on a kid who is riding the bench. What's to keep them from trying to use some ties with the school to influence the coach to put their guy back in?
I was just about to post this. In the pros, endorsement deals are expected, so it's not an issue. In college, you've got guys on a team that range from 5-star featured recruits to walk-ons who are playing their tails off trying to earn a scholarship.
College sports are definitely commercialized, but I think athletes, especially in revenue-generating sports like football, have a damn good deal. A free ride for as long as they're there, trips to bowl games (and swag associated with the bowls), national media exposure, and basically a fun time auditioning for the NFL, where they can make huge amounts of money. I know from people who have worked in college sports that the scholarships do fall short in some cases, causing the athletes to bear some burden, which some have a hard time meeting. In that sense, additional grant or stipend funding can be added, but solely to cover necessary costs.
The other problem with endorsement deals is they wouldn't be equal. You reference Nike. Imagine if Nike coul offer every player who signs with Oregon a deal (or UnderArmour with MD)? That would be boosters paying for recruits. No way even a UGA or OK could compete with that...much less VT.
All good points. I retract my endorsement of student athlete endorsements.
Another problem I see that may happen with that is companies like Nike and Under Armour who basically have a single college that they support most (Oregon and Maryland) might sponsor the best players on their teams only, which will basically tell recruits in high school the only way they'll get a sponsorship from them is if they go to one of those two schools. I'm not saying kids from other schools wouldn't get anything, but the big ones might just go to players on these two schools
Paying the athletes would only have negative affects across the board. 18 year-olds do not need double or triple digit incomes on top of a full ride scholarship.
I think one thing that gets forgotten sometimes is the amount of time and effort that goes into being an athlete at the college level. Practices, Strength and Conditioning, Meetings, Media/Public Appearances, etc. Being a college athlete is essentially a full time job, in addition to being a full time student. Also, while its not the majority of cases, you do run into situations like Daren Evans' where the Student-Athlete is also working as much as they can outside of football and school to help support their family. I think that at least providing some form of living expenses would be ok.
I dont understand. Arent they being paid with scholarships and education? (scratches head). While i understand certain schools have required qualifications, but a large chunk are in school due to the fact they perform well on the field. I am also aware not all athletes are on scholarship, but the stars of the teams that receive all the scollies thats alot of "money" towards paying for school.
I mean i had to pay for my school. I would have gladly taken the place of someone who wants monies and killed myself on a football field for a free ride
Full Rides already provide these athletes with plenty of money. After tuition and all the other fees, the athlete is still cut a check for about $4200 each semester. This is to pay for housing, food, etc. Still though, my apartment is about $430 a month including utilities and for the, say 6 month semester (since you almost always have to sign a 12 month lease) that's only $2,580. That means the athlete is still getting about 2 grand per semester plus stipends to use at their own discretion. So as long as you live modestly and don't go rent out some ridiculous apartment or house, they are still receiving a generous amount of "extra" money. A report by the NCAA in 2009 said the average D1 college athlete receives approximately $76,000 in scholarships over their 4 years. Isn't that enough? I also don't want college sports to turn in to professional sports. College football is so much more fun to watch than the NFL. Also what about the practice squad that never sees the field? Would they get paid too? Just some thoughts. I wrote a paper on this last semester so I have a lot of information on the topic.
I agree with you, but just to play Saban's advocate, the argument against the scholarships being enough is that it is nowhere near proportional to the amount of revenue they bring in. From a market-value standpoint, its a valid argument. The market value of a star player at a major FBS school is much, much more than the value of their scholarship/gear/etc.
But again, I agree with you. I think turning collegiate sports into a semi-pro or minor league is a disservice to the majority of student-athletes who really are student-athletes. (There are over 380000 student athletes and most of them will go pro in something other than sports!!!) If kids want to get paid to play ball, they should join a different league that pays its players.
+1 for the Satan/Saban reference. In response the the market/capitalist argument, most of the NCAA member universities are non-profit, although take that with a grain of salt. I support the idea of a stipend which is currently in place, maybe tweak it slightly to modern standards. This topic goes deeper into going pro early and whatnot. Basketball and football are most affected because of this. I believe the one-and-done philosophy is ridiculous. Make it standard across all sports whether it be 3 mandatory years of college ball or something similar. Then have the option of developmental leagues out of high school if you do not want to participate in the college game.
I understand what you are saying, but if the player has market value, he is obviously a good player that will go on to a NFL career where money won't be an issue. Any sport that has a major player like that will end up going professionally. It isn't fair to other sports though. Why should some scout player who nobody knows about get paid just because he plays football, but your good (not great) soccer player gets nothing nothing just because he doesn't play a marketable sport. This is really two separate arguments. Either paying college athletes or allowing college athletes to be endorsed and getting compensated off of endorsements. I don't see any fair way to pay athletes since only two sports in college are actually marketable, but can see where an argument could be made for players getting endorsement deals. Like what was previously mention, most athletic departments rarely come out even in terms of profit. The money is coming from the television contracts and the marketing of apparel sales (which technically isn't from the athlete because it isn't allowed, but we all know that it really is.)
But we live in a society where "fairness" doesn't factor into economic decisions. Is it "fair" that the kid got a football scholarship, but a world class Madden player wouldn't? The difference is that the school makes money off of football and not Madden so the football player gets a schollie... and the school makes money off of football but not soccer... so the football player would have a claim to the "profits" of the football program, ESPECIALLY the revenue gained from a likeness of his image.
I don't think the football player should get paid, but for reasons other then fairness.
In response to the semi-pro/minor league: I'm not fully up on how this is done across the pond, but a lot of (maybe all?) privately run football (soccer) clubs over in Europe have developmental teams for younger players. Ajax of Amsterdam is one team in particular that has a well established youth program, I believe they refer to these teams as academies. If I understand correctly, their academies are essentially full time training programs that focus on soccer and provide an education for the players that are coming up through the pipeline. So it is a little like our college farm system for the NFL/NBA and a little like our minor league baseball system for MLB. The kids get 'scholarships' for attending and players are paid to do it.
Granted, soccer is big money over there, so the teams want to develop younger players and bring them up through the club ranks until they can contribute to the teenage teams and, maybe, the lower-division teams before getting a contract for a premier league/serie a/bundesliga/primera team. A big difference over here is that the NFL is TOTALLY reliant on the college game. There is no semi-pro. There is no d-league. When's the last time you heard of a player being drafted from another American football league? Promoted from a developmental squad? I can't think of a single one. Maybe signed from the CFL, sure. But NFL teams don't participate in player development at a younger age, so players are forced into the NCAA pipeline. No options if you want to play NFL. If there was a developmental league for players who couldn't hack it in college, or who didn't want to play by the NCAA rule book, then I'd agree that NCAA football players shouldn't get paid because they had the option. But that option currently does not exist.
That is a great point. I guess I would rather see an effort to create a new developmental league to accommodate athletes who want to bypass college and get paid than see collegiate athletics defiled. But maybe I'm just overly sentimental and old-fashioned.
No, I agree. If there were a semi-pro league for kids who didn't get into college, then it would destroy the college game. Lots of players would go semi-pro instead of going to school.
We need to have Bud storm the NCAA HQ, and yell at them until they investigate Bama! If VT pulled some of the stunts these other schools do, we'd land Top-10 classes every year. Probably a Crystal Football, too.
I don't think they should be paid a salary, but they should be compensated for money made off marketing their images in video games and jerseys. There's no doubt who the players in the NCAA games are (I'm pretty sure in one of the past versions had distinctive arm tattoos for certain players, though I'm blanking on who at the moment). Conversely, anyone who bought a #2 TAMU jersey this year wasn't buying that number randomly much like people who wear #7 VT jerseys aren't wearing it for Sean Glennon.
Oh boy. I'll probably have a bunch to say about this when I have time to post, but yes, players should get paid, and yes, it should be a uniform amount across the board for all athletes.
This has all the makings of one of those riptide events that no one sees coming, or realizes the implications of, until it happens and the changes start shaking out like walnuts out of a tree in a storm. This has the potential to be the biggest change in college football in our lifetimes.
If athletes are gonna be paid because they are in EA's NCAA games, i would like to be paid as well because the guy that sits in my seat in Lane Stadium, on that same game looks like me and has the same likeness, and makes the same repetitive movements i do.
IMO if college players or former college players don't think the current system is fair, they are free to start their own minor-league football league. Nobody is stopping them.
I have very mixed opinions on the issue. Our athletes already receive free tuition, free meal plan, free medical expenses (both surgeries, access to trainers/physical therapists, and medication from Schiffert), free lawyers (if necessary) and free tutoring services. They also get preferential treatment from teachers and other students, and get away with a lot more than the average student.
All that being said, I find it incredibly immoral to cap one's earning potential, and incredibly immoral for EA, Nike, etc to profit off a player's "likeness," especially when that player cannot earn off his or her likeness.
I am firmly against putting players on a payroll, or giving them an additional stipend. IMO, a scholarship athlete should get the same scholarship benefits as a student who does research/TA's in exchange for a scholarship. I think I agree with Bilas, who preaches the olympic model. Athletes should be able to take advantage of their marketability.