Idiotic AJC Article

[mm42]

My view is: non-rev athletes, coaches, and facilities are being paid money that the football and basketball players are earning.

This stuff about the athletic department not making money is purely artificial. Get rid of the non-revenue sports and of course they make money, lots of it.

 

[augustabuzz]

My view is: non-rev athletes, coaches, and facilities are being paid money that the football and basketball players are earning.

This stuff about the athletic department not making money is purely artificial. Get rid of the non-revenue sports and of course they make money, lots of it.

Title IX makes this arguement, moot. It will also pevent players in revenue sports from getting benefits that aren't afforded to non-revenue sports.

 

[gtfan088]

If some sort of SA salary were to be allowed, I would think the NCAA would have to set in place strict regulations regarding how much a team could pay their players AND it would have to be the same across the board, meaning you can't give one guy on scholarship $20k a year while your 4th string tailback gets $500. IMO $10,000 would have to be the absolute limit that a player could receive. This would somewhat prevent what a previous poster suggested, which is a football factory being able to simply outpay their competitors for a recruit as well as preventing the potential for high schoolers to negotiate a contract with a university.

I'm not saying they should be paid, but if they were to be, it would need to be at a number that's set in stone.

As for the argument that players have little time for a full-time job, it could be argued that many students face similar dilemmas during their college years while striving to earn a degree that leads them to their desired career path. If a kid wants to be a journalist, for instance, and is spending hours writing for a school paper on top of his or her traditional schoolwork, it could be hard to find time for a job but it was a decision they chose, understanding it's a part of their ultimate goal. Some may be good enough writers to excel without a post-high school level education, but likely won't get the opportunity without that experience to show.

Now, I know that analogy isn't the greatest because it doesn't even factor in market value, but all I can say is that if a kid really feels like he's being wronged for not getting his cut while he's in college, he can either 1) work that much harder so that he does get it professionally, or 2) stop working so hard that way he doesn't have much market value anyway.

 

[GTKyle]

Well as soon they start paying football players you can look for all the smaller sports to be cut: swimming, tennis, etc.

 

[gsu_paintballer]

Well as soon they start paying football players you can look for all the smaller sports to be cut: swimming, tennis, etc.

...and until we start winning football championships, we need those.

 

[mm42]

Title IX makes this arguement, moot. It will also pevent players in revenue sports from getting benefits that aren't afforded to non-revenue sports.

Title IX deals with sex discrimination, not non-revenue discrimination. Title IX in no way requires schools to fund non-revenue sports for men.

BTW, you contradict yourself when you say this makes it "moot". Moot means arguable, debatable.

 

[JelloYacketDeleted062020]

It doesn't make any sense to me for the coach to be paid $1M+ per year while the players get, say, $10K-$20K in value, but then again the ratio of exec pay to worker pay in corporate America doesn't make much sense to me either.

Where do you get that $10-20K number? The perks that the athletes get are certainly worth more than that. The tuition is just the beginning (I think all athletic scholarships are charged at the out-of-state rate, but I could be wrong.)

Take the facilities. These guys have a computer lab that is only for their use. They have a locker room/clubhouse to hang out in that is filled with leather sofas and TVs. They get free, all-you-can-eat food. They get free, all you want to consume academic assistance. They get gifts for playing in bowl games (pretty nice ones, actually). They get preferred access to basically everything on campus, and they don't have to pay a dime for it. They get completely free equipment, and tons of free clothing.

If they start paying athletes directly, count me as one that would never buy tickets again. Unless, of course, the athletes have to pay the school when there is a loss....they should share in the losses as well as the "profits", right? Or, if the athletes performance is not up to a certain standard, can they be let go from their scholarships? Maybe we should just give partial scholarships to some players, so that more money can go to the stars.

Its a slipper slope, and the unintended consequences would be far reaching. See you later, softball team at Tech. Forget about expanding our sports program. Enjoy having to donate $10,000 just to buy season tickets.

 

[mm42]

Where do you get that $10-20K number? The perks that the athletes get are certainly worth more than that.

Worth is the correct choice of word, although not for your intended purpose.

The things you list relate to what is spent on the athletes.

To define worth, we need to quantify what the athlete would accept in place of what he is getting now.

 

[knoxjacket]

I hate to be a broken record, but y'all are forgetting about the biggest benefit that I already posted. The scholarship's value might only be $10-20k, but buying your way into a school that wouldn't accept you is a heckuva lot more than that.

That's daddy buying a new building on campus expensive.

 

[mm42]

I hate to be a broken record, but y'all are forgetting about the biggest benefit that I already posted. The scholarship's value might only be $10-20k, but buying your way into a school that wouldn't accept you is a heckuva lot more than that.

So the question is, why should this and the other benefits be conveyed to students in non-revenue sports?

 

[GBurdell]

Redundant Title to Your Thread.

:D

 

[floridajacket]

To clarify my thinking a bit, consider this example. Let's say Reggie Bush adds 1 million dollars of value to an AA and he is choosing between school A and school B. The cost of tuition and room and board is, say, 200,000. Schools A and B can then either spend up to 800,000 on facilities or whatever extraneous crap and still make money on Reggie. The two schools will then get into a bidding war of spending on facilities and coaches until one of the schools does spend 800,000 dollars on Reggie.

In other words, the current system is merely an end-around to paying SAs directly. The current system works for the SAs, more or less, but the NCAA then enforces all these byzantine rules to keep the system consistent. A system of direct compensation would mostly eliminate the insanity of today's NCAA regulation.

And to address knox's argument about admission, admission is free for schools to give. True, a non-athlete would have to build GT a new building to get in with a 1000 SAT. But the regular student does not offer the school the value of a good football player. It's an easy choice, really, for the school to give admission in exchange for the player. I know we would be very unhappy if we only had 1350+ SATs on the team.

Finally, as far as non-rev sports, they exist mainly because the NCAA has a minimum number of sports to qualify as Div. 1. Although I must admit I'm not sure why some large schools go way above that minimum in the number of sports.

 

[goldeagle]

Flajacket,
Would you be willing to admit some of the larger schools provide large numbers of non-revenue sports because they help to give the schools even more increased visibility, provide an athletic opportunity for athletes not interested in varsity sports, and simply because it is the right thing to do?

 

[knoxjacket]

So the question is, why should this and the other benefits be conveyed to students in non-revenue sports?

I'm not saying that any benefits should be offered to any of them. I'm making the argument they are already being ridiculously well paid without being given cash.

I don't have an exact number for what it takes to buy your way into a college as I've never tried it, but it's got to be 100k, minimum. Probably millions at a higher tier school. So let's say 10K a semester. Three semesters a year is 30K dollars. Add on all the other perks and benefits and your probably approaching 50K a year. Throw in that initial signing bonus of not having to buy your way in and it goes up more.

The average AFL salary is 60K. 95% of College FB players will never be good enough to make the AFL. They are currently being grossly overpaid.

 

[gth816f]

This. and NBA too for that matter, or at least getting rid of the stupid 1 year our of HS rule or 19 rule that yearly reams the college game.

The NBA does have a minor league that has no age limit. It's called the D-League. Will Bynum used to light it up and now he is going up to the NBA.

 

[panhandlebuzz]

I must admit that I don't know the amount of time that athletes in non-revenue sports have to give to their sports. However, those in football, basketball and baseball(which may or may not be a revenue sport) usually spent a large portion of their time and don't have time to hold down a part time job as other student do. That being said, let me state that I oppose paying college athletes. If, however, paying is eventually approved, at least two things should occur: 1) they should have to pass the same academic requirements as regular students to gain admission to any school; and, 2) the pay should be for only 20 hours weekly at whatever is minimum wage.
While it is true that college athletic departments may take in large sums of monies, they also spend larges sums on travel for the team, multiple sets of uniforms(remember the old days of only two, a home and an away), large weight and training rooms, and other benefits that regular students never access.
And, don't get me started on coaches salaries, no one is worth $4m, let alone $1-$2m per year to coach, no matter what the pressures are to win. That Alabama pays its coach that much is a sad testament to the IQ of much of that state.

 

[GTMensLax&SoccerD1Soon!]

I must admit that I don't know the amount of time that athletes in non-revenue sports have to give to their sports. However, those in football, basketball and baseball(which may or may not be a revenue sport) usually spent a large portion of their time and don't have time to hold down a part time job as other student do. That being said, let me state that I oppose paying college athletes. If, however, paying is eventually approved, at least two things should occur: 1) they should have to pass the same academic requirements as regular students to gain admission to any school; and, 2) the pay should be for only 20 hours weekly at whatever is minimum wage.
While it is true that college athletic departments may take in large sums of monies, they also spend larges sums on travel for the team, multiple sets of uniforms(remember the old days of only two, a home and an away), large weight and training rooms, and other benefits that regular students never access.
And, don't get me started on coaches salaries, no one is worth $4m, let alone $1-$2m per year to coach, no matter what the pressures are to win. That Alabama pays its coach that much is a sad testament to the IQ of much of that state.

Worth and value are two completely different things. I believe in the market economy and that anything is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. If Alabama or Arkansas are willing to pay that much for a coach, then he must be worth it. With that being said, I think the value of the purchase is terrible. When you think about all of the underpaid teachers and other people who improve society, it is atrocious what some of these coaches make. Much less, professional athletes.

 

[mm42]

The average AFL salary is 60K. 95% of College FB players will never be good enough to make the AFL. They are currently being grossly overpaid.

Do not confuse the skill required to perform an activity with its value. AFL players don't make much because their sport is not very popular. NCAA football is wildly popular and therefore a more valuable activity.

Regarding the value to the athlete of admission to the school, this does add quite a bit of value for many athletes. However, for others it has no value, in fact for them it is a tedious fact of life, brought on only by the de facto status of college football as a developmental league for the NFL.

The incredibly low graduation rates at some schools are testaments to the value many of the athletes place on that admission.

 

[aeromech]

I think they should pay the student athletes. The amount should be the equivalent of what a full scholarship ROTC guy gets.