@northwesty said:
But per Wikipedia:
In other words, coach K is getting paid roughly in line with market rates. Probably less than what he could make if he emphasized only money.
I wish I could say that Coach K is overpaid and should leave Duke. Nothing would make me happier than for him to leave Duke. My alma mater frequently challenged Duke for a national title, and usually came up short due to the strong teams that Coach K put together, year after year.
How is it good economics to legally restrain a large portion of the workers (i.e., players) from capturing the market value of their skills?
The “workers” get a free education, free travel, room and board and a stipend and very few as a % are talented enough to play professionally, either here in the US or overseas. And the “workers” who are talented enough, will get drafted and play professionally. Or in terms of volleyball or golf, join their respective professional tours.
So are you claiming that the above benefits (excluding stipends for non-Power 5 schools and school travel is questionable as compensation since it is part of their role) are the market value of their skills? Because if you look at those players who went from HS directly to the NBA vs those who went to college you might find a significant difference in compensation.
Also, if you look at signing bonuses for baseball players out of HS vs. their scholarship levels you may question if their skills are being rewarded at market levels while in college.
The answer is, almost certainly, no, even given the benefits you lay out above. Definitely not for the higher-skilled players by an order or magnitude or two.
Not every single player who ever played college athletics, but yes. Most get their value. The college takes a gamble too. A lot of high school players flame out for one reason or another. For every Sam Darnold or Josh Rosen, there’s a JT Barrett.
HS player bonuses for how many players and how much? There are 40 rounds in the baseball draft? In Round 40, you might get a $1,000 for a signing bonus, if you’re lucky. If they’re talented enough to go in the first few rounds, those players sign and get their money. If not, they play college. And re-enter the draft later and hopefully get drafted higher, but they get to travel, get an education and free room and board. And a stipend.
I have a relative playing a sport for a Power 5 school right now. He/she is a junior. He/she is getting exposure to professional scouts every week, a free education, free travel, a stipend, etc. But he/she moved off campus, which his/her parents are paying. He/she gets all sorts of free stuff, like shoes galore. Too bad, my feet are bigger, because I’d love his/her throwaways. He/she wasn’t ready at 18 to play professionally, so college is giving him/her high quality coaching, training, etc.
@BobcatPhoenix - agree the point, but the NBA has wisely created the “captive audience” minor league system (AKA the NCAA) via the one and done rule. No more direct to the pros route, so they go through Duke, Kentucky, and a dozen other schools for their year. If coach K had to pay the students he was recruiting a fair wage, he would have owed Jayson Tatum ~$4M for last year (based on his rookie contract). Of course, he did get to attend classes at Duke, plus some free travel and lots of food.
I would suggest that Coach K discussion only reinforces “value”. He’s not the problem…it’s the average guys who make $2M/year, miss the tournament twice, and get paid for 3 more years after being fired. All the while, many of the students at the school (who never go to a game) fund the net loss of the athletic department via loans.
Actually the NBA has the G League (fka D League), which now has 26 teams all affiliated with NBA teams.
Also, according to Commissioner Silver, the NBA likely will be changing the “no HS player to NBA” rule.
Alternative to college bball. Maybe should have gone to college. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Tyler
The average Duke hoops player would be worth about $1.3 million annually in a free market. 15 players then equals $19.5 million.
Duke hoops currently takes in $27 million and has current expenses of $14.2 million. The majority of those expenses are Coach K’s salary. If Coach K has to pay his players, then he is going to get a pay cut.
If he wants to get NBA comp, then he’ll need to coach an NBA team which can pay him out of the NBA-level of revenue the NBA team generates. The only way a college coach can get paid that much by a lower revenue college team is by diverting the money/value away from his players and into his own pocket. It is as simple as that.
Without the impramateur of the NCAA rules, that would be called stealing or pimping.
http://www.businessinsider.com/college-basketball-player-value-2016-3
It’s an estimate of some kind. I think it’s BS.
And I’m not sure what “average” means. The big time draftees, like Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, Jayson Tatum, etc. can skew the numbers. Players drafted in the first round get a TON of money and the money is guaranteed. If a player is drafted in the 2nd round, then contracts are NOT guaranteed and they don’t get nearly as much.
And some players sign “two-way (highly variable) contracts”, sign with the G League or aren’t drafted at all and earn nothing.
However, in college basketball’s case, players get a HUGE stage to display their talents and increase their value to NBA/WNBA scouts. March Madness achieves nearly total undivided attention/exposure to the country for a few frantic weeks, even for the 10th, 11th and 12th men (or women).
And why stop there? Have you seen some of the attendance figures for HS AAU. Why not pay HS players too, say like Lamelo Ball and his AAU team? When he played another well-known high school player, Zion Williamson, they played to huge numbers both in the gym and live streaming. Should we calculate HS players value too now?
However, AAU and HS coaches get next-to-nothing, I know that first hand. :))
Ok, I’ll bite. Who would they then play? How would the poobahs at Title IX evaluate the non-ACC competition as being equal to the men’s P5 competition?
You obviously don’t.
Regardless, who would be doing the “limiting” in your scenario? Surely, not the colleges themselves, which would be a clear violation of antitrust laws. Surely, not the ncaa, as the P5 would just withdraw, and take March Madness with them. (March Madness is a huge money maker for ncaa hq.)
Not even sure Congress could make it stick since the dollars involved are generally private.
The only rule I disagree with is the no high school to pros rules of the NFL, the NBA and any other sport. There are very few athletes ready to go to the pros, but for the few who do not want to go to college, let them try. Baseball players can do it. Some do, some make it. There was a kid from my daughter’s school who was drafted as a high school senior and he had a scholarship to play in college. It was a tough decision but he had good guidance as his father is a major sports agent. Money was not an issue for paying for college. He decided to go to college but it was a close call. LeBron was enormous as an 18 (19?) year old high school player ad he went to the NBA directly, but he also had a strong high school coach and a pretty good catholic school education.
I don’t think there would be many high school kids that the NFL would want, but I don’t think the NFL/NCAA should get to decide who can try out for a team. For the vast majority of high school athletes, college is a good thing. Even top golfers and tennis players often go to college for a year or two, then go pro when they aren’t restricted.
NCAA has nothing to do with it. The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement limits draftees/camp invites to only those who have completed three years beyond thier high school class.
The NBA has a similar rule, but only one year post-high school.
“It’s an estimate of some kind. I think it’s BS.”
Of course it has to be an estimate. But the math is pretty darned simple.
Sure you can do other kinds of estimates, but they all would show that the players (in the aggregate) do not get anywhere near what their free market value is. Since they don’t get their free market value, that cash is available to the athletic department to overpay for things like coaches and ADs. The coaches and the ADs get paid more than they deserve because the players get paid less than they deserve. It is so obvious I really can’t believe anyone disputes that this is what is going on as an economic matter.
Now there’s plenty of reasons why you might support the current system which takes from the players. I’d probably keep it that way myself. My big objection is why that largesse if left with the athletic department so they can line their own pockets? If I were college president, I’d require(as would be typical in any normal business) that the lion’s share of the profits be paid over to the owner (i.e. the academic school) to be used for its operations (say financial aid to non-athlete students). I could sleep at night with that. While it is nice that UT send $8 million or so a year over to academics, they really could/should send triple or quadruple that amount. But that would require some reasonable adjustments to the gold-plating and overspending that goes on now. The football coach would still be paid very well – but it wouldn’t be ridiculous and it wouldn’t be more than what he could make in the NFL.
“We calculated the Fair Market Value of college basketball players at the 20 schools that bring in the most revenue from their men’s basketball program, according to data provided by the Department of Education. Using the NBA’s most recent collective bargaining agreement in which the players receive a minimum of 49% of all revenue, each school’s men’s basketball revenue was split between the school and the athletes with the players’ share divided evenly among the 13 scholarship players.”
“Using this method, we can estimate that the University of Louisville has the most valuable players at $1.7 million per year (up from $1.5 million last year) based on the program’s $45.8 million in annual revenue. Overall, the average Division I player is worth $296,723 per year with the average basketball program taking in nearly $8 million in revenue each year.”
The reason the whole exercise of the article makes no sense to me is that they’re splitting up an amount of revenue for 13 scholarship players based on one maybe two players? That’s dumb.
For example, they mention the University of Louisville. The NBA has drafted 7 Louisville players in the last 5 years, assuming there might have been a few redshirt players.
Two of those 7 players (Peyton Siva, Russ Smith) aren’t playing in the NBA any longer, which means 58 players weren’t drafted in the last 5 years, so their value as NBA players is zero or very little, if they play overseas or in the G League somewhere.
So using rounded up figures, the 5 NBA players earn now (yearly): $3,000,000, $1,000,000, $2,000,000, $1,500,000 and Gorgui Dieng earns an average of $15,700,000. Siva and Smith earned about $1,000,000 for a year. Total = $24,200,000 allocated over 65 total Louisville players is $372,000 per player, mostly because of one Louisville player who hit it big due to his talent. If you take the total contracts for the 3-4 year contracts, then we’re talking about, in the case of Dieng, $63,000,000.
My point is that the value belongs to one, two maybe three players. The rest will never see the NBA ever. And for those 1-3 players, in some cases zero players and in other cases 4-5 players, say like Kentucky had one year a few years back, they raise their value by playing one year in college and the exposure of the season and March Madness actually enhances their value. Plus, they get a free education, free room and board, free travel, free shoes, free coaching and training staff and health services, stipend, etc.
Only a Kobe Bryant or LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal can make the jump to the NBA. Most experts didn’t think the #1 draft pick, Markelle Fultz could play in the NBA after HS. But I’d concede, someone like an Anthony Davis (who played one year at Kentucky) or a Lonzo Ball (one year at UCLA) might have been able to have made that jump to the NBA. But most of time, those lottery picks need the one year in college to mature.
So, to think the hundreds and hundreds,of college players have NBA value is a pointless argument to me. The draft is two rounds, 30 picks per round. 60 players. For every Draymond Green drafted in the second round and has become a success, there’s a boatload of players who flamed out or never even made it.
“So, to think the hundreds and hundreds,of college players have NBA value is a pointless argument to me.”
That estimate does not purport to say that the college players have NBA value, since college teams don’t have anywhere near NBA-level revenue. Which is the point – if college teams don’t have NBA-level revenue why/how can they pay college coaches at the NBA level?
FYI, the average NBA salary is $5 million and the median is $2.2 million. Also, obviously, Duke and Lville player values would be at the very top. Players from Whatev State would be worth a lot less – since the revenues at Whatev would be lower than at Duke and Lville. The report says the D1 average player value would be $296k fyi.
But you have to see and agree about what is going on. Those average/median NBA salaries are driven by a CBA that says players get 49% of revenue.
If you apply the 49% to Duke, its total payroll would be $16.55 million. Maybe college players should only get 25% – that would be $8.44 million payroll. Or maybe just 10% – that would be $3.38 million. Using $70k as the annual scholarship value at Duke, their actual payroll cost is $910k. That’s 2.69% of revenues for 13 guys together. Pimps pay way better than that!
Meanwhile Coach K’s salary alone is 28.7% of revenues. One guy. Who couldn’t dunk to save his life…
The article purports to calculate the FMV of a college player, if they were paid in a similar manner to that of the NBA. The problem with this logic is that only one or two players on the best teams (Duke, Kentucky, UCLA, MSU, Louisville, etc.) in college play in the NBA. Everyone else on the college team is valued at FMV of zero. Maybe 1-2 players earn all the money, IF AND ONLY IF, they earn a spot on an NBA roster. The other 11 players on Duke or whatever U aren’t of any NBA value. I don’t buy the logic of the article.
Coach K gets paid what the market is willing to pay. He’s coached in the Olympics and won gold and he’s won multiple championships at Duke. Plus, he attracts value to Duke, because potential student applicants want to be a part of the “Cameron Crazies.” His worth is beyond the value of just a coaching contract.
I think the topic has probably run its course…but regarding Duke and BB…you realize they have the #1, #6, and #7 recruits in the country this year as Freshman (plus one in the teens). KY is similar. Those three kids alone would be worth up to $15M in the open market if they could go to the NBA based on the rookie salary slots (since the rankings in effect are determinate of value … for example, they buy insurance based on them…so they aren’t just theoretical). Grayson Allen and a few of the other potential draft kids at Duke have to push the value of the players to $20M. $1.3M is probably fair, including the half dozen who are near zero. Nobody in a free market system is worth zero, since all teams need a bench.
No, I don’t follow Duke bball THAT closely. I assume that they get the top recruits, along with Kentucky and a few other colleges, every year.
A bench player in the NBA can make a huge amount of money, say like Andre Iguodala, who got close to $50MM for 3 years. But if a bench player in college cannot play in the NBA, then a college player on the bench has zero FMV value in terms of NBA. None. They do get a free education, free room and board, free tutors, free shoes, free medical, free travel, free exposure to professional scouts, monetary stipend, etc. So, that in it of itself has value and every player in the team has that value.
And do you think that these Duke recruits could have been drafted into the NBA this year? Like where in the draft? That’s rhetorical. Would an NBA team be willing to risk a draft pick on a high school player? Maybe, maybe not. Very few high school players have made it to the NBA, before the rule took effect, but that will probably change now the G League looks successful.
60 players are drafted every year, plus some free agents. And more and more are coming from overseas. But there’s about 10,000 college basketball players. I still don’t buy the argument that you can take a simple average when only a select few make it to the NBA.
Grayson Allen has hurt his value over the years, by tripping opposing players on the court among other issues. He has NBA value, but he’s in “repair mode” now. But he definitely got a 4-year Duke education and free living for 4 years.
You’re right, the discussion has run its course.