Bayou…
Of course you would do it through a cba.
Thats how it is done in the pros.
yes it is.
Then make a new thread. See your first point.
The science is still in its infancy. There’s still no way to diagnose CTE other than an autopsy.
If college football players are being exploited—and a good case can be made that they are—then the fault lies at least as much with the NFL as with the colleges. Most players in big-time college football programs are there for one reason only: they hope to have a shot at a career in professional football. The overwhelming majority won’t make it. But the same can be said of the thousands of baseball players playing in the minor leagues, in most cases for a mere pittance. They’re hoping to have the chance to prove themselves on the playing field, move up, and earn the chance to win fame and fortune playing at the highest professional level,. Few will make it, but many will try.
If you’re a talented football player coming out of high school, you really have no choice—you need to play college football. NFL rules prohibit drafting or signing a player straight out of high school, and NFL teams don’t want to support an expensive minor league system like MLB teams do. So the NFL has developed a symbiotic relationship with the NCAA that compels talented young football players to enroll in college and play college football before they have any chance at playing in the NFL. Once they’re enrolled in college they get strength and skills training, coaching that helps them develop the fundamentals of their position and deeper knowledge of the game, and a chance to compete for playing time, starting positions, and the attention of NFL scouts and draft analysts. They also get free room and board and a free college education, though the education part is a distinctly secondary objective for many, perhaps most. The NFL can pay its players higher salaries because neither the league nor the individual teams pay one red cent for this invaluable talent recruitment, development, and sorting system, upon which the NFL is utterly dependent. And the schools that produce the most NFL-ready talent profit handsomely because they can recruit the most promising talent coming out of high school, put the most competitive teams on the field, and put butts in the seats and eyeballs on the screen, generating multiple revenue streams for the college. Big-time college football is as dependent on the NFL as the NFL is on big-time college football. To talk about the economics of either one in isolation is tunnel vision. The NFL profits immensely from big-time college football, just as big-time college football profits immensely from the money and glory surrounding the NFL.
Univ of Louisville is going to owe its former hoops coach $40-50 million unless UL can prove said coach didn’t know about the funny business that resulted in a bunch of federal criminal indictments.
The players should be happy with those scholarships they get. Nothing to see here…
Interesting read by Jay Bilas on ESPN today…
For some interesting background on who’s funding the D1 salaries, take a look at the USA today link here: http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/
What’s insightful are the links under the “total allocated” column. What it basically shows, is that all schools are funded in part by student fees, and when the athletic department makes money…they return the fees. For most schools, the amount “returned” is noticeably less than the amount “contributed”. The amount returned is limited, however, so the amount never exceeds the contributions. If the program has extra money, they keep it. If they lose money (as most do), the students pay. Here’s the highlight for Wyoming (selected randomly)…
In 2012, only 23 of the 228 D1-A state universities generated enough revenue to cover the costs of running the entire athletic department. Any recognize that some of that “revenue” is donation not ticket sales.
The academic side of the school almost always pays tuition money over to support the athletic department operation. The academics don’t MAKE money on sports, they PAY money to operate sports. Typically as an exercise in marketing and branding.
The dollars the money sports (football, mens hoops) generate merely offsets some of the cost of the branding project. Sometimes that works very well – Ivy League conference, Duke and Gtown basketball, ND football, Stanford swimmers winning gold at the Olympics.
Many times it doesn’t work that well.
I have lurked in this conversation and being a former division 1 athlete I have found the debate interesting. These debates always seem to come back to “should general funds be used for athletics” and “do athletics support the overall university mission”. and based on this I find the USA Today link interesting.
I took a look at University of Iowa being my state flagship. If I understand the chart correctly, $650,000 of student dollars were spent on athletics, which with an undergraduate enrollment of roughly 20,000 equates to roughly $35 per student. I don’t want to debate if this is right or wrong but rather is it significant in the grand scheme of the school.
I would say $35 per student is probably one of the lowest (if not the lowest) line item that comes out an individual student’s tuition bill. I would like to see what the per student figure is for clubs and activities as that would be a reasonable comparison, my bet is that it is more and provides much less exposure for the university.
Even to break down the figures based on just what the athlete is getting from student funds, Iowa has about 615 athletes across all sports, this equates to just over $1,000 per athlete from the general student funds. Again it would be interesting to see what the figure for clubs or other student organizations (that athletes most likely do not participate in) are based on a per participant figure.
My belief is that athletes (at least at Iowa) are not getting more than their fair share from student funds but are bringing much more to the university than other funded activities. This does even “discount” the per athlete figure for the “usage” the student body has in the athletic events. Be it attendance (not just football and basketball), participating (cheerleaders, jobs, volunteer opportunities, student newspaper reporters, etc.), or access to the facilities for other events.
Overall I think there is nothing wrong with using student funds, provided it is within reason and is equivalent to other student expenditures. Those schools that are way outside of “normal expenditures” have university presidents, regents, etc. that have the power of the pen and can make those adjustments as they see fit. I would imagine if people stopped attending James Madison or Towson and made it known it was because the athletic spending was out of whack, those in charge would make changes to the spending.
Yeah big-ten schools are going to have good finances if you will and the athletic programs are a net positive, from a revenue perspective. The big ten has their own tv network, contracts with the other networks, sell out their games, go to a lot of bowl games and the campus and the city they reside in benefit. BTW, all teams in the big ten share the revenue equally so if your school doesn’t attend a bowl game or make the ncaa tournament, you still get an equal share. Other things like tickets, merchandise or course go to the school.
Iowa – take a look at UVA which makes the point better than Iowa.
UVA is in the ACC. That’s a Power 5 conference, but not at the B10 level in terms of cash. It has good basketball but meh football. So it generates revenue from its money sports, but it isn’t in the very top tier.
UVA’s athletic department has a $97 million budget and they say they break even. But (laughably) UVA maintains that athletics don’t use up any tuition dollars.
But every UVA student gets charged an “athletics fee” separate from tuition. $657 per student which totals $13 million a year. So 13% of the athletics budget comes from “fees” (cough cough tuition cough cough). My guess is that the tuition dollars pay for the swim, lacrosse, tennis, track, wrestling, etc. teams. And hoops and football and AD overhead consumes the rest.
So UVA breaks even on hoops and football (but with over-inflated expenses), and then decides it is worth spending tuition dollars to have the other sports. Just like UVA decides it is worth spending money on having a glee club or a debate team or an English department. UVA’s NC-level lacrosse and baseball teams are just student activities/programs. I’m fine if UVA thinks those are worth spending for – or not.
My only beef with the system is that the money sport players (or at least the star players) are paid WAY less than their market value. And that those profits today largely fund the egregious inflated salaries of the coaches and the athletic directors.
In my world, the star player value should go to (i) the star player and/or (ii) the other sport teams and/or (iii) the academic side of the house (which is the team owner). Bottom line – Coach K and Rick Pitino should make a lot less and be prevented from continuing to pimping off of their players. If they are unsatisfied with their new lower comp, they can go coach in the NBA.
UVA’s hoops coach Tony Bennett is a great coach and human being. He makes $2.1 million a year, which is probably a little below his current market value in the current system. In a more reasonable/rational world, he’d probably make more like $1.0 million. That’s still great money and he’d probably stay rather than go to a cess pool like Louisville or coach in the pros to get more. His players would share maybe $750k in some tbd fashion, and UVA would use less student tuition dollars to support the other athletics teams.
http://www.c-ville.com/uvas-student-bank-undergrads-pay-13-2-million-athletics-fees/#.Wc1COU2Wzcs
The other piece of this debate that I neglected, northwesty brings up, college players fair market value. In terms of football and basketball the 18 year old has no fair market value to be paid in the US. The employers (NFL and NBA) will not hire them and as such their market value is $0. Colleges do step in and give them an opportunity to continue playing and potentially realize a market value once they are eligible for employment, and for this service get the bad rap that they make too much money off the athletes without paying them. In reality they are paying them far in excess of their $0 market value via their scholarship.
If the argument is that 18 year olds should have a career option either the NFL and NBA should be blamed or in basketball’s case the 18 year old should go to Europe, but to blame the colleges when an employer will not hire a high school graduate is insane.
I hate the one and done that college basketball has turned into and I wish the NCAA would do something to change the NLI to include a provision that any player that left early, for a professional career, must repay the school for their cost of attendance for 5 years. A small pittance from a signing bonus but it at least puts the money back into the school. To put this into the academic side may start to steer coaches and athletic directors away from the one and done. They could also “lock up” a scholarship, make it unavailable to be reused for the 5 years a player would have been at school should a player leave early for the pros. This would stop a program that has 6 players leave early in a year for the NBA from going after multiple one and dones as they would be reduced to 7 scholarship players for several years, hard to recruit and win in that scenario.
In my job I sell a product where there is only one provider available in the US. I am asked almost daily if the price is competitive, after I have explained there is only one provider. YES this provider could charge as much as they want and you have to decide how much you want the product because you can’t get it anywhere else. The high school graduate is in the same position, how much do you want to keep playing? You know the rules before you start, you get a scholarship, is that worth it? IF yes the NCAA would be happy to have you. If no then you have to do without because no one else in the US will let you play for a higher price.
“The employers (NFL and NBA) will not hire them and as such their market value is $0.”
This is completely wrong. You should read the expert testimony of the Stanford PhD economists in the OBannon case. Your position literally cannot be supported by any kind of economic analysis…
The players generate revenue for college teams by playing for the colleges. That’s economic value. That value may be lower than what NFL/NBA value is, but there’s value that redounds to the college team owner from operating the college team. They don’t give away the tickets and TV rights after all, and people won’t pay to watch Rick Pitino coach without also having players playing on the court.
But due to some legal quirks, the college level employers (i.e. schools) have luckily been able to impose a low salary cap on the players without violating antitrust laws and without collectively bargaining with the employees.
That’s a pretty unique and crazy business model. Facebook and Amazon could never collude on a salary cap for programmers. But college sports team owners can do that via NCAA rules.
The facts of this scandal absolutely prove these college basketball recruits had value. People would not have been willing to pay them to come play for their schools and wear their sneakers if there was not any value. And those payments are basically legal in any normal business. The only reason this thing turned criminal is because the parties had to conceal their activities to avoid violating the NCAA cartel rules. But violating NCAA rules is not a federal crime.
I’m curious – what sport did you play in college? Revenue or non-revenue? Were you a star or a bench-rider? Athletic scholarship?
It is a Fed crime when you dont pay taxes on any of that hidden income from bribes.
“The other piece of this debate that I neglected, northwesty brings up, college players fair market value. In terms of football and basketball the 18 year old has no fair market value to be paid in the US. The employers (NFL and NBA) will not hire them and as such their market value is $0. Colleges do step in and give them an opportunity to continue playing and potentially realize a market value once they are eligible for employment, and for this service get the bad rap that they make too much money off the athletes without paying them. In reality they are paying them far in excess of their $0 market value via their scholarship.”
I’m not sure where you’ve been the last few days, but almost all of these points above have been proven wrong. First, college athletes in basketball and football make money for their schools, shoe contracts, jerseys, tv rights etc. and if the coach can benefit from that then the players should be able to as well. As northwesty points out, the ncaa has been able to skirt the anti-trust laws somehow and keep basically an illegal cartel going. Second, players were bribed to attend a school, like $100K numbers, which at least should give an idea of their current and potential value. Clearly the scholarship was not enough to get this athlete to attend the school. Third as I said previously when people generate money for an organization and don’t participate in the profits, that’s exploitation, and that’s why colleges get a bad rap.
Most people following college sports knew this was going on, the middlemen, bribes, in addition to classes being optional, it’s good that it’s out in the public but not sure if it will actually lead to any good.
@northwesty “My guess is that the tuition dollars pay for the swim, lacrosse, tennis, track, wrestling, etc. teams. And hoops and football and AD overhead consumes the rest.”
I agree with most of your post (shocking I know). I wonder if the athletic fee goes to club and intramurals and not the div-1 sports, which is usually how these fees are used. I suspect at a place like UVA there are hundreds of these to fund, as they can cover things like ultimate frisbee, flag football et al.
Worrying about the players being exploited seems like an odd-thing to worry about. If they’re truly first round draft pick talent, they’re earn more in their first year in the pros than most people do in a lifetime. The “exploited” one and done basketball players are some of the most privileged people in the country. If they’re not at that level, the $70k/year COA at Duke is probably more than most of them would earn in some type of minor league farm system(see baseball or hockey).
“I agree with most of your post (shocking I know). I wonder if the athletic fee goes to club and intramurals and not the div-1 sports, which is usually how these fees are used. I suspect at a place like UVA there are hundreds of these to fund, as they can cover things like ultimate frisbee, flag football et al.”
At UVA, all these fees go directly to the D1 athletic department. Not for rec sport activities.
The students do get to attend games for free (subject to availability) in exchange. But you still have to pay the fee/tuition even if you never go to a game.
I think there is a VA law that prohibits state schools from using “tuition” for D1 athletics. So it has to get charged more transparently as a “fee.” Va Tech charges $273 per student (their enrollment is a lot bigger than UVA’s). Smaller W&M charges $1575 per head.
This goes on at lots of schools, but you can’t see it easily elsewhere as you can at the VA state schools.
“It is a Fed crime when you dont pay taxes on any of that hidden income from bribes.”
Correct. But the only reason why the payments had to be kept on the DL is because the payments would violate NCAA rules.
In any other business, it is perfectly fine, legal and commonplace to pay fees to headhunters or to pay employees a signing bonus. And all those payments would get reported and taxed. If you didn’t have the NCAA amateurism rules (which are not federal laws), there would be no evasion, subterfuge or crime.
“Second, players were bribed to attend a school, like $100K numbers, which at least should give an idea of their current and potential value. Clearly the scholarship was not enough to get this athlete to attend the school.”
Ding ding ding ding. There was a bidding war for this kid’s services between Arizona and Lville. Who were willing to pay him something above the scholarship value in order to obtain his services.
“Worrying about the players being exploited seems like an odd-thing to worry about.”
I’m not worrying about it per se, just a wrong that needs to be righted. And your case applies to maybe 30 players a year, what about the football player that doesn’t make the NFL, contributes to his college team and gets CTE or can’t use his knees down the road? That’s more typical and exploitative.
“Worrying about the players being exploited seems like an odd-thing to worry about. If they’re truly first round draft pick talent, they’re earn more in their first year in the pros than most people do in a lifetime. The “exploited” one and done basketball players are some of the most privileged people in the country.”
I’m actually not primarily worried about the one-and-doners. They generally do OK.
What I find most offensive is pigs and pimps like Pitino who line their pockets with the value generated by the players. Give that money to the academic side or the XC team and I’m generally fine. I also recognize that the last guy on Duke’s bench is likely getting overpaid with his $70k scholarship. But that doesn’t mean that it is OK to screw Duke’s star player.
While he has a nicer appearance, Coach K is just as big a pimp as Pitino. $7.5 million a year from Duke. 35% of all Duke hoops revenues goes directly into his pocket. Which can only happen if his players get screwed. Disgusting imho.