Judge's Ruling Allows College Athletes A Cut Of TV Money

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I am a parent of a student who is in an Olympic or non-revenue generating sport.</p>

<p>Few kids on her team get scholarships, and nobody is a full ride. </p>

<p>Many sports are like this. </p>

<p>The football team revenue allows her team and many others like it, to play because of the monies brought in. </p>

<p>If one of those football players has a career ending injury, they will not get to stay on university’s dime to continue on for their education. Too many concussions? Torn ACL? Done. Unless the university has excellent endowment and the family could get a large aid package after Johnny’s career in college football over, well, good luck on finishing that degree. </p>

<p>You wonder why some leave when they can get a big paycheck in the NFL? Because they wonder about their own future. For a family where this kid has extraordinary athletic talent, they might have to take the money and run. </p>

<p>A full scholarship doesn’t pay for expenses to travel back and forth to school. You want to buy a sluce of pizza with your friends? Hope you saved some money before college. You have a car? Hope it is paid off and you do not drive much, because you need money to put gas in it. Clothes? Nope, unless provided by team sponsors. Warm winter coat for inclement weather? No, again. </p>

<p>My daughter lived in the athletes dorm last year. If you think the amenities were spectacular, you would be wrong. Cafeteria downstairs, but you can really only live on cafe food or so long. Especially an athlete that needs more calories to sustain 3-4 hour workouts each day. </p>

<p>If my kid has a career ending injury - and it does happen in her sport - she will still get to finish her degree. She could get a job or an internship or maybe even study abroad. Right now, she can only do those things during summer break. </p>

<p>I am going to just put this out there - a football or basketball outlet at a Div 1 program that is nationally ranked is owned by the university. They do not have time to do an outside job. My D got a work study award that is syill sitting in her fin aid offer a couple of years running, unclaimed because she has no time to get an on-campus job.</p>

<p>Most of these kids love playing, but honestly, throwing them a $2000 stipend each year would only improve the player’s lives with less risk they take something fishy from a college booster.</p>

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<p>My cousin was a teammate of SLS’ D until a shoulder surgery left her unable to play. </p>

<p>Not only was her dorm not “nicer than the rest” she didn’t even have a female bathroom on her floor. She had to go up or down one floor to get to a bathroom. </p>

<p>Getting paid? Ha! No, these athletes don’t get paid.</p>

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<p>Don’t even get me started on the health insurance aspect for injured athletes playing for NCAA schools. </p>

<p>Romani’s cousin was likely on hook for costs for surgery and rehab, even if injured in sport. </p>

<p>There can be a huge gap in what university will and won’t pay for, and it is shocking.</p>

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<p>Yup. Luckily, she is from a well-to-do family with phenomenal insurance but she was on the hook for all of it. If she was on the team still, she would’ve gotten sports rehab through them, but she couldn’t play anymore so no team = no rehab.</p>

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<p>“I’d love to get a full ride scholarship, but I’m only an aspiring physicist, and I don’t excel at running a ball down a field.”</p>

<p>What are you talking about? </p>

<p>I generated a profit my first year off of engineering scholarships.</p>

<p>If I had a science scholarship, I would have generated even more money.</p>

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<p>In any event, the NFL is going to be completely nuked once the ramifications of the concussion/brain damage mess work its way through the system.</p>

<p>Last disability brief for attorney fees’ that I used I took from one of those cases.</p>

<p>(Yes, it’s loser pays in ERISA disability cases in the USA.)</p>

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<p>Just going to add my two cents as an economist:</p>

<p>The big argument that I always see against paying college athletes is that their college scholarships should be “enough” payment. The problem with that is that in a capitalist economy, we don’t base people’s incomes on what is considered enough (nor do I personally think we should). We pay them according to the value other people place on their services. That’s why a movie star gets paid millions of dollars for a film, clearly more than “enough,” because when you’re trying to top the box office it is worth paying them that much to have their name and image attached to a movie.</p>

<p>College players are paid in their scholarships, and depending on the school that pay could be as much as $50-60,000 per year. But if the revenue that football brings in is even higher than that (and it definitely is at many schools), the players are still getting ripped off.</p>

<p>Nobody would think it was fair if the government walked in to the office of a surgeon who makes $300,000, a salary based on prices for his service that he and his patients agree on, and say that he had a new salary cap of $150,000 because that’s “enough.” But that’s exactly what happens in college football. There are plenty of arguments to defend the status quo, but claiming that a football player for Alabama (net worth=500k according to that earlier poster) is being paid fairly for what he does (scholarship for full in-state tuition = $4600) is not one of them.</p>

<p>Of course then you get into the messy subject of other sports, where a full scholarship is definitely worth more than the revenue that athlete brings to the school.</p>

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<p>Good for the athletes. Why should Universities and Coaches get fat off of kids’ talents?</p>

<p>Why shouldn’t the people EARNING the money get some of the money?</p>

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<p>Same here. My academic scholarships paid for tuition, room & board, and spending money for weekends.</p>

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<p>Nick Saban, coach of Alabama’s football team, makes about $5 million a year. He’s won several national championships and may win another this year. In part because he has a really good quarterback.</p>

<p>AJ McCarron has been Alabama’s QB for two national championships and may lead his team to a third this year. He makes about $16,000 a year in the form of a scholarship.</p>

<p>Do more people buy tickets to watch Saban coach or to watch McCarron play?</p>

<p>In the NFL, the quarterback gets paid 3-4 times more than the coach. In college, the coach gets paid 300 times more than the quarterback. Hmmm.</p>

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<p>Aj mccarron a good quarterback?</p>

<p>He is an average QB at best. Only thing AJ excels at is having a hot girlfriend</p>

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<p>Having been a college football athlete, it’s very obvious to me that the casual observer has no idea what a player’s life on campus actually entails. </p>

<p>As Samurai says, those athletes are truly owned by the university. The school dictates virtually every aspect of life on and off campus year round. Sure, many players are on scholarship, but very few have the time and freedom to fully maximize the benefit. Many are forced to select less rigorous programs than they might otherwise choose because of the demands placed on them. Their athletic requirements substantially crowds out time they can devote to other demanding endeavors, and thus, many don’t feel they can afford to take academic risks in more challenging disciplines. I’m sure few people remember the fallout between Robert Smith and coach Cooper at Ohio State years ago. Smith wanted to complete a pre-med program but his coaches refused to allow him the time he needed to prep for some of coursework he was taking. Things came to a head when he announced he was quitting the team because he felt academics were more important. Smith was the star of the team, and as such, had a little leverage in his situation, but imagine what it must be like for the kid still trying to break his way into the lineup if he had the same attitude. He would be summarily squashed by his coaches. </p>

<p>Now, I’m not suggesting anyone needs to feel sorry for athletes. Clearly the kids love playing and the attention they receive has its perks. However, people tend to misunderstand that there can also be significant drawbacks. For example, as others mentioned above, athletes have very few outlets to earn spending money without being in violation of NCAA rules. Fans are buying your jersey number, paying big $$ to see you play and represent the school, etc., but you don’t even have the cost of a ticket in your pocket. Unfortunately, you can’t eat or drive a scholarship. You also can’t clothe yourself with it or take it with you to the barber shop or hairdresser. And it many instances, you can’t even use it to study the subjects you want to try. </p>

<p>So yes, I do think athletes are a different class of student and the rules need to be changed to recognize that reality.</p>

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<p>No one goes to watch AJ McCarron play.</p>

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<p>Insane this is.</p>

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<p>[Alabama</a> Crimson Tide fire strength coach Corey Harris, who gave Ha Ha Clinton-Dix loan - ESPN](<a href=“http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10023450/alabama-crimson-tide-fire-strength-coach-corey-harris-gave-ha-ha-clinton-dix-loan]Alabama”>Alabama Crimson Tide fire strength coach Corey Harris, who gave Ha Ha Clinton-Dix loan - ESPN)</p>

<p>“The loan Clinton-Dix received from Harris, said to be less than $500, was in violation of NCAA bylaw 16.11.2.2, which says, “an institutional employee or representative of the institution’s athletics interests may not provide a student-athlete with extra benefits or services, including, but not limited to … a loan of money.””</p>

<p>This is the kind of rule making that makes me happy that these kids get some money. We have no idea why this kid needed 500$ and how poor he might be but the stupid rule now got a coach fired and a student suspended. Nobody really cares what pressures a poor kid might have and its not like they have time to go do a job in the middle of the season to make that money.</p>

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<p>TPG, absolutely ridiculous. </p>

<p>However, I find it interesting that the school did not face repercussions for this. I actually agree with the comments that if this had been pretty much any other school, they’d be facing consequences as an organization.</p>

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<p>NCAA has some silly rules. </p>

<p>Absurd.</p>

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<p>NCAA also has sacred cows like the entire sec</p>

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<p>They go to school for free but how are they supposed to live? A college athlete is a full time student and a full time athlete that travels. You expect them to never have any spending money?</p>

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<p>I just watched a documentary about this issue on Netflix. It’s called “Schooled: the Cost of College Sports” or something like that. Definitely makes a case for paying athletes, or at least giving them more representation at the policy-making table.</p>