Should College Athletes Be Paid?

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Give your reason why whether it's "Yes" or "No"

EDIT: I believe college athletes should be paid but they should be paid the same amount across the board as to not give unfair advantages to schools who have big money behind them.

Paying these athletes will keep some in school to finish their degrees.
It will protect athletes from systems who value winning at all costs like making a kid play hurt if they do play it will end the athletes career.
Schools are making millions of $ off of these kids.

There are other reasons, these are just my top ones.

[GMDino]

Colleges are making money off them.  They should see a cut.

I realize many get scholarships too, but too often they can't earn any other money for things like...eating.

[Yojimbo]

I think it should be scholarships + monthly stipend.

[fredtoast]

I think everyone agrees in theory that it is unfair for universities to make hundreds of millions of dollars off athletes with out giving them more than a scholarship.

The devil is in the details. How do ALL athletes get paid when only a very few sports actually generate income. and how do the smaller schools compete with the larger schools that can afford to pay more.

[*bfine32*]

Only those not on scholarship.

[Mike M (the other one)]

I am going with a no, til I hear a good way to do it with out sacraficing the little colleges.

[Millhouse]

No, a full ride is good enough.

Now if they want to expand their 'pocket money' so to speak, which would be the student's college currency card that can be used on and around campus, then sure. At OSU this was called the Buck ID card, which parents or whoever can load money onto. Then be used at campus stores, and places to eat on and just off campus if they accept it.

[CKwi88]

Let them make money off of endorsements, memorabilia etc.

[*michaelsean*]

Just hard to do. Two sports make money. Maybe hockey at some schools as well. Nobody is making money off a swimmer. Since they basically can’t work I’m good with a stipend that is even across sports and colleges so I don’t know if that’s a yes or no.

[Belsnickel]

(10-03-2018, 05:29 PM)GMDino Wrote: I realize many get scholarships too, but too often they can't earn any other money for things like...eating.

(10-03-2018, 05:33 PM)Yojimbo Wrote: I think it should be scholarships + monthly stipend.

What you two suggest, here, already happens. Scholarships aren't just for tuition. Scholarships are based upon the total costs which includes housing and meals. A full ride athlete gets all costs covered on campus, and because of NCAA regulations an off campus student must get the same. Now there is also the ability to pay up tot he full cost of attendance, which is a little higher. So scholarship athletes receive money for tuition, rent, and food. They also can receive money for books and other expenses. In addition to all of that, they usually have a clothing allowance and others sorts of things.

We, and many schools, for an off-campus student athlete will provide them part of their scholarship as an allotment which is paid out monthly. This is done because they can't manage their money if we give it to them all at once.

(10-03-2018, 06:37 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I think everyone agrees in theory that it is unfair for universities to make hundreds of millions of dollars off athletes with out giving them more than a scholarship.

The devil is in the details. How do ALL athletes get paid when only a very few sports actually generate income. and how do the smaller schools compete with the larger schools that can afford to pay more.

Exactly this. Most athletics departments in the NCAA aren't self-sustaining. They are supported by fees charged to other students at the university. Even with the revenue sharing athletics departments have to rely on these other forms of revenue. When I first started my job, there was a lot of hubbub about higher education expenditures in the state. There was a report by Virginia's version of the GAO, JLARC, on this. This is the report (http://jlarc.virginia.gov/pdfs/Reports/Rpt443.pdf), but it has a lot of other stuff to it This article touches on the athletics part: https://www.richmond.com/sports/college/jlarc-report-of-tuition-fees-went-to-athletics/article_3612f7da-1973-11e3-a102-0019bb30f31a.html

Quote:As scrutiny increases on the use of mandatory student fees to pay for athletic programs, a state legislative study indicates Virginia's public schools and universities are charging significant amounts to make up shortfalls.

Students at Virginia's state-supported four-year schools had an average of 12 percent of their tuition and fees during the 2012-13 school year plowed into athletic budgets, the study said.

Schools do not receive state money for their athletic programs. Auxiliary enterprises - athletics, campus recreation, student housing and student dining - are expected to be self-supporting through student fees and other revenue.

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission's report on auxiliary enterprises on Monday found that 10 athletic programs generated only a small amount of the revenue needed to cover their expenses in 2011-12.

Only Virginia Tech (89 percent) and the University of Virginia (84 percent) - which get significant revenue-sharing sums from the Atlantic Coast Conference - and Virginia Military Institute (61 percent) and William and Mary (44 percent) were above 26 percent.

U.Va. and Virginia Tech had the only football teams and men's basketball teams that didn't have a shortfall in 2011-12, according to the report.

The General Assembly directed JLARC to study the cost efficiency of the state's public colleges and universities and identify opportunities to reduce the cost of higher education.

Part of JLARC's ongoing review found that total athletic spending for state programs has increased $85.9 million in the past six years, with an average growth of 43 percent.

Nationally, subsidies for athletics rose nearly $200 million from 2011 to 2012 for 228 Division I public schools, according to a USA Today study. Only 23 schools made enough money to pay for their athletic programs.

The state increase was attributed to athletic scholarships, coaching and support staff salaries, and facilities.

I put in bold the line that I want to point out. Virginia Tech, the largest and most successful of the athletics programs in the Commonwealth, still has to rely on 11% of its athletics budget from student fees that are paid with tuition costs. You can see from that section, only three of the 14 schools get even over half of their costs covered without fees. So with concerns over the rising costs of college to students, adding onto this burden with paying student athletes just isn't going to fly.

[BmorePat87]

A living expenses stipend and health care would be fair

[grampahol]

Here's the rub.. Not every college student is a sports fan and most don't attend college for the schools sports programs. 
Put yourself in their shoes for a moment.  Suppose you attend , say OSU to study dentistry or whatever . Why should student athletes get paid to play a game that may or may not ever get them to the pro level while you work your butt off to study and receive absolutely nothing to live while attending ? There's something inherently unfair about this. OSU currently enrolls about 45,000 students per year give or take a few hundred at any given time.. Of the 45000 only a handful will ever play football for the college and even less will go on to the pros..Now why should players who will never even sniff the NFL draft get paid and those who do get drafted and go on to great success in the league will make millions while the student who works hard, perhaps 2 jobs get paid nothing? 
The same arguments can be made for people who don't pay any attention to pro sports at all. Why should they have to pay taxes to build stadiums for sports they get nothing in return from? 
My view..college athletic programs should be entirely voluntary and paid for by the people who actually care about the sports...not by people who don't. The benefit the public receives from sports is just too ambiguous. Sure, a handful of people profit from it, but by far most never see a dime and those who do are really receiving a hell of a heavy dose of public funding at the expense of everyone else.  The thing about college athletes is that nobody forces them to attend. Even the greatest athletes could always opt to go to work elsewhere to support themselves. You're asking the rest of us to basically pay them to become millionaires..  Personally if I'm going to pay someone to become a millionaire I chose myself even though I'll never play football at any level ever again much less pro football .

[fredtoast]

(10-03-2018, 09:11 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: What you two suggest, here, already happens. Scholarships aren't just for tuition. Scholarships are based upon the total costs which includes housing and meals. A full ride athlete gets all costs covered on campus, and because of NCAA regulations an off campus student must get the same. Now there is also the ability to pay up tot he full cost of attendance, which is a little higher. So scholarship athletes receive money for tuition, rent, and food. They also can receive money for books and other expenses. In addition to all of that, they usually have a clothing allowance and others sorts of things.

We, and many schools, for an off-campus student athlete will provide them part of their scholarship as an allotment which is paid out monthly. This is done because they can't manage their money if we give it to them all at once.


Exactly this. Most athletics departments in the NCAA aren't self-sustaining. They are supported by fees charged to other students at the university. Even with the revenue sharing athletics departments have to rely on these other forms of revenue. When I first started my job, there was a lot of hubbub about higher education expenditures in the state. There was a report by Virginia's version of the GAO, JLARC, on this. This is the report (http://jlarc.virginia.gov/pdfs/Reports/Rpt443.pdf), but it has a lot of other stuff to it This article touches on the athletics part: https://www.richmond.com/sports/college/jlarc-report-of-tuition-fees-went-to-athletics/article_3612f7da-1973-11e3-a102-0019bb30f31a.html


I put in bold the line that I want to point out. Virginia Tech, the largest and most successful of the athletics programs in the Commonwealth, still has to rely on 11% of its athletics budget from student fees that are paid with tuition costs. You can see from that section, only three of the 14 schools get even over half of their costs covered without fees. So with concerns over the rising costs of college to students, adding onto this burden with paying student athletes just isn't going to fly.

I refuse to buy the argument "we can't afford it" when VT is paying their football coaching staff $6.6 million per year.

[fredtoast]

(10-05-2018, 12:17 PM)grampahol Wrote: .Now why should players who will never even sniff the NFL draft get paid and those who do get drafted and go on to great success in the league will make millions while the student who works hard, perhaps 2 jobs get paid nothing? 

Because the top 5 conferences each make over TWO HUNDRED AND FITY MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR in TV revenue alone.

The players are the ones who have to work out all year and suffer the injuries.  They deserve a piece of that pie.

[Whatever]

(10-05-2018, 12:45 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Because the top 5 conferences each make over TWO HUNDRED AND FITY MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR in TV revenue alone.

The players are the ones who have to work out all year and suffer the injuries.  They deserve a piece of that pie.

The athletes get a piece of that pie in the form of their scholarship.

The other part of this a large percentage of the athletes from the money making sports would not have the opportunity to attend college if not for athletic scholarships.  Most of them would not be able to afford college if they even had the grades and test scores to be accepted under a normal admissions process.  Not to mention that they get extreme degrees of preferential treatment when it comes to things like tutors and the grading process.  I can name names of OSU graduates that I've witnessed first-hand that can only write at about a 6th grade level.

The athletes, frankly, aren't the main ones drawing the money.  The major Universities all have a massive built in viewing audience in the form of their alumni. If they had to go back to assembling teams out of the general student body, they would still make a fortune.  

[fredtoast]

(10-05-2018, 02:51 PM)Whatever Wrote: The athletes get a piece of that pie in the form of their scholarship.

That is like saying slavery was not that bad because they all got free meals.  OSU gets over $20 million in TV money before they even count the money they make from tickets and concessions at the games.  Then there are million more to be made in bowl games.

(10-05-2018, 02:51 PM)Whatever Wrote: The athletes, frankly, aren't the main ones drawing the money.  The major Universities all have a massive built in viewing audience in the form of their alumni. If they had to go back to assembling teams out of the general student body, they would still make a fortune.  

Then why pay coaches millions of dollars per year?  The players are the ones who get broken bones and concussions.

[Whatever]

(10-03-2018, 07:39 PM)CKwi88 Wrote: Let them make money off of endorsements, memorabilia etc.

Then recruiting basically turns into who has the most coorporate tie ins (like Oregon and Nike) and who's boosters will pay insane money for an autograph.

[Whatever]

(10-05-2018, 03:01 PM)fredtoast Wrote: That is like saying slavery was not that bad because they all got free meals.  OSU gets over $20 million in TV money before they even count the money they make from tickets and concessions at the games.  Then there are million more to be made in bowl games.


Then why pay coaches millions of dollars per year?  The players are the ones who get broken bones and concussions.

Slavery?  Really?  I must have missed the scholarship football players being led off the stage in chains at my high school graduation.  If you feel that these kids are exploited to that degree, then I assume you have boycotted college athletics entirely.  If enough people do that, then the Universities will stop making crazy amounts of money, and by your logic, the athletes won't need to be paid.

If a player doesn't like the return, they don't have to participate in college athletics.  They can foot their own bill through college or get a job out of high school.  If they want to play a sport and make money, they can try out for the minors, the Globetrotters, And 1 videos, CFL, XFL, Arena League, semi pro ball, etc.

These kids reap a massive benefit. A 2017 Census study shows that people with a Bachelor's Degree earn $1.3 million more over their lives than people with just a high school diploma.  

Just because the college's make large amounts of money does not mean athletes should be compensated to a higher level, either.  McDonald's makes billions, but it will never be a middle class career for restaurant workers due to the fact that there a billions of people that can do that job.  They are easily replaceable.  College's have walk on athletes who are willing to do the "job" for nothing except the experience.  Until high school athletes decide to stop participating in college athletics in droves, there will be no impetus for change, and high school athletes are not going to turn down the opportunity because the rewards are too great.

Coaches are paid what they are because there are a lot fewer coaches capable of running a successful college program than there are athletes capable of competing in a major college program.  Simple supply and demand.

Everyone risks injury every day of their lives.  People risk injury and death doing recreational activities ranging from skateboarding to rock climbing that they aren't compensated at all for.  These kids get a free education and a huge leg up on life for doing something they enjoy.

[SunsetBengal]

(10-05-2018, 03:01 PM)fredtoast Wrote: That is like saying slavery was not that bad because they all got free meals.  OSU gets over $20 million in TV money before they even count the money they make from tickets and concessions at the games.  Then there are million more to be made in bowl games.


Then why pay coaches millions of dollars per year?  The players are the ones who get broken bones and concussions.

Really??  Let's poll the non-athletes that are going hundreds of thousands into debt, just for the same privilege of attending the same university.  Some of those athletes take advantage of that scholarship, earn a degree, and are fully prepared for life, should football not work out for them.  Many others are wasting good scholarships that could be going to truly needy students, the ones interested in actually getting a degree and breaking the chain of poverty..

I'm going to speculate here, and say that your beef should be with the NFL.  The NFL requires that new players be 3 years removed from HS.  The only way that those players are going to continue their football training and development past HS, is to play CFB.  Why not petition the NFL to set up a "farm system", like MLB?  That way players that have no real interest in being students can still get quality development, without all the hassle of those pesky exams.  As an added bonus, it relieves universities of the hypocrisy of giving scholarships to people with little or no interest in ever using them for their intended purpose.

Think about it.  An NFL developmental league would solve a lot of problems.  It would allow for structured contracts to provide those guys a living wage, yet leave them free from having to work a "real job" while they continue to pursue their passion.  They could set it up with parameters, putting limitations on time allotted in the NFLDL.  For example, an 18 year old athlete could sign into the developmental league for 2 years.  If he shows great promise, he gets a better contract.  However, limit on total time in developmental should be 6 years.  You don't want guys hanging out for 12 years, and having 18 year old kids competing with 30 year old men..  

[grampahol]

Another question not asked nor answered, what's the cut off? Football players only? Basketball ? College baseball programs already have the minor leagues so paying college baseball players is already a dead end which is really unfair. 
Then there's other sports, volleyball  wrestling swimming and on and on. If you're going to pay only college football and basketball players every other sport is going to want a cut and most are money pits anyway like paying a guy to bail water out of a sinking ship in a hurricane. The simple answer that's never going to happen is to end the big football and basketball programs and force the professional leagues to form their own farm clubs and the college sports programs to all go back to what they once were when they were all intramural sports open to all students regardless of talent kind of like high school and stop charging fans admission and stop the lucrative television rights..  of course there's billions upon billions available and when there's so much money available to be skimmed it's always going to be corrupt and it most certainly is corrupted.