http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nca...n/8846329/


I think they would be quite serious about due to the fact the pressure of the Stanford employee themselves if the athletes are employees also.

As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

(05-08-2014 05:52 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nca...n/8846329/


I think they would be quite serious about due to the fact the pressure of the Stanford employee themselves if the athletes are employees also.

I agree they are serious but I don't think anyone expects it to come to that point. Like Delaney said earlier in the week, if the NLRB supports unionization of student-athletes then the issue will go to court, and the universities will press it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, and if they lose there they will take it to Congress. If the issue gets that far not even the liberal Democrats are crazy enough to sacrifice collegiate athletics on the altar of collective bargaining. It's notable that Miller didn't advocate unionization; he just made it clear in no uncertain terms that the time has come for universities to get serious about addressing student-athlete grievances.

(05-08-2014 06:06 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 05:52 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nca...n/8846329/


I think they would be quite serious about due to the fact the pressure of the Stanford employee themselves if the athletes are employees also.

I agree they are serious but I don't think anyone expects it to come to that point. Like Delaney said earlier in the week, if the NLRB supports unionization of student-athletes then the issue will go to court, and the universities will press it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, and if they lose there they will take it to Congress. If the issue gets that far not even the liberal Democrats are crazy enough to sacrifice collegiate athletics on the altar of collective bargaining. It's notable that Miller didn't advocate unionization; he just made it clear in no uncertain terms that the time has come for universities to get serious about addressing student-athlete grievances.

I think this whole thing would be avoided if they just gave all scholarship student athletes a $300 monthly stipend during the season of their respective sports.

(05-08-2014 06:43 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 06:06 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 05:52 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nca...n/8846329/


I think they would be quite serious about due to the fact the pressure of the Stanford employee themselves if the athletes are employees also.

I agree they are serious but I don't think anyone expects it to come to that point. Like Delaney said earlier in the week, if the NLRB supports unionization of student-athletes then the issue will go to court, and the universities will press it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, and if they lose there they will take it to Congress. If the issue gets that far not even the liberal Democrats are crazy enough to sacrifice collegiate athletics on the altar of collective bargaining. It's notable that Miller didn't advocate unionization; he just made it clear in no uncertain terms that the time has come for universities to get serious about addressing student-athlete grievances.

I think this whole thing would be avoided if they just gave all scholarship student athletes a $300 monthly stipend during the season of their respective sports.

How do we know what they are worth if they can't bargain for a rate?

And Delany and Stanford and all these other schools, administrators, coaches profiteering off 18 year olds should be embarrassed by the system they are defending.

(05-08-2014 06:02 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

As of now, college tuition is tax deductible. I'm sure good tax preparers could end up getting most of the rest of the covered expenses as "business expenses" and therefore also tax deductible. They'd end up paying virtually no taxes anyway.

(05-08-2014 11:27 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 06:02 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

As of now, college tuition is tax deductible. I'm sure good tax preparers could end up getting most of the rest of the covered expenses as "business expenses" and therefore also tax deductible. They'd end up paying virtually no taxes anyway.

Not true. Everything an employee gets from his or her employer is taxable, including food, housing, use of exercise facilities, medical care, etc., not just the employee's wages and salary. Employees have a limited ability to deduct business expenses. Student athletes may wind up paying more in taxes than they get in cash stipends.

(05-08-2014 11:27 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 06:02 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

As of now, college tuition is tax deductible. I'm sure good tax preparers could end up getting most of the rest of the covered expenses as "business expenses" and therefore also tax deductible. They'd end up paying virtually no taxes anyway.

No doubt, by creatively classifying the benefits that athletes get, schools could make sure their athletes aren't hit with a tax bill. And schools will have every incentive to do that. Athletes might have a choice between schools with competent tax advisers that make sure the athletes aren't whacked by the IRS, and schools with clueless administrators that cause athletes to have to pay taxes on their benefits, and obviously schools in the latter category would be at a huge recruiting disadvantage.

Schools don't want the kids in their retirement plans or on the group health plan nor covered by worker's comp.

But I've seen a number of people scoff at Delany, Wake Forest, and Stanford saying if we lose, we will find another way.

I believe them near completely.

Virtually every university in the B1G and I would wager Stanford and WF as well are pulling university funds over to fund the rat arms race. If they are going to have add 400+ athletes on as employees or at least 100ish in the profitable to revenue neutral sports walking a way makes a huge amount of sense.

Whether YOU consider it a charade that athletes are students first they believe in it.

I personally think it is laughable than everyone can parse Delany's comments on governance and conclude that he wants to walk away and be NFL-Lite but no one notices a comment out there plain as day. Delany says the 20 hour a week restrictions aren't working to reduce the demands for athlete time and it has to be fixed. No notice of that at all.

Some years back, one of the radio chains (ClearChannel maybe?) walked away from the LA Dodgers radio rights. The rights were profitable and a matter of local prestige but the explanation was a pretty brutal recognition of the modern Wall Street economy. The Dodgers rights were very expensive, the ad revenue was high but required a lot of sales time and resulted in some nice commissions for the ad people. The radio network realized the return on the investment was rather low even though it was very profitable. They could get a better ROI playing satellite music with canned announcers and that increase in ROI freed up cash that could be used for other investments while making the stock look better to Wall Street.

The revenues of intecollegiate athletics at the top level are fantastic but the ROI is usually negative.

Walk away from $25 million or whatever in media rights, slash your budget by $30 million by eliminating athletic ability based aid and cutting coaching salaries and some of the admin functions and you can potentially improve your ROI.

Produce your events media in-house as an adjunct of your College of Communications. Stream them on the web and to apps and set an ad rate that covers your production and distribution costs.

If you are Stanford it doesn't matter to you if Texas or Alabama follow your lead. All you really need is for USC, Cal, and UCLA to follow.

If you are Wake, you don't need Clemson or Florida State to follow your lead, you just need Duke and hopefully UNC and UNC might be ripe to consider it in the clutter following their scandal. Might be nice if Vandy follows as well.

If the colleges lose the big lawsuits, the split will not be P5 vs. the world it will be internal because there are already a large number of P5 schools getting squeamish about the commercialization of intercollegiate athletics and they are not going to walk over the line into true professionalism. The SEC might be willing to cross over but I doubt if a majority of the B1G, Pac-12, and maybe ACC is ready to go that direction.

A lot of good points in there, arkstfan. If a solution is rolled out that makes Stanford wince, you can bet that Vandy will pay attention. Locally, everything surrounding the Vanderbilt athletic program is compared to Stanford. They do not compare themselves to any other SEC school. Without getting to gushy, Stanford is the most well rounded school in the world; it would be wise for others like them to pay attention.

FWIW, these departments are totally cooking the books and the AD/presidents should be ashamed of themselves when they pull this crap that not many schools are making money. People rant and rave about corporate greed, but higher education isn't that far behind.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/1...d-revenues

Stop the madness, FBall and Bball drives the bus and the players should be compensated for the millions (billions?) they help produce. Whether that requires labeling them employees, I don't care. They should be able to negotiate, sell their brand and hire representation. To say otherwise is simply totally against the American spirit.

(05-09-2014 09:49 AM)wavefan12 Wrote:  FWIW, these departments are totally cooking the books and the AD/presidents should be ashamed of themselves when they pull this crap that not many schools are making money. People rant and rave about corporate greed, but higher education isn't that far behind.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/1...d-revenues

Stop the madness, FBall and Bball drives the bus and the players should be compensated for the millions (billions?) they help produce. Whether that requires labeling them employees, I don't care. They should be able to negotiate, sell their brand and hire representation. To say otherwise is simply totally against the American spirit.

Over-paying the volleyball coach to avoid showing a profit is still money spent.

I love Hugh Freeze but his last raise at Ole Miss was a joke, it was strictly keeping up appearances so his salary would be in line with the rest of the league.

But the money is being spent, not so much hidden.

Obviously the presidents could say "Hey fork over $15 million to renovate the Fine Arts Building" but they don't because the AD and football coach and basketball coach will whine to the media and the big money donors that the president isn't committed to athletics.

(05-08-2014 11:27 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 06:02 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

As of now, college tuition is tax deductible. I'm sure good tax preparers could end up getting most of the rest of the covered expenses as "business expenses" and therefore also tax deductible. They'd end up paying virtually no taxes anyway.

Not even close. There is an annual limit of $4,000 on the deductability of tuition and qualifying fees. There is no deduction available for any other college costs, including room and board. It doesn't matter how good your tax preparer is, unless he encourages you to cheat and risk criminal charges.

If the athlete takes the deduction, then his parents can not claim him as a dependent on their return.

Quote:Produce your events media in-house as an adjunct of your College of Communications. Stream them on the web and to apps and set an ad rate that covers your production and distribution costs.

I would be all over this like white on rice and I've never understood why every University with an Athletics program didn't prioritize this idea the day Algore invented the intarweb. Even if it was just a classroom learning type experience. And unfortunately in my experience with NIU and with the MAC, the quality of this type of in-house media, even when produced, is awful on even its best day.

(05-09-2014 08:46 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Schools don't want the kids in their retirement plans or on the group health plan nor covered by worker's comp.

But I've seen a number of people scoff at Delany, Wake Forest, and Stanford saying if we lose, we will find another way.

I believe them near completely.

Virtually every university in the B1G and I would wager Stanford and WF as well are pulling university funds over to fund the rat arms race. If they are going to have add 400+ athletes on as employees or at least 100ish in the profitable to revenue neutral sports walking a way makes a huge amount of sense.

Whether YOU consider it a charade that athletes are students first they believe in it.

I personally think it is laughable than everyone can parse Delany's comments on governance and conclude that he wants to walk away and be NFL-Lite but no one notices a comment out there plain as day. Delany says the 20 hour a week restrictions aren't working to reduce the demands for athlete time and it has to be fixed. No notice of that at all.

Some years back, one of the radio chains (ClearChannel maybe?) walked away from the LA Dodgers radio rights. The rights were profitable and a matter of local prestige but the explanation was a pretty brutal recognition of the modern Wall Street economy. The Dodgers rights were very expensive, the ad revenue was high but required a lot of sales time and resulted in some nice commissions for the ad people. The radio network realized the return on the investment was rather low even though it was very profitable. They could get a better ROI playing satellite music with canned announcers and that increase in ROI freed up cash that could be used for other investments while making the stock look better to Wall Street.

The revenues of intecollegiate athletics at the top level are fantastic but the ROI is usually negative.

Walk away from $25 million or whatever in media rights, slash your budget by $30 million by eliminating athletic ability based aid and cutting coaching salaries and some of the admin functions and you can potentially improve your ROI.

Produce your events media in-house as an adjunct of your College of Communications. Stream them on the web and to apps and set an ad rate that covers your production and distribution costs.

If you are Stanford it doesn't matter to you if Texas or Alabama follow your lead. All you really need is for USC, Cal, and UCLA to follow.

If you are Wake, you don't need Clemson or Florida State to follow your lead, you just need Duke and hopefully UNC and UNC might be ripe to consider it in the clutter following their scandal. Might be nice if Vandy follows as well.

If the colleges lose the big lawsuits, the split will not be P5 vs. the world it will be internal because there are already a large number of P5 schools getting squeamish about the commercialization of intercollegiate athletics and they are not going to walk over the line into true professionalism. The SEC might be willing to cross over but I doubt if a majority of the B1G, Pac-12, and maybe ACC is ready to go that direction.

It's hard for me to imagine that if schools like Stanford, USC, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Duke were to abandon the current model for intercollegiate sports that the rest of the PAC, B1G and ACC would choose to align themselves instead with the SEC and Big 12. Their presidents want to be seen as peers of Stanford, not Alabama. There may be some schools in the SEC and Big 12 that would opt to go it alone as semi-professional leagues. There might even be a few in the ACC and PAC that would join them.

But I suspect that enough of the national brands would choose a need based scholarship model like the Ivy League's that it would be hard for even schools like Alabama and Oklahoma not to follow suit. One thing is becoming clear. Once this subject hits the floor of Congress, the genie is out of the bottle. And if you think the NCAA was screwed up, you ain't seen nothing yet. There is no way this doesn't become an opportunity for partisan political grandstanding, and no good can come of that.

(05-09-2014 10:22 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(05-09-2014 08:46 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

It's hard for me to imagine that if schools like Stanford, USC, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Duke were to abandon the current model for intercollegiate sports that the rest of the PAC, B1G and ACC would choose to align themselves instead with the SEC and Big 12. Their presidents want to be seen as peers of Stanford, not Alabama. There may be some schools in the SEC and Big 12 that would opt to go it alone as semi-professional leagues. There might even be a few in the ACC and PAC that would join them.

But I suspect that enough of the national brands would choose a need based scholarship model like the Ivy League's that it would be hard for even schools like Alabama and Oklahoma not to follow suit. One thing is becoming clear. Once this subject hits the floor of Congress, the genie is out of the bottle. And if you think the NCAA was screwed up, you ain't seen nothing yet. There is no way this doesn't become an opportunity for partisan political grandstanding, and no good can come of that.

Forgetting someone? Ohio State and Michigan State especially are not following the private schools merely for appearances.

(05-09-2014 09:59 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(05-09-2014 09:49 AM)wavefan12 Wrote:  FWIW, these departments are totally cooking the books and the AD/presidents should be ashamed of themselves when they pull this crap that not many schools are making money. People rant and rave about corporate greed, but higher education isn't that far behind.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/1...d-revenues

Stop the madness, FBall and Bball drives the bus and the players should be compensated for the millions (billions?) they help produce. Whether that requires labeling them employees, I don't care. They should be able to negotiate, sell their brand and hire representation. To say otherwise is simply totally against the American spirit.

Over-paying the volleyball coach to avoid showing a profit is still money spent.

I love Hugh Freeze but his last raise at Ole Miss was a joke, it was strictly keeping up appearances so his salary would be in line with the rest of the league.

But the money is being spent, not so much hidden.

Obviously the presidents could say "Hey fork over $15 million to renovate the Fine Arts Building" but they don't because the AD and football coach and basketball coach will whine to the media and the big money donors that the president isn't committed to athletics.

Nice work plucking out the one example that isn't too egregious. They consider the scholarships an expense, that's just next level absurd and arguably not in line with GAAP. They spend on volleyball coaches and other nonsense just to continue the perception that they are losing money or breaking even. It's a joke. I listened to a president on PBS whining about schools not making much money when it's a farce. Not to mention, it's absurd that a volleyball or softball coach get paid so much when they add so little. I can understand spending big in the revenue sports, but spending on non-revenue doesn't seem like the right way to spend student/alums money.

The fact is that this shows how they are using smoke and mirrors to continue on with this farce. it's a joke and we should al lbe ashamed that we have let it go on for this long.

(05-09-2014 10:08 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 11:27 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 06:02 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

As of now, college tuition is tax deductible. I'm sure good tax preparers could end up getting most of the rest of the covered expenses as "business expenses" and therefore also tax deductible. They'd end up paying virtually no taxes anyway.

Not even close. There is an annual limit of $4,000 on the deductability of tuition and qualifying fees. There is no deduction available for any other college costs, including room and board. It doesn't matter how good your tax preparer is, unless he encourages you to cheat and risk criminal charges.

If the athlete takes the deduction, then his parents can not claim him as a dependent on their return.

"Annual limit of $4000"?

Qualified education expenses. For purposes of tax-free scholarships and fellowships, these are expenses for:

Tuition and fees required to enroll at or attend an eligible educational institution, and

Course-related expenses, such as fees, books, supplies, and equipment that are required for the courses at the eligible educational institution. These items must be required of all students in your course of instruction.

Expenses that do not qualify. Qualified education expenses do not include the cost of:

Room and board,

Travel,

Research,

Clerical help, or

Equipment and other expenses that are not required for enrollment in or attendance at an eligible educational institution.

(05-09-2014 10:08 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 11:27 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 06:02 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

As of now, college tuition is tax deductible. I'm sure good tax preparers could end up getting most of the rest of the covered expenses as "business expenses" and therefore also tax deductible. They'd end up paying virtually no taxes anyway.

Not even close. There is an annual limit of $4,000 on the deductability of tuition and qualifying fees. There is no deduction available for any other college costs, including room and board. It doesn't matter how good your tax preparer is, unless he encourages you to cheat and risk criminal charges.

If the athlete takes the deduction, then his parents can not claim him as a dependent on their return.

There are other tax credits you can claim as well. And as for the room and board, since they are delcared employees, that could be paid through the school as an expense account, similar to an employee having to pay for temporary housing on a TDY assignment and getting reimbursed. That isn't considered income.

(05-09-2014 10:33 AM)redfan Wrote:  

(05-09-2014 10:08 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 11:27 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(05-08-2014 06:02 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  As I see it employees would be required to pay taxes. Is there a way around that?

As of now, college tuition is tax deductible. I'm sure good tax preparers could end up getting most of the rest of the covered expenses as "business expenses" and therefore also tax deductible. They'd end up paying virtually no taxes anyway.

Not even close. There is an annual limit of $4,000 on the deductability of tuition and qualifying fees. There is no deduction available for any other college costs, including room and board. It doesn't matter how good your tax preparer is, unless he encourages you to cheat and risk criminal charges.

If the athlete takes the deduction, then his parents can not claim him as a dependent on their return.

"Annual limit of $4000"?

Qualified education expenses. For purposes of tax-free scholarships and fellowships, these are expenses for:

Tuition and fees required to enroll at or attend an eligible educational institution, and

Course-related expenses, such as fees, books, supplies, and equipment that are required for the courses at the eligible educational institution. These items must be required of all students in your course of instruction.

Expenses that do not qualify. Qualified education expenses do not include the cost of:

Room and board,

Travel,

Research,

Clerical help, or

Equipment and other expenses that are not required for enrollment in or attendance at an eligible educational institution.

The poster wasn't talking about the taxability of scholarships. He was referring to the deduction a taxpayer can take for the tuition that he pays out of his pocket. For that, there is a statutory $4,000 limit. If an athlete is classified as an employee, and his tuition is considered income for services rendered, he would likely be deemed to fall under the out of pocket rules rather than the scholarship rules. The point is, though, that if there were to be such a major change, the entire tax code on the subject would be completely rewritten. There's no telling now how that would play out.