Ned Low
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RE: Bowlsby dodges Bilas's question about his "labor theory of value"
(08-08-2014 10:43 AM)TerryD Wrote: (08-08-2014 10:23 AM)quo vadis Wrote: Was watching Sportscenter a few minutes ago and they have Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby on live. Yesterday, Bowlsby had said that he supported paying all P5 college athletes the same cost of attendance/stipend and his rationale was that they all put in the same effort - a basketball stud doesn't practice or work any harder than a women's volleyball player or a wrestler, which in economics terms is an articulation of a "labor theory of value", meaning the belief that the worth of a product or service is determined by the quantity of labor or effort that is expended to create it. Thus, it doesn't matter that a wrestler brings in no revenue while a basketball star may be the reason that thousands of tickets are sold, since they both put in the same amount of work and sweat, their efforts should be valued (paid) equally.
But Jay Bilas mentioned the hypocrisy involved: If all P5 college athletes should get the same stipend because they all work equally hard, then why is it OK that in his office, Bowlsby is paid $1.8 million per year while his secretary, who works just as hard as he does, is paid 20 times less?
It was fun watching Bowlsby try to weasel his way out of the conundrum of having to either (a) admit his salary and his custodian's pay should be equalized, or (b) say that he works 20x harder than his secretary does.
So what did he say? First, Bowlsby said that the college athletic system is "voluntary" and "maybe not for everyone", in other words, "well, if you are an athlete and you are smart enough to recognize the hypocrisy of our policies and don't like them, then go do something else with your life". Then, he talked about the need for the NFL and NBA to start there own minor league systems like baseball to accommodate star football and basketball players who might chafe at making the same peanuts as the volleyball players.
Maybe he has a point, though (a) that could be slitting his own throat, since one reason college baseball is far less popular than football or basketball is because the best 18-22 year old baseball players are in farm systems not college, which could mean that NFL/NBA minor leagues that drained away talent would result in a significant drop in viewership of college football and basketball leading to much less money for his conference, and (b) even if the NBA and NFL did set up minor leagues, that wouldn't change the fact that college football and basketball would still be more popular than volleyball and thus we still have his labor theory of value hypocrisy to address.
Finally, he claimed that if college athlete scholarships and stipends were based on revenue generation and not effort, then these athletes would not be "students" or "amateurs" anymore but rather employees of the university, which he is emphatically against. But, this doesn't address the problem either: Whether someone is called an amateur on a stipend* or an employee, there is still the issue of whether they should be compensated based on effort or revenue generated.
Anyway, it was fun watching him twist in the wind on that one. 
* The real paradox here is that if an athlete is truly an amateur, then they would get no compensation at all. The whole idea of an "athletic scholarship" is a nonesuch, and means the athletes are not amateurs. Club sports are amateur sports, scholarship sports are not.
Bowlsby and his ilk are full of bullchit. I happen to believe in the "labor theory of value" or "labor capital", but I am pretty radical on these ideas.
For instance, I think that the right to organize a labor union, collectively bargain and strike should be a constitutional right in this country.
You need capital, yes, but without labor....who is going to make your product or provide your service and who is going to have the income to buy your product or service?
I don't believe that Bowslby works twenty times harder than his secretary and he may not even work as hard, unless golfing and having lunch with his cronies is "work".
I concede that this is a generalization but in my dealings with corporate clients, I have come away with the notion that many of these folks don't work ten or twenty times harder or individually add that much value.
I have never believed that executive pay should be so high in relation to rank and file employees, higher yes, but not as obscenely so as it is in many cases.
If all the athletes left and did something else with their lives, where would that leave college athletics?
Perhaps the SID, the AD, the support staff and the coaches could suit up and play.
How much would the networks pay to televise that and what would stadium attendance be?
Pay these players and end the hypocrisy. The colleges get millions of dollars which flow through the athletic departments.
What are the salaries of the AD's, their assistants, the support staff and the coaching staffs, along with the building funds of these "non-profit" athletic departments?
What travel junkets and other "costs" are contained or hidden in athletic department budgets? I view the cry that most schools lose money on athletics with a jaundiced eye and wonder if "creative accounting" is not at work.
Thanks, it sounds like Jay Bilas (whom I am no fan of) was on the right track in putting a fat cat like Bowlsby on the griddle.
I would like to make two points:
(1) People already have the right to organize and the freedom to associate. If an employee wants to organize a strike with their fellow employees, stage a "walk-out", etc then they can do so with no legal ramifications. The moral issue with unionization, from an employer's viewpoint, is that the state is forcing them to negotiate with the collective body and thus essentially telling them that they can not do what they wish with their own private property (capital).
(2) I can not speak for you but the overwhelming majority of successful people, including those who happen to be very wealthy (I know three who are multi-millionaires several times over, for example), that I know work much harder or are more talented than those who are not. I'm willing to bet that this is the case throughout the world, not just in my part of the country. I can assure you that most successful people bring more to the table and thus earn more than those who would be considered part of the "lower classes".
Speaking of unionization: I would think that the unionization of college athletes will become a reality very soon, at least among the public universities. I also think that this could be what ultimately brings the system down. That's another discussion for another time...
(This post was last modified: 08-09-2014 10:30 AM by Ned Low.)
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Bowlsby dodges Bilas's question about his "labor theory of value"
