(12-31-2017 02:20 PM)Wedge Wrote: (12-29-2017 05:45 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: Now one might argue that it would be better to forget the education and just allow kids to cash a check. I would argue that in such a dynamic, hardly a soul on the team would make enough money to be much better off than the typical low wage employee. There's a lot of money in college athletics, certainly, but there's not nearly enough money flowing through the system to offer 85 football players and all the rest of the athletes at the school anything more than a modest salary. Even then, that salary will be gone in 3-5 years...then what? These schools might have the cash to pay a select few a really good salary, but they aren't about to drop big money on a whole host of kids as most of them won't be elite players and the vast majority of them will outlive their usefulness within a couple of years.
As this article points out, the money generated by the CFP alone would be enough to pay a salary of $54,000/year to every single football player on scholarship at every FBS school.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/co...ncna833486
Quote:Let’s do some basic math. There are 130 schools in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest level of college football and the one that divvies up almost all of the Playoff money. Each FBS school has 85 players on scholarship, which means approximately 11,050 athletes. Divide the annual $600 million Playoff jackpot by 11,050, and you end up with approximately $54,000 — an amount that could have been paid to every player, each and every year, all without touching most of the revenue that already was flowing through the sport.
And again, that's just the CFP money; there's a helluva lot more money in college football than just that. Of course, in a free market -- like the Kessler lawsuit proposes -- you wouldn't pay everyone the same salary, just as the players at the bottom of the Patriots' depth chart don't make the same salary as Tom Brady.
I get that, but that's really not the long and short of it.
1. The figure I had in mind was about $50K when I said modest income. That's not super far above an entry level wage in most places. The reason is that in a lot of places around the country, 50K won't get you very far. In some places, it's decent money and in others you can be pretty comfortable. All in all, unless the schools maintain their room and board benefits then 50K will be mostly gone by the time you account for all the everyday expenses.
2. Unless the feds decide to grant a special exemption, all that is going to be taxable. No player will actually get that much. That and if you make the athletes professionals then any other benefit they receive is probably going to be taxable as well. One cannot be both an amateur and a professional at the same time.
3. There's a good chance other benefits would cease. I worked for a major university at one point. It was a modest job, nothing super important, but they did have a good benefits package. My salary was low, but I had health insurance, retirement, access to life insurance and such and so forth. Also, I had the opportunity to further my education by taking one free class every semester.
That was cool and all, but obviously you didn't have the time or the money to get an additional degree in 4-5 years. Remember, I only had one free class offered. I had to pay for the rest if I really wanted to do that. This was a university-wide policy for all employees and while I don't know for certain if this sort of benefit is standard in higher education I suspect that something similar probably is.
Point being, I probably wasn't worth as much money as a football player would be to this university, but your run of the mill athlete wouldn't have been worth significantly more in the market place. The result is that if universities treat athletes as employees(and they'd have to) then the opportunity to get room and board along with an education would likely be curtailed.
An employee doesn't spend most of his day in class or go home to a dorm. A student does that and if we upend amateur athletics at the college level then the market is going to determine the compensation. The NCAA won't have jurisdiction any longer and if college athletes are there to play football or whatever then they're going to be expected to dedicate their day to that even more than they do now. The lines between student athlete and pro will no longer be blurry, they'll be obliterated.
3. One might say $50K is still better than nothing. In a vacuum, they're correct, but I can't stress enough that this salary is going to go away after 3-5 years. Unless the kids take advantage of an educational opportunity then the vast majority of that cash will go down the drain. If the kid relies on his salary and doesn't land another career in a few short years then it will all have been for naught.
Remember the anecdote about getting one free class as an employee? I imagine that would hold true for athletes and there simply won't be time to get a degree before you've outlived your usefulness. Schools aren't going to allow these guys to play for 10 years until their bodies give out. There's no motivation to do so when the next young hot recruit is waiting at the local high school. The elite players will go to the NFL where they can make good money, no shot they're sticking around. Even if they did allow some guys to stick around and play "semi-pro" ball for a number of years, the guy will still have gained very little. $50K for 10 years...that's nice except that there's an expiration date on your ability to contribute and then you've got nothing once the job is over.
3. Most importantly, the football players will not be the only ones paid. So while the CFP revenue looks like a slam dunk way to give some guys some cash, it actually won't be limited to that.
Every athlete is going to have to be given the same amount for the sake of Title IX if nothing else. This has never been just about paying football and basketball players, it's not that simple.
One of two things will happen...
Either every athlete on campus will make about the same amount regardless of sport or the university will do the economical thing and just get rid of any sport that doesn't make money. So there's tons of kids who just got their scholarship yanked...
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I have sometimes used this example: the only similarity between college football and the NFL is that they both play the game of football. Literally everything else about the two sports is different.
If we decide we want to make players professionals then forget the NCAA, these guys are going to come under Federal and State regulatory agencies. They'll be state employees rather than students and ultimately they won't make that much money before they get pushed out.