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'A nightmare for college athletics'
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #61
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 09:03 PM)chester Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:42 PM)chester Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:19 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:05 PM)chester Wrote:  If you ask me, "Should Congress prohibit schools from forcing students to pay for athletics," I'd say yes, absolutely.

Meanwhile, it's not the fault of valuable college athletes that schools who can't support athletics soak their students.

I didnt say it was. My point from the very start is that college athletics is just the kind of place that a anti-trust exemption makes sense. Its not in the public good to damage the sport---but its also not in the public good that athletes be taken advantage of. The reasonable answer is to find a solution that allows athletes to share in the revenue that the sport spins off. However, any solution has to recognize that sports are not a primary purpose of the school, are overall a money losing proposition, and are largely funded directly or indirectly through tax dollars (so reasonable cost containment is a must).

Here I can only agree to disagree. An antitrust exemption for the Cartel cannot make sense as long as the Cartel insists upon "amateurism" and refuses to acknowledge that athletic scholarships for those in revenue sports are, indeed, payment for services rendered. They have taken advantage of athletes for far too long and that has to be stopped.

Any "money losing proposition" should be done away with. Any school that cannot satisfy Title IX through revenue and donations alone should not sponsor any sports at all. Period.

Why should a school be subject to Title 9 if its a business? You have to pick a side. If college sports is a business--then let it be a business. If it just a collegiate scholarship program--then let it be that. I think once you really start taking a hard look at it---you will see it is both and it is neither....and there's the real problem. I think a anti-trust exemption is the only thing that will really fit. That said--I wont be a bit surprised if they give the olympic model a shot. I dont think its an experiment that lasts because it wont do anything to stop the other law suits that are in the pipeline that continue to threaten college sports.

Dude, why should a school support excess non-revenue sports that aren't required? You have to pick a side. Let it be a business that operates with minimal exploitation of labor.

I understand that you think an antitrust exemption suits college athletics. I just disagree. No biggie. We're not the ones to deside, anyway.

But, hey, IMO any lawsuit the "threatens college sports" is a good thing in my book, because it means the addressing of something that is inately wrong. 05-nono

By the way---Im not for or against it. The federal government forces the schools to reasonably balance mens and womens athletic scholarships. I suspect lots of schools would do away with a number of womens sports if they were not needed to reach the legislated balance needed to operate the big revenue sport of football.
02-12-2020 09:39 PM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #62
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 09:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:42 PM)chester Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:35 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:27 PM)chester Wrote:  Antitrust laws exist for a reason. To encourage innovation, to protect consumers and, in this case, protect labor.

Correct. Thats why whenever you allow a monopoly---its usually in conjunction with a very high degree of government regulation (to protect all parties involved). The only time we do that is when it is deemed to be in the public interest. Im suggesting that this may be one of those rare times.

But you're not "protecting" all involved parties if you're capping the compensation of athletes and coaches without their agreement. You're merely merely making Congress the bad guy and not the Cartel.

Now way on Earth Congress regulates coaches salaries after a century plus of non-regulation. The Cartel is lucky that it's been able to get away with capping players' compensation these many years. They will change, eventually.

Who's protecting the kids that pay for all this stuff with their student fees and government loans? The coaches? The players? The problem is this is not really a capitalistic endaevor. If it were just a typical for profit sports league with investors---Id be fine with full on free agency---but these folks are all seeking to soak up money provided by student loans and tax payers.

Nobody forces a school to soak its students with fees and transfers. The schools can stop doing that any time they want. So it would be silly for a school to say to the feds "you have to let us cap player and coach pay because otherwise gosh darnit we will keep having to raise student fees!".

That's pretty laughable. A school doesn't have to have a football team at all.

07-coffee3

I didnt say they did. The point is there is no exploitation of athletes or coaches going on if there is no real ability to derive a profit from their performances as athletes. The athletes and coaches together frankly have little economic value if a going concern cant break even except by stealing money from students. The idea they have some unrealized massive economic value they are being cheated out of is laughable. If there is a huge value---then why hasnt a group of investors come along and created a league and PAID these valuable athletes and coaches to play in it---thus stealing this grand unrealized profit right out from under the nose of the NCAA? At best, a group of investors might be able to fashion a league stays afloat (maybe)--but it probably looks a lot more like the XFL than the NFL or college football. Thus, the reality is the vast majority of college athletes and coaches would find themselves unemployed (or making much less) and the vast majority of athletes would have zero economic value as an athlete in true profit driven free market.

Again--my point is these are not true business's. They are schools with football teams. Your argument is that if you dont want to make transfer payments---then dont have team. The same argument could be---if you dont want to play for a scholarship or a shared portion of the revenue---dont play football in the NCAA. Try your luck with the NFL or XFL.

In my view--both arguments are silly. There is a reasonable and fair solution to be had that would provide thousands of athletic opportunities for student athletes to get an education and maybe make a few bucks---while keeping the cost within a range to keep the system viable enough to preserve those opportunities. There is no magic fairly dust to create more money. The only thing that can be done is to reallocate the way money the current money is being spent. A solution that operates like that can only come from an antitrust exemption.
(This post was last modified: 02-12-2020 10:06 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-12-2020 09:47 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #63
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 09:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:03 PM)chester Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:42 PM)chester Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:19 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I didnt say it was. My point from the very start is that college athletics is just the kind of place that a anti-trust exemption makes sense. Its not in the public good to damage the sport---but its also not in the public good that athletes be taken advantage of. The reasonable answer is to find a solution that allows athletes to share in the revenue that the sport spins off. However, any solution has to recognize that sports are not a primary purpose of the school, are overall a money losing proposition, and are largely funded directly or indirectly through tax dollars (so reasonable cost containment is a must).

Here I can only agree to disagree. An antitrust exemption for the Cartel cannot make sense as long as the Cartel insists upon "amateurism" and refuses to acknowledge that athletic scholarships for those in revenue sports are, indeed, payment for services rendered. They have taken advantage of athletes for far too long and that has to be stopped.

Any "money losing proposition" should be done away with. Any school that cannot satisfy Title IX through revenue and donations alone should not sponsor any sports at all. Period.

Why should a school be subject to Title 9 if its a business? You have to pick a side. If college sports is a business--then let it be a business. If it just a collegiate scholarship program--then let it be that. I think once you really start taking a hard look at it---you will see it is both and it is neither....and there's the real problem. I think a anti-trust exemption is the only thing that will really fit. That said--I wont be a bit surprised if they give the olympic model a shot. I dont think its an experiment that lasts because it wont do anything to stop the other law suits that are in the pipeline that continue to threaten college sports.

Dude, why should a school support excess non-revenue sports that aren't required? You have to pick a side. Let it be a business that operates with minimal exploitation of labor.

I understand that you think an antitrust exemption suits college athletics. I just disagree. No biggie. We're not the ones to deside, anyway.

But, hey, IMO any lawsuit the "threatens college sports" is a good thing in my book, because it means the addressing of something that is inately wrong. 05-nono

By the way---Im not for or against it. The federal government forces the schools to reasonably balance mens and womens athletic scholarships. I suspect lots of schools would do away with a number of womens sports if they were not needed to reach the legislated balance needed to operate the big revenue sport of football.

I'm not sure many schools would try and do that. Title IX is a third-rail of politics, any school that tried to get rid of a bunch of women's sports even if they legally could would face a withering amount of protest and criticism. No question, until the 1990s or so there definitely were many schools that had women's sports solely because the law compelled it, but since then there has been a sea-change in college values on that point. The supreme court could throw out Title IX tomorrow and there would be little impact on funding of women's sports.

Also, remember that for most schools, football is not "big revenue". As that state of Michigan chart showed, the MAC schools in Michigan all lost several million dollars on football, that would be true even if they got rid of all their women's sports. At those schools, football is almost surely the single biggest money-losing sport there is, it loses more then women's soccer because so little is spent on women's soccer.

Schools get on the FBS football bandwagon and soak their students with huge fees and suffer big losses for reasons of administrator and elite alumni pride and ego. That's the root of the problem. There's no rational reason anyone's natural rights to get paid what the market can bear should be sacrificed to enable it.
02-12-2020 09:50 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #64
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 09:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:42 PM)chester Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:35 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Correct. Thats why whenever you allow a monopoly---its usually in conjunction with a very high degree of government regulation (to protect all parties involved). The only time we do that is when it is deemed to be in the public interest. Im suggesting that this may be one of those rare times.

But you're not "protecting" all involved parties if you're capping the compensation of athletes and coaches without their agreement. You're merely merely making Congress the bad guy and not the Cartel.

Now way on Earth Congress regulates coaches salaries after a century plus of non-regulation. The Cartel is lucky that it's been able to get away with capping players' compensation these many years. They will change, eventually.

Who's protecting the kids that pay for all this stuff with their student fees and government loans? The coaches? The players? The problem is this is not really a capitalistic endaevor. If it were just a typical for profit sports league with investors---Id be fine with full on free agency---but these folks are all seeking to soak up money provided by student loans and tax payers.

Nobody forces a school to soak its students with fees and transfers. The schools can stop doing that any time they want. So it would be silly for a school to say to the feds "you have to let us cap player and coach pay because otherwise gosh darnit we will keep having to raise student fees!".

That's pretty laughable. A school doesn't have to have a football team at all.

07-coffee3

I didnt say they did. The point is there is no exploitation of athletes or coaches going on if there is no real ability to derive a profit from their performances as athletes. The athletes and coaches together frankly have little economic value if a going concern cant break even except by stealing money from students. The idea they have some unrealized massive economic value they are being cheated out of is laughable. If there is a huge value---then why hasnt a group of investors come along and created a league and PAID these valuable athletes and coaches to play in it---thus reaping this grand unrealized profit? At best, a group of investors might be able to fashion a league--but it probably looks alot more like the XFL than the NFL or college football. Thus, the reality is the vast majority of college athletes would have zero value as an athlete in true profit driven free market. Most of the coaches would be working for high schools or doing something else completely.

Let's be clear: The irony about this argument is that the coaches who are paid the most - the Dabos and the Sabans and the Meyers - are *surely* very much worth it to their schools. We know this because their football programs make huge profits that do pay for not just football but the whole athletic program with money to spare and no student fees or transfers.

The situation you describe is true at other schools, such as the MAC schools in the Michigan data I posted.

Seems to me that if you can't run a football program without stealing money from your students in the form of fees and transfers, then you have two choices: End the football program (best choice) or keep stealing from your students to keep the money-bleeding bloated white elephant alive.

But there's no reason for the federal government to change the law to deny players or coaches their natural right to accept pay if someone wants to give it to them. Heck, if you are correct and for money-losing schools these players have no value, then the market will confirm that and they won't get paid. Nobody I know who is advocating pay or name and likeness is saying athletes should be guaranteed money above their scholarship, only that they should have the right to accept it IF someone else wants to offer it to them.

Seems like this quest for anti-trust exemption is way to kind of keep floundering, inherently money-losing programs afloat by allowing them to cap their costs. That is just not an issue of public concern.
02-12-2020 10:07 PM
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Post: #65
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 09:39 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:10 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:50 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:15 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:13 PM)bullet Wrote:  I don't think that would pass constitutional muster. In the sports leagues, the unions agree to the cap. In this case it would be imposed on the coaches.

Thats why you'd need an anti-trust exemption.

Well if it would violate the constitution, an anti-trust exemption wouldn't be enough to make it legal.

Anti-trust law is based in statute. Its not expressly discussed by the constitution. If you have an exemption from the Congress signed by the president, then its legal.---just like any other law.

Bullet said that the kind of thing you want would violate the constitution. I don't know if it would or wouldn't, but if a law violates the constitution it will be invalidated down by the courts even if Congress passes it and the President signs it.

So an anti-trust exemption can't legalize something that violates the constitution. The only thing that can make something that violates the constitution legal is a constitutional amendment.

It wouldn't be slam dunk black and white, but the trends would not be kind to collusion to hold down wages by the government and colleges. I don't see any way it would pass muster. When the unions, who represent the wage earners, agree with management, that is a very different situation.
02-12-2020 10:08 PM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #66
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 09:50 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:03 PM)chester Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 08:42 PM)chester Wrote:  Here I can only agree to disagree. An antitrust exemption for the Cartel cannot make sense as long as the Cartel insists upon "amateurism" and refuses to acknowledge that athletic scholarships for those in revenue sports are, indeed, payment for services rendered. They have taken advantage of athletes for far too long and that has to be stopped.

Any "money losing proposition" should be done away with. Any school that cannot satisfy Title IX through revenue and donations alone should not sponsor any sports at all. Period.

Why should a school be subject to Title 9 if its a business? You have to pick a side. If college sports is a business--then let it be a business. If it just a collegiate scholarship program--then let it be that. I think once you really start taking a hard look at it---you will see it is both and it is neither....and there's the real problem. I think a anti-trust exemption is the only thing that will really fit. That said--I wont be a bit surprised if they give the olympic model a shot. I dont think its an experiment that lasts because it wont do anything to stop the other law suits that are in the pipeline that continue to threaten college sports.

Dude, why should a school support excess non-revenue sports that aren't required? You have to pick a side. Let it be a business that operates with minimal exploitation of labor.

I understand that you think an antitrust exemption suits college athletics. I just disagree. No biggie. We're not the ones to deside, anyway.

But, hey, IMO any lawsuit the "threatens college sports" is a good thing in my book, because it means the addressing of something that is inately wrong. 05-nono

By the way---Im not for or against it. The federal government forces the schools to reasonably balance mens and womens athletic scholarships. I suspect lots of schools would do away with a number of womens sports if they were not needed to reach the legislated balance needed to operate the big revenue sport of football.

I'm not sure many schools would try and do that. Title IX is a third-rail of politics, any school that tried to get rid of a bunch of women's sports even if they legally could would face a withering amount of protest and criticism. No question, until the 1990s or so there definitely were many schools that had women's sports solely because the law compelled it, but since then there has been a sea-change in college values on that point. The supreme court could throw out Title IX tomorrow and there would be little impact on funding of women's sports.

Also, remember that for most schools, football is not "big revenue". As that state of Michigan chart showed, the MAC schools in Michigan all lost several million dollars on football, that would be true even if they got rid of all their women's sports. At those schools, football is almost surely the single biggest money-losing sport there is, it loses more then women's soccer because so little is spent on women's soccer.

Schools get on the FBS football bandwagon and soak their students with huge fees and suffer big losses for reasons of administrator and elite alumni pride and ego. That's the root of the problem. There's no rational reason anyone's natural rights to get paid what the market can bear should be sacrificed to enable it.

You just explained there is no profit motive to pay players one dime. Absent a system that steals money from students who are largely using taxpayer subsidized and guaranteed loans, the vast majority of those players dont have any economic value whatsoever. To your other point, I dont think anyone wants to get rid of Title 9. Trying to preserve those opportunities has to be part of the solution. If you want another semi-pro league--maybe the top 20 to 30 colleges can do some sort of full on free agent market (which even pro's dont do---they have a draft). Everyone else would either offer just scholarships--or if the courts rule against it---then D3 no schollie ball or nothing at all with football vanishing because the courts rule you cant have any sort of cap what so ever (which is the position you advocate).
(This post was last modified: 02-12-2020 10:27 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-12-2020 10:16 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #67
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 10:08 PM)bullet Wrote:  It wouldn't be slam dunk black and white, but the trends would not be kind to collusion to hold down wages by the government and colleges. I don't see any way it would pass muster. When the unions, who represent the wage earners, agree with management, that is a very different situation.

That's a good point. What the NCAA and Coog seem to want is a very strange kind of anti-trust exemption, allowing one party to unilaterally set a cap.

Basically, it would be as if the NBA or NFL could unilaterally impose a salary cap on both coaches and players, without having to negotiate it with the union, and could impose it on them even if there was no union.

That would be a pretty remarkable anti-trust exemption that I'm not sure there is any precedent for?

For example, labor unions themselves are an example of an anti-trust exemption. Originally, labor unions were regarded as violating anti-trust laws, because they were viewed as collusion among workers to force higher wages on employers - price fixing and restraint of trade by the workers. So congress passed laws that basically said labor unions were exempt from anti-trust laws.

But, that exemption doesn't empower unions to unilaterally impose wages and benefits on employers, it only gives them the right to bargain for them, with no guarantees that they will get what they want.

What Coog and the NCAA seem to want is for colleges to not only be allowed to collude but also unilaterally impose their caps on coaches and players without having to bargain. That would be an amazingly powerful exemption.
02-12-2020 10:20 PM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #68
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 10:07 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:42 PM)chester Wrote:  But you're not "protecting" all involved parties if you're capping the compensation of athletes and coaches without their agreement. You're merely merely making Congress the bad guy and not the Cartel.

Now way on Earth Congress regulates coaches salaries after a century plus of non-regulation. The Cartel is lucky that it's been able to get away with capping players' compensation these many years. They will change, eventually.

Who's protecting the kids that pay for all this stuff with their student fees and government loans? The coaches? The players? The problem is this is not really a capitalistic endaevor. If it were just a typical for profit sports league with investors---Id be fine with full on free agency---but these folks are all seeking to soak up money provided by student loans and tax payers.

Nobody forces a school to soak its students with fees and transfers. The schools can stop doing that any time they want. So it would be silly for a school to say to the feds "you have to let us cap player and coach pay because otherwise gosh darnit we will keep having to raise student fees!".

That's pretty laughable. A school doesn't have to have a football team at all.

07-coffee3

I didnt say they did. The point is there is no exploitation of athletes or coaches going on if there is no real ability to derive a profit from their performances as athletes. The athletes and coaches together frankly have little economic value if a going concern cant break even except by stealing money from students. The idea they have some unrealized massive economic value they are being cheated out of is laughable. If there is a huge value---then why hasnt a group of investors come along and created a league and PAID these valuable athletes and coaches to play in it---thus reaping this grand unrealized profit? At best, a group of investors might be able to fashion a league--but it probably looks alot more like the XFL than the NFL or college football. Thus, the reality is the vast majority of college athletes would have zero value as an athlete in true profit driven free market. Most of the coaches would be working for high schools or doing something else completely.

Let's be clear: The irony about this argument is that the coaches who are paid the most - the Dabos and the Sabans and the Meyers - are *surely* very much worth it to their schools. We know this because their football programs make huge profits that do pay for not just football but the whole athletic program with money to spare and no student fees or transfers.

The situation you describe is true at other schools, such as the MAC schools in the Michigan data I posted.

Seems to me that if you can't run a football program without stealing money from your students in the form of fees and transfers, then you have two choices: End the football program (best choice) or keep stealing from your students to keep the money-bleeding bloated white elephant alive.

But there's no reason for the federal government to change the law to deny players or coaches their natural right to accept pay if someone wants to give it to them. Heck, if you are correct and for money-losing schools these players have no value, then the market will confirm that and they won't get paid. Nobody I know who is advocating pay or name and likeness is saying athletes should be guaranteed money above their scholarship, only that they should have the right to accept it IF someone else wants to offer it to them.

Seems like this quest for anti-trust exemption is way to kind of keep floundering, inherently money-losing programs afloat by allowing them to cap their costs. That is just not an issue of public concern.

That view would effectively say that there is absolutely no public value in providing thousands and thousands of athletes a college education. Again---I think that an anti-trust exemption in conjunction with the NCAA giving the Feds oversight and mediation control over the NCAA makes the most sense as a solution. That said---If you have a better idea---Im all ears. Youve advocated the free market free agency and have admitted that it will probably signal an end to most athletic programs (likley most of the title 9 programs as well--cant imagine schools will shut down just mens sports--as that would be a title 9 violation as well). I dont think most would view that result as a "solution" they would much like. I think most Americans would like a reasonable solution that provides compensation to the athletes while preserving the athletic scholarship opportunities along with most of what people like about college sports.
(This post was last modified: 02-12-2020 11:00 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-12-2020 10:34 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #69
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 10:34 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:07 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 07:59 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Who's protecting the kids that pay for all this stuff with their student fees and government loans? The coaches? The players? The problem is this is not really a capitalistic endaevor. If it were just a typical for profit sports league with investors---Id be fine with full on free agency---but these folks are all seeking to soak up money provided by student loans and tax payers.

Nobody forces a school to soak its students with fees and transfers. The schools can stop doing that any time they want. So it would be silly for a school to say to the feds "you have to let us cap player and coach pay because otherwise gosh darnit we will keep having to raise student fees!".

That's pretty laughable. A school doesn't have to have a football team at all.

07-coffee3

I didnt say they did. The point is there is no exploitation of athletes or coaches going on if there is no real ability to derive a profit from their performances as athletes. The athletes and coaches together frankly have little economic value if a going concern cant break even except by stealing money from students. The idea they have some unrealized massive economic value they are being cheated out of is laughable. If there is a huge value---then why hasnt a group of investors come along and created a league and PAID these valuable athletes and coaches to play in it---thus reaping this grand unrealized profit? At best, a group of investors might be able to fashion a league--but it probably looks alot more like the XFL than the NFL or college football. Thus, the reality is the vast majority of college athletes would have zero value as an athlete in true profit driven free market. Most of the coaches would be working for high schools or doing something else completely.

Let's be clear: The irony about this argument is that the coaches who are paid the most - the Dabos and the Sabans and the Meyers - are *surely* very much worth it to their schools. We know this because their football programs make huge profits that do pay for not just football but the whole athletic program with money to spare and no student fees or transfers.

The situation you describe is true at other schools, such as the MAC schools in the Michigan data I posted.

Seems to me that if you can't run a football program without stealing money from your students in the form of fees and transfers, then you have two choices: End the football program (best choice) or keep stealing from your students to keep the money-bleeding bloated white elephant alive.

But there's no reason for the federal government to change the law to deny players or coaches their natural right to accept pay if someone wants to give it to them. Heck, if you are correct and for money-losing schools these players have no value, then the market will confirm that and they won't get paid. Nobody I know who is advocating pay or name and likeness is saying athletes should be guaranteed money above their scholarship, only that they should have the right to accept it IF someone else wants to offer it to them.

Seems like this quest for anti-trust exemption is way to kind of keep floundering, inherently money-losing programs afloat by allowing them to cap their costs. That is just not an issue of public concern.

That view would effectively say that there is absolutely no public value in providing thousands and thousands of athletes a college education. Again---I think that an anti-trust exemption in conjunction with the NCAA giving the Feds oversight and mediation control over the NCAA makes the most sense as a solution. That said---If you have a better idea---Im all ears. Youve advocated the free market free agency and have admitted that it will probably signal an end to most athletic programs (likley most of the title 9 programs as well--cant imagine schools will shut down just mens sports--as that would be a title 9 violation as well). I dont think most would view that result as a "solution" they would much like. I think most Americans would like a reasonable solution that provides compensation to the athletes while preserving the athletic scholarship opportunities along with most of what people like about college sports.

Well, when it comes to people's rights, what other people "like" shouldn't matter. Most people could not want you to be able to speak out on an issue or not want you to be able to vote, but that doesn't mean the feds should impose a solution that makes most people happy. There has to be a seriously compelling public purpose to override that, like quarantining people who have a deadly communicable disease, thus restricting their freedom of movement, and college athletics doesn't come within a mile of that standard. USF cannot claim our football program serves some grand public purpose. Heck, we thrived without one for 40 years.

Beyond that, there's zero evidence that schools will end their athletic programs over how much stuff costs. We already see hundreds of schools soaking their students with fees and transfers to keep afloat money-losing athletic programs. These programs have proven extremely resilient to ordinary calculations of costs and benefits that would have sunk the programs had they been run by businesses.

And it's not clear how pay or NIL would change that much. There are no "ante-up" rules that compel a university to pay more in order to participate in intercollegiate athletics. No rule says you have to spend $100 million a year or whatever to compete. Paying players and NIL won't change that. If a school can't afford to pay players, or if players have zero value to them under their economic model they will attract players that are willing to play for the value of the scholarship. Same with coaching - just because Michigan is paying its coach $8m a year doesn't mean Central Michigan has to. If it feels it can only pay $2m a year, then it will attract a coach who will work for $2m a year. Heck, the NCAA structure already offers an array of intercollegiate athletics divisions for schools with different resource levels. To be FBS, a school has to offer 85 scholarships and X number of other sports.. To be FCS, you need to offer 60 scholarships or whatever, and so on down to Division II and Division III. So if a school decides it can't keep up at one level with pay or NIL, there's always the next level down.

The more I work through this, it seems like the real goal here is to change anti-trust law not so schools can have football programs, but have the "kind" of football programs they want to have. As in a Central Michigan saying, "well, if costs keep rising, we won't be able to compete with Michigan anymore and by golly we want to keep competing against Michigan!"
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2020 09:50 AM by quo vadis.)
02-13-2020 08:58 AM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #70
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 08:58 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:34 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:07 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Nobody forces a school to soak its students with fees and transfers. The schools can stop doing that any time they want. So it would be silly for a school to say to the feds "you have to let us cap player and coach pay because otherwise gosh darnit we will keep having to raise student fees!".

That's pretty laughable. A school doesn't have to have a football team at all.

07-coffee3

I didnt say they did. The point is there is no exploitation of athletes or coaches going on if there is no real ability to derive a profit from their performances as athletes. The athletes and coaches together frankly have little economic value if a going concern cant break even except by stealing money from students. The idea they have some unrealized massive economic value they are being cheated out of is laughable. If there is a huge value---then why hasnt a group of investors come along and created a league and PAID these valuable athletes and coaches to play in it---thus reaping this grand unrealized profit? At best, a group of investors might be able to fashion a league--but it probably looks alot more like the XFL than the NFL or college football. Thus, the reality is the vast majority of college athletes would have zero value as an athlete in true profit driven free market. Most of the coaches would be working for high schools or doing something else completely.

Let's be clear: The irony about this argument is that the coaches who are paid the most - the Dabos and the Sabans and the Meyers - are *surely* very much worth it to their schools. We know this because their football programs make huge profits that do pay for not just football but the whole athletic program with money to spare and no student fees or transfers.

The situation you describe is true at other schools, such as the MAC schools in the Michigan data I posted.

Seems to me that if you can't run a football program without stealing money from your students in the form of fees and transfers, then you have two choices: End the football program (best choice) or keep stealing from your students to keep the money-bleeding bloated white elephant alive.

But there's no reason for the federal government to change the law to deny players or coaches their natural right to accept pay if someone wants to give it to them. Heck, if you are correct and for money-losing schools these players have no value, then the market will confirm that and they won't get paid. Nobody I know who is advocating pay or name and likeness is saying athletes should be guaranteed money above their scholarship, only that they should have the right to accept it IF someone else wants to offer it to them.

Seems like this quest for anti-trust exemption is way to kind of keep floundering, inherently money-losing programs afloat by allowing them to cap their costs. That is just not an issue of public concern.

That view would effectively say that there is absolutely no public value in providing thousands and thousands of athletes a college education. Again---I think that an anti-trust exemption in conjunction with the NCAA giving the Feds oversight and mediation control over the NCAA makes the most sense as a solution. That said---If you have a better idea---Im all ears. Youve advocated the free market free agency and have admitted that it will probably signal an end to most athletic programs (likley most of the title 9 programs as well--cant imagine schools will shut down just mens sports--as that would be a title 9 violation as well). I dont think most would view that result as a "solution" they would much like. I think most Americans would like a reasonable solution that provides compensation to the athletes while preserving the athletic scholarship opportunities along with most of what people like about college sports.

Well, when it comes to people's rights, what other people "like" shouldn't matter. Most people could not want you to be able to speak out on an issue or not want you to be able to vote, but that doesn't mean the feds should impose a solution that makes most people happy. There has to be a seriously compelling public purpose to override that, like quarantining people who have a deadly communicable disease, thus restricting their freedom of movement, and college athletics doesn't come within a mile of that standard. USF cannot claim our football program serves some grand public purpose. Heck, we thrived without one for 40 years.

Beyond that, there's zero evidence that schools will end their athletic programs over how much stuff costs. We already see hundreds of schools soaking their students with fees and transfers to keep afloat money-losing athletic programs. These programs have proven extremely resilient to ordinary calculations of costs and benefits that would have sunk the programs had they been run by businesses.

And it's not clear how pay or NIL would change that much. There are no "ante-up" rules that compel a university to pay more in order to participate in intercollegiate athletics. No rule says you have to spend $100 million a year or whatever to compete. Paying players and NIL won't change that. If a school can't afford to pay players, or if players have zero value to them under their economic model they will attract players that are willing to play for the value of the scholarship. Same with coaching - just because Michigan is paying its coach $8m a year doesn't mean Central Michigan has to. If it feels it can only pay $2m a year, then it will attract a coach who will work for $2m a year. Heck, the NCAA structure already offers an array of intercollegiate athletics divisions for schools with different resource levels. To be FBS, a school has to offer 85 scholarships and X number of other sports.. To be FCS, you need to offer 60 scholarships or whatever, and so on down to Division II and Division III. So if a school decides it can't keep up at one level with pay or NIL, there's always the next level down.

The more I work through this, it seems like the real goal here is to change anti-trust law not so schools can have football programs, but have the "kind" of football programs they want to have. As in a Central Michigan saying, "well, if costs keep rising, we won't be able to compete with Michigan anymore and by golly we want to keep competing against Michigan!"

I’ve already explained why NIL isn’t an answer. It basically does nothing for the vast majority of student athletes and doesn’t do anything to solve the other law suits regarding student athlete pay. At best NIL is a temporary way point for a handful of years on the road to complete free agency. May as well just address the real issues.
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2020 11:00 AM by Attackcoog.)
02-13-2020 10:57 AM
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Frank the Tank Online
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Post: #71
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-12-2020 10:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:08 PM)bullet Wrote:  It wouldn't be slam dunk black and white, but the trends would not be kind to collusion to hold down wages by the government and colleges. I don't see any way it would pass muster. When the unions, who represent the wage earners, agree with management, that is a very different situation.

That's a good point. What the NCAA and Coog seem to want is a very strange kind of anti-trust exemption, allowing one party to unilaterally set a cap.

Basically, it would be as if the NBA or NFL could unilaterally impose a salary cap on both coaches and players, without having to negotiate it with the union, and could impose it on them even if there was no union.

That would be a pretty remarkable anti-trust exemption that I'm not sure there is any precedent for?

For example, labor unions themselves are an example of an anti-trust exemption. Originally, labor unions were regarded as violating anti-trust laws, because they were viewed as collusion among workers to force higher wages on employers - price fixing and restraint of trade by the workers. So congress passed laws that basically said labor unions were exempt from anti-trust laws.

But, that exemption doesn't empower unions to unilaterally impose wages and benefits on employers, it only gives them the right to bargain for them, with no guarantees that they will get what they want.

What Coog and the NCAA seem to want is for colleges to not only be allowed to collude but also unilaterally impose their caps on coaches and players without having to bargain. That would be an amazingly powerful exemption.

Excellent points made here.

An antitrust exemption for the NCAA on their side would mean that student-athletes would need the right to collectively bargain on the other side... which inherently means that student-athletes *have* to be considered paid employees. The NCAA can't have their proverbial cake and eat it, too.

We're not a very representative slice of society here. Most of us here (including me) often defend the decisions and revenue seeking objectives of schools and conferences a fair amount. As a result, we often find ways to justify their actions in our own minds if they benefit our favorite school(s) even if we would be appalled if we applied the economic system of college sports to any other industry in America.

I don't believe that this is the case for most of the "real world." The students are *absolutely* winning the narrative on this issue and, while people might like watching college sports on television, they generally don't like the NCAA as an institution at all. We're way past the point of debating whether student-athletes should be compensated as an overarching issue: that debate is OVER. The public supports the players MUCH more than they support the schools and the NCAA on this matter. The only realistic outcome here is that the NCAA is going to have much LESS power going forward. There's just no way that the federal government is going to actually hand the NCAA more power with some type of absolute trump card like an antitrust exemption. It doesn't make sense politically and it frankly doesn't make sense economically (as you can't grant an antitrust exemption to the NCAA unless you also grant the student-athletes the right to collectively bargain as employees, which the NCAA certainly wouldn't want to occur).
02-13-2020 11:47 AM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #72
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 11:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:08 PM)bullet Wrote:  It wouldn't be slam dunk black and white, but the trends would not be kind to collusion to hold down wages by the government and colleges. I don't see any way it would pass muster. When the unions, who represent the wage earners, agree with management, that is a very different situation.

That's a good point. What the NCAA and Coog seem to want is a very strange kind of anti-trust exemption, allowing one party to unilaterally set a cap.

Basically, it would be as if the NBA or NFL could unilaterally impose a salary cap on both coaches and players, without having to negotiate it with the union, and could impose it on them even if there was no union.

That would be a pretty remarkable anti-trust exemption that I'm not sure there is any precedent for?

For example, labor unions themselves are an example of an anti-trust exemption. Originally, labor unions were regarded as violating anti-trust laws, because they were viewed as collusion among workers to force higher wages on employers - price fixing and restraint of trade by the workers. So congress passed laws that basically said labor unions were exempt from anti-trust laws.

But, that exemption doesn't empower unions to unilaterally impose wages and benefits on employers, it only gives them the right to bargain for them, with no guarantees that they will get what they want.

What Coog and the NCAA seem to want is for colleges to not only be allowed to collude but also unilaterally impose their caps on coaches and players without having to bargain. That would be an amazingly powerful exemption.

Excellent points made here.

An antitrust exemption for the NCAA on their side would mean that student-athletes would need the right to collectively bargain on the other side... which inherently means that student-athletes *have* to be considered paid employees. The NCAA can't have their proverbial cake and eat it, too.

We're not a very representative slice of society here. Most of us here (including me) often defend the decisions and revenue seeking objectives of schools and conferences a fair amount. As a result, we often find ways to justify their actions in our own minds if they benefit our favorite school(s) even if we would be appalled if we applied the economic system of college sports to any other industry in America.

I don't believe that this is the case for most of the "real world." The students are *absolutely* winning the narrative on this issue and, while people might like watching college sports on television, they generally don't like the NCAA as an institution at all. We're way past the point of debating whether student-athletes should be compensated as an overarching issue: that debate is OVER. The public supports the players MUCH more than they support the schools and the NCAA on this matter. The only realistic outcome here is that the NCAA is going to have much LESS power going forward. There's just no way that the federal government is going to actually hand the NCAA more power with some type of absolute trump card like an antitrust exemption. It doesn't make sense politically and it frankly doesn't make sense economically (as you can't grant an antitrust exemption to the NCAA unless you also grant the student-athletes the right to collectively bargain as employees, which the NCAA certainly wouldn't want to occur).

Im not sure Im following. I think Ive been clear in saying the NCAA would walk away with much LESS power if they were granted an anti-trust exemption. Any anti-trust exemption would have to be part of an agreement that allows the NCAA to be regulated and overseen by the Federal government. In other words, just as a utility might be granted a monopoly by a jurisdiction---that jurisdiction only grants that right in exchange for the right of the jurisdiction to exercise complete regulatory control over that monopoly (to the point that any rate hikes must be approved by the government). That's the sort of model Im suggesting---where some sort of revenue sharing caps that allow the sport to function without being a drain on public taxpayers. In such a model coaches and players can share in the revenue while preserving the vast majority of scholarship opportunities currently available to athletes (including title 9 opportunities). If you can create that kind of model without an anti-trust exemption---then great. Im just not sure that it could be done without granting an actual anti-trust exemption.

As for NCAA resistance to players becoming employees--not sure anything can be done to stop that. The lawsuits will continue until athletes get to share in the revenue. In the current model, they essentially check every box in the IRS definition of an employee other than being paid. So, if we assume the battle for athlete compensation is lost (which it is) then so is the "employee" battle. Its just a matter of time.
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2020 12:17 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-13-2020 12:04 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #73
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 10:57 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I’ve already explained why NIL isn’t an answer. It basically does nothing for the vast majority of student athletes and doesn’t do anything to solve the other law suits regarding student athlete pay. At best NIL is a temporary way point for a handful of years on the road to complete free agency. May as well just address the real issues.

I'm not sure anyone has a belief that NIL is an answer to any broader issue. It's just that if someone out there wants to pay a college athlete for the use of his likeness, he should be able to accept that payment. And I don't think anyone who argues for this thinks most athletes will benefit or benefit equally, just as in the endorsement world of pro athletics, some athletes will be in greater demand than others. The issue is what it is, on its own terms.

Heck, there are opportunities for schools here as well. For example, if a local car dealership wants a Joe Burrow or Trevor Lawrence to appear on a billboard, I'm sure he's more valuable in that regard if he is wearing his LSU or Clemson uniform. But, I would imagine that the rights to that uniform are owned by the school, so the school could demand a share of his endorsement cut to allow him to appear wearing the uniform.
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2020 12:11 PM by quo vadis.)
02-13-2020 12:10 PM
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Post: #74
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 12:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 10:57 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I’ve already explained why NIL isn’t an answer. It basically does nothing for the vast majority of student athletes and doesn’t do anything to solve the other law suits regarding student athlete pay. At best NIL is a temporary way point for a handful of years on the road to complete free agency. May as well just address the real issues.

I'm not sure anyone has a belief that NIL is an answer to any broader issue. It's just that if someone out there wants to pay a college athlete for the use of his likeness, he should be able to accept that payment. And I don't think anyone who argues for this thinks most athletes will benefit or benefit equally, just as in the endorsement world of pro athletics, some athletes will be in greater demand than others. The issue is what it is, on its own terms.

Heck, there are opportunities for schools here as well. For example, if a local car dealership wants a Joe Burrow or Trevor Lawrence to appear on a billboard, I'm sure he's more valuable in that regard if he is wearing his LSU or Clemson uniform. But, I would imagine that the rights to that uniform are owned by the school, so the school could demand a share of his endorsement cut to allow him to appear wearing the uniform.

The NIL is a side issue. There was absolutely zero justification for what the NCAA was doing on this, using their likeness in a wide range of ways.

But right now its the wild west on how it will be implemented.

The wage issue is the elephant looming in the back of the room.
02-13-2020 12:45 PM
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Post: #75
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 10:57 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 08:58 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:34 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:07 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 09:47 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I didnt say they did. The point is there is no exploitation of athletes or coaches going on if there is no real ability to derive a profit from their performances as athletes. The athletes and coaches together frankly have little economic value if a going concern cant break even except by stealing money from students. The idea they have some unrealized massive economic value they are being cheated out of is laughable. If there is a huge value---then why hasnt a group of investors come along and created a league and PAID these valuable athletes and coaches to play in it---thus reaping this grand unrealized profit? At best, a group of investors might be able to fashion a league--but it probably looks alot more like the XFL than the NFL or college football. Thus, the reality is the vast majority of college athletes would have zero value as an athlete in true profit driven free market. Most of the coaches would be working for high schools or doing something else completely.

Let's be clear: The irony about this argument is that the coaches who are paid the most - the Dabos and the Sabans and the Meyers - are *surely* very much worth it to their schools. We know this because their football programs make huge profits that do pay for not just football but the whole athletic program with money to spare and no student fees or transfers.

The situation you describe is true at other schools, such as the MAC schools in the Michigan data I posted.

Seems to me that if you can't run a football program without stealing money from your students in the form of fees and transfers, then you have two choices: End the football program (best choice) or keep stealing from your students to keep the money-bleeding bloated white elephant alive.

But there's no reason for the federal government to change the law to deny players or coaches their natural right to accept pay if someone wants to give it to them. Heck, if you are correct and for money-losing schools these players have no value, then the market will confirm that and they won't get paid. Nobody I know who is advocating pay or name and likeness is saying athletes should be guaranteed money above their scholarship, only that they should have the right to accept it IF someone else wants to offer it to them.

Seems like this quest for anti-trust exemption is way to kind of keep floundering, inherently money-losing programs afloat by allowing them to cap their costs. That is just not an issue of public concern.

That view would effectively say that there is absolutely no public value in providing thousands and thousands of athletes a college education. Again---I think that an anti-trust exemption in conjunction with the NCAA giving the Feds oversight and mediation control over the NCAA makes the most sense as a solution. That said---If you have a better idea---Im all ears. Youve advocated the free market free agency and have admitted that it will probably signal an end to most athletic programs (likley most of the title 9 programs as well--cant imagine schools will shut down just mens sports--as that would be a title 9 violation as well). I dont think most would view that result as a "solution" they would much like. I think most Americans would like a reasonable solution that provides compensation to the athletes while preserving the athletic scholarship opportunities along with most of what people like about college sports.

Well, when it comes to people's rights, what other people "like" shouldn't matter. Most people could not want you to be able to speak out on an issue or not want you to be able to vote, but that doesn't mean the feds should impose a solution that makes most people happy. There has to be a seriously compelling public purpose to override that, like quarantining people who have a deadly communicable disease, thus restricting their freedom of movement, and college athletics doesn't come within a mile of that standard. USF cannot claim our football program serves some grand public purpose. Heck, we thrived without one for 40 years.

Beyond that, there's zero evidence that schools will end their athletic programs over how much stuff costs. We already see hundreds of schools soaking their students with fees and transfers to keep afloat money-losing athletic programs. These programs have proven extremely resilient to ordinary calculations of costs and benefits that would have sunk the programs had they been run by businesses.

And it's not clear how pay or NIL would change that much. There are no "ante-up" rules that compel a university to pay more in order to participate in intercollegiate athletics. No rule says you have to spend $100 million a year or whatever to compete. Paying players and NIL won't change that. If a school can't afford to pay players, or if players have zero value to them under their economic model they will attract players that are willing to play for the value of the scholarship. Same with coaching - just because Michigan is paying its coach $8m a year doesn't mean Central Michigan has to. If it feels it can only pay $2m a year, then it will attract a coach who will work for $2m a year. Heck, the NCAA structure already offers an array of intercollegiate athletics divisions for schools with different resource levels. To be FBS, a school has to offer 85 scholarships and X number of other sports.. To be FCS, you need to offer 60 scholarships or whatever, and so on down to Division II and Division III. So if a school decides it can't keep up at one level with pay or NIL, there's always the next level down.

The more I work through this, it seems like the real goal here is to change anti-trust law not so schools can have football programs, but have the "kind" of football programs they want to have. As in a Central Michigan saying, "well, if costs keep rising, we won't be able to compete with Michigan anymore and by golly we want to keep competing against Michigan!"

I’ve already explained why NIL isn’t an answer. It basically does nothing for the vast majority of student athletes and doesn’t do anything to solve the other law suits regarding student athlete pay. At best NIL is a temporary way point for a handful of years on the road to complete free agency. May as well just address the real issues.

The problem you have here is unique. By and large---college sports as an entity is a money losing operation. Its makes no money. Instead---it loses money---pretty much hand over fist. Thus, if you can NOT make money off a performance with a wage of ZERO---then there is no legitimate economic value to an athletes performance in the current model. The vast majority of NCAA thletes only have value in a heavily subsidized system (where the schools agree to pour money from students---mostly obtained from tax payers or via tax payer subsidized and guaranteed loans). Its a unique solution because it's not a real business model. A real business model using athletes of this sort would look much more like the XFL. Eight or ten teams, only taking a tiny percentage of all the athletes in the NCAA, and paying wages that arent really all that much more than the value of scholarship. The idea that the athletes are getting a horribly raw deal is probably overstated if you look at the actual economics of the situation. In other words, if the NCAA stepped away from the market---no investor would rush in to fill that spot with 130 teams with a full spectrum of womens sports opportunities. When the athletes say the NCAA is operating as a monopoly and there are no other options for the athletes---thats true. But its because the colleges that make up FBS are losing their butts on athletics. In other words, the only participant in the marketplace is losing tons of money, thus, there is no profit incentive to lure any competition to that marketplace.

When it comes to anti-trust law---the key is whats in the public's best interest. Thus, is it really in the public interest to destroy the current system if what replaces it will almost certainly leave the vast majority of student athletes (who do get a college education out of the current deal) much worse off. Food for thought.
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2020 04:28 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-13-2020 03:52 PM
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Post: #76
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 12:04 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 11:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:08 PM)bullet Wrote:  It wouldn't be slam dunk black and white, but the trends would not be kind to collusion to hold down wages by the government and colleges. I don't see any way it would pass muster. When the unions, who represent the wage earners, agree with management, that is a very different situation.

That's a good point. What the NCAA and Coog seem to want is a very strange kind of anti-trust exemption, allowing one party to unilaterally set a cap.

Basically, it would be as if the NBA or NFL could unilaterally impose a salary cap on both coaches and players, without having to negotiate it with the union, and could impose it on them even if there was no union.

That would be a pretty remarkable anti-trust exemption that I'm not sure there is any precedent for?

For example, labor unions themselves are an example of an anti-trust exemption. Originally, labor unions were regarded as violating anti-trust laws, because they were viewed as collusion among workers to force higher wages on employers - price fixing and restraint of trade by the workers. So congress passed laws that basically said labor unions were exempt from anti-trust laws.

But, that exemption doesn't empower unions to unilaterally impose wages and benefits on employers, it only gives them the right to bargain for them, with no guarantees that they will get what they want.

What Coog and the NCAA seem to want is for colleges to not only be allowed to collude but also unilaterally impose their caps on coaches and players without having to bargain. That would be an amazingly powerful exemption.

Excellent points made here.

An antitrust exemption for the NCAA on their side would mean that student-athletes would need the right to collectively bargain on the other side... which inherently means that student-athletes *have* to be considered paid employees. The NCAA can't have their proverbial cake and eat it, too.

We're not a very representative slice of society here. Most of us here (including me) often defend the decisions and revenue seeking objectives of schools and conferences a fair amount. As a result, we often find ways to justify their actions in our own minds if they benefit our favorite school(s) even if we would be appalled if we applied the economic system of college sports to any other industry in America.

I don't believe that this is the case for most of the "real world." The students are *absolutely* winning the narrative on this issue and, while people might like watching college sports on television, they generally don't like the NCAA as an institution at all. We're way past the point of debating whether student-athletes should be compensated as an overarching issue: that debate is OVER. The public supports the players MUCH more than they support the schools and the NCAA on this matter. The only realistic outcome here is that the NCAA is going to have much LESS power going forward. There's just no way that the federal government is going to actually hand the NCAA more power with some type of absolute trump card like an antitrust exemption. It doesn't make sense politically and it frankly doesn't make sense economically (as you can't grant an antitrust exemption to the NCAA unless you also grant the student-athletes the right to collectively bargain as employees, which the NCAA certainly wouldn't want to occur).

Im not sure Im following. I think Ive been clear in saying the NCAA would walk away with much LESS power if they were granted an anti-trust exemption. Any anti-trust exemption would have to be part of an agreement that allows the NCAA to be regulated and overseen by the Federal government. In other words, just as a utility might be granted a monopoly by a jurisdiction---that jurisdiction only grants that right in exchange for the right of the jurisdiction to exercise complete regulatory control over that monopoly (to the point that any rate hikes must be approved by the government). That's the sort of model Im suggesting---where some sort of revenue sharing caps that allow the sport to function without being a drain on public taxpayers. In such a model coaches and players can share in the revenue while preserving the vast majority of scholarship opportunities currently available to athletes (including title 9 opportunities). If you can create that kind of model without an anti-trust exemption---then great. Im just not sure that it could be done without granting an actual anti-trust exemption.

So this is about protecting taxpayers? Giving the NCAA an anti-trust exemption and creating a Federal Bureau of Intercollegiate Athletics to monitor them?

In Louisiana, the athletic budgets of all the FBS and FCS schools (excluding LSU, because their athletics isn't paid for through the university budget) is around $160 million.

That's out of a state budget of around $32 Billion. Even if we assume athletics is bringing in zero revenue, which it isn't of course, that's about 4/10 of 1 percent of the state budget. And of that $160 million, not all of it is being spent on coaching salaries. For example, in 2018, at SLU, an FCS school, their athletic budget was $14m and of that, $3m was coaching salaries. At ULL, an FBS school, the budget was $33m, of which $7m was for coaching salaries. All coaches across all sports.

And Louisiana is a poor state that is crazy about football so probably spends more on athletics per capita than most other states. This is probably one of the *worst* examples of taxpayers being on the hook nationally.

So the Feds are supposed to get involved over that trivial sum of money?

When taxpayers themselves have the power, via their legislators, to cut the athletic budget of any state schools they want to?

I can't wrap my mind around this.

07-coffee3
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2020 05:57 PM by quo vadis.)
02-13-2020 04:05 PM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #77
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 04:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 12:04 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 11:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:08 PM)bullet Wrote:  It wouldn't be slam dunk black and white, but the trends would not be kind to collusion to hold down wages by the government and colleges. I don't see any way it would pass muster. When the unions, who represent the wage earners, agree with management, that is a very different situation.

That's a good point. What the NCAA and Coog seem to want is a very strange kind of anti-trust exemption, allowing one party to unilaterally set a cap.

Basically, it would be as if the NBA or NFL could unilaterally impose a salary cap on both coaches and players, without having to negotiate it with the union, and could impose it on them even if there was no union.

That would be a pretty remarkable anti-trust exemption that I'm not sure there is any precedent for?

For example, labor unions themselves are an example of an anti-trust exemption. Originally, labor unions were regarded as violating anti-trust laws, because they were viewed as collusion among workers to force higher wages on employers - price fixing and restraint of trade by the workers. So congress passed laws that basically said labor unions were exempt from anti-trust laws.

But, that exemption doesn't empower unions to unilaterally impose wages and benefits on employers, it only gives them the right to bargain for them, with no guarantees that they will get what they want.

What Coog and the NCAA seem to want is for colleges to not only be allowed to collude but also unilaterally impose their caps on coaches and players without having to bargain. That would be an amazingly powerful exemption.

Excellent points made here.

An antitrust exemption for the NCAA on their side would mean that student-athletes would need the right to collectively bargain on the other side... which inherently means that student-athletes *have* to be considered paid employees. The NCAA can't have their proverbial cake and eat it, too.

We're not a very representative slice of society here. Most of us here (including me) often defend the decisions and revenue seeking objectives of schools and conferences a fair amount. As a result, we often find ways to justify their actions in our own minds if they benefit our favorite school(s) even if we would be appalled if we applied the economic system of college sports to any other industry in America.

I don't believe that this is the case for most of the "real world." The students are *absolutely* winning the narrative on this issue and, while people might like watching college sports on television, they generally don't like the NCAA as an institution at all. We're way past the point of debating whether student-athletes should be compensated as an overarching issue: that debate is OVER. The public supports the players MUCH more than they support the schools and the NCAA on this matter. The only realistic outcome here is that the NCAA is going to have much LESS power going forward. There's just no way that the federal government is going to actually hand the NCAA more power with some type of absolute trump card like an antitrust exemption. It doesn't make sense politically and it frankly doesn't make sense economically (as you can't grant an antitrust exemption to the NCAA unless you also grant the student-athletes the right to collectively bargain as employees, which the NCAA certainly wouldn't want to occur).

Im not sure Im following. I think Ive been clear in saying the NCAA would walk away with much LESS power if they were granted an anti-trust exemption. Any anti-trust exemption would have to be part of an agreement that allows the NCAA to be regulated and overseen by the Federal government. In other words, just as a utility might be granted a monopoly by a jurisdiction---that jurisdiction only grants that right in exchange for the right of the jurisdiction to exercise complete regulatory control over that monopoly (to the point that any rate hikes must be approved by the government). That's the sort of model Im suggesting---where some sort of revenue sharing caps that allow the sport to function without being a drain on public taxpayers. In such a model coaches and players can share in the revenue while preserving the vast majority of scholarship opportunities currently available to athletes (including title 9 opportunities). If you can create that kind of model without an anti-trust exemption---then great. Im just not sure that it could be done without granting an actual anti-trust exemption.

So this is about protecting taxpayers? Giving the NCAA an anti-trust exemption and creating a Federal Bureau of Intercollegiate Athletics to monitor them?

In Louisiana, the athletic budgets of all the FBS and FCS schools (excluding LSU, because their athletics isn't paid for through the university budget) is around $160 million.

That's out of a state budget of around $32 Billion. Even if we assume athletics is bringing in zero revenue, which it isn't of course, that's about 4/10 of 1 percent of the state budget. And of that $160 million, not all of it is being spent on coaching salaries. For example, in 2018, at SLU, an FCS school, their athletic budget was $14m and of that, $3m was coaching salaries. At ULL, an FBS school, the budget was $33m, of which $7m was for coaching salaries. All coaches across all sports.

And Louisiana is a poor state that is crazy about football so probably spends more on athletics per capita than most other states. This is probably one of the *worst* examples of taxpayers being on the hook nationally.

So the Feds are supposed to get involved over that trivial sum of money?

When taxpayers themselves have the power, via their legislators, to cut the athletic budget of any state schools they want to?

I can't wrap my mind around this.

07-coffee3

No. Its about finding a reasonable solution that works for everyone. As for the Feds--they already are involved as the proposed legislation and hearings indicate. Everyone has reached the conclusion that there is an issue that deserves their time---why not work spend the time to fashion a long lasting solution rather than a bandage?
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2020 06:07 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-13-2020 06:05 PM
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Post: #78
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 06:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 04:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 12:04 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 11:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That's a good point. What the NCAA and Coog seem to want is a very strange kind of anti-trust exemption, allowing one party to unilaterally set a cap.

Basically, it would be as if the NBA or NFL could unilaterally impose a salary cap on both coaches and players, without having to negotiate it with the union, and could impose it on them even if there was no union.

That would be a pretty remarkable anti-trust exemption that I'm not sure there is any precedent for?

For example, labor unions themselves are an example of an anti-trust exemption. Originally, labor unions were regarded as violating anti-trust laws, because they were viewed as collusion among workers to force higher wages on employers - price fixing and restraint of trade by the workers. So congress passed laws that basically said labor unions were exempt from anti-trust laws.

But, that exemption doesn't empower unions to unilaterally impose wages and benefits on employers, it only gives them the right to bargain for them, with no guarantees that they will get what they want.

What Coog and the NCAA seem to want is for colleges to not only be allowed to collude but also unilaterally impose their caps on coaches and players without having to bargain. That would be an amazingly powerful exemption.

Excellent points made here.

An antitrust exemption for the NCAA on their side would mean that student-athletes would need the right to collectively bargain on the other side... which inherently means that student-athletes *have* to be considered paid employees. The NCAA can't have their proverbial cake and eat it, too.

We're not a very representative slice of society here. Most of us here (including me) often defend the decisions and revenue seeking objectives of schools and conferences a fair amount. As a result, we often find ways to justify their actions in our own minds if they benefit our favorite school(s) even if we would be appalled if we applied the economic system of college sports to any other industry in America.

I don't believe that this is the case for most of the "real world." The students are *absolutely* winning the narrative on this issue and, while people might like watching college sports on television, they generally don't like the NCAA as an institution at all. We're way past the point of debating whether student-athletes should be compensated as an overarching issue: that debate is OVER. The public supports the players MUCH more than they support the schools and the NCAA on this matter. The only realistic outcome here is that the NCAA is going to have much LESS power going forward. There's just no way that the federal government is going to actually hand the NCAA more power with some type of absolute trump card like an antitrust exemption. It doesn't make sense politically and it frankly doesn't make sense economically (as you can't grant an antitrust exemption to the NCAA unless you also grant the student-athletes the right to collectively bargain as employees, which the NCAA certainly wouldn't want to occur).

Im not sure Im following. I think Ive been clear in saying the NCAA would walk away with much LESS power if they were granted an anti-trust exemption. Any anti-trust exemption would have to be part of an agreement that allows the NCAA to be regulated and overseen by the Federal government. In other words, just as a utility might be granted a monopoly by a jurisdiction---that jurisdiction only grants that right in exchange for the right of the jurisdiction to exercise complete regulatory control over that monopoly (to the point that any rate hikes must be approved by the government). That's the sort of model Im suggesting---where some sort of revenue sharing caps that allow the sport to function without being a drain on public taxpayers. In such a model coaches and players can share in the revenue while preserving the vast majority of scholarship opportunities currently available to athletes (including title 9 opportunities). If you can create that kind of model without an anti-trust exemption---then great. Im just not sure that it could be done without granting an actual anti-trust exemption.

So this is about protecting taxpayers? Giving the NCAA an anti-trust exemption and creating a Federal Bureau of Intercollegiate Athletics to monitor them?

In Louisiana, the athletic budgets of all the FBS and FCS schools (excluding LSU, because their athletics isn't paid for through the university budget) is around $160 million.

That's out of a state budget of around $32 Billion. Even if we assume athletics is bringing in zero revenue, which it isn't of course, that's about 4/10 of 1 percent of the state budget. And of that $160 million, not all of it is being spent on coaching salaries. For example, in 2018, at SLU, an FCS school, their athletic budget was $14m and of that, $3m was coaching salaries. At ULL, an FBS school, the budget was $33m, of which $7m was for coaching salaries. All coaches across all sports.

And Louisiana is a poor state that is crazy about football so probably spends more on athletics per capita than most other states. This is probably one of the *worst* examples of taxpayers being on the hook nationally.

So the Feds are supposed to get involved over that trivial sum of money?

When taxpayers themselves have the power, via their legislators, to cut the athletic budget of any state schools they want to?

I can't wrap my mind around this.

07-coffee3

No. Its about finding a reasonable solution that works for everyone. As for the Feds--they already are involved as the proposed legislation and hearings indicate. Everyone has reached the conclusion that there is an issue that deserves their time---why not work spend the time to fashion a long lasting solution rather than a bandage?

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything you have.

You need to watch who you get in bed with. The colleges might get more than they intended.
02-13-2020 06:10 PM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #79
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 06:10 PM)bullet Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 06:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 04:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 12:04 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 11:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Excellent points made here.

An antitrust exemption for the NCAA on their side would mean that student-athletes would need the right to collectively bargain on the other side... which inherently means that student-athletes *have* to be considered paid employees. The NCAA can't have their proverbial cake and eat it, too.

We're not a very representative slice of society here. Most of us here (including me) often defend the decisions and revenue seeking objectives of schools and conferences a fair amount. As a result, we often find ways to justify their actions in our own minds if they benefit our favorite school(s) even if we would be appalled if we applied the economic system of college sports to any other industry in America.

I don't believe that this is the case for most of the "real world." The students are *absolutely* winning the narrative on this issue and, while people might like watching college sports on television, they generally don't like the NCAA as an institution at all. We're way past the point of debating whether student-athletes should be compensated as an overarching issue: that debate is OVER. The public supports the players MUCH more than they support the schools and the NCAA on this matter. The only realistic outcome here is that the NCAA is going to have much LESS power going forward. There's just no way that the federal government is going to actually hand the NCAA more power with some type of absolute trump card like an antitrust exemption. It doesn't make sense politically and it frankly doesn't make sense economically (as you can't grant an antitrust exemption to the NCAA unless you also grant the student-athletes the right to collectively bargain as employees, which the NCAA certainly wouldn't want to occur).

Im not sure Im following. I think Ive been clear in saying the NCAA would walk away with much LESS power if they were granted an anti-trust exemption. Any anti-trust exemption would have to be part of an agreement that allows the NCAA to be regulated and overseen by the Federal government. In other words, just as a utility might be granted a monopoly by a jurisdiction---that jurisdiction only grants that right in exchange for the right of the jurisdiction to exercise complete regulatory control over that monopoly (to the point that any rate hikes must be approved by the government). That's the sort of model Im suggesting---where some sort of revenue sharing caps that allow the sport to function without being a drain on public taxpayers. In such a model coaches and players can share in the revenue while preserving the vast majority of scholarship opportunities currently available to athletes (including title 9 opportunities). If you can create that kind of model without an anti-trust exemption---then great. Im just not sure that it could be done without granting an actual anti-trust exemption.

So this is about protecting taxpayers? Giving the NCAA an anti-trust exemption and creating a Federal Bureau of Intercollegiate Athletics to monitor them?

In Louisiana, the athletic budgets of all the FBS and FCS schools (excluding LSU, because their athletics isn't paid for through the university budget) is around $160 million.

That's out of a state budget of around $32 Billion. Even if we assume athletics is bringing in zero revenue, which it isn't of course, that's about 4/10 of 1 percent of the state budget. And of that $160 million, not all of it is being spent on coaching salaries. For example, in 2018, at SLU, an FCS school, their athletic budget was $14m and of that, $3m was coaching salaries. At ULL, an FBS school, the budget was $33m, of which $7m was for coaching salaries. All coaches across all sports.

And Louisiana is a poor state that is crazy about football so probably spends more on athletics per capita than most other states. This is probably one of the *worst* examples of taxpayers being on the hook nationally.

So the Feds are supposed to get involved over that trivial sum of money?

When taxpayers themselves have the power, via their legislators, to cut the athletic budget of any state schools they want to?

I can't wrap my mind around this.

07-coffee3

No. Its about finding a reasonable solution that works for everyone. As for the Feds--they already are involved as the proposed legislation and hearings indicate. Everyone has reached the conclusion that there is an issue that deserves their time---why not work spend the time to fashion a long lasting solution rather than a bandage?

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything you have.

You need to watch who you get in bed with. The colleges might get more than they intended.

Couldn't agree more. That said---I just dont know what other choice they really have if the goal is to salvage something that would look even remotely like college sports as we know it. Otherwise, what will emerge is just another streamlined XFL with and an end to the vast majority of womens sports (perhaps mens as well if Title 9 remains in conjunction with full on free market). There might be 20 schools that are profitable enough to support a football team and all the requred womens sports under those conditions. If its illegal to set caps then you scholarship or non-scholarship sports both become illegal. Basically, with 20 college teams, the vast majority of the audience will melt away and you'll be left with a glorified XLF with a narrow---aging niche audience. The future isnt promising under such an outcome---for players, coaches, or fans.
02-13-2020 06:54 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #80
RE: 'A nightmare for college athletics'
(02-13-2020 06:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 04:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 12:04 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-13-2020 11:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-12-2020 10:20 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That's a good point. What the NCAA and Coog seem to want is a very strange kind of anti-trust exemption, allowing one party to unilaterally set a cap.

Basically, it would be as if the NBA or NFL could unilaterally impose a salary cap on both coaches and players, without having to negotiate it with the union, and could impose it on them even if there was no union.

That would be a pretty remarkable anti-trust exemption that I'm not sure there is any precedent for?

For example, labor unions themselves are an example of an anti-trust exemption. Originally, labor unions were regarded as violating anti-trust laws, because they were viewed as collusion among workers to force higher wages on employers - price fixing and restraint of trade by the workers. So congress passed laws that basically said labor unions were exempt from anti-trust laws.

But, that exemption doesn't empower unions to unilaterally impose wages and benefits on employers, it only gives them the right to bargain for them, with no guarantees that they will get what they want.

What Coog and the NCAA seem to want is for colleges to not only be allowed to collude but also unilaterally impose their caps on coaches and players without having to bargain. That would be an amazingly powerful exemption.

Excellent points made here.

An antitrust exemption for the NCAA on their side would mean that student-athletes would need the right to collectively bargain on the other side... which inherently means that student-athletes *have* to be considered paid employees. The NCAA can't have their proverbial cake and eat it, too.

We're not a very representative slice of society here. Most of us here (including me) often defend the decisions and revenue seeking objectives of schools and conferences a fair amount. As a result, we often find ways to justify their actions in our own minds if they benefit our favorite school(s) even if we would be appalled if we applied the economic system of college sports to any other industry in America.

I don't believe that this is the case for most of the "real world." The students are *absolutely* winning the narrative on this issue and, while people might like watching college sports on television, they generally don't like the NCAA as an institution at all. We're way past the point of debating whether student-athletes should be compensated as an overarching issue: that debate is OVER. The public supports the players MUCH more than they support the schools and the NCAA on this matter. The only realistic outcome here is that the NCAA is going to have much LESS power going forward. There's just no way that the federal government is going to actually hand the NCAA more power with some type of absolute trump card like an antitrust exemption. It doesn't make sense politically and it frankly doesn't make sense economically (as you can't grant an antitrust exemption to the NCAA unless you also grant the student-athletes the right to collectively bargain as employees, which the NCAA certainly wouldn't want to occur).

Im not sure Im following. I think Ive been clear in saying the NCAA would walk away with much LESS power if they were granted an anti-trust exemption. Any anti-trust exemption would have to be part of an agreement that allows the NCAA to be regulated and overseen by the Federal government. In other words, just as a utility might be granted a monopoly by a jurisdiction---that jurisdiction only grants that right in exchange for the right of the jurisdiction to exercise complete regulatory control over that monopoly (to the point that any rate hikes must be approved by the government). That's the sort of model Im suggesting---where some sort of revenue sharing caps that allow the sport to function without being a drain on public taxpayers. In such a model coaches and players can share in the revenue while preserving the vast majority of scholarship opportunities currently available to athletes (including title 9 opportunities). If you can create that kind of model without an anti-trust exemption---then great. Im just not sure that it could be done without granting an actual anti-trust exemption.

So this is about protecting taxpayers? Giving the NCAA an anti-trust exemption and creating a Federal Bureau of Intercollegiate Athletics to monitor them?

In Louisiana, the athletic budgets of all the FBS and FCS schools (excluding LSU, because their athletics isn't paid for through the university budget) is around $160 million.

That's out of a state budget of around $32 Billion. Even if we assume athletics is bringing in zero revenue, which it isn't of course, that's about 4/10 of 1 percent of the state budget. And of that $160 million, not all of it is being spent on coaching salaries. For example, in 2018, at SLU, an FCS school, their athletic budget was $14m and of that, $3m was coaching salaries. At ULL, an FBS school, the budget was $33m, of which $7m was for coaching salaries. All coaches across all sports.

And Louisiana is a poor state that is crazy about football so probably spends more on athletics per capita than most other states. This is probably one of the *worst* examples of taxpayers being on the hook nationally.

So the Feds are supposed to get involved over that trivial sum of money?

When taxpayers themselves have the power, via their legislators, to cut the athletic budget of any state schools they want to?

I can't wrap my mind around this.

07-coffee3

No. Its about finding a reasonable solution that works for everyone. As for the Feds--they already are involved as the proposed legislation and hearings indicate. Everyone has reached the conclusion that there is an issue that deserves their time---why not work spend the time to fashion a long lasting solution rather than a bandage?

I just explained how coaching expenses can't seriously be regarded as any kind of societal problem, heck even entire athletic budgets, so how will paying players impact a state budget? The states are totally in control of the budgets for their schools, and as we've discussed, if a state finds paying players to be unaffordable they just won't pay or not pay very much and attract kids willing to play for that amount. Problem solved.

The only ones who think this is a problem requiring a federal solution are the honchos at the NCAA and conferences, who say they don't want players to get paid because they don't think it is "amateurism", an idea the the Olympics abandoned 25 years ago, and "competitive balance" when of course there is and never has been any such thing.

Of course the real issue is if the players get a cut there might be less for these clowns. The NCAA loves keeping that $1 Billion hoops check all to itself and paying for its big bureaucracy of administrators. And, pay for play could also mean there could be a loss of control over the players, because they will no longer be totally at the mercy of the schools as they are now, just as many college coaches who try the NFL or NBA find out that they can't boss around and lord over those players the way they can college kids.

It's a big Nothingburger promoted by the NCAA and other big athletic honchos to protect their power and money. Zero need for federal involvement.
(This post was last modified: 02-14-2020 09:59 AM by quo vadis.)
02-14-2020 09:55 AM
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