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[rambis]

Like some others have suggested, a fixed % of merch sales and fixed salary (some livable wage) would be appropriate. The kids are playing and practicing non-stop and most of them don't get a degree.

Where exactly would this money come from? Merchandise sales is one thing but where would schools get money to pay a "livable wage" to all these students. There are a few hundred schools in NCAA D1. A very large portion of these schools athletic departments operate in red. And there can be several hundred students per AD. What's minimum wage in the states these days? I'm very sure that the NCAA and most colleges don't operate with enough margins to support paying all these players.

So where does this money come from?

 

[Opiate]

What's the reasoning to not pay them? Except for "it diminishes the value of the game" or other loose criticisms.

If you do something that makes someone else money, it's your right to seek compensation. Simple as that.

No one is making any money off of the athletes. Universities are non-profit entities.

If you'd like to argue that Universities are now for-profit, then we should stop calling them schools and eject them from the government (if they are public) or take away their non profit status (if private). If you just want to be a football team, then stop pretending to be a place for book learnin', and be a Football team.

It reminds me a bit of religious leaders who make clear political statements. They're allowed to make political statements -- if they want to do that, then all they have to do is give up their non-profit tax status. I don't mind either one, but they try to have it both ways. I am suggesting that some Universities are doing the same thing. Do you want to turn your Football programs in to multi million dollar profit makers? Okay, that's fine, just give up your non-profit status, or disjoin yourself from government. One or the other, please.

 

[numble]

No one is making any money off of the athletes. Universities are non-profit entities.

If you'd like to argue that Universities are now for-profit, then we should stop calling them schools and eject them from the government (if they are public) or take away their non profit status (if private). If you just want to be a football team, then stop pretending to be a place for book learnin', and be a Football team.

It reminds me a bit of religious leaders who make clear political statements. They're allowed to make political statements -- if they want to do that, then all they have to do is give up their non-profit tax status. I don't mind either one, but they try to have it both ways. I am suggesting that some Universities are doing the same thing. Do you want to turn your Football programs in to multi million dollar profit makers? Okay, that's fine, just give up your non-profit status, or disjoin yourself from government. One or the other, please.

Universities pay taxes on profit making endeavors all the time. You don't assume the rent they charge for vendors to sell food or whatever on campus is tax-free, do you?

 

[Opiate]

Universities pay taxes on profit making endeavors all the time. You don't assume the rent they charge for vendors to sell food or whatever on campus is tax-free, do you?

Do they pay taxes on football profits specifically?

 

[numble]

Do they pay taxes on football profits specifically?

I have no idea, but the idea of nonprofits paying taxes for business income is very common, otherwise it is very easy to abuse nonprofit status:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p598.pdf

Selling endorsements. An exempt scientific organization enjoys an excellent reputation in the field of biological research. It exploits this reputation regularly by selling endorsements of laboratory equipment to manufacturers. Endorsing laboratory equipment does not contribute importantly to the accomplishment of any purpose for which exemption is granted to the organization. Accordingly, the sale of endorsements is an unrelated trade or business.

Services provided with lease. An exempt university leases its football stadium during several months of the year to a professional football team for a fixed fee. Under the lease agreement, the university furnishes heat, light, and water and is responsible for all ground mainte- nance. It also provides dressing room, linen, and stadium security services for the professional team.
Leasing of the stadium is an unrelated trade or business. In addition, the substantial services furnished for the convenience of the lessee go beyond those usually provided with the rental of space for occupancy only. Therefore, the income from this lease is rent from real property and unrelated business taxable income.

 

[Chichikov]

The business structure is not the same as pro sports. A large portion of colleges are public institutions heavily reliant on taxpayer money. Currently the vast majority of colleges don't get enough money from the big schools/TV deals/conferences to support their athletic departments. So they run in the red and rely on taxpayer money and student fees to close the gap. Also, unlike pro sports they carry around a lot of dead weight. If college sports were to be run like pro sports there would only be men's football and bball.

So you're saying college sports can only survive if you don't compensate your players?
First of all, if this is true, fuck college sports, any industry that rely on uncompensated workforce can and should die.
Luckily for me as a college sports fan, this is not close to be true.

Let's do a quick, dirty and conservative back of the napkin calculation, let's look at the top 230 schools (picking the data from here), if you assume 100 players on the payroll between football and basketball, if you pay them all the federal minimum wage, it will cost you 1.5 mil, or a 4% increase in spending.
The sport can survive this.

Now I'm not saying that the right number, and a lot of thought should be put into the details, and yeah, it is very unlikely that you'll see an across the board compensation levels like in the pros, but I don't think that the claim that college sports can't survive if you pay the athletes hold any water.

 

[Opiate]

I have no idea, but the idea of nonprofits paying taxes for business income is very common, otherwise it is very easy to abuse nonprofit status:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p598.pdf

Okay. I understood that part, but I'm asking about Football in particular. The "profits" from that alone can total tens of millions of dollars for some top football/schools.

 

[Timeaisis]

No one is making any money off of the athletes. Universities are non-profit entities.

If you'd like to argue that Universities are now for-profit, then we should stop calling them schools and eject them from the government (if they are public) or take away their non profit status (if private). If you just want to be a football team, then stop pretending to be a place for book learnin', and be a Football team.

It reminds me a bit of religious leaders who make clear political statements. They're allowed to make political statements -- if they want to do that, then all they have to do is give up their non-profit tax status. I don't mind either one, but they try to have it both ways. I am suggesting that some Universities are doing the same thing. Do you want to turn your Football programs in to multi million dollar profit makers? Okay, that's fine, just give up your non-profit status, or disjoin yourself from government. One or the other, please.

Well, I completely agree with you on those last few points. I realize Universities are "non-profit", but you can't deny the amount of revenue some are making on college sports (particularly football). For all intents and purposes, some of these Universities (that are not private, hence, not for-profit, like you said) are making profit. A lot of profit. And, from that, I'd argue that student-athletes have the right to seek compensation in those cases

Look at UT, for example:
http://businessofcollegesports.com/2014/09/29/most-profitable-college-football-programs-1-texas/
Total Revenue: $109,399,699.00
Total Expensese: $27,105,130.00

Now the programs call this "excess revenue", and funnel it into other athletic programs, but at the end of the day, I'd call it profit.

The problem now, of course, is these "student athletes" are getting a debatable amount of education while playing on sports teams (depending on the school, of course). If they come out at the end without a professional sports career, what do they have to show for it? A half-assed education and no money from their college sports career.

 

[numble]

Okay. I understood that part, but I'm asking about Football in particular. The "profits" from that alone can total tens of millions of dollars for some top football/schools.

Understood. But the conclusion to be drawn is that they should be taxed on said profits, not that such activity renders the university ineligible for nonprofit status elsewhere. To remove nonprofit status because every college inevitably rents out extra space or needs to make use of property donated to it doesn't make that much sense. Flipping the argument around, that should also mean that we do not allow charitable deductions because of a entity or person's taxable status.

 

[rambis]

So you're saying college sports can only survive if you don't compensate your players?
First of all, if this is true, fuck college sports, any industry that rely on uncompensated workforce can and should die.
Luckily for me as a college sports fan, this is not close to be true.

Let's do a quick, dirty and conservative back of the napkin calculation, let's look at the top 230 schools (picking the data from here), if you assume 100 players on the payroll between football and basketball, if you pay them all the federal minimum wage, it will cost you 1.5 mil, or a 4% increase in spending.
The sport can survive this.

Now I'm not saying that the right number, and a lot of thought should be put into the details, and yeah, it is very unlikely that you'll see an across the board compensation levels like in the pros, but I don't think that the claim that college sports can't survive if you pay the athletes hold any water.

So maybe you can answer my question above. And why would you limit the scope to football and basketball? If there's an argument for compensation for dollars generated then it should apply to every sport that generates dollars. And there's the question of what to do with the costs that schools already have to sink for players. I read an article that threw out a ballpark figure of $91k per player that a school ends up paying for a FBS team.

Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools spent more than $91,000 per athlete compared with just over $13,000 per student. Yet students across the country faced steep tuition hikes and increased fees

Should those costs be transfered to the students as well?

 

[Valhelm]

While I can understand the argument for colleges not being able to pay players, students should be free to get money from their own endorsement deals.

This would work, yeah. I'm very, very against paying wages to college athletes who already get treated like kings and get essentially a free degree, but it's awful how pretty much every university exploits their players.

 

[entremet]

Well, I completely agree with you on those last few points. I realize Universities are "non-profit", but you can't deny the amount of revenue some are making on college sports (particularly football). For all intents and purposes, some of these Universities (that are not private, hence, not for-profit, like you said) are making profit. A lot of profit. And, from that, I'd argue that student-athletes have the right to seek compensation in those cases

Look at UT, for example:
http://businessofcollegesports.com/2014/09/29/most-profitable-college-football-programs-1-texas/
Total Revenue: $109,399,699.00
Total Expensese: $27,105,130.00

Now the programs call this "excess revenue", and funnel it into other athletic programs, but at the end of the day, I'd call it profit.

The problem now, of course, is these "student athletes" are getting a debatable amount of education while playing on sports teams (depending on the school, of course). If they come out at the end without a professional sports career, what do they have to show for it? A half-assed education and no money from their college sports career.

The NFL is also a non-profit entity as well, which is a joke.

 

[Opiate]

Understood. But the conclusion to be drawn is that they should be taxed on said profits, not that such activity renders the university ineligible for nonprofit status elsewhere. To remove nonprofit status because every college inevitably rents out extra space or needs to make use of property donated to it doesn't make that much sense. Flipping the argument around, that should also mean that we do not allow charitable deductions because of a entity or person's taxable status.

I think the enterprise has become so enormous -- so significant a portion of many Universities' revenue and profit generation -- that it cannot be seen in the same space as renting extra space or selling concessions. Concessions are like a pastor mentioning in an isolation to a parishioner that he doesn't like to vote for pro-abortion candidates; at the very least, that's very difficult to moderate. Football is like a pastor publicly denouncing all pro-choice candidates and suggesting that any "good Christian" -- not just those in their parish -- should avoid voting for them.

 

[Opiate]

This would work, yeah. I'm very, very against paying wages to college athletes who already get treated like kings and get essentially a free degree, but it's awful how pretty much every university exploits their players.

The clear solution to me is to separate these sports from the Universities, but the system is so deeply entrenched now that this isn't really movable. Lots of people are deeply emotionally invested in the college Football team.

But it would solve both problems. Keep our universities from becoming de facto football teams that just so happen to have a learning center attached from them; allow the athletes to get paid.

 

[wrowa]

College sports seems to be a really huge thing in the US and that makes me wonder if there are other countries in the world where college sports rival professional sports in popularity. Personally, I'm from Germany and the idea of "University sports" is completely alien to me. Universities might have sport programs, but those are usually just for fun to give students something where they can relax.

On the other hand, it seems that in the US the day to day life of so-called amateur athletes (at least in popular categories like football) is heavily focused on their training, while the actual studies of the participating students become an afterthought. That in itself strikes me as rather questionable, since it implies that the students are actually primarily not students, but employees to represent the university. And employees need to be paid. If you can't do that for whatever the reason, the whole concept of serious college sports seems to be a bad one.

This would work, yeah. I'm very, very against paying wages to college athletes who already get treated like kings and get essentially a free degree, but it's awful how pretty much every university exploits their players.

But is that free degree worth anything? I'd assume that most potential employers know that the degree of a former college athlete is usually worthless.

 

[Valhelm]

The clear solution to me is to separate these sports from the Universities, but the system is so deeply entrenched now that this isn't really movable. Lots of people are deeply emotionally invested in the college Football team.

But it would solve both problems. Keep our universities from becoming de facto football teams that just so happen to have a learning center attached from them; allow the athletes to get paid.

Oh yeah, I completely agree. It would probably work to have football minor league in which teams are attached to universities but not directly part of them. Players would be paid but not required to take classes, thus treated as employees rather than students.

 

[numble]

I think the enterprise has become so enormous -- so significant a portion of the entities' revenue and profit generation -- that it cannot be seen in the same space as renting extra space or selling concessions.

A lot of the property in college towns are owned by the local university, particularly the very old colleges. Nearly 10% of the property in Providence, where Brown University sits, is owned by non-profit educational institutions, and Brown paid over $8 million in property taxes last year. Most college endowments also have large investments in real property. Princeton University owns 2500 acres of property and pays over $10 million in property taxes per year, 5% of all property taxes in the region. Harvard pays over $20 million. You can do the math if you like, but that probably translates to very significant revenue if you consider that property taxes are generally low.

I would not be surprised if the revenue from property exceeds that from these sports, particularly since the sports revenue is concentrated in a very few, and nearly every college is property-rich.

 

[rambis]

The clear solution to me is to separate these sports from the Universities, but the system is so deeply entrenched now that this isn't really movable. Lots of people are deeply emotionally invested in the college Football team.

But it would solve both problems. Keep our universities from becoming de facto football teams that just so happen to have a learning center attached from them; allow the athletes to get paid.

I think this creates far more problems than it solves. You'd be effectively creating minor leagues(when none of the pro sports need another) that has next to no reason to galvanize people to support them

 

[Valhelm]

But is that free degree worth anything? I'd assume that most potential employers know that the degree of a former college athlete is usually worthless.

I don't know, actually. I would think that if you major in something besides "university studies", being an athlete could probably help you. If you're a business major who played for the Seminoles, you've got an enormous leg up on competition for potential employers who went to FSU.

But this is just speculation.

 

[Chichikov]

So maybe you can answer my question above. And why would you limit the scope to football and basketball? If there's an argument for compensation for dollars generated then it should apply to every sport that generates dollars. And there's the question of what to do with the costs that schools already have to sink for players. I read an article that threw out a ballpark figure of $91k per player that a school ends up paying for a FBS team.

We should take it case by case and see if it makes sense, I picked football and basketball because they're the big one where the injustice is the most glaring.
And in any case, the draconic sanctions in the name of "amateurism" should be thrown out across the board.

Should those costs be transfered to the students as well?

I'm not sure I follow.
There isn't a breakdown on how they got to this figure, so I'm not sure exactly what spending we're talking about here, but generally speaking, companies spend money on their employees, my company pay for office space, my hardware, the electricity it takes to keep the lights on etc.
They don't take it out of my salary.
And while costs can and should be taken into consideration when discussion compensation levels, as I showed, I think the current system can easily survive paying its workforce.

 

[BPoole]

I'm against it too. They already get compensation by getting to go to college for free, which can easily save them upwards of $100k.

I don't know if all Universities do this, but my ex was a gymnast at Auburn and they were given $1000 every month to cover living expenses since they could not work due to their practice schedule.

As someone who had to pay for college and worked my entire way through, I was pretty annoyed by that.

 

[numble]

I think the enterprise has become so enormous -- so significant a portion of many Universities' revenue and profit generation -- that it cannot be seen in the same space as renting extra space or selling concessions. Concessions are like a pastor mentioning in an isolation to a parishioner that he doesn't like to vote for pro-abortion candidates; at the very least, that's very difficult to moderate. Football is like a pastor publicly denouncing all pro-choice candidates and suggesting that any "good Christian" -- not just those in their parish -- should avoid voting for them.

You can also consider how many universities generate revenue from their patent portfolios:
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...versity-leads-nation-in-tech-transfer-revenue

the 1980s, Northwestern chemist Richard Silverman developed a molecule that limited epileptic attacks. The drug produced $3.7 billion in 2011 sales for New York-based pharmaceutical firm Pfizer Inc., which started marketing Lyrica in 2005.

Northwestern received a onetime, $700 million payment as well as big annual fees from the drug's sales. The university's gross licensing revenue reached $191.5 million in 2011, “virtually all” of it from Lyrica, officials say. After doling out cuts to researchers and others, Northwestern netted about $80 million last year, they say.

Academic research became big business after a 1980 law allowed colleges to retain the rights to inventions produced by federal funding. Yet some school executives play down the importance of IP revenue.

U of C's influence is better measured by its many students who go on to start successful companies, says Derek Douglas, the school's vice president of civic engagement. “It's spitting out those businesses that are contributing to the innovation ecosystem,” he adds.

U of C took in $82.6 million in licensing revenue in 2002-11, less than U of I, which received $99.2 million during the period.

It's such that schools have royalty sharing policies with their inventors, which is an admission that this is a profit-motivated endeavor, professors get paid more if they can get discover something commercially viable. Harvard even uses its patents to invest in startups, so that they can sell their shareholdings in an IPO (or private offering) and potentially profit:

http://otd.harvard.edu/faculty-inventors/resources/policies-and-procedures/royalty-sharing/

Under Harvard’s current policy on royalty sharing, net royalties are shared with the inventors, the inventors’ department and school, as well as with the University. In the case of multiple inventors, OTD will divide the inventors’ share equally among all inventors. When there are multiple patent filings for a single invention, the inventors’ allocations are generally weighted by the number of times each inventor appears on the active U.S. applications and patents. The inventors may, however, agree among themselves on a different allocation method.

While OTD often seeks cash payments from licensees, equity may be accepted as partial consideration for a license. In the case of startups or small companies where cash flow is limited, equity may be the preferred means of compensation from the company’s standpoint. From OTD’s viewpoint, taking equity represents greater risk and thus when equity is part of license consideration; OTD focuses on obtaining the best overall compensation package, taking into account the risk factors.

 

[rambis]

We should take it case by case and see if it makes sense, I picked football and basketball because they're the big one where the injustice is the most glaring.
And in any case, the draconic sanctions in the name of "amateurism" should be thrown out across the board.

I'm not sure I follow.
There isn't a breakdown on how they got to this figure, so I'm not sure exactly what spending we're talking about here, but generally speaking, companies spend money on their employees, my company pay for office space, my hardware, the electricity it takes to keep the lights on etc.
They don't take it out of my salary.
And while costs can and should be taken into consideration when discussion compensation levels, as I showed, I think the current system can easily survive paying its workforce.

How can it be fair if viewed case by case? If one school is able to pay an athlete more money than another one then that creates bidding wars that most schools couldn't compete with.

And I don't know why you would ever compare your job to a nationwide sports league. I'm sure that your job doesn't have to worry about housing you, or feeding you or transporting you, or providing you gear, or fronting you college tuition or providing state of the art workout facilities or etc. And I'm quite sure your employer wouldn't be content with keeping you around despite operating at losses to keep you around.

As much as you are trying to make it seem, this is not employment. You aren't working for this institution. You volunteered or agreed upon terms to play for an institution. The problem is that there is a shitload of money moving between a few parties and none between the parties that the money is made by. That doesn't make this employment though.

 

[numble]

How can it be fair if viewed case by case? If one school is able to pay an athlete more money than another one then that creates bidding wars that most schools couldn't compete with.

And I don't know why you would ever compare your job to a nationwide sports league. I'm sure that your job doesn't have to worry about housing you, or feeding you or transporting you, or providing you gear, or fronting you college tuition or providing state of the art workout facilities or etc. And I'm quite sure your employer wouldn't be content with keeping you around despite operating at losses to keep you around.

As much as you are trying to make it seem, this is not employment. You aren't working for this institution. You volunteered or agreed upon terms to play for an institution. The problem is that there is a shitload of money moving between a few parties and none between the parties that the money is made by. That doesn't make this employment though.

Companies do pay for business trips and accommodations. I get a gym membership through the company. They pay for my equipment and people to train me. They also give me a housing reimbursement. My department is very profitable, the other departments are not doing so well--that doesn't mean they should fire me.

 

[ggnoobIGN]

The clear solution to me is to separate these sports from the Universities, but the system is so deeply entrenched now that this isn't really movable. Lots of people are deeply emotionally invested in the college Football team.

But it would solve both problems. Keep our universities from becoming de facto football teams that just so happen to have a learning center attached from them; allow the athletes to get paid.

If you removed these sports from the universities, the sports would become irrelevant that very second and 99% of those athletes would be crying for their amateur status back.

 

[rambis]

Companies do pay for business trips and accommodations. I get a gym membership through the company. They pay for my equipment and people to train me. They also give me a housing reimbursement. My department is very profitable, the other departments are not doing so well--that doesn't mean they should fire me.

You sir have a nice job. But when such perks and employee benefits are at all-time lows in America and most companies denying basic things like paid sick leave, I'm not sure "but hey I get nice things from my job" is a valid argument.


Also a key word is have to. I'm fairly certain that there's no law requiring you to get free gyms or housing allowances..

 

[numble]

You sir have a nice job. But when such perks and employee benefits are at all-time lows in America and most companies denying basic things like paid sick leave, I'm not sure "but hey I gwy nice things" is a valid argument.

If a player generates a lot of revenue for their team, they deserve a lot of perks as well. Of course it is a valid argument.

If you work in a big business, and your department is very very profitable, and others are losing money, do you think the bonuses should be the same?

 

[rambis]

If a player generates a lot of revenue for their team, they deserve a lot of perks as well. Of course it is a valid argument.

If you work in a big business, and your department is very very profitable, and others are losing money, do you think the bonuses should be the same?

Well a big business doesn't have many ethical requirements to be fair or impartial to its competition, which is why I will say again that's its stupid to compare. I don't see the validity, sorry.

 

[numble]

Well a big business doesn't have many ethical requirements to be fair or impartial to its competition, which is why I will say again that's its stupid to compare. I don't see the validity, sorry.

Yes it does, it's called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Companies spend tons of money on compliance in general.

I don't see how universities are governed differently. In fact, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is often used to sue colleges and collegiate entities like the NCAA.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_v._Board_of_Regents_of_the_University_of_Oklahoma

NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, 468 U.S. 85 (1984), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) television plan violated the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts. These antitrust laws were designed to prohibit group actions that restrained open competition and trade.

 

[Opiate]

A lot of the property in college towns are owned by the local university, particularly the very old colleges. Nearly 10% of the property in Providence, where Brown University sits, is owned by non-profit educational institutions, and Brown paid over $8 million in property taxes last year. Most college endowments also have large investments in real property. Princeton University owns 2500 acres of property and pays over $10 million in property taxes per year, 5% of all property taxes in the region. Harvard pays over $20 million. You can do the math if you like, but that probably translates to very significant revenue if you consider that property taxes are generally low.

I would not be surprised if the revenue from property exceeds that from these sports, particularly since the sports revenue is concentrated in a very few, and nearly every college is property-rich.

Yes, this is a reasonable argument / position. My University sold Rockefeller center (just the land) in the early 2000s for 500 million dollars. Thank you for your insight, numble.

 

[Opiate]

You can also consider how many universities generate revenue from their patent portfolios:

I think the distinction here is that patents are generated from research, which is an explicitly academic endeavor. I do think real estate is a good example, however.

 

[Laieon]

I agree with him. Other students aren't getting paid for extra curricular activities, no reason to make a special exception for athletes. Full rides and scholarships are more than enough motivation to continue working hard.

I'd be more than okay with them being allowed to make money off of endorsements though, assuming that's not currently allowed to happen.

 

[rambis]

Yes it does, it's called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Companies spend tons of money on compliance in general.

I don't see how universities are governed differently. In fact, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is often used to sue colleges and collegiate entities like the NCAA.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_v._Board_of_Regents_of_the_University_of_Oklahoma

Antitrusts laws have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Unless you can explain why they would have any bearing on fairness and impartiality in sports...

 

[debawv]

No one is making any money off of the athletes. Universities are non-profit entities.

If you'd like to argue that Universities are now for-profit, then we should stop calling them schools and eject them from the government (if they are public) or take away their non profit status (if private). If you just want to be a football team, then stop pretending to be a place for book learnin', and be a Football team.

It reminds me a bit of religious leaders who make clear political statements. They're allowed to make political statements -- if they want to do that, then all they have to do is give up their non-profit tax status. I don't mind either one, but they try to have it both ways. I am suggesting that some Universities are doing the same thing. Do you want to turn your Football programs in to multi million dollar profit makers? Okay, that's fine, just give up your non-profit status, or disjoin yourself from government. One or the other, please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX8BXH3SJn0

I am no sure you have seen this. Colleges are all about making money and hiding it.

 

[numble]

Antitrusts laws have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Unless you can explain why they would have any bearing on fairness and impartiality in sports...

Because that very case cited was about fairness and impartiality in sports....

 

[rambis]

Because that very case cited was about fairness and impartiality in sports....

Unless I'm reading a different case, that one you cited is about the NCAA basically trying to monopolize its sports league and prevent teams from separating from the NCAA. NCAA was ruled against for attempting tlo restrict open trade. Strangely, it had nothing to do with competitive fairness and impartiality between teams in a league. Stranger still is that most pro sports leagues are exempt from a lot of the antitrust statues that apply to businesses. Very strange...

 

[numble]

Unless I'm reading a different case, that one you cited is about the NCAA basically trying to monopolize its sports league and prevent teams from separating from the NCAA. NCAA was ruled against for attempting tlo restrict open trade. Strangely, it had nothing to do with competitive fairness and impartiality between teams in a league. Stranger still is that most pro sports leagues are exempt from a lot of the antitrust statues that apply to businesses. Very strange...

The case is about competitive fairness in sports. I don't see how statutory exemptions for pro sports has any effect on universities that are not exempt. Especially since that case is all about how the NCAA did not enjoy the NFL's antitrust exemption.

 

[Chichikov]

How can it be fair if viewed case by case? If one school is able to pay an athlete more money than another one then that creates bidding wars that most schools couldn't compete with.

And I don't know why you would ever compare your job to a nationwide sports league. I'm sure that your job doesn't have to worry about housing you, or feeding you or transporting you, or providing you gear, or fronting you college tuition or providing state of the art workout facilities or etc. And I'm quite sure your employer wouldn't be content with keeping you around despite operating at losses to keep you around.

As much as you are trying to make it seem, this is not employment. You aren't working for this institution. You volunteered or agreed upon terms to play for an institution. The problem is that there is a shitload of money moving between a few parties and none between the parties that the money is made by. That doesn't make this employment though.

When I said case by case I meant sport by sport, maybe it makes sense to play lacrosse players, I don't know, I'm not an expert, the devil is in the details.
As for the oh so dreadful bidding wars, why is it okay for coaches?
I mean small programs can't afford to keep good coaches which are always poached by richer programs. And again, if you're concerned about parity, you can solve through a CBA like in the pros, though really, the idea that CFB care about parity is fucking hilarious, every school outside the power five just died laughing.

And finally, how is it not employment?
School pay coaches, pay assistant coaches, fuck, it even pay students if they provide service to the school (like teaching assistants), that's not to say the schools must pay athletes, but what they mustn't do is collude to withhold wages for people who would get paid a whole lot on the free market, which is what happening right now.
Again, I'm all in favor of a CBA of sorts that will preserve some parity, but CBA is done with an consent of your workforce, as oppose what's going on right now, when the schools are forcing this on their players.

 

[Somnid]

I think the problem, at its base, is that sports is antithetical to education. Sports education can be fine but sports performance is a completely different thing that is bolted on to universities for no good reason other than they are community focal points. So maybe there needs to be the less-than-pro league and that can be owned by a university but it must be managed separately with no expectation of non-profit status and athletes may or may not be students of the university at all.

 

[Draxal]

I think the distinction here is that patents are generated from research, which is an explicitly academic endeavor. I do think real estate is a good example, however.

Do you think grad students that help on this research are fairly compensated? I think you can argue that this is a much bigger injustice than collegiate sports as while there are many grad research ... the money is so much larger in research than collegiate sports.

 

[rambis]

The case is about competitive fairness in sports. I don't see how statutory exemptions for pro sports has any effect on universities that are not exempt. Especially since that case is all about how the NCAA did not enjoy the NFL's antitrust exemption.

This case is as I described and has nothing to do with fairness between teams in a sports league. We can play this game all you want but this case has shit to do with parity in a league.

When I said case by case I meant sport by sport, maybe it makes sense to play lacrosse players, I don't know, I'm not an expert, the devil is in the details.
As for the oh so dreadful bidding wars, why is it okay for coaches?
I mean small programs can't afford to keep good coaches which are always poached by richer programs. And again, if you're concerned about parity, you can solve through a CBA like in the pros, though really, the idea that CFB care about parity is fucking hilarious, every school outside the power five just died laughing.

And finally, how is it not employment?
School pay coaches, pay assistant coaches, fuck, it even pay students if they provide service to the school (like teaching assistants), that's not to say the schools must pay athletes, but what they mustn't do is collude to withhold wages for people who would get paid a whole lot on the free market, which is what happening right now.
Again, I'm all in favor of a CBA of sorts that will preserve some parity, but CBA is done with an consent of your workforce, as oppose what's going on right now, when the schools are forcing this on their players.

I've never said that I was ok with bidding of coaches or that college football is fair so those are moot points. And there's no way a CBA is going to fairly govern 100s of teams when there are so many with nothing to provide financially. Not to mention the task of getting all these teams to come to an agreement. These are schools not indepent franchises.

And its not employment. When signing up for a school and becoming a student athlete you agree to not being employed and to participate in an amateur league. Most of the time schools offer scholarships and other incentives but none of that makes it employment. There is no wage negotiated for you to play for this school. No employment contract. How is it employment?

The NCAA should pay players, not schools.

 

[numble]

Unless I'm reading a different case, that one you cited is about the NCAA basically trying to monopolize its sports league and prevent teams from separating from the NCAA. NCAA was ruled against for attempting tlo restrict open trade. Strangely, it had nothing to do with competitive fairness and impartiality between teams in a league. Stranger still is that most pro sports leagues are exempt from a lot of the antitrust statues that apply to businesses. Very strange...

This case is as I described and has nothing to do with fairness between teams in a sports league. We can play this game all you want but this case has shit to do with parity in a league.
.

Read the case again, it is not about preventing teams from separating from the NCAA. If that was the case, how did the NCAA lose, yet we don't have teams separating from the NCAA? It is about colleges together colluding to refuse to play with colleges that try to sell their own broadcast rights with other colleges. So yes, it is about fairness between colleges in a sports league.

If you want another antitrust case, O'Bannon is about colleges restricting trade, and the ruling specifically allows a salary cap (besides discussing other ways of ensuring fairness and competition, such as holding money in trust) so yes, the antitrust laws are about fairness in competition:
http://i.usatoday.net/sports/!Invesitgations-and-enterprise/OBANNONRULING.pdf

 

[rambis]

Read the case again, it is not about preventing teams from separating from the NCAA. If that was the case, how did the NCAA lose, yet we don't have teams separating from the NCAA? It is about colleges together colluding to refuse to play with colleges that try to sell their own broadcast rights with other colleges. So yes, it is about fairness between colleges in a sports league.

If you want another antitrust case, O'Bannon is about colleges restricting trade, and the ruling specifically allows a salary cap (besides discussing other ways of ensuring fairness and competition, such as holding money in trust) so yes, the antitrust laws are about fairness in competition:
http://i.usatoday.net/sports/!Invesitgations-and-enterprise/OBANNONRULING.pdf

I could've worded it better but I didn't mean separate as in leave the league. They obviously wanted to play D1 ball but they were trying to seperate from the NCAAs TV deal, which the NCAA was trying to monopolize its control over. I still don't see what this has to do with competitive fairness or parity between teams.

There are teams today that are separate from the NCAAs control, which is why we have things like the infamous SEC network and such.

 

[Kill3r7]

So you're saying college sports can only survive if you don't compensate your players?
First of all, if this is true, fuck college sports, any industry that rely on uncompensated workforce can and should die.
Luckily for me as a college sports fan, this is not close to be true.

Let's do a quick, dirty and conservative back of the napkin calculation, let's look at the top 230 schools (picking the data from here), if you assume 100 players on the payroll between football and basketball, if you pay them all the federal minimum wage, it will cost you 1.5 mil, or a 4% increase in spending.
The sport can survive this.

Now I'm not saying that the right number, and a lot of thought should be put into the details, and yeah, it is very unlikely that you'll see an across the board compensation levels like in the pros, but I don't think that the claim that college sports can't survive if you pay the athletes hold any water.

You are not accounting for Title IX in your example. They would have to pay all the athletes not just football and bball players. The gap becomes significantly higher at that point.

 

[numble]

I could've worded it better but I didn't mean separate as in leave the league. They obviously wanted to play D1 ball but they were trying to seperate from the NCAAs TV deal, which the NCAA was trying to monopolize its control over. I still don't see what this has to do with competitive fairness or parity between teams.

There are teams today that are separate from the NCAAs control, which is why we have things like the infamous SEC network and such.

The teams are not separate from NCAA control, they are still part of the NCAA. The case is about teams trying to collude to financially punish each other for making more money than the collective group with separate broadcasting deals. Of course it is about competitive fairness between teams. Unless you think that it is competitively fair for your competitors to collude to punish you from activities they don't like, and block you from participating in the market.

You also should read the O'Bannon case. I don't see why you think antitrust laws are not about competition and fairness.

You are not accounting for Title IX in your example. They would have to pay all the athletes not just football and bball players. The gap becomes significantly higher at that point.

Title IX is not about treating all athletes equally. Otherwise you would already have issues with the fact that football teams exist or how football players and basketball players already get better treatment.

Title IX means spending for some things should be roughly equal between male and female sport spending. So if they spend more money on male athletes, they should be spending more on female athletes as well. That just means there is a "luxury tax" for paying male athletes, which will help cap spending. A $10,000 salary for a male player means another $10,000 spent on women sports.

 

[Kill3r7]

The teams are not separate from NCAA control, they are still part of the NCAA. The case is about teams trying to collude to financially punish each other for making more money than the collective group with separate broadcasting deals. Of course it is about competitive fairness between teams. Unless you think that it is competitively fair for your competitors to collude to punish you from activities they don't like, and block you from participating in the market.

You also should read the O'Bannon case. I don't see why you think antitrust laws are not about competition and fairness.


Title IX is not about treating all athletes equally. Otherwise you would already have issues with the fact that football teams exist or how football players and basketball players already get better treatment.

Title IX means spending for some things should be roughly equal between male and female sport spending. So if they spend more money on male athletes, they should be spending more on female athletes as well. That just means there is a "luxury tax" for paying male athletes, which will help cap spending. A $10,000 salary for a male player means another $10,000 spent on women sports.

Title IX means you have to spend twice as much. You said as much yourself. Do you really think they'll be able to only consider some student athletes as employees while completely ignoring the rest?

 

[bearythebear]

Only way to solve this issue is to spin-off the top teams into clubs that are associated with the university.

Also, I wonder how Alumni donations fit into football. Are they counted as part of revenue generated by the teams?

 

[perfectchaos007]

The best way to keep both parties happy is so simple, but it requires compromise on both sides. Something our country can't handle.

I wrote this in an ESPN comment last year, and it received 1 "like" so I know I'm on to something

I know the NCAA is hung up on amateurism, and understandably so since these are supposed to be "student-athletes", not professionals, but I have a seemingly simple solution to rationalize compensating valuable college athletes. Obviously, this plan would go for all college athletes, not just football players, so its open for anyone playing in any college sport. If a company, organization, or other entity chooses to use an athlete's personal likeness in any form of media, the athlete will be compensated fairly, but the catch is that all money earned will be stored away in an untouchable privately managed savings account that will release upon the student-athletes graduation and or declaration of professional status. That way, they aren't technically being paid during school which satisfies the NCAA, the athletes also now have a safety net in case they blow out their knee caps before turning pro, and finally each and every athlete gets a valuable lesson in the importance of saving money which will pay dividends after their pro career.

 

[poppabk]

The best way to keep both parties happy is so simple, but it requires compromise on both sides. Something our country can't handle.

I wrote this in an ESPN comment last year, and it received 1 "like" so I know I'm on to something

The problem is that some backer or alumni collective will offer high school kids $100000 or something for the use of their likeness at a car dealership or whatever, but of course they will need to go to 'x' University to get it.

 

[numble]

Title IX means you have to spend twice as much. You said as much yourself. Do you really think they'll be able to only consider some student athletes as employees while completely ignoring the rest?

Yes. The court cases have said as much.
If you simply segregate out football and basketball as profit generating activities that do not spend government money, it makes it even easier to meet Title IX.