Paying College Athletes

Fred

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"Though you did do a nice job of proving you don't know what you're talking about when discussing how college athletes don't deserve to be paid because the colleges should get 100% of the 100s of billions of dollars that these athletes generate." - Doug Thonus in the "Final Revised Case for Gordon Thread"

I somehow missed this shot. Although completely irrelevant to the topic we were discussing, it brings up an issue I've been itching to debate you on. So I challenge you to a mental duel on this topic. Your show or mine, I don't really care. But let me first give you a bit of my game plan, because I don't want this to turn into Pacquiao (Me) - De La Hoya (You).

Paying student athletes sounds great. After all, they bring in so much money to the universities. I used to be a big believer too. However, during my freshman year in college, I took a job during the school year (to help pay for my skyrocketing tuition) with the University of Illinois Foundation. It was a telemarketing job…I would call alumni and ask them to donate back to the university.

I became familiar with how a lot of that money from alumni, television contracts, etc are allocated and spent. I also became familiar with how every sport, besides men’s football and basketball for the most part, is a net loss for the University.

To make a very long and complicated story very short and simplistic(I haven't even mentioned Title 9 yet), a University has limited resources. By allocating some of those resources to pay student athletes, you’re taking resources away that could be used to help many academically gifted teenagers from poor families. You'll also hurt the total money available for student aid to poor kids with average academic backgrounds or even special needs.

Now, you could still say, "Hey, let’s keep those scholarships and grants in place, but also pay student athletes". Of course, that would mean an increase in our taxes. States play a major role in funding higher education through their support of public community colleges, university systems, and vocational education institutions. (Nationwide, This support accounts for about 12 percent of state spending, or some $125 billion.)

The state of Illinois is 9 million dollars in debt. So feel free to run for office on that argument with the Illinois taxpayer. I’m sure my wife and yours will be ecstatic to learn that some of their spending money will soon go to the state to help pay for student athletes at Northern, Western, Southern, etc…..for all these sports they couldn’t give a damn about(at least my wife doesn't). That would be on top of the increases we've already been hit with as disgusted residents of Cook County, Illinois. (Are in DuPage?)

More importantly, as a society, what should we be striving for? To pay student athletes for 4 years, and then throw them out in the world without an education, since they are no longer eligible for athletics? By paying them, we’re sending the message that their number 1 job is as an athlete, not as a student. They'll focus on that at the expense of their studies. And by paying them, we’ve taken away opportunities from academically gifted kids.

Instead of wasting our time and money in figuring out ways to pay student athletes, wouldn’t we be better off using our energies to help them understand how important and expensive a college education is. I’m proud to say that I paid for every dime of college education. I was lucky enough to get a job at the Nabisco plant on 79th during summers loading trucks to do it, plus several college loans. I finally paid those after 10 years in 2005. I know exactly, to the penny, how valuable and expensive that education was. If everyone, college athletes included, were better aware of this, we probably wouldn’t be having this debate.

In 08-09, For the University of Illinois, the tuition alone is $8,960 per term for residents, $21,714 for non-residents. When you add room and board and the meal plan, the total cost is around $16,000 per term for a resident. The student athlete pays none of this. Is this not a form of compensation?

During our argument on the basketball court, I only provided you with the crass benefits of being a student-athlete. Kevin Hardy, who I knew at the U of I, and possibly others on this forum, could attest that these benefits were real, enjoyable, & pretty freaking awesome. And he deserved them, because he worked hard in school and on the field. He was a class act, just like his teammate Simeon Rice, who always gave his best academically and athletically. (Kevin later became the 2nd overall pick in the NFL draft of the Jags back in the mid-90’s.)

There are other benefits. I’ll save these for our debate. But I challenge you to that debate. And we’ll let the listeners decide who wins, although since you have many more rabid fans, I’m sure the decision is already clear. If one more person is educated on this subject, I’ll be fine with that.
 

dougthonus

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I've come to actually agree with part of your view. As I said in the HS junior going to Europe thread, your point about public funding going to universities and them paying athletes is a good one. I have no counter to that point, as it's rock solid as hell, no way the government should be handing student athletes money to play basketball/football.

I have thus fashioned a new argument as I still feel student athletes in major sports that generate revenue deserve a portion of that revenue. It breaks down into two parts. First, student athletes should be allowed to collect money from agents, marketing, and things like that. Second, any school without public funding should be able to pay them whatever they want.
 

mlewinth

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Yup...agree with Fred on this one. Otherwise you would never fund everything. Most schools dont even have the luxury of having a major sports team that generates revenue. Colleges shouldnt pay athletes a thing. If they want to go to Europe after HS, feel free.
 

dougthonus

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I still think fundamentally there is a huge problem with colleges collecting billions while not giving the athletes anything.

However, the fact that private colleges are just as cheap as the state funded ones without getting 6k per student shows that the public schools aren't really interested in education.

I think in many ways, we may need to redefine government assisted education to actually educate, lower the tuition to about 1/5th of what it presently is and scrap a lot of the BS that goes along with colleges presently.

State funded colleges should provide a good education at a reasonable cost, so that we can educate our youth, but they don't accomplish that goal because the cost is no longer reasonable.
 

AirP

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What exactly is the difference between being a college athlete and being a college intern? Big companies use them all the time, it's a little thing called paying your dues and gaining experience.

You can think of it this way, without college basketball most of these players wouldn't have any opportunities to do something with their lives like they do by going to college.
 

dougthonus

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AirP wrote:
What exactly is the difference between being a college athlete and being a college intern? Big companies use them all the time, it's a little thing called paying your dues and gaining experience.

You can think of it this way, without college basketball most of these players wouldn't have any opportunities to do something with their lives like they do by going to college.

No one prevents a computer programmer from making money as a computer programmer while attending college. If I'm going to school and Microsoft hires me for 2 million dollars a year, they don't kick me out if I want to continue school while being paid.

I worked as a professional in my field while attending college since year 1. I was paid more after I graduated, but I still made about 2.5x minimum wage with 1 year of college which isn't enough to live on, but was a pretty substantial sum of money for someone in my position.
 

Fred

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I am also against the age limit for entering the NBA. What is the purpose of going to college? To get an education, that will allow you to get a job, to provide for your family and yourself. If a kid is 17, and he can play in the NBA, let him play. Kobe, LeBron, Dwight Howard...who would have helped these kids if they had to go to college, and while there, suffer some devastating knee injury.
 

dougthonus

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Fred wrote:
I am also against the age limit for entering the NBA. What is the purpose of going to college? To get an education, that will allow you to get a job, to provide for your family and yourself. If a kid is 17, and he can play in the NBA, let him play. Kobe, LeBron, Dwight Howard...who would have helped these kids if they had to go to college, and while there, suffer some devastating knee injury.

I love what the age limit has done and will continue to do for the sport, but I think it's a horribly unfair rule.
 

st. park

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I'm not sure how anyone could honestly argue in support of an age limit. It's unjust in every sense of the word.
 

mlewinth

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The age limit is good for the leauge. If you dont have it teams are forced to pick players with high picks, when it is sometimes to early to tell what they will be. You can say "well they dont HAVE to take the high school kids" but, at the end of the day, you know the best players are the ones that come from high school. So it puts teams in bad positions.

I also hate waiting on rookie contracts to pan our on 18-19 yr olds. I'll wait 1-2 yrs for a player to peak, not 3-4.
 

dougthonus

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st. park wrote:
I'm not sure how anyone could honestly argue in support of an age limit. It's unjust in every sense of the word.

Ehhhh... I don't think it's even remotely as unjust as the NCAA making 100s of billions off of college athletics without giving any money to the college athlete. The NBA is still allowing them to come, just forcing them to wait an extra year.

The NBA owns the league, and it has a right to do what's best for the league, and I think the age limit is very, very good for the league, so while it's unfair to the players, I'm not sure that it's unfair overall. The NBA has a right to protect itself as a business, since if it were gone the players wouldn't have an NBA to go to, and clearly this rule helps the league.

I think the rule is certainly screws over the athletes, but I don't think it's horribly unfair int he grand scheme of things just a little unfair.
 

collisrost

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I know I'm an outsider in this debate but thought I'd throw my two bits worth in.

First, Fred, I have to commend you for your argument. It's well thought out, sensible, and phrased in a manner that it just feels reasonable and fair. I definitely thought about it carefully as a result, which is all you can ask when you're trying to convince people of your case. Too often people's opinions on a subject they feel passionately about are phrased in a way that alienates anyone who comes from another angle, but this debate really draws you in.

I think it's clear that student athletes are paid de facto by being given benefits such as full scholarships, free private tutors if they need them, and so on. I think the fact that so many student athletes, even ones from families that are struggling financially, elect to go to college and play for 4 years rather than go out and find a job means the system is working right now. The extreme cases of super-gifted athletes skipping college to go to Europe or leaving school early to play professionally are such a small percentage that I wouldn't determine my policies based on their needs. The fact of the matter is universities, whether government funded or not, are primarily educational institutions. What their sources of revenue are and how they budget their money should always be influenced by their underlying goal of education. If it turns out that they can pay for a lot of students' financial aid by having a high-profile basketball team, then that's a good thing. If you have to invest resources into your income-generating team, you do it.

I think the main problem that Doug brings up is that universities do all kinds of things that are not educational and they fritter money away. I think this is true, and it's partly due to the fact that they are old institutions. They have a lot of established obligations like tenure, a ton of retired people to support, foundations to support, programs that were once very valuable but are beginning to lose their relevance, etc. The problem is that there's always someone who wants to keep the status quo and who will object to cutting an existing program. So these universities simply continue to fund things that should have died years ago rather than fight the system in order to trim them. I remember my school spent more that a million dollars to refurbish an old gym that was too small for our needs just because it was an old school landmark. How stupid is that? It's not like there was deep historical significance here. But some old alumni who used to play in it 40 years ago wanted it done and so they did it.

I will mention one other issue. Technology is very expensive. Scientific equipment is very expensive. Field trips to archaeological sites are expensive, etc. Some students have majors that are particularly expensive to fund, others like English lit or Philosophy basically use very little of the school's resources. So the school is never going to be able to be completely "fair" in allocating equal money to each student; why should it strive to be "fair" with the student athletes? The school should be pragmatic and sensible with its money rather than fair.

In short, the fact that universities are not businesses leads to the ability and willingness to do good things like give poor kids financial aid, and also bad things like wasting money on useless gyms. Obviously i'd rather they cut the fat and thus cut the tax burden. But given that this will be a long and painful process, at least let's not make it more difficult by diverting one of their sources of income. In the short term I'll take the bad with the good.
 

Newskoolbulls

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College athletes get paid in the likes of: Scholarship, a easy GPA above 3.5, college girls, free gear etc. They have it good.
 

dougthonus

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If you generated say 10 million dollars for someone, would you think that free gear, free girls, and a scholarship towards a degree you don't intend on completing is a fair amount of reward for your efforts?
 

collisrost

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That's not the point, Doug. The point is these kids have an alternative and they choose not to exercise it. So they're effectively saying that it's worth it to play for a university and get a free education and all the other things as compensation. You also have to keep in mind that they get a very good "sports education" too in the form of coaching as well as a chance to show off their talents to scouts.

I agree that there may be a few supertalented athletes who feel it's unfair to them, but the vast vast majority of student athletes benefit from the system immensely.

I'll grant you that student athletes should be allowed to make money outside of the university setting in endorsements or something. That's fine. But there would be only a handful who could make any kind of decent money doing that.
 

st. park

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mlewinth wrote:
The age limit is good for the leauge. If you dont have it teams are forced to pick players with high picks, when it is sometimes to early to tell what they will be. You can say "well they dont HAVE to take the high school kids" but, at the end of the day, you know the best players are the ones that come from high school. So it puts teams in bad positions.

I also hate waiting on rookie contracts to pan our on 18-19 yr olds. I'll wait 1-2 yrs for a player to peak, not 3-4.

The fact that the age limit is good for the league doesn't justify that it is deemed a rule. That's like saying that since we all know that fast food is bad for our health, it should be banned. I don't care if people crusade for players to go to college first, but it should not be a rule.
 

Bullsman24

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i think that college students should not get payed because they're exercising their option to go to a non-paying college instead of using other options.

however, i feel that the ncaa should not be able to limit players from making money elsewhere, such as marketing deals. a great example for this is bj mullens.

we all agree bj mullens isn't completely ready for the nba. he would benefit from staying in college for a couple of years. but when he decided to enter the draft, it was based on completely monetary reasons. athletes' families are hurting just as much and more in many cases, and the guaranteed money of an nba contract is too much to pass up for families in this position.

really, the ncaa is screwing itself over because families still need money to stay afloat, and many potentially good players go to the nba because they need financial help. if the ncaa would just let student-athletes receive marketing deals, it would work out for everyone: the athletes would receive financial support, the universities would still not pay their athletes, and the nba would get more refined talent.
 

wjb1492

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I agree that many college athletes get several perks because of their athlete status - to stick to the academic ones, primarily the opportunity for an education and access to tutors and other support systems. I would absolutely love for some of my other students to have access to the academic support, and I'm sure the students I have working significant hours to pay for tuition think that athletes have a pretty cushy life in comparison.

That said, the athletes are also little more than a commodity to the university. Those support systems aren't there for the athlete's educational benefit, they're to keep the kids eligible for competition. I've talked with kids getting pushed hard to major in subjects they have no interest in whatsoever, because those majors are seen as easy or the department has proven flexible in the past with all the team-related absences. Admittedly, that probably doesn't matter much to the kids that will go on to a pro career, but it certainly does to some. I have to report on athletes' grades and attendance three times a semester. They have big brother watching them all the time - it's definitely as much of a job as any other employment, in spite of getting termed a "free ride."

Basically, I'm all over the place on the issue, because at some level the whole system stinks. It benefits a few greatly, but it also chews some kids up and spits them out with no backward glance. Allowing them to get money from agents or endorsements would only benefit some of the top kids - but it would also allow some of those kids a more realistic option to stay in school rather than turning pro early. Take a kid like Cole Aldrich, whose dad has been out of work for a while and who could have declared and provided financial security for his family but wanted to spend another year in college. Or a kid like JamesOn Curry who went pro early and ended up never getting a chance to prove himself and who also doesn't have a degree - maybe he stays another year and graduates before trying the pros if the money disparity wasn't humongous. While a shot at making millions would have been nice, knowing how few get there I think my academic "free ride" was a much better deal than what the average student athlete gets stuck dealing with.
 

dougthonus

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That's not the point, Doug. The point is these kids have an alternative and they choose not to exercise it. So they're effectively saying that it's worth it to play for a university and get a free education and all the other things as compensation. You also have to keep in mind that they get a very good "sports education" too in the form of coaching as well as a chance to show off their talents to scouts.

That's true that they are given a good and valuable sports education and a stage to show there abilities to scouts. However, name any system in life, where the primary driving force of an industry worth 100s of billions does not share in any of the profit, but only gets benefits in the form of education or exposure, and not only that, but it is made illegal for them to profit off of their exposure while participating in the system.

I agree that there may be a few supertalented athletes who feel it's unfair to them, but the vast vast majority of student athletes benefit from the system immensely.

Well these are the ones who generate the sales too. How many people buy a Tim Tebow jersey. Why is that jersey valuable? It's because it's a Tim Tebow jersey, but he gets nothing out of it. Tim Tebow may not go on to make much money as a pro, but he would have made millions if allowed to do endorsements in college.

How about the guys from George Mason, I bet they could have made 100s of thousands of dollars if they could have done endorsements during their Cinderella tourney run, but they aren't going to go on to make any money later.

I'll grant you that student athletes should be allowed to make money outside of the university setting in endorsements or something. That's fine. But there would be only a handful who could make any kind of decent money doing that.

This has always been my primary complaint. If this happened, then I'd be fine with everything else the way it was. Of course, this is a slippery slope too, since basically you'll have boosters creating fake endorsements rather than donating to the school.
 

Hendu0520

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I went to Temple University in Philly and did the same job as Fred calling alumni and asking for money. Which sucked by the way, you are calling people who are in thousands of dollars of debt just graduated and asking for money, ha. Temple was only half funded by the state and of the other half prob about 30% came from football and mostly the basketball team. (Cheney was there and they were a top 10 team at the time) But I was amazed at how many sports Temple had. They had a woman's rugby team. I'm sorry but the sports that don't make any money can't complain if they are cut. Doug is not saying to give all the money to the players it wouldn't be much. And if the boy's and girl's rugby teams get cut or the feild hockey team. Men's field hockey? Is that even a sport? In high school its not. Cut those outer tier sports and give that bit of money to the players, not much, but just enough where they don't have to worry about getting a job while they are in school. Also relax some of the rules, maybe boosters could give some money, but highly regulated and no do not let agents get involved that opens up too much crap.
 

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