Bold Prediction - End of Amateur Athletes

[rubber_duck]

This should generate some fun discussion:

The lawsuit between the college players and the NCAA may require several trips through the courts before it is finally settled, but it will eventually force through sweeping changes in the structure of what is the current college sports landscape.

Over the past several decades the NCAA has put in place volumes of regulations based on a few guiding principles. One of the fundamental principles is that these are amateur athletic events. This is focus of the court challenges facing the NCAA today.

The amateur status of NCAA football and men’s basketball will be overturned by the courts. There is no argument that the NCAA can possibly use to defend this against multiple court challenges:
- Many of the head coaches earn millions of dollars a year in compensation.
- Many of the assistant coaches earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
- Television contracts are measured in the billions of dollars.
- Football stadium sizes and gate receipts are in excess of the NFL’s.
- The associated universities claim to make millions of dollars per year from their respective football and basketball teams.

These are things associated with businesses, not amateur organizations.

At this time attorneys for the suing players have formulated at least one very powerful argument on their clients’ behalf. For decades the NCAA has claimed that the student athletes are compensated for their work through: room, board, tuition and books. This very claim will be the undoing of the NCAA as we know it today.

By claiming that the students receive fair compensation the NCAA is admitting that the players are being paid for their work. In essence, the players are employees of the universities. This opens the door to a myriad of legal problems that the NCAA must now attempt to dodge including:
- The NCAA places severe restriction on these employees from earning outside income.
- The NCAA has FIXED the compensation of these employees to the cost of: room, board, tuition and books.

Those are the two big ones that will undo the NCAA. What will happen to college football and basketball when the courts finally rule that a player’s compensation cannot be limited to: room, board, tuition and books? This will usher in the beginning of a fascinating change in American sports.

Top football programs (Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, USC, etc.) will hire the best athletes for their teams with rosters that are bankrolled by gate receipts and boosters. Other schools in the same conferences will struggle to keep up (Mississippi St., Indiana, Iowa State, Arizona, etc.) The payroll for many of these schools will be in the tens of millions of dollars annually.

The driving issue here is that most of these football programs are funded by state tax payers. Will the citizens of Colorado be willing to add an additional $15 million to the universities budget to have their football program keep up with USC’s? Will the tax payers in the state of Oklahoma be willing to maintain the rosters of two football programs in an attempt to keep up with the millions and millions that Texas will spend?

In short … no.

Once the courts rule that NCAA football and basketball are professional organizations, this will end the charade that has been playing for many years. The football and basketball programs having been declared professional and the cost of hiring the players escalating quickly will push several states to re-evaluate their “programs.”

What will happen is anybody’s guess. One scenario:
The football programs are spun-off from the universities as independent businesses, but retain their affiliation for marketing reasons. Over time the spun-off football programs would realign into new divisions primarily based on stadium receipts and roster payroll. Much like Major League Baseball, the NFL would now have a legitimate farm system with A, AA and AAA.

[italian_stallion21]

Great post, and I think you're bang on. There's going to be a lot of money thrown around to try and squash this but the greediness of the NCAA and exploitation of the players has led to the inevitable. It's almost like what Mark Cuban just said about the NFL getting too greedy, becoming hogs that will be slaughtered. The NCAA is that hog and it's on its way.

[Payton34]

If people could figure out a way to compensate athletes that wouldn't blatantly give power schools a decided advantage? I'd be all for it. Fact is that you really can't, and THAT is the reason players do not get paid. And let's not sit here and pretend that the school exploiting the athlete is a one-way street... Playing in the NCAA gives these kids exposure and primes them to be marketable. (Not to mention that ANY of us who paid our own way through four years of college, room, board, etc.. would have KILLED to have a full ride.).. There IS a reason why kids out of High School don't flock to the CFL or XFL or WFL or whatever other league is out there..... THAT is where they should go if all they care about is "Gettin' PAID!!!".... Yes there is PLENTY of hypocrisy in the system, but NOBODY is clean here...

[TommyL31]

If I'm the players (or coaches) I wouldn't be pushing to open things up for more payment because I think if that happens eventually they will get spun out as minor leagues and not be attached to schools. Taxpayers (or private donors if we're talking private schools) are probably not going to be supportive of actually supplying athletes with salaries. Many taxplayers complain about the salaries of politicians and public servants and you think they're going to DIRECTLY pay students to play sports with tax dollars? Try telling a Duke fan that his tax dollars are going to pay the salaries of the Tar Heels (they're already paying the coach). Also, while a lot of the bowl teams make money, most college football programs don't so unless the big name schools are going to have some sort of profit sharing why would these other schools try to sink themselves by keeping a team if they have to pay the players?

And if the college football programs spin out into private entities and become NFL minor leagues then the NCAA athletes should look at the economics of minor leagues. Minor leaguers don't make that much and, depending on the school, it's actually less than room, board, and tuition. And that's not because the sport doesn't make money because major league baseball players are paid more than NFL players. Minor league coaches aren't multi-million dollar coaches either...because fewer people want to watch minor league games. And who wants to sponsor the minor leagues?

And then, fringe players would have to make the choice of playing minor league football or going to college. At least now, if you love playing football but know the odds that you'll be able to go pro are low you can get an education while playing. So maybe there would still be college football teams too (like there are still college baseball teams) but maybe many of the top players would go to the minors in order to get paid so it would diminish the quality. So where would the money and/or advertisers go? I think they might stay in college both because of tradition and I think people are more likely to want to follow a local college team where they might have gone and which competes in an entirely separate league than the pros. I don't think it would go to the minors which then is clearly positioned as an inferior analog to the NFL.

The money also could just dry up and it could start to resemble NCAA baseball or hockey where there is certainly publicity around but not at the level of NCAA football.

I'm really not sure how the players improve their situation here. They could change it and/or hurt it and MAYBE help it in the short term but I don't see how this helps them in the long run.

[clarion contrarion]

I say good for the kids
the greedy scum university presidents having been stuffing their pockets full at every opportunity
playing bowl games between two 6-6 teams or 7th or 8th play conference finishers
ridiculous travel schedules
bizarre (to be kind) conference turnover and affiliations
coaches just hopping from job to job to job whilst the kids are tied to ignorant transfer rules
kids have renewable 1 year scholarships whilst the coaches have guaranteed contracts
every network but PBS & the weather channel televising games
coaches making 20 times what the states governor is paid
trying to justify the idiotic title nine rules by saying the monies the football and basketball program cannot be used to compensate them because the women's field hockey or cross country teams would want paid also ........ those programs should be self sufficient or terminated . The schools make tons of business decisions but the kids are vilified for even thinking about treating their service as a business asset.

the greedy corrupt ncaa needs a wooden stake thru the heart and hopefully this is it .... perhaps it also forces goodell and the greedy NFL owners to get off their mountains of cash and start a minor league feeder system

[CrimsonKodiak]

I'll be very interested to see the outcome of this law suit !

basically I agree with you in that inevitably college sport will deviate into a spin off league. Within a few years they will just be associated with the university by name (maybe) and field location.

From there the knock on effect will be entry into the NFL at a younger age. Why play and get paid in "college" ball when you can make more money in NFL? Similar to ages in NHL drafts. These kids are going to be too young and not physical enough to handle themselves leading to more injuries!

Once professional college players leave for professional NFL the college system will get diluted and lower the pedigree. Leading to lower interest and ultimately lower revenues cascading the entire system into a feeder league for NFL.

Its a horrible situation for college sport, and one that ultimately we (you and I) are responsible for. If we weren't willing to shell out money to watch college games, then networks wouldn't shell out big money for rights and advertising.

If this lawsuit will ultimately make things worse; how else do you fairly resolve the NCAA revenue issue?

[ccj]

If people could figure out a way to compensate athletes that wouldn't blatantly give power schools a decided advantage? I'd be all for it. Fact is that you really can't, and THAT is the reason players do not get paid. And let's not sit here and pretend that the school exploiting the athlete is a one-way street... Playing in the NCAA gives these kids exposure and primes them to be marketable. (Not to mention that ANY of us who paid our own way through four years of college, room, board, etc.. would have KILLED to have a full ride.).. There IS a reason why kids out of High School don't flock to the CFL or XFL or WFL or whatever other league is out there..... THAT is where they should go if all they care about is "Gettin' PAID!!!".... Yes there is PLENTY of hypocrisy in the system, but NOBODY is clean here...

The kids are taken advantage of pure and simple. Their motives, ignorance, or other transgressions are immaterial to the conversation.

While there are many caveats and exceptions the following, leagues run as follows:
NFL TV revenue is to be applied to players in the form of salary/benefits at a 55% ratio
NHL 55%
NBA 51.15%

Now, we have stuff like this: https://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Sign ... -De/65219/
10.8 billion TV contract over 14 years paid roughly 740m to member colleges per year. This is just March Madness mind you, not ticket sales, not merchandise, and not other TV contracts. If we're being remotely fair as per the market 50% of that money should be paid to the athletes.

We're not talking about tax payer money (unless we're talking about paying for new pro stadiums).

So the per year player's cut for teams who participate in March Madness:
10.8 b* 50% = 5.4b. 5.4b/14 years = 385m/y, 385m/68 teams = 5.7m per team per year, 5.7m/ ~12 players = $472k per player per year. If we're talking roughly equivalent to their professional counterparts where revenue sharing is concerned... go ahead and subtract 60k for tuition, room and board if you want to even though not every player is on scholarship.

Penn State was fined 60 million for what the NCAA deemed as one year of gross revenue. So that's easy, 30 million per year should be allocated to the players. A college team can have a ton of players, Alamaba lists 125 for its roster so 30m/125 is 240k per player per year.

These numbers would vary from college to college of course. As for parity... who cares? Parity doesn't exist now and doesn't have a meaningful place in the conversation for whether or not we should continue the exploitation of the youth involved.

[Payton34]

If people could figure out a way to compensate athletes that wouldn't blatantly give power schools a decided advantage? I'd be all for it. Fact is that you really can't, and THAT is the reason players do not get paid. And let's not sit here and pretend that the school exploiting the athlete is a one-way street... Playing in the NCAA gives these kids exposure and primes them to be marketable. (Not to mention that ANY of us who paid our own way through four years of college, room, board, etc.. would have KILLED to have a full ride.).. There IS a reason why kids out of High School don't flock to the CFL or XFL or WFL or whatever other league is out there..... THAT is where they should go if all they care about is "Gettin' PAID!!!".... Yes there is PLENTY of hypocrisy in the system, but NOBODY is clean here...

The kids are taken advantage of pure and simple. Their motives, ignorance, or other transgressions are immaterial to the conversation.

While there are many caveats and exceptions the following, leagues run as follows:
NFL TV revenue is to be applied to players in the form of salary/benefits at a 55% ratio
NHL 55%
NBA 51.15%

Now, we have stuff like this: https://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Sign ... -De/65219/
10.8 billion TV contract over 14 years paid roughly 740m to member colleges per year. This is just March Madness mind you, not ticket sales, not merchandise, and not other TV contracts. If we're being remotely fair as per the market 50% of that money should be paid to the athletes.

We're not talking about tax payer money (unless we're talking about paying for new pro stadiums).

So the per year player's cut for teams who participate in March Madness:
10.8 b* 50% = 5.4b. 5.4b/14 years = 385m/y, 385m/68 teams = 5.7m per team per year, 5.7m/ ~12 players = $472k per player per year. If we're talking roughly equivalent to their professional counterparts where revenue sharing is concerned... go ahead and subtract 60k for tuition, room and board if you want to even though not every player is on scholarship.

Penn State was fined 60 million for what the NCAA deemed as one year of gross revenue. So that's easy, 30 million per year should be allocated to the players. A college team can have a ton of players, Alamaba lists 125 for its roster so 30m/125 is 240k per player per year.

These numbers would vary from college to college of course. As for parity... who cares? Parity doesn't exist now and doesn't have a meaningful place in the conversation for whether or not we should continue the exploitation of the youth involved.

Universities make money off athletics, sure... They have gotten out of control in trying to figure out how to make more money, sure... What is DIFFERENT about college athletics from the student perspective today, than say, 20 years ago? When I hear that the poor football player can't even afford to take his girlfriend out to the movies, I ask, "Were they able to take their girlfriend out to the movies when they were living at home? How about other students there on scholarship? Are they living high on the hog or something?"...

The purpose of "The scholarship" is to get an education... A FREE education at that. The school gives this because a student, and athlete, a musician, etc... has a particular talent that the school intends to nurture and grow and they DO that. I really don't think the NCAA and its member institutions have been refusing to pay football players because they don't want to give up any of their hordes of $$$ they make... There simply isn't a way to do it that can't be EASILY abused by schools with major backing from boosters or what have you. That has ALWAYS been the sticking point... Why can't a football player get a job? It isn't because the schools are being d!cks about it. Its because ole Willy C. Booster who owns a car dealership is going to pay the star QB $40 K to show up and do nothing for an hour and go home as part of a cushy deal with the university to recruit him....

IF we want to blow up this system? Fine. But these kids are going to be cutting off their noses to spite their collective face in doing so... They will go make a meager salary in an NFL minor league making squat and have NO education to show for it and NO prospects should their career fail....

[ccj]

The purpose of "The scholarship" is to get an education...

I'd argue that purpose of a college specific scholarship is for an educational institution to lure desirable candidates to their institution therefore making it more prestigious and desirable to other paying customers. The recipient of the scholarship can then determine what they want to do with it. Usually scholastic success is required to maintain the scholarship year to year.

I don't really follow your argument of the "poor football player". I think the only argument that matters is that a labor body creates a product and is not fairly compensated.

[RCogburn]

This is going to open a box that a lot of people haven't thought about yet. Not only are you going to have to pay football and basketball players, you will also have to pay any scholarship player in any sport. And according to title 9, women athletes will also have to be paid, and be paid the same as men. Football and basketball generate the money to fund all of these other sports. The small schools will probably have to give up awarding athletic scholarships just because they won't have the money to pay all of these athletes. As far as the big schools go, will they be allowed to pay high school athletes anything they want or will there be a wage scale? If it's a wage scale that will also be challenged in court. Collusion. If it's anything they want, that will definitely end small school athletics. If this holds up, which I assume it will, college sports has just changed and IMO not for the better.

[TommyL31]

IF we want to blow up this system? Fine. But these kids are going to be cutting off their noses to spite their collective face in doing so... They will go make a meager salary in an NFL minor league making squat and have NO education to show for it and NO prospects should their career fail....

This pretty much sums up how I feel this will go down.

If the players want to get paid (especially anything close to a 'professional' salary) these teams are not going to be affiliated with schools. The student part of the 'student-athlete' is already a joke at many of these schools. How do you think it's going to go over when some of the football team are getting paid more than their professors? That's why that's not going to happen. If they start getting paid it won't be attached to schools anymore. Do you think playing for the Austin Rough Riders (the new AAA affiliate of the Houston Texans) has anywhere near the mass appeal and marketability to people as player for the University of Texas Longhorns? How many Texas alums are there?

It's not only the players who are the product. Honestly I would say the brand of the school means that the players gain recognition and marketability so that a lot of these guys are known well before they play an NFL snap.

If people are so concerned about the players making money then lower the restrictions on draft eligibility. Currently you have to have been out of high school for 3 years to be eligible for the NFL draft. Lower that to 1 (like the NBA) and then players can decide whether to chase the money after one year or to stay 2, 3, or 4 years in hopes of raising your draft stock high enough and developing by getting playing time in college that you increase your overall earning potential. Doesn't that pretty much solve the problem.

If players could enter the NFL draft at age 19 and they succeed and get paid, good for them. If they can't and CHOOSE to stay in the NCAA regardless of the financial model of college football, well, you know how to get paid. If you're good enough, you can, if not, then maybe it's not you who is actually generating those revenues anyway.

[ccj]

It's not only the players who are the product. Honestly I would say the brand of the school means that the players gain recognition and marketability so that a lot of these guys are known well before they play an NFL snap.

The overwhelming majority of Division 1 College Football players do not get drafted or ever play in the NFL. About 115 D1 colleges can offer 85 scholarships per year (85*115=9775). The draft is 32 teams * 7 rounds=224 players barring some compensatory picks. The recognition gained would be gained regardless of where these players peddled their wares. See, for example, players drafted into the NBA from Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Though I'm sure the 9500 players who don't get drafted can fall back on the recognition they've gained. The zero dollars and farcical education garnered through sports scholarship is just additional bonus. Sorry, I've become sarcastic when I wanted to keep this very fact oriented.

[TommyL31]

It's not only the players who are the product. Honestly I would say the brand of the school means that the players gain recognition and marketability so that a lot of these guys are known well before they play an NFL snap.

The overwhelming majority of Division 1 College Football players do not get drafted or ever play in the NFL. About 115 D1 colleges can offer 85 scholarships per year (85*115=9775). The draft is 32 teams * 7 rounds=224 players barring some compensatory picks. The recognition gained would be gained regardless of where these players peddled their wares. See, for example, players drafted into the NBA from Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Though I'm sure the 9500 players who don't get drafted can fall back on the recognition they've gained. The zero dollars and farcical education garnered through sports scholarship is just additional bonus. Sorry, I've become sarcastic when I wanted to keep this very fact oriented.

I should have been more specific as I realize that most college football players don't get recognition. I was referring to the players who hypothetically could be making money if they were going pro but they have to stay in college. They have much better exposure than they would in a minor league or in most other college sports.

As far as those who will never be able to go pro, they're getting a FREE education. In a society where everyone is complaining about the exploding costs of education call me crazy if I don't think getting one for free isn't a pretty good deal. Normal students have to weigh the cost of in-state vs. out of state and public vs. private tuition but if you can get a football scholarship you could go to Stanford or any of the Ivy league schools for free. And it's possible for your education as a football student not to be a farce if you take it seriously. If you're not good enough to go pro you probably should.

I don't see how those same players lives would be improved if the system transformed into a minor league system that would likely be drastically less popular than college football and therefore the money wouldn't even sniff $100k for any players. That system would still require plenty of players who will never make it in the NFL. I doubt the average career length of a minor league football player would be much longer than 4 years. They'd get a modest salary during those years and have no education. I don't really see that as a better outcome.

I mean, I suppose that would make the schools more academic in nature since they wouldn't be home to the large number of players who have no interest in an education and are only there for sports. I suppose for those interested in an education you could still have school football programs.

I still say the best solution is to let players enter the draft earlier. That way, those who are good enough to make money can go do it and those that are good enough to play in college but not the pros, they can get paid with a free education and play football while doing it. On a related note, and I'm not sure it would actually work this way, but if players could leave after 1 year but you kept the same number of scholarships wouldn't that mean more players who couldn't make the NFL would be on NCAA football scholarships thereby giving more people a chance at an education?

[Payton34]

The purpose of "The scholarship" is to get an education...

I'd argue that purpose of a college specific scholarship is for an educational institution to lure desirable candidates to their institution therefore making it more prestigious and desirable to other paying customers. The recipient of the scholarship can then determine what they want to do with it. Usually scholastic success is required to maintain the scholarship year to year.

I don't really follow your argument of the "poor football player". I think the only argument that matters is that a labor body creates a product and is not fairly compensated.

The "product" was there long before it became a cash cow... Again, I wait for someone.... ANYONE.... to provide a model that colleges can pay players that would be equitable and not easily exploited by boosters and their schools....

By "poor football player"? Well, I don't know where you went to college. I attended Florida State and can tell you that it didn't appear that the football team was left destitute by the university. Oh dear, they can't afford to go out for pizza? Hey, guess what? Neither could most of us... This isn't a phenomenon that is unique to the college athlete. The difference was, of course, that they had their own separate dining hall where they could pig out on all the food they wanted for free, whereas we regular Joes had to pay a few grand for the meal plan and eat with the rest of the common folk... THAT is what I'm referring to....

What really needs to happen is that students coming out of high school need to make a choice. If all they care about is football? A football only path needs to be set up for them to pursue. If they decide they want to go to school and play college ball? They can do that on scholarship as well, but it needs to be made perfectly clear what the rules are and they need to be followed (Much better than they are now with regard to academic qualifications, etc...). This has been a failure of both the NCAA and the student athletes... Along those lines I also believe that if a school offers an athlete a scholarship that it should be a full guaranteed scholarship that cannot be pulled except in very specific circumstances (Crime, or Student making ZERO effort academically, etc...).

Another potential thought is that perhaps scholarships for student athletes can be deferred, where a student plays 2-4 years at a university, but is not required to pursue academics at that time, but is granted a full scholarship to do so when their playing career ends.... Obviously a lot of details would need to be hashed out with that one, but its a thought.

[Falim]

I don't think there's going to be big changes in direct compensation from the school to the players. What I think will happen is players will be able to make money on their likeness from autographs, endorsements, etc. I think there will be college jersey sales with the players name on it and probably some video game licensing deals where players get a cut. I think there's also a chance stipends get increased and athletes get medical benefits for injuries sustained during the sport even after school.


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