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 hotsauceman1 wrote:

1: It was just a story I found, to avoid making a similiar topic I posted this

Actually mate, it's already got its own thread a while back... Not that article in particular, but that whole situation... Basically, the one lady was contracted by the school to conduct a study of it's "student"-athletes, and attempted to take legal actions or some such against her when her report and findings went contrary to what they obviously wanted to see.

I know, I just found it know, thought it would be a good example of college sports. Plus, No necroing.

Isn't part of school accreditation dependent on hiring of graduates? If you up with lots of "sports" majors not getting hired it would make the university look less than stellar. But then I wonder about the hiring rate of athletes on general (mainly the football and basketball ones).

 cincydooley wrote:
If you think there's any prestige outside of the two revenue sports, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Prestige with the general population? Not really. Prestige with certain people? Yes. Why else do you think schools dump money into those sports? Selfless love of the ideal of athletic competition?

Let them major in their sports. Let their weight training and practice count towards their degree, because for many of them their chosen profession is....SPORTS! Then fill out the rest of that curriculum with classes like brand management, marketing, personal finance and accounting, public speaking, etc. You know, gak that will actually matter to them when they're professional athletes. Then give them the option to specialize in something like broadcasting or coaching. Not allowing them to major in something pertinent to their chosen profession LIKE EVERY OTHER STUDENT is a problem. And it's fixable.

I don't see anything in this that merits a university degree. Those degrees are supposed to reward academic success, not just working really hard in the gym or scoring lots of points in a game.

And let's be honest here, even if you can speculate about some theoretical sports degree that is more than a certificate of eligibility to play minor-league football you know perfectly well that the academic standards for that degree in the real world will be nowhere near the ideal standard. You're going to have coaching "classes" that consist of playing more football and getting whatever grade the athlete needs to keep their eligibility.

That gap will widen even further and it'll kill any semblance of competition that still exists in the sport.

Tell someone who cares. I fail to see any reason why "competition" is worth supporting blatant violations of minimum wage laws and pretending that paid employees are magically not employees if you call them "students". Whether or not the business of minor league sports succeeds in creating an enjoyable product is entirely in their hands, they should be treated just like any other business instead of getting special favors. You know, just like how professional sports leagues are on their own and don't get to claim "competitiveness" as an excuse for violating labor laws. If the NFL fails to be competitive enough that people want to watch it then the NFL will go out of business, and that's how it should be.

Do I personally think the scholarships, free meals, free room and board, free clothing, free shoes, etc. are more than enough.

But what you or I think is "enough" is irrelevant. What matters is the fair-market value of their labor, and they are currently denied the ability to negotiate for better pay. Take away the absurd "amateur" rules and let the market decide how much an athlete is worth.

Another solution is obviously to force the NFL to create their own "farm system" like the NBA, NHL, and MLB have. Is that feasible? I don't know.

Who exactly is going to do this "forcing" and with what justification?


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 cincydooley wrote:
This also isn't the case at every university. At all.

Every university? Of course not. But you're incredibly optimistic if you think that UNC is the only school that is guilty of this kind of stuff. UNC just made the mistake of cheating too blatantly in a town where football isn't all that important. The football program gets to be the scapegoat and let UNC talk loudly about how Things Are Being Done About This, while the basketball team is supposedly innocent and continues business as usual. Now tell me this: do you honestly think that the basketball team was innocent, or is the real reason nothing is being done the fact that basketball is religion in Chapel Hill and nobody cares how much the players are cheating as long as they beat Duke?

 Peregrine wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
If you think there's any prestige outside of the two revenue sports, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Prestige with the general population? Not really. Prestige with certain people? Yes. Why else do you think schools dump money into those sports? Selfless love of the ideal of athletic competition?

For once I agree with Peregrine.... not many people know who the top Track and Field programs are in the NCAA, but as a guy who once ran track I know that Oregon (which also happens to be my home state) is usually one of, if not the best programs year after year.

As a rugby fan, I know that BYU, Cal, and Life University are three of the top perennial powerhouse programs in the country (its a shame they'll never really face each other... Well, I think Cal and BYU can, in the playoffs, but Life is in a whole different system)

I'm sure that guys who live college baseball can tell you who the most prestigious programs are for that sport... Just like I'm sure that hockey fans could tell me whether Minnesota, Boston or some other school is on top. There are obviously going to be some schools that excel in sports that aren't the "money makers" like football or basketball, I mean, look at many of the Iowa schools, or schools in that part of the country where wrestling is everything.

What matters is the fair-market value of their labor, and they are currently denied the ability to negotiate for better pay. Take away the absurd "amateur" rules and let the market decide how much an athlete is worth.

Arguably their already getting that. Market value isn't just what some thinks their work is worth but what the person giving the the work thinks its worth. You don't need collective bargaining to get your market worth (if anything, collective bargaining in numerous cases has resulted in workers market worth being inflated beyond its real value).

College athletes are likely in for a rude awakening when they realize they're just not worth as much as they think they are. I think most schools will be unwilling to indulge the idea of paying players (not without taking away other side benefits which would defeat the purpose imo).

How much do they get in the baseball and hockey minor leagues/farm teams? They're worth that prorated for the defferential between NFL average salaries and those average salaries.

 Frazzled wrote:
How much do they get in the baseball and hockey minor leagues/farm teams? They're worth that prorated for the defferential between NFL average salaries and those average salaries.

If we look at it from that area, the best thing to use in the United States is probably the NBA D-League salaries, which quote:

Salaries remain flat: $25,500, $19,000 and $13,000 for the league's three player classifications. Which means D-League players are virtually playing for free -- and a modest per diem on the road of $40 compared to $120 in the NBA -- although they do receive housing and insurance benefits.

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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:


I'm sure that guys who live college baseball can tell you who the most prestigious programs are for that sport... Just like I'm sure that hockey fans could tell me whether Minnesota, Boston or some other school is on top. There are obviously going to be some schools that excel in sports that aren't the "money makers" like football or basketball, I mean, look at many of the Iowa schools, or schools in that part of the country where wrestling is everything.

Who cares if a person interested in the sport can tell you. Of course they can. They actively follow it. What matters is Joe Casual fan.

And we'll roll with Iowa, since that's the example you used.

Iowa wrestling (which BTW isn't even a Top 3 B1G team anymore) operates at over a half million dollar loss.

Iowa Basketball (one of the profit sports) basically breaks even between the Men's and Women's programs.

The Football Team's $24MM profit supports all of these programs. If universities have to start cutting into that "profit" to pay Football and Basketball players, other programs that lose money will get cut.

Will Iowa Wrestling survive longer than Iowa Women's Field Hockey (operating at an $800,000 loss) because of that prestige? Most likely. But it still doesn't prevent other programs from being cut. This isn't that dissimilar from when NCAA wrestling was decimated due to title IX; tons of universities (the SEC, in particular) decided it was in their best interest to simply cut the program rather than spend the money to start another women's program. You can yap about 'prestige' all you want, but at the end of the day it's down to dollar bills.

*Note: USA Today would indicate that Iowa's athletic department, as a whole, actually operates at a loss

 cincydooley wrote:
*Note: USA Today would indicate that Iowa's athletic department, as a whole, actually operates at a loss

I've seen a breakdown for my university as well (Notre Dame). Men's football makes massive profit (as one would expect) and I think either men's or women's basketball makes a little cash. The rest either barely break even or are pretty massive money sinks.

I did calculate this out though. Apparently our football and basketball revenue makes back almost the cost of all our other sports programs (I forget the exact percentage and couldn't find the graph again I'm afraid). We were still operating at net loss though.

Is there any university where the sports programs all operate at a positive profit margin? I'm kinda curious.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
*Note: USA Today would indicate that Iowa's athletic department, as a whole, actually operates at a loss

I've seen a breakdown for my university as well (Notre Dame). Men's football makes massive profit (as one would expect) and I think either men's or women's basketball makes a little cash. The rest either barely break even or are pretty massive money sinks.

I did calculate this out though. Apparently our football and basketball revenue makes back almost the cost of all our other sports programs (I forget the exact percentage and couldn't find the graph again I'm afraid). We were still operating at net loss though.

Is there any university where the sports programs all operate at a positive profit margin? I'm kinda curious.

I think there's a few that do it without taking any subsidies: Texas, Ohio State, LSU I know are three. I don't think the list is very large, though.

The non-revenue sports almost can't make money, if you think about it. How can you sell enough tickets?

Women's basketball occurred to me as something that might have a chance at certain schools, and indeed 43 out of 341 programs ended up in the black per one article I found. Which still means 87% of WBB programs needed support from the revenue sports.



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 LordofHats wrote:

What matters is the fair-market value of their labor, and they are currently denied the ability to negotiate for better pay. Take away the absurd "amateur" rules and let the market decide how much an athlete is worth.

Arguably their already getting that. Market value isn't just what some thinks their work is worth but what the person giving the the work thinks its worth. You don't need collective bargaining to get your market worth (if anything, collective bargaining in numerous cases has resulted in workers market worth being inflated beyond its real value).

College athletes are likely in for a rude awakening when they realize they're just not worth as much as they think they are. I think most schools will be unwilling to indulge the idea of paying players (not without taking away other side benefits which would defeat the purpose imo).

Again, what happens to the 3rd string fullback in a "free market" college FB system?

There are some legitimate grievances, but I don't think the players in support of this have thought through the implications. Or maybe they just don't care. *shrug*

 gorgon wrote:
The non-revenue sports almost can't make money, if you think about it. How can you sell enough tickets?

Women's basketball occurred to me as something that might have a chance at certain schools, and indeed 43 out of 341 programs ended up in the black per one article I found. Which still means 87% of WBB programs needed support from the revenue sports.

That is a brutal number. And here's the link because I know some people will want it.

Also from the article:

"Only four women’s teams reported revenue over $4 million to the Department of Education last year, and none had a profit over $500,000."

 gorgon wrote:
The non-revenue sports almost can't make money, if you think about it. How can you sell enough tickets?

Well, the problem is, how many of the remaining sports are individual sports? I mean, track and wrestling both "require" meets where a whole conference is competing at once. Things like fencing, rowing and others are sports which don't lend themselves well to viewers. You really can't make much or any money with a set up where you must split revenues 10 or 12 ways.

Of course, some sporting events are held in places where charging admission is quite impossible. For instance, the University of Oregon's rugby club's home field is one of the city parks, not a stadium or a place where tickets can be sold... so even if they do allow for good spectating, it's hard to make money off of them through at least that one revenue source.

 cincydooley wrote:

Salaries remain flat: $25,500, $19,000 and $13,000 for the league's three player classifications. Which means D-League players are virtually playing for free -- and a modest per diem on the road of $40 compared to $120 in the NBA -- although they do receive housing and insurance benefits.

I could see a collective bargaining organization arguing for insurance benefits, especially given the joke that is the NCAA catastrophic injury program.

 LordofHats wrote:
Arguably their already getting that. Market value isn't just what some thinks their work is worth but what the person giving the the work thinks its worth. You don't need collective bargaining to get your market worth (if anything, collective bargaining in numerous cases has resulted in workers market worth being inflated beyond its real value).

Except there's no market right now. Minor-league teams are engaging in anti-competitive behavior by forming an agreement that players can not be paid beyond a certain approved scholarship, and effectively banning anyone who doesn't agree to those terms from ever working in the industry. Get rid of the NCAA's monopoly and force each team to negotiate individually as a separate business and then you can talk about players already having a fair situation.

And that's on top of the general issues with businesses trying to crush unions. There's a very good reason that anti-union policies are often illegal, and advocates of "right to work" laws are considered corrupt s who care more about Walmart's profit margins than the people they're supposed to be representing. Remove the ridiculous pretense of athletes being "amateurs" and not paid employees and what the NCAA is doing would be illegal in a lot of states.

College athletes are likely in for a rude awakening when they realize they're just not worth as much as they think they are.

I think you're wrong about that. If you just look at the housing/food/etc athletes get (since the "education" they get is of limited value at best) it's not a very impressive salary. Do you really think that a key player on a team that brings in millions of dollars in revenue is really worth less money than the average burger flipper?

And sure, they might lose some scholarships, but I suspect many of them won't care at all because those "scholarships" are nothing more than fake classes to meet the NCAA's eligibility requirement. In fact, they'd probably be happier if they didn't have to waste time pretending to be a student and just collected a normal paycheck.

I think most schools will be unwilling to indulge the idea of paying players (not without taking away other side benefits which would defeat the purpose imo).

Sure, most schools won't be willing at first. But when their precious football teams start losing because all of their potential recruits are going to schools with better pay the important alumni are going to call and tell the athletic department to start signing some paychecks or start looking for a new job. The current situation only "works" because anyone who starts offering their athletes a better deal is immediately banned from the industry. Take away the NCAA's monopoly position and that's no longer true.

 Peregrine wrote:


I think you're wrong about that. If you just look at the housing/food/etc athletes get (since the "education" they get is of limited value at best) it's not a very impressive salary. Do you really think that a key player on a team that brings in millions of dollars in revenue is really worth less money than the average burger flipper?

I think you don't have a very good grasp on the benefits a D1 Football player receives.

 cincydooley wrote:
I think you don't have a very good grasp on the benefits a D1 Football player receives.

Alright, so total up the cash value of those benefits and let's see them. And don't include inflated costs for things like overpriced dorm room rent, or tuition that goes to "classes" that exist for the sole purpose of maintaining eligibility to play sports.

 Peregrine wrote:


I think you're wrong about that. If you just look at the housing/food/etc athletes get (since the "education" they get is of limited value at best) it's not a very impressive salary. Do you really think that a key player on a team that brings in millions of dollars in revenue is really worth less money than the average burger flipper?

And how many schools actually have such players? The bulk of actual talent in college sports is concentrated in a few programs and held by a small number of the players.

And sure, they might lose some scholarships, but I suspect many of them won't care at all because those "scholarships" are nothing more than fake classes to meet the NCAA's eligibility requirement. In fact, they'd probably be happier if they didn't have to waste time pretending to be a student and just collected a normal paycheck.

They'll probably be less happy with their being no college sports at all, or with when the vast majority of them end up out of school with no NFL contract and no education. Schools should not be in the business of not educating people (yeah yeah, I know, they already don't educate them so too often, but at least right now that can stand up and say they try).

Sure, most schools won't be willing at first.

Most schools won't be willing period because they're already losing money on the program. Throw in that they now have to compete for players with other schools via pay (as in "pay me as more than this school will") and they'll just bow out entirely. The NCAA already has to spend millions a year to encourage many schools to keep their programs going. The NCAA isn't making enough bank to bite that cost and schools aren't going to want to either. Especially when the majority of schools just leave and the remaining schools have no one to really play against and the NCAA just falls over when the rest of the country stops caring.

As I said the last time we had this debate, not every school is University of Texas. The Longhorns are an oddity, not the standard. There is no where near as much profit in college sports as people fantasize there is.

 LordofHats wrote:
And how many schools actually have such players? The bulk of actual talent in college sports is concentrated in a few programs and held by a small number of the players.

I'm not disputing that. I'm sure there are lots of schools where the athletes are legitimate students who sometimes play a sport for fun between classes, and the "amateur" label is appropriate. But we're talking about the big-money sports and teams where it's a business and the athletes are paid employees in all but name.

They'll probably be less happy with their being no college sports at all, or with when the vast majority of them end up out of school with no NFL contract and no education.

College sports aren't going anywhere. Big-money sports with million-dollar coaching salaries, huge stadiums, big TV contracts, etc, might die because they can't compete with the NFL without getting free labor from their employees. But people will still play sports, and there will still be money for it because of the value it adds in attracting students. The people who would be hurt the most if the college sports industry disappeared are the people who can't get into college on their academic merits, and those people aren't getting an education anyway.

Most schools won't be willing period because they're already losing money on the program. Throw in that they now have to compete for players with other schools via pay (as in "pay me as more than this school will") and they'll just bow out entirely. The NCAA already has to spend millions a year to encourage many schools to keep their programs going. The NCAA isn't making enough bank to bite that cost and schools aren't going to want to either. Especially when the majority of schools just leave and the remaining schools have no one to really play against and the NCAA just falls over when the rest of the country stops caring.

Ok, let's say this happens. Let's say the profit margins on the system are so narrow that paying the athletes would completely break it. Let's not even consider things like cutting the salaries of absurdly overpaid coaches or playing in cheaper stadiums as a way to free up the money. My question now: so what? What exactly is the college sports industry providing that is so important that the NCAA and its member schools should be allowed to violate practically every labor law in existence in order to stay in business? Why should we be so terrified of the possibility of college football disappearing that we have to avoid that risk at all costs?

Just numbers:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/schools/finances/

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/salaries/