re: The NCAA should allow pay for play

The VAST majority of football programs lose money already...and nearly every single other sport does too...so what happens when you have to pay ALL of the athletes in every sport regardless of gender, because that is EXACTLY what would happen. One of 2 things, tuition would explode or college athletics would be dropped altogether. Students that could have had a phenomenal experience and gone to school for free, instead of graduating with $100k in debt...now will just be like every other student...and this will apply to 95%+ of potential student-athletes. So who have you helped with this poorly considered nonsense? Only the most elite of elite athletes...and there would be a mass consolidation of them at the schools that could afford it. So the people that need the help the least, getting the help the most, on the shoulders of everyone else.

This is beyond asinine.

As someone else posted, Title XI. And it's not just women athletes you'd need to pay, what about the cross country team, the golf team, the baseball team? These athletes may work just as hard, or harder than the football players.

Different sports generate different levels of revenue for each school. In the SEC, football obviously rules, but Duke may make as much or more on basketball. At Oregon, track is probably a revenue generating and profitable sport.

How are you going to come up with the money to pay the athletes? Sure football and basketball generate A LOT of money, but it's already spoken for. Who's willing to give up their or reduce their share? That's right, no one so the cost of broadcasting and attending games just went up.

While the $40K might be fair to pay the "average" athlete, there's no way you could pay a Trevor Lawrence, Jake Fromm, Mark Ingram, or even a Manti Te'o or JFF anything close to what their "worth." What about the kid who comes out of high school as a pretty average athlete and then blossoms in college? Does he renegotiate his deal every year?

They're already getting compensation in the form of a free education and coaching so they can make it to the next level (assuming the talent and work ethic is there).

It's not a perfect system now, but few things are, and it's a lot less broken than some would have you believe.

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A compromise would be to pay players a reasonable amount of money

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This still monitizes played who can be exploited by lawyers, agents, baby mommas, and gamblers.

Better way...

NCAA pay all medical via national insurance policies
Kids get education and exposure (worth 100K to 200K)
Trust fund is set up to provide small "safety net" after kids have graduated



To have a reasonable discussion than the simple idea of paying player you have to set up a system that protects them long term from the remoras who will exist when money is available to 18 year old kids.

The problem is there is no way the NCAA can regulate this, it's just going to create even more of an imbalance across the sports. Can you imagine the Ohio States and Alabamas paying of players vs. even very good mid-majors like Boise State? If people think the sport is pretty imbalanced right now, paying the players is going to make it way, way worse.

Stop this bullshite. They are getting “paid”. I just dropped $100k for tuition, room and board for a 4-year degree for my daughter (no pics) who graduated summa cum laud from high school, with honors from college and now works with autistic children.

These players are getting a free ride if they can cover a slot receiver.

If they aren’t making the most of this opportunity, it’s on them. They are welcome to quit school and make their bank on their skill set.

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Most schools lose money on athletics already. You would effectively be killing college sports

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This.

Outside, of the top 35 teams in CFB. Revenue and expenses get really close and start to turn upside down. What marginal profit they do make is redistributed to other Title IX and low earning sports/programs.

Where would the pay come from, as you would have to raise revenue elsewhere to make up the losses to the existing structures. Ticket prices, concessions, trademark/merchandise fees and costs, tv contracts and PPV, college student "athletic fees" and tuition, coaching and staff quality, facilities, current student athlete services are all automatically affected by paying players.

It would kill college athletics as it is. But, maybe an emergence of the Big 3 + girls BB and softball (and equestrian of course) works for all, and there may be a way forward in the discussion.

But, the second and third order effects should give a reason to take pause. There is a reason that college athletics were regulated, afterall. It isn't and shouldn't be a free market. But, that is the fun of not learning from our past.

At some point, we need to stop conflating student-athletes with semi-pro players. As mentioned above by Straws, it isn't like they are not being compensated.

I'd much rather see provisions to guarantee graduating players a portion of revenue based on their contributions to the program and merchandise sold. It would incentivize education, and be scalable across all sports, distributed equally on the basis of revenue the sport earns. So, a football player may get 50k as he leaves school and a female lacrosse player 125 bucks. Much more fair.

I think that paying players is the wrong angle. Many folks don't realize how the football and basketball revenue is used to fund the other sporting programs for those schools. Paying players just isn't feasible.

Now, allowing players to make money off of their likeness is a completely different, and more reasonable option. If a college player can sign a shirt and make $500...let him.

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I think that paying players is the wrong angle. Many folks don't realize how the football and basketball revenue is used to fund the other sporting programs for those schools. Paying players just isn't feasible.

Now, allowing players to make money off of their likeness is a completely different, and more reasonable option. If a college player can sign a shirt and make $500...let him.

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Its a distinction without a difference...
"Mr. star recruit, if you come here we have alumni that will pledge $500k to purchase your merchandise and will provide you will all of the profits."

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The VAST majority of football programs lose money already...and nearly every single other sport does too...so what happens when you have to pay ALL of the athletes in every sport regardless of gender, because that is EXACTLY what would happen.

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You would not pay them the same. Just by allowing them to profit off of their likeness you would create a "fair" way for them to profit that separates women's soccer from men's football.

The reality is that athletic departments put crazy money into coaches salaries and building campaigns instead of paying players. They are a non-profit essentially, so by definition they need to show they are spending all of their money. What would happen is that coaches salaries would fall and athletic departments would get cut and building campaigns would get slashed. That probably wouldn't be a bad thing.