Explain why college athletes shouldn't/won't ever get paid.

This. The mid-major school I cover cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, afford stipends.

Instead of making the schools/NCAA compensate athletes, which they do via scholarships anyway, they should get rid of the rules that keep athletes from making money themselves. Let them get jobs. Let them do endorsements. Let some booster give them $250K.

Yeah abuse would be rampant, but it happens anyway. I liken it to legalization of drugs.

And 5-year scholarships should happen stat. If a coach knew he couldn't over-recruit or walk into a job and essentially fire every kid he inherited, it would cut down on their movement, and as a result of that, the coaches would lose their leverage to hold their own universities hostage to get a raise.

 

How about eliminating scholarships and just pay the players? Then they all get paid according to their value and how the generate revenue for the school. Problem solved!

 

I'll pay attention to Nocera's argument for paying players, or anyone else's, when it pays 99 percent of its attention to the 99 percent of the student-athletes that any potential plan would affect. And that means: non-BCS schools and non-revenue sports.

Because you can't just pay football and men's basketball players at big schools. You just can't.

Until Nocera, or anyone else, can argue how the other schools and the other sports are going to be able to afford it ... everything else is white noise.

 

When every male Division I varsity athlete has a full ride, then I'll start worrying about giving even more to football and basketball players.

Title IX has clearly established that there will be scholarships for women athletes. If a school attempted to take those away now, there would be a great uproar.

So why can't schools take this revenue that so many sportheads want to play with and give to the star QB, and use it to get the soccer, baseball, golf and track kids athletic scholarships?

 

I don't like the entire premise of the discussion. If we're all in such a freakin' hurry to pay players, how about the NFL and the NBA doing this: Establish minor leagues.

We're talking about throwing all of this money around, and none of this has one damn thing to do with running a university and educating students. Not. One. Damn. Thing. Let the NFL use some of its $6 billion or $9 billion or whatever it makes and run its own league. Yeah, yeah, I can hear the arguments against it now: it pisses all over tradition, fans won't follow it, blah, blah, blah ... if it has the top 18-22 year old players, why wouldn't people watch?

Obviously, I realize nothing like that is going to happen, but the whole conversation drives me crazy. The schools and the networks are all making too much money to admit that big-time college sports are incompatible with the mission of higher education. What's needed is real change, not university-sanctioned capitalism.

 

I can't support this logic. The 27th member of the men's swimming team does not need to be getting a full scholarship before football players get more from their schools.

They can, but the way they are doing it right now is as a cartel, not on an individual basis, which is also known as a conspiracy in restraint of trade (anti-trust violation). There has to be some pro-competitive effects to justify the restraint; the schools can't just decide they want it this way; there has to be some benefit to the market for football and basketball player services that results from the scholarship and pay limitations.

 

That's been the problem with the national coverage of this issue from the start. It's always couched as if the entire Division I membership can pay athletes the same way a BCS school can.

 

And, the main purpose of universities, most of the ones we're really referring to being funded by you and I, is not to run an athletics program. If we're going to pour money into something, pour it into research and teaching aimed toward curing cancer or other things that are like killing people. I feel not one bit of sorrow for the poor, oppressed athlete with six figures worth of scholarship while numerous of his fellow students will be burdened by loan debt for years. The poor, oppressed athlete who will have a major leg up on networking and fat cats getting them cush jobs. The poor, oppressed athlete who has an army of tutors at his disposal. Cry me a fucking river.

 

You still need to admit that there are athletes at a bunch of schools who <b>make</b> money for the universities. Starters at Texas, Ohio State, Oregon, UCLA, Virginia Tech, Georgia, LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Michigan, Penn State, Oklahoma State, etc. are not having money "poured" into them. They are investments that pay off more than their cost.

Your problem is with every women's sports team in the country (sans Tennessee and Connecticut basketball, and a few others), most men's basketball teams, and almost every other men's team in the country. Almost without fail, football runs a profit for universities in BCS-AQ conferences. The reason the athletic departments sometimes drain money from general funds is all those other sports.

There are about 20-30 schools where athletic money helps fund the general academy. Do you think the professors at those schools want the football team shut down?

 

College football players could set up an Occupy movement on their fields.

 

Research assistants also make money for their universities, especially in the sciences. Where is their large stipend?

 

Link?

BCS football programs do make a ton of money, but they also spend a ton of money.