I hate it when Doyel makes me agree with him

Whenever someone tells me college athletes should be paid, I don't immediately skip to the fact that me and my student loans aren't exactly full of sympathy. Instead, I ask (like Doyel), "Who gets paid? How much? Why? How do you set up the pay scale? How do you justify it to those not getting paid as much? How do you make sure one college isn't paying a higher salary to entice recruits?"

It's so easy to just say "They bring in money!!! They should be paid!!!!!! They indentured servants!!! UNFAIR!!!!!!!" Not so easy to consider just how massive this particular can of worms happens to be.

 

Not to mention the connections a big time college athlete can make that could potentially set them up for after football. Call it a paid internship, with the pay being a college education.

With the NFL serious about its 18 game season, they should take a small portion of their tremendous earnings and invest in a minor league and do away with the borderline unconstitutional 3-year rule.

 

I find the "WHAT WOULD YOU PAY THE THIRD-STRING CENTER?" argument to be ridiculous. You pay him the same as you pay Mark Ingram. You essentially take whatever cut of the pie is feasible and divide it equally. You conceded that, even though the "value" of these scholarships in revenue producing sports is significant, it in no way approaches a moral exchange of what the value of the service is. The crew kids don't get money because they don't deserve money. They generate no revenue. But men's football and men's basketball do -- billions and billions of dollars.

The realistic people who advocate paying athletes are not talking about middle-class salaries here. They're talking about giving kids $200 a month for expenses outside room and board and books and tuition. I think that's totally realistic. Gary Williams made this point last week, which made national news, and it's a realistic one. If you're a scholarship basketball player from West Baltimore, there is a good chance you're not getting any money from your family to help you out, to give you, say, money to buy a iPod or a laptop or a night at the Olive Garden with your friends. But a kid who goes to Maryland who is eligible for financial aid (which scholarship kids are not) can get help, get a little extra money to do whatever the hell they want with it. Why do you think football and basketball players take money from agents? In part because they're at expensive universities with kids where mommy and daddy are footing the bill for every frat kid's SUV, and they feel a little out of place. They aren't stupid. They know they're bringing in millions of dollars to the university, and so the temptation is greater to accept a hundred dollar handshake from a booster when he comes around.

Paying them something eliminates some of the temptation. The financial gymnastics Doyel wants athletes to jump through seems a little silly when you could just put a little cash in their pockets instead of giving it to universities so they could feed it right to the coaches as a bonus for going 6-5 and winning the Outback Steakhouse Bowl Brought to you by Valtrex.

The main argument against it I see is Title IX implications. But I think you could make a pretty good case that revenue generating sports deserve to have their athletes paid something.

 

I think you would have to do it for every scholarship athlete in every sport, or nobody.

Other than football and men's basketball how many schools get revenue and turn a profit from other sports. A handful make money in women's hoops, but you can probably count how many on both hands. The same can be said about baseball and volleyball and with a few rare exceptions (maybe soccer at UNC?).

 

So, give the athletes a few hundred bucks a month to pay for expenses outside of college. In the meantime, forget about the students who are waiting tables until midnight or later to take care of the same type of expenses.

Using The University of Texas as an example, the base cost for tuition, fees, room and board is about $8,350 per semester, or $16,700 per year. Multiply that by four: $66,800. That's for an in-state student living on campus. Out of state living on campus? $148,000.

So, bring in an out-of-state football player, put him on scholarship and he gets about 150 grand worth of education, room and board and food with no cost. The cost for him to be in school is about $37,000 per year, which I'm guessing is more than what many on this site make in salary with a college degree.

And they deserve to be paid? Spare me.

 

There's plenty of money being made by schools to pay athletes who generate that money. The athletes' performances represent a revenue stream and they should share in that revenue stream.

 

The student waiting tables is admirable. Represents all we love to champion about America. But again, what is he or she doing to bring in millions of dollars to State U?

 

How did Doyel make you agree with him, hondo? Did he get you in a headlock?

 

It's the status of college football and basketball as minor leagues that generates the idea players should be paid. In baseball, track, golf, tennis, etc, athletes who feel it's in their best economic interest can just turn pro and see what happens. It would be more honest if the pro leagues (dream on) subsidized some form of payment, perhaps in escrow, for college football and basketball players. THEY are the ones reaping the benefits of the system as much or more than the colleges themselves.

 

This would be a direct violation of Title IX, which has proved its strength and durability time and again in the courts. For now and probably forevermore, the vast majority of athletic programs (not football teams but the entire department) are cash-strapped. Payng every athlete is not possible. And you can't just pay football and basketball players.

 

Another question. Cal just dropped five sports, including baseball. If the athletes were getting paid, would they then be eligible for unemployment benefits?

 

If the only athletes who were paid were football and men's basketball players Christine Brennan's head might explode.