Spencer Hall's "Broke"

This has, like normal, gone in a weird way.

To add to that, most big-time schools give out more high-end academic scholarships, that come with stipends, than athletic scholarships. It hasn't impacted the schools' bottom lines. That might be because the academic side isn't quite as bloated.

Out of curiosity, I counted up the number of athletic department staffers. It was 324, Roll Tide, assuming I didn't miss anyone and that includes eight football analysts of unknown duties but with names like Charlie Weis Jr., you can just guess.

So maybe, just maybe, instead of having hundreds of athletics department staffers, the university could pare that down and free up some money for the athletes.

Maybe work out some revenue sharing from merchandise sales, maybe make some arrangements to get the NFL to help pay for its farm system, maybe work out some way to get some of that TV money into the stars of the show.

Or maybe it could be some other arrangement because the current system is "broke" and saying that there's just no workable solution is also "broke."

 

The reason the rules are so tight on Baron's beloved soda buy is that a small group of super-rich jock-sniffing wannabes can't restrain themselves from stuffing megabucks in the star player's jockstrap, while trying to fondle his magical balls.

It's creepy to me to see how enraptured grown men get when they get close to the elite of college football. I guess when you're rich you're always looking for a higher high, and owning a share of another human has gotta rank pretty high.

Simplest solution is to drop football from college campuses and let the NFL establish a minor league/farm system. Keep the talent-rich and brains-poor tykes out of universities where they have no business being.

 

Everything is so simple. What a world we live in.

 

I don't think it's "doomed the sport" but I will say this: the professionalism of the Olympics has helped guys like Phelps and Bolt more than it's helped everybody else. They're professional Olympians, essentially. Phelps can loaf and drink and conduct himself like an ass for extended stretches of time, but, because he won the genetic lottery (which you cannot begrudge) he has ample time between Olympics to shape right back into the guy he used to be. It'd be different if Phelps was actually a pro athlete who had to swim competitively 20-30 times per year, do the work involved in promoting those events, doing interviews, staying in shape, not dolting around in his personal life. And it'd be different if Phelps had to stay an amateur and thus make a living doing something else and actually find time, in the process of making that living, to be an Olympic-caliber athlete. But he does neither of those things. He essentially shows up every couple years. He's rich. And that's fine. He's earned those medals. But the nature of the Olympics has also changed. Phelps has more money than everyone else does. It's a huge advantage.


The naivete, seriously, of sportswriters can be astounding. Any time - any fucking time - you create a free market, you're going to have shops that just stop being able to compete. I mean, it's a matter of course: Amazon kills the local bookstores. Kills them. Apple towers over the tech market.

You introduce that much more money to athletes in college, and it'll happen there, too. Now, if you don't care about that, fine. But some schools - even some big schools - will absolutely say "fuck it" and walk. And how it may play out is major division I hoops programs - Nova, UConn, Butler, Temple, Rhode Island - just shut down football and keep hoops alive. Is that a desirable outcome, a bunch of kids not playing football who otherwise would have so some kid at Alabama can get paid? I dunno. Maybe it is.

But it's sure an argument for the 1%. Phelps is an amazing athlete, the greatest swimmer the world has ever known, but is he any kind of useful representative for the United States? No. He's just a great swimmer who wins races at this point. And if the argument goes "well, fuck yeah, he is, and that's how it should be" that's fine...but it's really a defense for the 1%.

 

From your example set, only UConn and Temple are even trying to compete now at the top level (and it's debatable how hard they're trying). UConn might attract one player a year who could thrive at a Top 25 power. Why would not getting the very best players drive them away when it hasn't now?

 

Because they'd have to shell out more for the basketball players.

 

It isn't simple and it won't take a simple fix either.

The simplest course of action is to do nothing, talk about doing something, then do nothing some more.

No one has any sense of urgency for lots of reasons and that won't change until the players do something dramatic.

 

There already is more money in college sports, and there already is a financial disparity. The Power Five conferences are getting more than double the money from the college football playoff as they were previously under the BCS, and the other five FBS leagues are getting more than five times the amount of money. All of them are getting more, but the Power Conferences are getting more than the other conferences. So they already have an inherent advantage just by being a member of the conference.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...ues-money-distribution-bill-hancock/12734897/

Note the first quote from the executive director, and the irony of it.

Now, where is all that extra money going towards? Scholarships? Nope. They're paying the same amount of scholarships. But the locker rooms are looking much nicer and the coaches are getting rich.

As far as Olympians, virtual professionalism was around for decades with the Communist bloc. Athletes spent all their time training as part of being "members" of the military. Meanwhile, they received nicer living places, cars, and other luxuries. We just finally got tired of falling behind, and the IOC finally got tired of the charade, and allowed money. And today, if they tried to being back amateurism, it'd fall flat, with all the TV money, and cities spending billions on stadiums. Why? There's too much money.

Oh, and of the five schools you listed, one of them doesn't have a football team, and two others are FCS schools. They're not getting Johnny Quarterback to come to their school. UConn and Temple aren't big-time powers, and Johnny QB isn't going there either, regardless of payments.

 

It can be argued that players already have done some dramatic things, with O'Bannon, Northwestern (albeit, they finally lost before scaring the bejesus out of everyone). There may be more drama coming with the Kessler lawsuit (plus a couple other ones).

Kessler is seeking free agency for the athletes, and, when you think of it, he really does have a case. Scholarship deal ends for Johnny QB, and there's no bidding war for his services. The NCAA has a heckuva time nowadays convincing judges they are just this little volunteer organization like Little League, which is why athletes need to remain amateur. Kessler wins his case, and after the appeals, all hell really would break loose.

 

But if they had to pay players and spend more money to keep those teams, the above schools and a lot of DII and DIII schools might fold their football teams.

I could foresee, if players are paid, the NCAA dropping to about 50 football-playing schools. That's not objectively a bad thing. Depends on your view of college football and whether it NEEDS the Sun Belts and WACs and MACs and such.

 

Sure it will ... but I doubt it'll go the way you think it's gonna go. You're committing the classic mistake of thinking you can change one facet of a complex system without anything else in the system changing in response. It NEVER works out that way. Ceteris is hardly ever paribus.

 

Those schools already aren't competing with the big boys. The big schools will pay big bucks to the players. The mid-majors will pay a small amount for a couple of stars, if anything. The D-II and D-III schools won't be paying a thing. For them, having a team is more for fun, instead of big business.