Spencer Hall's "Broke"

Bingo. AAC and I-AA schools aren't competing now for five- and four-star football players.

 

PCLoadLetter, Alma - You're on point. I'm not sure why it's so hard for everybody else to understand. I'm not saying that condescendingly. I'm genuinely curious, because it's true everywhere else too: public policy, corporate governance, etc. So many people fail to connect the logical if-then dots when it comes to free markets.

Baron, your contention that every current scholarship football player would be worth at least a scholarship in a free market because they are already receiving a free scholarship is flawed because Player No. 85 is currently "paid" the same as Player No. 1. If colleges could bid on players, more money would flow to player No. 1 at the expense of someone. Sure, there is plenty of cash floating around the Top 50 programs. But even then, if there is no cap on what colleges can pay players, the bigger programs will still be looking to free up money to bid on players even after they've trimmed all of the fat from the administrative end. At some point, they'll have to decide if they are getting $40,000 worth of value out of Player No. 85, or if that $40,000 would be better spent on Player No. 1. Then they'll decide on Player No. 84. And so on. Eventually, each college would employ the minimum number of players it needs to compete. The NFL suggests it would be somewhere around 60 players. Which would mean that 24 of the players on a current big time college football roster would be worse off than they are now.

Again, it all comes down to what you believe to be the purpose of college sports. From a consumer standpoint, a 50-team league that competes for talent on an open market would make for a much better consumer product. But it would leave all of the college football players outside of that league worse off than they are now.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the status quo is acceptable. It's an abomination, and if this is an either/or proposition, I'm fully in favor of getting rid of amateur eligibility and telling these schools to have at it. Most people have no concept of the consequences of such an action (ex: does the player who is making more than his professor still have to go to class? What if he doesn't go to class? Does he still get his money? etc.)

It just really bothers me that these players are portrayed as broke when they have a much higher standard of living than the vast majority of college students.

 

The schools already are providing those scholarships even before they were receiving the extra money from the football playoff. Now they have more money to spend. If they were getting X amount of dollars to spend on 85 players, and now are getting X times two, there's more money available without hurting those already receiving it. What matters is where and how they spend it.

Right now, they're spending it on coaches and locker rooms. Instead of taking that $40K from Scholarship Player No. 85, what's to say that they don't take $10K from their additional playoff money, $5K from superstar head coach's $4 million salary, who will be happy because he gets to coach Superstar Recruit and make another $10K in endorsements himself anyways, $5K each from Bobby Joe's Burgers and Sam's Used Cars who will be happy to have Superstar Recruit come visit a couple of times, sign autographs and pose in the program in front of their stores, and $15K from Nike, who wants Superstar Recruit in their portfolio of stars, to entice Superstar Recruit to come to their school?

 

As a fan, I couldn't care less. But if schools contract football, that's hundreds of scholarships poor kids don't get. Net opportunity goes down.

Again: there are Americans who didn't make the U.S. Olympic team so phelps could over 16 years. If your answer is "so the fuck what?" That's fine. But professionalizing the Olympics wasn't good for everyone. It was good for phelps.

 

Who's to say that those Americans would have beaten out Phelps anyways?

 

They didn't beat him out. That's part of my point.

The other part is Phelps hung around for 16 years because it's good money. Which is dubiously the aim of the Olympics.

 

Mark Spitz competed in two Olympics, and retired at age 22. Had there been money back then, he might have continued to compete. He actually tried to come back 20 years later, but fell short.

 

We are in total agreement here.

My point is: Had there been money, it would have benefited Mark Spitz. Not the guys who won medals after he retired.

The professionalism of the Olympics mostly Benefits phelps. Not all the dudes he beats.

 

Well, the dudes he beats were also able to cash in on their sport. Silver and bronze medalists earn bonuses, and athletes are now allowed endorsements, which helps them financially. Phelps just cashes in more because he was more successful.

 

Not sure if they are really portrayed as broke, but maybe that they are portrayed as getting nowhere near the money that they generate. Nick Sabine is a very good chess player (crossthread) but look at the pieces he gets to play with. The players get paid nothing, he gets millions. Talked about this with a buddy who played D2 football and professionally in Europe. He is very much in favor of players getting paid and I can see his point. Even with whatever limits the NCAA puts on practice time, playing football or basketball at a big-time D1 school is pretty much a job. But it isn't so easy to decide who gets paid what. Football and basketball generate the most money, but the wrestlers and swimmers also put a lot of time in to their sports. My buddy said boosters/alumni often designate which sport they want their check to go to. I wasn't aware of that and not sure if there are rules/guidelines about that. His argument was that money and a good amount of the TV money should go to the athletes.

 

There's often been the portrayal of college athletes, especially from poorer backgrounds, being too broke to buy a hamburger, and things like that.

Now, finally, schools are giving them the cost of attendance, instead of just room board, tuition, books and fees. The cost of attendance was several thousand dollars more than the scholarship. Of course, it took the lawsuits, and the near-threat of unionization, to drag the schools and NCAA kicking and screaming into allowing cost of attendance. Had they voluntarily done so years ago instead of their sanctimonious bullshit* they might have been able to avoid the lawsuits and the threat of allowing players free agency because it could have quelled the athletes' complaints about the system.




*Hi Docquaint!