Let me upfront: I’m an unabashed free market capitalist. I’ve never been bothered by TV contracts, conference realignment, ticket prices, rising salaries for coaches and players, sponsorships and the multitude of other financial issues in pro and college sports that fans generally complain about at face value (but then turn around and feed that money monster by continuing to watch games). At the same time, I have long given up the delusional notion that college athletes (at least in football and basketball) are somehow still pure amateurs. We crossed the proverbial bridge of top college conferences being semipro leagues a loooooong time ago. Finally, I’ve generally supported how Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has led the conference in exploiting new revenue opportunities and expansion (as long as we can forget that whole “Legends” and “Leaders” debacle).
So, I have no issue at all with money flowing through college sports and institutions profiting from high profile teams. Let’s stop pretending that it’s (a) not already happening at a rate on par with the pro leagues and (b) inherently a bad thing. What I have a massive problem with, though, is that this money isn’t flowing at all to the people that are generating all of this revenue. I’m a firm believer that people should be compensated in accordance with their free market value*, and in today’s world, college football and basketball players at the top level aren’t getting paid that way.
(* Note that I don’t look at over-compensation or under-compensation in absolute dollars in the way that much of the populist public likes to do. LeBron James, for instance, is a clear example of someone that is underpaid. If there weren’t the artificial restraints of the NBA salary cap and collective bargaining agreement, he would be making much more than his current $19.07 million salary. That doesn’t even take into account the fact that he’s the rare athlete that can single-handedly increase the value of a franchise by hundreds of millions of dollars and sellout all arenas that he plays in. Even though LeBron’s salary for a single game (much less an entire season) is more than what 99% of American households earn, he is still underpaid in comparison to what his true value is in the marketplace. In contrast, there are minimum wage earners that are making more than what the free market would dictate if that artificial floor weren’t in place, so they would arguably be overpaid.)
With the “pay for play” issue not going away in college athletics, Jim Delany stated that he would like to see football and basketball players be able to sign with leagues directly out of high school in the same way that baseball players do. From ESPN.com:
“Maybe in football and basketball, it would work better if more kids had a chance to go directly into the professional ranks,” Delany said. “If they’re not comfortable and want to monetize, let the minor leagues flourish. Train at IMG, get agents to invest in your body, get agents to invest in your likeness and establish it on your own. But don’t come here and say, ‘We want to be paid $25,000 or $50,000.’ Go to the D-League and get it, go to the NBA and get it, go to the NFL and get it. Don’t ask us what we’ve been doing.”
What Delany states isn’t necessarily wrong conceptually, but there are tons of issues from a practical standpoint and he’s ultimately being disingenuous and further exposing much of the hypocrisy of college sports:
(1) The Interests of the NFL and NBA Ultimately Rule – The power brokers in college sports can complain all that they want, but the NFL and NBA need to be convinced that it’s better for them to pay for and build minor league systems on the scale of Major League Baseball. I’ve seen plenty of arguments that the NFL and NBA could expand create such systems, yet it’s hard to see why it’s better than the current college model from their perspective. Unlike baseball, the NFL and especially NBA have long had a greater need for their athletes to come into the league as ready-made stars and that’s only exacerbated in this social media-driven world. Such star power simply isn’t incubated well in minor league settings at all (as seen in baseball and hockey). College football and basketball provide vehicles where sports fans are introduced to top players on a first name basis and can step in immediately at the next level.
Plus, lest we forget, the NBA tried the “direct from high school” route not too long ago and the results were pretty abysmal. Too many high school players were jumping into the draft that weren’t ready, which meant that (a) lottery slots that used to go to well-known college stars were being taken up by unknown (at least to the general public) speculative draft picks based on raw athleticism with little regard to skills and (b) on the flip side, other high school players that would have been aided by some college experience got drafted lower than expected or not at all and ruined their NCAA eligibility. The NBA wants nothing to do with going back to that model and, in fact, the owners would have pushed for a 2 years out of high school age minimum requirement (instead of the current 1-year standard) in the last collective bargaining agreement negotiations if there weren’t so many other fundamental salary and revenue-sharing issues to deal with. This gets to the next point…
(2) Players Need to be Protected From Themselves – On the one hand, it would be easy for a free marketer like me to try to apply real world concepts to the realm of sports to state that players and team general managers take risks with respect to the draft and then they need to live with the consequences. However, on the other other hand, that real world free market application fails because a draft is specifically not the free market. In fact, it is probably the most directly anticompetitive behavior that professional sports league participate in that they’re only able to get away with due to antitrust exemptions. American high school graduates aren’t free to negotiate directly with any team that they want to play for. Instead, a draft provides a finite number of spots in a predetermined order, which is the antithesis of a free market.
This means a “college or pro” choice isn’t exactly that simple. What Delany is suggesting is that a top high school prospect should be put into an “all or nothing” decision when he’s 17 or 18-years old: either he strikes it big in the pros or he completely loses out on a college scholarship, with very little in between. There are very few professions where this is the case. A software programming prodigy can try going to a startup firm out of high school, but if that startup fails, he or she can still go get a computer science degree or work at another company. That’s not how it works in football and basketball where you have one shot if you’re lucky. How many of you here would have had the emotional and fiscal maturity to make that type of decision at that age? Furthermore, how many of you would be able to make a mature decision if you were born into an impoverished environment with no access to a college education otherwise (like a disproportionate number of top football and basketball players)? What if you had family members that were leaning on you for financial support? What if you hired an agent that invariably overinflates your draft value (which played into your decision to enter to the draft)? When I see comments from fans to the effect, “These are decisions that these guys need to live with and they can do something other than sports if they don’t get drafted,” I believe they’re failing to see the context in which such decisions are made along with, in most cases, making that judgment from comparatively more comfortable catbird seats (whether it’s being older or living in a middle or upper class environment where the fallout from making a mistake in life is relatively mild by comparison).
The upshot (and once again, we saw this with the period of high school players going directly to the NBA) is that there are a whole lot more people that submit themselves to the draft prematurely (with devastating consequences) than there are guys that are truly ready. It would be one thing if only the Lebron-type talents would enter into the draft (in which case, allowing high school players into the draft would work), but we’ve seen firsthand that this simply doesn’t happen in the real world*. There are too many high school prospects that get bad information about their draft stock or are pressured into making money immediately to their detriment. That leads to the next issue…
(* Similarly, if NBA and NFL general managers would only draft LeBron-type talents, then having high school players going directly to the pros would work efficiently. As noted earlier, though, the problem is that those GMs then have to rely their draft analysis almost solely on raw athleticism, which leads to a much higher bust rate and a poorer quality product to watch on the field or court for fans.)
(3) The NCAA Needs to Provide a Safety Net for Players – If the NCAA sincerely believes that high school players need to be able to go directly to the draft, then the organization can’t turn around and punish such players (AKA taking away their college eligibility) for utilizing all of the tools and resources at their disposal to make a fully informed decision that will impact them for the rest of their lives. Jim Delany mentions players hiring agents and training firms like IMG, which is all well and good, but then the NCAA will take away their eligibility once they receive any agent benefits. A solid and reputable agent (not a guy off the street or, even worse, an emotionally invested family member) can probably give a player the most realistic analysis of anyone about draft position and long-term earning potential, yet the NCAA (via its rules regarding agents) is forcing athletes to make an all-or-nothing decision on eligibility before he can even receive that analysis. That’s not exactly equitable, particularly when the athletes are the ones in a much more vulnerable position compared to the NCAA and its members.
As a result, colleges ought to reevaluate its eligibility rules completely if it’s being sincere. Players ought to be able to hire agents freely, submit to drafts and play again in college if they fail to get drafted (or even choose to go to college if they get drafted in a lower position than what they wanted). Colleges turning their backs on these players would be wrong even if there weren’t billions of dollars at stake, which ties to the next point…
(4) Delany’s Money Flow is Backwards – Let’s look at the budgets of two sports teams:
BUDGET A: $124,419,412
BUDGET B: $500,000
If you were to plop down those figures in front of anyone that has the basic skill of knowing which number is higher, one would logically assume that the team with Budget A has a lot more money to pay players than the Budget B team. Well, Budget A represents the expenses of the Ohio State athletic department in 2012. Meanwhile, Budget B represents what used to be the annual operating cost of each individual team in the defunct NFL Europe, which was the minor league system that the NFL had run until 2007. A major difference on top of this disparity is that Ohio State brought in $142,043,057 in revenue (a profit of over $17.6 million). Meanwhile, NFL Europe was shut down since it was still losing money at the bare bones cost of $500,000 per team (which translated into a grand total of $3 million in costs for the entire 6-team league in 2007). To put this into context, the NFL minimum salary under the current collective bargaining agreement is $405,000. The last 8 bench players on the Bears’ depth chart make more than what was spent on the entire NFL Europe operation… and the NFL still lost money on it!
Call me crazy, but when Jim Delany states that the players should be going to minor leagues to get paid, he seems to have the money flow backwards. When the NFL itself isn’t willing to spend to fund an entire minor league system that costs less than the salaries of 8 bench players making the league minimum, you can see pretty clearly that the money isn’t there. The NBA D-League is run on a similarly shoestring budget. In contrast, the colleges are the ones seeing a massive revenue flow off of these young players, so it’s disingenuous of university leaders and conference commissioners to attempt to make the claim that the minors are where they ought to receive salaries. Texas A&M itself stated that it garnered $37 million worth of media exposure in connection with Johnny Manziel’s Heisman campaign last year, so one can imagine the financial impact of a national championship (or even better, the Heisman Trophy/National Championship combo that Cam Newton delivered to Auburn in 2010 – see Charles Barkley’s comments about how $200,000 that may or may not have been paid to Cam by boosters was a bargain) for a school.
So, sure, if colleges are willing to take reduced or no revenue for football and basketball in the same way that they are for baseball (where even the most elite programs make a fraction of their football and basketball counterparts), then I could see this argument from Delany sticking. However, let’s not be naive to think that there is a vastly different playing field for football and basketball in reality.
Now, I realize that there are Title IX, employment and other issues that come into play in the event that colleges start paying athletes. It’s not as easy to institute as most supporters of the concept would like it to be. However, that doesn’t mean that we should allow colleges (even if we love them as our alma maters) to get away with such blatant hypocrisy toward money. It’s time to ditch the faux amateurism and either go all in on college sports being a massive money-making enterprise or take a Division III approach. If that means paying every athlete (from members of the football team down to the women’s water polo team) in order to comply with Title IX, then that’s a heck of a lot better than not paying anyone. Once again, I have no issue with the money flowing through college sports at all. The only thing that I want to see is that it flows down to the people that we’re actually cheering for as fans.
(Image from USA Today)
Olympic model.
The players would still be amateurs. If boosters pay, so be it; it actually won’t be that different from how things are now at many programs (except that payments now have to be under the table, which allows for more potential for abuses).
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The risk there is still Title IX. There would be inevitable lawsuits arguing that boosters are essentially agents of the university and any benefits they provide should also have to be provided to female athletes as well. Maybe it would succeed, but it wouldn’t but I seriously doubt that any school is going to take that risk.
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The Olympic model only works because you can’t be a free agent up for bid. That’s why it doesn’t work for CFB.
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Frank, the problem is not with football or basketball, its with other sports. Once we had the discussion before about the University of Illinois starting up a Hockey Program. If the Illini had to play players, then there is an even less of a chance of the happening (particularly if it is coupled with Title IX and Unions and Agents Representing Athletes). I can even see Schools like Penn State ending baseball (it is awful at that sport) to fund sports few people really care about (like Women’s Lacrosse), to save money and remain Title IX compliant.
Perhaps the best solution is some kind of system like with Hockey where you can go play Juniors or go to College.
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Eh. I fail to see the loss in cutting sports that few people care about. In any case, that’s why the Olympic model is best. Schools won’t have an extra financial burden, but the athletes who generate value that is appreciated by fans can still be compensated.
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If we cut all the sports that nobody cares about, then you’re cutting thousands of people out of college who otherwise wouldn’t have ever had that opportunity without that athletic scholarship.
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Unlikely. If they’re poor, they could receive financial aid. If they’re not academically up to par, then what are they doing in a university anyway?
BTW, you realize that sports that nobody cares about tend to be ones like cross-country, golf, swimming, water polo, rowing, and tennis, don’t you? Other than maybe cross-country, these aren’t exactly sports filled with kids who wouldn’t have the opportunity to go to college without an athletic scholarship.
It’s ironic, but baldly stated (and yes, I’m generalizing), the way economics in major athletic departments work now is that poor black males sacrifice their bodies in football to generate surplus revenue that goes to fund scholarships for middle-class white females playing sports that few people care about.
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The Olympic sports athletes are more likely to give back to the Universities based on their student-athlete experiences. That’s been proven. Most of these athletes are highly successful both in the classroom and in athletic competition.
I agree completely with JD. The Olympic model is ripe for abuse in the recruiting process.
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@Kevin
Yes they do contribute at a higher rate than non-athletes, but it has never been proven that the donations they make exceed the money spent subsidizing their sports.
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I’m going to state it even more baldly, and it’s going to sound sexist, but Title IX is completely misguided and bassackwards. The same tribal instincts that the revenue sports appeal to involve rooting for your tribe’s MALE warriors. Not that women don’t get their jones off of competition, but as a rule men get it much more so. That’s just human nature, not a cultural thing. Women’s teams should be formed if enough girls want to play the sport, with the school not getting in the way and encouraging girls to sign up for whatever sports they want, but Title IX forcing most schools to field women’s teams where they don’t have a men’s team is going WAY too far in the other direction. (This is another reason I think most non-revenue sports should be intramural.)
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Morgan:
I agree on the intramural part. With the vast majority of sports programs operating at a loss, it makes far more sense to take the money lavished on a select tiny fraction of the student population and spread it around to raise the health & wellness of the whole student body.
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I completely disagree. The cost of many entire sports offerings is being swallowed by the increased salary of OC and DC at many schools. If you abandon the argument that the increases in FB are necessary to improve revenue for the entire department by now only supporting a FB/BB department there will be no justification for the obscene amount FB spends.
Past a certain point the competitive gains from excessive spending are negligible, they have become simply ornamental (our $30M wt room is cooler than that $20M one, which looks nicer than this other $15M one). Meanwhile people talk about demoting sports and defunding them. Sad.
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“Past a certain point the competitive gains from excessive spending are negligible, they have become simply ornamental (our $30M wt room is cooler than that $20M one, which looks nicer than this other $15M one).”
That’s because people care about football and basketball but can’t pay players directly and they don’t care about other sports. If you think it’s sad, take it up with the American people. You can’t mandate what sports they should care about.
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ccrider55,
“Past a certain point the competitive gains from excessive spending are negligible, they have become simply ornamental (our $30M wt room is cooler than that $20M one, which looks nicer than this other $15M one).”
What’s your basis for that? What is that certain point? These schools compete to attract the best players, so “simply ornamental” things actually matter to their success. Do you have any evidence to show that spending more doesn’t tend to help? Don’t AQs tend to outperform non-AQs? Don’t the bigger spending AQs tend to outperform those that spend less? It’s not a perfect correlation, obviously, but I think they are far from the point of getting negligible returns for the next dollar spent.
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This is where Title IX comes in, it will not be the Ladies sports, it will be baseball or some other men’s sport. Not to mention it is a big reason why sports like Hockey have not expanded.
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Fair point, which is why the Olympic model is best. Schools wouldn’t have to cut anything (because they wouldn’t have any extra expenditures), but if fans want to compensate their favorite players for the surplus value they generate, they’d be free to do so and the players would be free to accept.
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The problem with that, Richard, is that it would be anti-competitive on the field. You may as well throw out the scholarship caps of 25/85. In the Olympic model, they are still going to play for the national team and nobody else.
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Except that the structure is anti-competitive _now_. Nobody pretends that ‘Bama and UAB and South Alabama all compete on a level playing field.
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The 85 scholarship cap is a big leveler though, and scholarship caps can be used to an even greater extent to help competitive balance even if we allow student-athletes to accept outside money. 70 scholarships with 20 per year max for everyone.
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Why do you want to limit scholarship opportunities for kids? Seems to me that is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. 85 is a good number.
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You can’t be serious, can you? UT is in the process of endowing every scholarship. You don’t think boosters would be able to independently fund 30 or 40 on a yearly basis above those already perpetually established?
Bullet, I’m not implying UT would get involved in this SEC/SWC type activity. Only that they are an obvious example of how uncontrolled money/donors would unbalance the playing field.
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Kevin:
If you want to expand scholarship opportunities for kids, then establish academic scholarships for poor disadvantaged kids or students who are going to make the most of the resources at a university. There’s no need for extra athletic scholarships for kids who very well could afford to go without a scholarship.
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Excellent post FtT!!!!!!
The other part of Delany’s spiel that is disingenuous is that athletic departments have to do a better job at managing costs. I realize these are schools and not for profit institutions, but the amount of money they generate is staggering. Smart people can come up with a way to pay all players and still build the appropriate amount of facilities and pay for scholarships. Contrary to his statement, I don’t think most players are looking for $25K, just some money to buy a pizza or go to the movies. That is not too much to ask for…
I can’t believe the thought of asking a 17/18 year old to make a decision like that even entered his mind. It was hard enough for me to decide which big school I was going to attend, let alone make a decision to go pro versus staying in school with dollars and eligibility on the line.
Great post again…
London
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Delany has come out in support of full cost of attendance in the past, which is what you are talking about. This speech was specifically against paying players above and beyond that.
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Delany has come out in support of full cost of attendance in the past, which is what you are talking about. This speech was specifically against paying players above and beyond that.
It’s worth noting that the move toward “full cost of attendance” is fairly recent development. For decades, the schools’ position was that the players were getting all they needed/deserved.
Generally, when the schools realize and publicly acknowledge that a change is needed, it is long past the date that it was actually needed.
So I think it’s useful for people like us to question whether they are doing enough, because we know that the schools’ public positions are generally lagging indicators of where the regulations are going, or should go.
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“I realize these are schools and not for profit institutions” BAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! Oh man, you had me going there for a minute.
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Anthony London,
“I can’t believe the thought of asking a 17/18 year old to make a decision like that even entered his mind. It was hard enough for me to decide which big school I was going to attend, let alone make a decision to go pro versus staying in school with dollars and eligibility on the line.”
Hockey and baseball players have been making these decisions for decades. Why can’t FB and MBB players?
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Go Hawks! Bring home Floyd of Rosedale!!
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If players want to seek their free market value, they’re perfectly free to do so. The fundamental fact about college sports is that if every single player left to play in a different league, college sports would be just as popular. People don’t follow college sports to root for particular players.
Thought experiment: if colleges gave out no scholarships, would college sports make any less money? Since the answer is no, what really is their fair market value? Sounds like a lot less than they receive now. Just because an overall enterprise takes in a lot of money doesn’t mean the most visible part of it “deserves” that money. Apple makes a lot of money, but the Apple “geniuses” receive very little of it, even though they are the ones who physically sell the products.
Plus, there is no such as a “free market” sports league anywhere. The NFL is basically paid for by various state and local governments.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/how-the-nfl-fleeces-taxpayers/309448/
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“Thought experiment: if colleges gave out no scholarships, would college sports make any less money? Since the answer is no, what really is their fair market value?”
You seem certain that the answer is “no”. I’m not so sure. There are schools that give out zero athletic scholarships, but the Ivies and DivIII schools don’t exactly bring in a lot in athletic revenues.
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That is the reason limitations on scholarships, pay for play, amateurism rules were created. To try to insure a somewhat even athletic playing field among the organizations members, not a highest bidder wins financial war.
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Except that is what happens now. Only thing is that it’s now under the table and thus more rife for abuse (middlemen/runners getting paid instead of athletes, for instance).
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What if the amount of money the whole system takes in is constant, though?
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first, i highly doubt that if you had DII-DIII caliber athletes playing for 5-10 straight years that there would not be a very significant drop off in popularity.
but, even if that is taken as true, to me your argument is that because an industry has become incredibly popular through decades of exploiting unpaid labor for their own gain, they should be allowed to continue that practice indefinitely? why?
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Frank,
How is a chance at a free education explotation?
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The ‘E’ word (as in “exploit”) is a red herring. Frank never said that the colleges are “exploiting unpaid labor for their own gain.” If you’re going to disagree with him, you ought at least to do him the courtesy of disagreeing with what he actually said.
Indeed, I am pretty sure that Frank would concede that the athletes are already paid (in the form of a free education). But the major colleges have conceded that they aren’t paid enough, since they’re proposing to give “cost of attendance” stipends not currently offered.
So the real question is whether we agree with the major colleges that the new proposed stipends are the answer — this coming after many decades that most college thought no stipends were needed — or if they ought to do more.
A good start would be allowing the athletes to monetize their own value independently, either with no restrictions or with fewer restrictions than today, a move that would not cost the schools a dime.
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Wrong frank. I think it was a direct reply to frank (not the tank). See above.
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Marc Shephard,
I was replying to Frank (not the tank) on the reply above my own. In that he says,
“even if that is taken as true, to me your argument is that because an industry has become incredibly popular through decades of EXPLOITING unpaid labor for their own gain, they should be allowed to continue that practice indefinitely? why?” Sorry if that was confusing.
But to continue the discussion a bit, yes FTT (Frank the Tank), while never using the word exploit, does emphasize that it is occurring. Remembering that exploit is defined by Websters dictionary as
ex·ploit (transitive verb)
: to get value or use from (something)
: to use (someone or something) in a way that helps you unfairly
I might be nit picking but that is what I came away with from the article, that colleges are using athletes in a way that helps them unfairly (in this case to get more money).
And yes I agree that schools do need to completely pay for students education. But I do not agree that a stipend is needed. Athletes are given so much in benefits by signing an LOI so why should they be given even more.
I guess I don’t understand why everyone assumes that the athletes are not receiving fair compensation for what they are doing. Personally, I believe the chance at a free education and the amenities that go with it is more than enough compensation.
My question to many is why don’t these uber talented players go play for the Arena League (I or II) and get paid for 2-3 years while gaining experience rather than play at the college level. Is it because Athletes realize that the best chance for them to receive free marketing, coaching, and an education is the college route while the best a player can get in the Arena league is 50k a year.
I guess I look at college athletes differently because I see colleges agreeing to give an athlete a chance over four (or five) years to play some football while they attend college. The deal is simple, play ball and get a chance at an education. The colleges take the financial risk and the players take the physical risk. While some think that is one sided try to remember that the colleges also take public media responsibility for these athletes and any stupid moves they make.
For example, does everyone blame Baylor for the murder of Patrick Dennehy (basketball player)? Probably not, but everyone remembers it and that infamy (along with the subsequent NCAA violations) stuck with Baylor which I am sure lost a lot of money from the negative press from this situation.
Speaking of negative press, in some cases schools invest in a talent who then does something stupid like stealing. See Cam Newton (Florida) or if you want a better example Jeremiah Masoli (Oregon). QB Masoli was being marketed as a Heisman level athlete before being booted from Oregon for theft. Did Oregon get any money back from Masoli? Nope, Oregon invested their money and took the loss. How about Maurice Clarett? Did Ohio State love all the attention they got from Clarett? Yes I am sure it was great up until he was arrested. More importantly did Ohio State get any money back from Clarett for training, education, and marketing him prior to his arrest and departure from the program? Nope.
Another great example is the Vandy Rape case from this summer. I am not saying that those players are guilty, but Vandy is receiving negative press from that situation and I am sure took a hit in the donation department. If the players were found guilty would Vandy get any money back from them for all of the investment that was put into their recruiting, training, and education? Again no.
So what I am trying to say is that while players do take physical risk while playing sports in college, the colleges take on financial responsibility and deal with the public media for all of these athletes. That means whether good or bad, an Athlete can bring pride or shame to a university with their decisions. We are stating throughout these comments that when athletes do great that colleges make money, but don’t forget if athletes do something nefarious than the reverse can happen. Colleges can develop bad reputations because of their athletes or can become immersed in legal troubles.
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@Gailikk: Sorry for having misunderstood whom you were replying to.
I guess I don’t understand why everyone assumes that the athletes are not receiving fair compensation for what they are doing.
The universities themselves have invited the discussion, by proposing to give cost-of-attendance stipends. Apparently they feel strongly enough about this, that they want to create a whole new NCAA division in order to implement it.
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Where is the hypocrisy, or anti free market stand, in saying we don’t want, need or have to do something just because revenue is being generated. Anyone who wishes can compete and show their model of preparing future gladiators, err… NFL players is more attractive to aspirants.
How is comparing the funding of entire athletic departments anywhere close to the level the NFL. Some single schools support as many teams as the entire NFL or NBA.
How long until HS players have their hands out…or has that already happened in the more rabid regions? Big bucks involved there too. http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id/8323104/allen-texas-high-school-ready-unveils-60m-football-facility
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You make it sound like HS kids being fairly compensated for their labor and injury risk is a bad thing . . .
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You sound like you want to professionalize Pop Warner.
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Well, I think that kids under 16 shouldn’t be forced to work, but once they’re 16, why can they be paid to be a cashier but not to play football?
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Because the rules in every state don’t allow it in HS?
Nothing stopping you from starting a U16 pro league.
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This was brought up before, but you seem to like rules for the sake of rules. An authoritarian government would love someone like you.
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Read Bloom v NCAA and the courts agreement with the justification for control from whom, for what, and how much an athlete may receive and remain eligible.
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I wonder about the impact on teams. You get a high schooler who is highly recruited but done nothing gets paid large sums by boosters while less highly recruited players get minimal or nothing.
In any event, I don’t see the purpose of colleges sponsoring it if they give up any pretense of being student-athletes. And that is exactly where Frank’s proposal goes.
And what happens to those who don’t produce? I can’t imagine schools/boosters giving 4 year deals in this situation.
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@bullet – Isn’t this happening now with more highly recruited players receiving higher payments, though? It’s just not above the board in the current model, but we know it happens (and whether we want to believe it or not, it’s almost certainly happening at some level at every power conference school).
Now that I think about it with my Super PAC proposal, the recruiting world is a lot like the world of political donations. Virtually every attempt to curb political donations has backfired – there’s more money than ever in the system and it’s actually harder to track compared to the pre-McCain-Feingold days. Every crackdown on direct political donations has spurred the unrestricted and private funding of indirect shadow organizations. NCAA recruiting rules have had the same impact – all of the college administrators state that want and need them and then every booster goes around them.
My overarching position is that the money is getting paid out regardless of what colleges choose to pay directly from their coffers. So, we can either shine the light on them and openly acknowledge that they’re part of the system or continue to act shocked whenever a Nevin Shapiro-type gets into the news.
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And basketball players do have options. I think the argument that the minor leagues don’t produce the stars indicates that it is the name of the school, not the name of the player, that is generating the value.
As for football players, they aren’t fully developed at 18. So they don’t have a lot of value.
I think the schools would do just fine with Ivy type scholarships-IF-the other schools were doing the same thing.
The reality is that the vast majority of schools have to fund the athletic department from general revenues or student fees. There are maybe 20-30 programs that could truly afford payments much beyond the current modest proposals.
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@Frank
It certainly happens a lot, but I’m not sure it happens everywhere. Look at the Oklahoma St. articles. With all the stuff going on there, other than the “hostesses,” it was all going on after they got there.
And I’m in favor of the stipends. Colleges ought to be able to offer athletes a similar package to what they would offer some outstanding student they really wanted. Right now they can’t and you do have some really poor kids with school, room and board and not a dime to spend.
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@Frank
While I don’t agree with your conclusions, this is a good, thought-stimulating writeup.
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the current ncaa system is the complete antithesis of a free market.
it is, quite openly, an affiliation of competing businesses that have colluded to write and enforce rules that its members MUST abide by, that not only discourages, but actually PENALIZES vigorous competition between members, all to ensure more profits for the group as a whole and, in the long run, for individual members.
so, i guess that is how it is an anti free market stand.
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No comments yet on EA settling out of the O’Bannon case?
No comments yet on EA’s statement they will not be producing a college football game next year?
Color me surprised.
P.S. I have no problem paying all athletes at the same rate they pay the work-study kids. I’d agree more with Frank if most college fans were cheering for the name on the back instead of the one on the front.
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http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/09/ea_will_not_make_college_footb.html#incart_flyout_sports
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Electronic Arts Sports and Collegiate Licensing Company have settled all claims brought against them by plaintiffs in the joint Sam Keller and Ed O’Bannon lawsuit over the use of college athletes’ names, images and likenesses, according to a court filing today.
Terms of the settlements are confidential until presented to the court for preliminary approval, the filing said. “This settlement does not affect Plaintiffs’ claims against Defendant National Collegiate Athletic Association,” the court filing stated.
EA, which earlier today announced it won’t produce its 2014 college football video game, reached similar settlements in cases brought by former Rutgers football player Ryan Hart and former West Virginia football player Shawne Alston.
More than 100,000 athletes will be eligible for compensation at varying amounts depending on each class members’ claims, said Rob Carey, an attorney for Keller, the former Nebraska and Arizona State quarterback.
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If I’m reading the press release correctly, there will be no college football video games until the players are allowed to be paid. I was going to hold off until major conference realignment, the playoff, and the 9 game conference slate were at a stopping point before spending the $60, but it seems I won’t have a chance. Shame, if they made you use NFLPA guys and then let you recruit, I think most of the buyers would go for it.
R.I.P. EA College Football 1993-2013
(What’s left for non-Madden games? Can EA resurrect Mutant League?)
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My biggest problem is I don’t like setting rules up for a large population based on statistical outliers.
95%+ of FBS football players are over-compensated. By the time they leave school, every third string wide receiver, backup center, and faceless bench rider has received hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in compensation. This compensation consists of tuition, room & board, books, training, food, insurance, and more. Even most starters are over-compensated. Only the truly transcendent athletes are getting a raw deal.
The idea that every FBS football player is under-compensated (let alone not compensated at all as some claim) just because Johnny Manziel and a handful of others aren’t getting their market value is laughable.
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Fair point. Thus the Olympic model is best. The truly transcendent players who fans feel provide value worth their money may receive extra compensation (so may the 3rd-string WR, but he likely won’t get anything). Schools don’t have to pay. Free-market system. Everybody’s happy.
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Phil Knight agrees with you. All 5* athletes line up at Nike’s park in Beaverton. Bring resumes, and a lunch. We’ll be visiting the Football Deathstar this afternoon.
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Just because you like to close your eyes and stick fingers in your ears doesn’t mean that it isn’t already happening. How do you think formerly middling programs like Oregon and OK St. with little in-state talent and tradition manage to shoot up so far so fast anyway?
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Not saying some stuff doesn’t occur, but the legal, above board pouring of hundreds of millions into amazing facilities and amenities for the athletes is where I place the credit/blame for their rise. And it will have a greater long term impact helping the school than the possibility of some players getting some payola. Do you want to get paid and attend Boise, or enjoy the never ending amenities showered on Nike U?
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@ccrider55 – I don’t see payments to players and investments in facilities as mutually exclusive. It’s not as if though many of the schools that are receiving huge above the board donations for facilities from supporters aren’t the exact some ones that are the beneficiaries of such supporters’ under the table largesse for recruits. Boise State isn’t losing out on facilities money as a result of boosters paying too much to its recruits, while Oregon is losing out on boosters’ under the table money for recruits as a result of all of the new facilities donations. All of it’s happening already and we know that it’s been happening for many years. SMU certainly wasn’t the first school to pay for recruits and that scandal began 30 years ago. The difference now is that we’re talking about tens or hundreds of millions of dollars at stake at power sports programs today instead of the “mere” millions in the past.
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@Richard – Your suggestion of the Olympic model has a lot of validity. As you’ve said, it alleviates the issue of having to pay the non-transcendent players above market value and probably any Title IX concerns.
As I’ve been ruminating about this, maybe the best way to set this up is to have school booster clubs register as the college sports equivalent of Super PACs in politics – they’re organized, have reporting obligations, and clearly support a particular school in practicality, but they can’t coordinate anything directly with that school’s athletic department. This is essentially what’s occurring today (with shadow organizations of boosters providing under the table payments to top recruits), but the benefit is to get it all out in the open and allow players to take those payments.
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As you’ve said, it alleviates the issue of having to pay the non-transcendent players above market value and probably any Title IX concerns.
As I said above though, no school is going to risk having to add millions of dollars added to their Title IX obligations based on “probably”. If one court rules that boosters were simply agents of the university then the schools would be responsible for providing the same benefits to female athletes.
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Courts have already ruled they are.
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@frug – Oh, I’d agree that any action that the schools take would have to be completely vetted to ensure that they’re complying with Title IX. Schools are extra conservative about these types of issues.
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Beyond getting around Title IX, you have to understand that college presidents are a very politically correct bunch. They don’t WANT to get around Title IX. They and faculty want equal funds flowing to the women’s sports. This sort of thing would be very difficult politically.
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Go Blue!
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Wonderful post. Great points and I agree with the whole thing.
I think the best approach is to let the players make anything on the side they can. Boosters want to give money to entice players, so be it. Make sure it’s above the table with NCAA monitoring and keep the one year out if you transfer, but if a player can bring millions to college and someone wants to pay for them to come, let them. Similarly, let the players sell their likeness, signatures, endorsements, etc.
The end result of all that would be less money being donated to the school for coaches salaries and facilities (the way schools currently attract students), but more going directly to the players. That sounds reasonable to me.
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Yep. That’s the Olympic model (that I first heard from Any Staple) that I keep mentioning.
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I support a uniform per diem that can be paid to all scholarship athletes consistent with Title IX. That may bring us to 4 super-conferences sooner rather than later as many FBS schools could not pony up. So be it.
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@ Frank
You missed the 3 biggest issues
#1 Most college athletes never make it to the pros, and the ones who do have very limited careers which means a free education is a head start most Americans never get.
#2 Fan dynamics are changing and they are killing the regular fans by pricing them out of the venues and away from live sports. Like folks in Washington, the wealth accumulators in college sports have lost touch with the guy in the stadium – who has been moved to the parking lot – and who will soon not even set foot on campus.
#3 Organized crime and gambling are the reason you have “non professional” college sports teams instead of farm teams for the pros.
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A free education is good, but whether they make it to the NFL or not is irreverent. If they are providing more value to the school than the cost of the scholarships, then they are underpaid in a free market sense.
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That’s not the point, sure they is value to the school, but without the school what value do they have? It’s a two way street #1 the school gets money from the top flight football player,. #2 the top flight football player gets to show care his skills for the pros. Where else but college football can he do that?
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@Ron – I see this argument a lot, but it’s cascading logic. It’s like saying that without the NBA, LeBron James wouldn’t have any value, so the NBA shouldn’t have to pay LeBron any salary. Even if you were to argue that a school provides most of the value in terms of exposure, top football and basketball players still provide *something* of tangible financial value back to the school that they’re not getting compensated for. Johnny Manziel is a perfect example with Texas A&M’s own study that showed his financial impact. If you generated over $30 million for your employer all by yourself, I think you’d feel juuuuuuust a little bit underpaid if your salary was $16,950 (the value of Manziel’s scholarship that covers in-state tuition room and board at A&M).
Now, if we just want to stick our heads in the sand and let the shadow compensation system run by boosters and agents run its course like we all know it does throughout college football and basketball so that we can feel better about what our favorite schools are doing directly, then that’s all well and good. Personally, I’d rather have all of this above the board and no longer pretend that college sports are something that they haven’t been in decades while protecting some faux image of amateurism, but that’s just me.
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The schools would continue to exist, and probably function with very little noticeable change if athletes refused to attend. The same isn’t true for the NBA, NFL, etc. and their employees.
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Didn’t aTm receive a considerably larger bump the year before simply by joining the SEC? Who gets the credit for that? Manziel while red shirting?
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Frank, people are underpaid all the time. It is common in pro sports, look at Russell Wilson. I think Delany is 100% right. He is saying this is what we offer, if you don’t like it look elsewhere. That is the free market. It is not the responsibility of the universities to provide training for pro sports. If someone wants to get paid for sports they are free to pursue that at any time. It is the pro leagues who ate limiting opportunities, not the universities.
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@Purduemoe – Well, I’d disagree with that. Delany would have more standing on this issue if every Big Ten school wasn’t going to end up making more TV revenue than most MLB and NBA teams when the next TV deal gets signed. There isn’t a free market here. What’s being offered is a false choice: come play for us where we’ll make millions of dollars off of you (but we’re still calling ourselves amateurs *wink* *wink*) or go play for a salary in a minor league that doesn’t exist. It’s easy for us to sit back for us to say that this is a “freely made choice” when very few (if any) of us have ever been in that position at 17-years old. I know that I didn’t have to worry about a single shot at becoming a lawyer when I was 17. The colleges are being completely disingenuous in their supposed complaints about providing training grounds for pro sports when they turn around and package all of those training grounds that they supposedly despise for hundreds of millions in TV and ticket revenue and hit up their alums for donations whenever those supposedly evil semipro teams makes it to a bowl game or the NCAA Tournament.
Look – I can understand a number of the issues that come up with universities paying players directly. It’s a difficult issue. However, I really have a hard time understanding how colleges (particularly the power schools that people like Delany represent) can say with a straight face that they don’t want their programs to become training grounds for the pros when that’s been the case for decades and those schools are proactively (not even reluctantly) squeezing every possible dime of revenue out of the fact that they’re training grounds. Those are the types of statements that really irk me when I hear them from college leaders and removes so much credibility (at least in my mind) in their complete opposition to pay for play. It would at least be a lot more tolerable if Delany went up there and said, “Yes, the Big Ten makes a lot of money and I understand why some people believe that athletes should get paid, but there are Title IX compliance issues at hand and x, y, and z reasons why it’s not practicable.” Instead, we hear sanctimonious statements about amateurism, how it’s a non-negotiable item, and they don’t even acknowledge why a whole lot of people are finding them to be increasingly hypocritical. Saying that you can make all of these millions of dollars without paying players “because we can” and “the players made that deal” might be enough justification for some fans, but certainly not me.
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Frank, people are underpaid all the time. It is common in pro sports, look at Russell Wilson. I think Delany is 100% right. He is saying this is what we offer, if you don’t like it look elsewhere. That is the free market.
The NCAA is a monopoly, and monopoly markets are not free. Standard Oil in 1890 said that people were free to buy fuel anywhere they wanted. It was true in theory but not in reality.
Mind you, there are good arguments for leaving the rules exactly the way they are. I am aware of those arguments, and they are worth discussing. But when so many good arguments exist, you should’t make dumb ones. To say that the players have other options is nonsense.
It is not the responsibility of the universities to provide training for pro sports.
They are providing it already. It is fantasy to believe otherwise.
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In basketball there are other options. Players just view the NCAA as the best one. The players get free publicity in addition to everything else. That IS a form of compensation. The European League and D League and the other dozen or so American minor/semi-pro leagues are an option. The best players are saying the NCAA “pays” the best. Just because they generate more revenue doesn’t mean they don’t provide better compensation to the players already than the alternatives do. And I am quite sure the NCAA revenue wouldn’t fall off that much if the handful of serious NBA prospects skipped college. Except for a few schools schools like Kentucky and UNC, we are talking about 1 or 2 players. And if you get rid of the one and dones, I’m not sure interest doesn’t go up because of the continuity.
Football is different. But all the other sports have options.
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Frank the Tank,
“Even if you were to argue that a school provides most of the value in terms of exposure, top football and basketball players still provide *something* of tangible financial value back to the school that they’re not getting compensated for. Johnny Manziel is a perfect example with Texas A&M’s own study that showed his financial impact. If you generated over $30 million for your employer all by yourself, I think you’d feel juuuuuuust a little bit underpaid if your salary was $16,950 (the value of Manziel’s scholarship that covers in-state tuition room and board at A&M).”
But that wasn’t his salary. How much does 1000 hours of elite personal strength training cost? How about 1000 hours of football coaching by a top level I-A head coach and his assistants? How many hours of free tutoring did he get? Studies show that people with college degrees can expect to earn over $1M more in their lifetime than those without the degree, so he’s getting that value too. How much value did he get from exposure (it’s much easier to get a job after college if you were a famous athlete)? Finally, how much of that $30M was really just him versus who his replacement might have been? A QB can’t put up numbers without a solid OL and WRs, but they get no share of the money? How about the rest of the team that helped him win enough games to get the Heisman? They all are worth nothing, too?
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These players may well be compensated in six figures. How many are worth that?
I haven’t seen anyone try to detail out the value to the players. But there is a lot. I’m not sure what makes it up, but I see estimates of a $35,000 a year cost for a lot of universities. Players also get coaching and tutoring.
So there’s:
Tuition & fees
Books
Room
Food that in many schools is way above what normal students get (someone was telling the story of hearing some Texas athletes in the elevator complain, “We’re having steak again?”).
Utilities
Coaching by some of the best in the world-head coaches, position coaches, strength coaches, nutritionists
Training facilities that put to shame high end health clubs
Tutoring
Note Takers if desired.
Medical support
In the big schools, there are teams that keep the players eligible-tutors in every subject, note takers in their classes, study habits trainers, coordinators, counselors. Its a massive undertaking.
And most schools do this not because of stadium or TV $, but because it helps keep alumni connected.
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And that doesn’t count the intangible networking values. Being a former state U football player definitely helps finding a job. Seem to be a lot of car salesmen. Definitely helps there.
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“I haven’t seen anyone try to detail out the value to the players.”
bullet,
USA Today attempted it for basketball and came up with an annual value of $120k per student per year. $480k for 4 years, $600k for 5 years.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/2011-03-29-scholarship-worth-final-four_N.htm
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CtC 🙂
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I think you make some interesting points Frank, but I fail to see how any of show the system is hypocritical. I agree that it is unlikely that the NBA or NFL will actually develop a true minor league system so long as the same thing, but I don’t see how that adds up to hypocrisy.
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@frug – To me, the hypocrisy is that schools explicitly block the ability for players to “monetize” (Delany’s own word) themselves on an individual basis at the college level when they’re simultaneously and blatantly monetizing those same players as a whole. At the same time, trying to argue that athletes should have the “choice” (and I put that in quotes since it’s largely a false choice) to monetize themselves in the minors is disingenuous when, outside of going directly to the NBA and NFL directly, those minor league entities have a tiny of a fraction of the ability to provide that monetization compared to colleges (at least those in the power conferences).
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Because the school has the ability, does not mean they have the obligation. The students agreed to the deal when they signed on. There is no obligation to do more.
The fact alternative means of monetizing themselves seem so inadequate compared to the schools ability suggests it is the school that brings the majority of the value. How often have we referred to the value a king retains, even through an extended down period. And “stars” of kings receive inflated value that often is exposed by later than expected draft and disappointment as a pro.
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The students agreed to the deal when they signed on. There is no obligation to do more.
This is another example of your favored mode of reasoning: the rules exist, so they must be right; the students signed, so it must be right.
If your reasoning held sway, there would be no labor laws. After all, every worker is a voluntary employee. So who needs a Department of Labor, NLRB, EEOC, etc.? The worker took the deal, so there’s no obligation to do more. Right??
The fact alternative means of monetizing themselves seem so inadequate compared to the schools ability suggests it is the school that brings the majority of the value.
FTT debunked this forcefully. The fact that LeBron James could earn his salary nowhere else but the NBA, does not mean the NBA is providing the majority of the value.
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But how much would Johnny Manziel’s autograph be worth if he was going to Sam Houston St. instead of Texas A&M?
How much less would it be worth if he was going to Arkansas St. or even Iowa St.?
How much would A&M’s donations been bumped if they had gone 5-7 in the Big 12 with a Heisman winner instead of 10-2 in the SEC with a Heisman winner? How much would they have been bumped if they went 10-2 in the SEC w/o a Heisman winner? Their previous QB, Ryan Tannehill, has been starting in the NFL. Manziel is a special talent, but he is hardly the sole reason they went 10-2.
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But how much would Johnny Manziel’s autograph be worth if he was going to Sam Houston St. instead of Texas A&M? . . . Manziel is a special talent, but he is hardly the sole reason they went 10-2.
Clearly, the university creates part of the value. I’m just questioning the notion that the players create none.
I don’t know about Sam Houston State, but Baylor was a perennial also-ran until RGIII had his magical season. He left, and Baylor returned to its usual state of mediocrity. A number of years ago, Steve McNair almost single-handedly put Alcorn State on the football map.
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But how much would Johnny Manziel’s autograph be worth if he was going to Sam Houston St. instead of Texas A&M?
Perhaps we should ask the reverse question. How much would Texas A&M be worth if it had Sam Houston’s athletes? They’d probably be a perennial 1-11 or 2-10 team against their current schedule; probably wouldn’t have received an SEC invite; probably wouldn’t be on TV; probably wouldn’t go to a bowl, etc.
Why do schools invest so much in recruiting, if the athletes don’t matter? And why give them scholarships, if it’s immaterial who plays?
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@Marc
Its all relative. If A&M had Sam Houston St. level athletes, they wouldn’t win many games (although they would probably pick up a couple against the bottom of the SEC). But if no one had the current FBS level athletes, they could still win and generate interest.
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“How much would Texas A&M be worth if it had Sam Houston’s athletes?”
This is the point. aTm is aTm because of its entire history, not because of a couple current, transient students. Same for Sam Houston If they traded athletes today, would it be more than half a decade before they became their normal selves, and Sam Houston did also?
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I still don’t see how that is hypocritical. I mean if the NCAA was trying to block the development of NFL and NBA minor leagues then I guess you would have a point, but they aren’t.
At the same time, trying to argue that athletes should have the “choice” (and I put that in quotes since it’s largely a false choice) to monetize themselves in the minors is disingenuous when, outside of going directly to the NBA and NFL directly, those minor league entities have a tiny of a fraction of the ability to provide that monetization compared to colleges (at least those in the power conferences).
That just means the NCAA is the least bad alternative. Maybe it is unfair, but I don’t see how that is hypocritical.
(And for the record I have no philosophical objection to paying players, simply practical ones. Specifically, with all but a handful schools already requiring significant subsidization of their athletic departments I’m not going to ask students who are already dealing with record high tuition rates and schools that are dealing with record low public support to carry the cost)
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And if you go to Wikipedia, they list 4 “minor” basketball leagues-International, Premier, Central and NBA D, 1 “semi-pro” league-American Basketball Association, and “Short season/local/regional/semi-pro basketball leagues.
I don’t think there is much of an argument that basketball players don’t have alternatives. They just view the NCAA as a better deal.
So really, we are just talking about football.
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left out the number-9 of the short season/etc. leagues.
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As in the SI article, he’s kind of making the argument that HS players don’t have much value. If they really had value, they wouldn’t be stuck behind a player from Penn.
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The D-NBA does not have any players straight from HS, but there are international MBB options.
One and done players are the only ones that could have been held back a year turning pro in the NBA. For 2013 10 freshmen declared for the NBA draft: 6 were selected in the first round, 2 in the second, and 2 JUCO players were not selected. So at most 8 D1 players had their NBA careers delayed for 1 year. If you assume that the extra year of development was needed or the 3 players drafted 29 and below it was 5.
But the conclusion is correct: Football is the only sport with no pro options to the NCAA.
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Actually even football players have options like the CFL or Arena League.
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Mack:
Here is a list a poster put up on another site. They seem to be less attractive to most players than the NCAA system.
“There are plenty of options, they just don’t make money so you don’t hear or read about them much. You have The Arena League, The Canadian Football League, The Professional Developmental Football League, The United Football League, The American Professional Football League, The Spring Professional Football League, The Professional Indoor Football League, and dozens of semi pro leagues. There is even a Women’s Professional Football League.”
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I don’t think there is much of an argument that basketball players don’t have alternatives. They just view the NCAA as a better deal.
Bear in mind that the NCAA stacks the deck in its own favor, because if college doesn’t work out you can always turn pro, but if the pros don’t work out you can never go back to college as an athlete.
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The NCAA has no say in any sport as to when a kid may turn pro. Your beef with the NFL and NBA is being taken out on the NCAA by demanding they change their rules to compensate for what the pros won’t do.
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The NCAA has no say in any sport as to when a kid may turn pro. Your beef with the NFL and NBA is being taken out on the NCAA by demanding they change their rules to compensate for what the pros won’t do.
I’m afraid I don’t follow. Of course the NCAA has no say as to when a kid turns pro. What they say, is that if you take that decision it’s irrevocable.
I have no beef with the NFL and NBA; their system works the way it should.
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“What they say, is that if you take that decision it’s irrevocable”
Why haven’t we had this outrage about the five year clock? It seems far more draconian. A kid starts school, then realizes he isn’t ready academically. His clock has started.
Nothing is irrevocable (except death). Everything can be appealed. Whether you win is another matter, but there are cases of students taking prescribed steps and having eligibility restored.
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Posted this earlier today in the previous thread but it is more pertinent here so I thought I would toss it up again.
http://college-basketball.si.com/2013/09/17/mark-emmerts-basketball-dilemma/
SI writer argues that allowing HS to pros again would devastate CBB.
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Frank – the safety net is their education. I routinely hear how college grads earn well over a million dollars more in a lifetime than non graduates. Add that factor plus the debt a normal non “mommy/daddy” kid has to pay plus interest and years of stress and I think this 1.125 million dollar lifetime compensation is more than fair. The government grants contracts to universities for millions of dollars and students work on these with little compensation. Deal with it. Life ain’t fair. But in this ” everything right now” culture we just get little cry babies. The Tennessee punk cried that his coach drove a Lexus. Did mr Tennessee ever consider his coach worked his ass off to get that Lexus.
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@Geo – The point is that the NCAA is NOT providing that education safety net when it’s telling kids to choose between either the draft or college and then leaving them out to dry when they don’t end up getting drafted by taking away their college eligibility. Like I’ve said, it’s a more defensible position for the NCAA if they’re letting those kids to gather all of the necessary information and resources to make an informed lifetime decision (such as signing with a reputable agent that can provide a more objective analysis of a player’s true draft stock) without risking their college eligibility, but the fact of the matter is that the NCAA is explicitly NOT doing that. If people want to claim that “life is full of tough breaks” for a decision by an athlete that ends up going bad, that’s only acceptable IF that athlete truly had the opportunity to make that decision in a fully informed manner.
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I find the NCAA’s position on agents indefensible. They seem to view having agents around as the biggest offense out there (short of child molestation). I definitely agree with you that this needs to be changed. They need to have good advice.
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So this whole post is about “fully informed” student athletes? Let’s face it… Those making the poor choice probably really aren’t students anyway. This post is a big miss – the athletes of any sport that get a full scholarship are compensated from $100,000 to $1,000,000 depending on how you look at it. Seems like a lot of compensation for being able to swing a tennis racquet or dive off a board. Oh that’s right you are only focusing on NFL bound babies who need to have the world before they are twenty years old. Sorry but athletes as a whole a certainly compensated for their efforts. And somehow the Braxton millers of the world, even if he does not make the nfl, will be fine. I am sure it will be real hard for him to find a career in Columbus. That’s a level playing field for all students, right?
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“Those making the poor choice probably really aren’t students anyway.”
How does a student understand where he’s going to go in the draft, and thus be able to make the right choice?
I disagree with some of Frank’s points, and need to think more on others – very thought provoking piece! – but I agree completely that students should not lose their eligibility for (a) entering the draft, and (b) properly preparing themselves via contact with an agent.
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Aaron, the NFL has an advisory committee to provide evaluations for potential players.
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There are about 5000 D1 basketball players and the NBA has 30 draft slots that provide guaranteed contracts each year without about a third of those going to overseas players. Just because a school makes a profit does not mean the athlete created that profit. Michigan could put any product on the field or court and still make big money (remember the Rich Rod era).
The one change that the NCAA should make is to allow any athlete to enter the draft for their sport without impact on eligibility until they hire an agent or sign a contract. I find most young people overestimate their worth. If the athletes were allowed to put their name in the hopper for the draft then most would get confirmation that they are being paid what they are worth now.
Baseball does not have that problem because the teams identify who to draft, no application required. However, baseball excludes baseball players attending a 4 year college until their Junior year. However, if a player was a JUCO transfer he could have been drafted 5 times before graduating from a 4 year college with no effect on eligibility. The same should apply for all sports.
I do not believe that athletes who sign a contract, attend professional training camps / summer leagues, preseason games, etc. should regain eligibility if they get cut from the final roster.
I disagree with Frank about sports agents. Agents get paid a percentage of the professional salary, so they have a vested interest in advising players to turn pro. Top agents will give a realistic assessment by declining to represent marginal prospects, but what 19 year old is going to take no as the answer. They will find an agent that works the odds by signing lots of marginal prospects knowing a few will get drafted and a few of those will stick and provide an income stream for the agent.
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Just because a school makes a profit does not mean the athlete created that profit. Michigan could put any product on the field or court and still make big money (remember the Rich Rod era).
A better comparison is Michigan basketball, which spent over a decade in the wilderness (after the Ed Martin scandal), and until fairly recently, frequently played to a half-full arena for most home games. Eventually, if you don’t have a quality product, the fans stop coming.
The Rich Rod era was only three years, before Michigan stanched the bleeding, and that was after decades of success. The fact that fans put up with it for three years does not mean their loyalty would have been infinite.
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@Marc Shepherd – Agreed. I don’t buy the notion that interest levels would be largely sustained if you take away large groups of quality players. It may not dissipate immediately, but it occurs over time. Just look at the interest in college basketball (outside of the NCAA Tournament as an event) today compared to 30 years ago when the top players stayed in school for multiple seasons – it’s been on a decline. Once again, I think a lot of people are forgetting what both the NBA and college basketball looked like during that period in the early-2000s when there were no age restrictions and virtually every top 20 high school recruit decided to enter the draft. It managed to simultaneously lower the quality of both the NBA (too many players that weren’t ready) and the college game (too many top talents didn’t go to school). That was simply unsustainable on both ends. The NBA instituted its age restriction quick enough to stem the tide, but it would have been really ugly for the game of basketball at both the pro and college levels if it had continued on.
Plus, we need to remember that most of us here, who generally either graduated from or very clearly support a particular school, aren’t the ones that matter the most in the money-making machine. It’s the casual sports fan without a direct interest in a team that makes all of that TV money possible, and they will absolutely bolt from viewing games if top players go directly to the pros. Those are the people that make FBS college football into the most widely watched sport outside of the NFL and college basketball into a legit major spectator sport (as opposed to having a niche audience like, say, the MLS). They aren’t watching FCS football and Division II basketball, though (and that’s even with FCS having the type of exciting playoff system that many casual sports fans claim that they want). The quality of the athletes that they’re watching absolutely matter to that much larger audience that make those ESPN and BTN dollars possible.
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http://www.nbcsports.com/college-football/alabama-michigan-state-games-2016-17-cancelled
It seems Michigan’s (and I would assume all other Northern teams) issues scheduling marquee OOC games are worse than we thought. But I do wonder how long it’ll be before Hoke calls the Tide chicken.
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Yes, I know it was State’s games that got cancelled, but if the Tide are trying to get out of that game, there’s little chance they’ll try to schedule a B1G king.
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I think it’s going to get worse too. I mean would Tennessee really schedule a team like Oregon again after the two drubbings they took in that home and home? What’s even the point of scheduling two lopsided losses like that?
And if you have SEC teams with 9 game schedules and then some of the teams with traditional ACC rivalry games, that doesn’t leave many marquee opponents left to schedule elsewhere.
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I am really dubious that the “strength of schedule” factor will be influential enough to induce teams to schedule up. In both of the major polls, Texas A&M is ranked below FSU. The Aggies are 3-1, with a loss to the #1 team. The Seminoles are 3-0 and have not played a ranked team. And it’s not as if Alabama drubbed A&M. It was a see-saw game, and A&M was an onsides kick away from having the ball with a chance to tie.
So A&M showed that it could hang pretty close with #1, while FSU has shown almost nothing at all. Both have gone 3-0 vs. unranked opponents, but FSU is ranked higher, because it has no losses. That is how the polls usually work. A&M would have been far better off if it had played (say) Vanderbilt, and won handily.
That is merely the example du jour; this happens all the time. The polls certainly reward you when you schedule tough opponents, and win. But they are not very good at extracting positive evidence from losses. This is so heavily ingrained in the sport that I hesitate to believe that the committee will think of it any other way.
(I do realize that Alabama wasn’t an optional opponent for A&M; but the principle would be the same regardless of whom they’d played.)
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And it also shows how preconceived notions apply. Look at what Alabama has done this year. Their defense with only A&M having a good offense is really rated low (56th). They were held to 64 yards on the ground vs. CSU. Alabama has no business being #1 at this point in the season. Their defense hasn’t come together and their 3 new O-line starters haven’t got it together yet. They got 49 points vs. A&M, but A&M is rated #110 on defense. They may be very good by the end of the year, but they really haven’t show it yet.
I was buying the Alabama is great again until I was looking at a variety of defensive stats for Texas and saw Alabama rated in the same vicinity in a number of categories (not total defense-UT is #108).
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How about promotion and relegation in a true pyramid structure? Basically, the colleges, whether willingly or not, have been used as a feeder system for the professional leagues. One huge problem with American sports is that the professional leagues have operated in a closed manner. Even the Supreme Court, in one of their worse decisions, sanctioned such a practice with regards to Major League Baseball.
I don’t think minor leagues is the way to look at it. I look at it as opening up what is now a cartel system. Not that it’s going to be easy, since the current system is well-entrenched politically, as well as economically. But I would love to see the artificial restraints removed. There isn’t any true “competition” because there is no sanctioning body, like a football association, that would oversee the professional leagues. There is the USSF with respect to soccer, but even they won’t allow promotion and relegation and is basically an arm of MLS.
The biggest problem I have with a closed system is that owners have leverage to extort cities to pay for new stadia, restrict competition from within a given region and offer a limited product to customers. With promotion and relegation, that leverage is taken away from them because anyone would be more free to start teams and clubs in any city in the nation.
How would this affect the college programs? I still think they can co-exist. University sports are played in Europe, even though they have had pro/rel for over a hundred years. It just that it would be on a division III-type level. But I think people will watch even if at a D-III, just not as many.
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You’d have to eliminate the draft, because three teams would be switching places with three teams in a completely different league each year. And you’d have to forget about parity, because you don’t want your champions being relegated the next year. Oh wait.
The irony of professional sports is that America, which is generally more capitalist, has the more socialist professional sports system, while Europe, which is generally more open to Marxist thought, has the more free-market professional sports system.
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But Europeans are supposedly wimps and don’t act like real men. *rolleyes*
I’ll gladly accept the risk of having my team play in a lower division. At least my team will more likely stay in the city they started in, unlike what fans of the Baltimore Colts, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the original Cleveland Browns had to deal with.
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@Transic – It’s not about being wimps on-the-field, but rather financial investment and branding off-the-field. The power conferences have gone to great lengths to have anything *but* a egalitarian promotion/relegation system – they want to associate themselves with only certain schools and don’t care whatsoever if schools outside of that group could be better on-the-field in a given season.
At the pro level, you’re not going to convince American owners who are paying hundreds of millions or even over a billion dollars for franchises that they can relegated in favor of minor league team that someone paid $10 million for. If anything, you’re more likely to see a push in the other direction in Europe to get rid of promotion/relegation. All of those Americans and non-Brits that have bought Premier League clubs are already skittish about the system. When one of guys that paid a billion dollars for a club gets relegated and starts making a fraction of the revenue, you’ll see a lot more force behind John Henry’s recent proposal (the owner of Liverpool and the Red Sox) to eliminate promotion/relegation. They have too much invested in these clubs to have the risk of not even playing in the league that they’re paying to be in.
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Tough, John. You knew the rules coming in; if Liverpool finishes at the bottom of the Premiership and Wolverhampton wins the First Division, down you go and up go Wolves.
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I think the only reason these elites think that they can do away with pro/rel is because I suspect they think that England would be the easiest place to get rid of the practice. They know that if they tried to do this in Germany, Spain, Portugal or France that the resistance to imposing a cartel system would be massive. Those last nations don’t follow English common law but have their own legal traditions, which then allow common folk to organize sports as they see fit. The English common law is one of those things we Americans should have gotten rid of when we kicked the King out of the colonies, but the framers of the Constitution were afraid that it would invite chaos. Unfortunately, that has given rich owners the legal precedent of favoring practices that limit competition and impose a cartel system in professional sports.
But think of this as a fan of a typical English football club. You’ve spent years supporting your team, thinking of them as part of your community. The team has spend decades giving you promise of trophies, great victories and moments of great pain, disappointment and disillusion. But you continue to support them because they are a part of you. These clubs provide meeting spaces for people to gather, cheer on their team, boo the other team and get on that roller coaster of having to follow them through the divisions. Then there are the domestic cup competitions that when your team starts winning games you get to have the chance of facing the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, etc.. Most times you lose those games but the ones you win are the most memorable, the ones where you can tell your children and grandchildren about them. Win or lose, they’ve always been there for you when you want to watch a game. They are a big part of English culture.
Now contrast that with the fans of the original Cleveland Browns and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Those teams were once thought of as part of the community, that they’d be there for you during bad times as well as good. Then, one day, the owner decides that instead of another city having its own team that he’d use the legal cartel to move a business from one place to another, just like a franchise. Next thing you know, decades of support and tradition are thrown into the trash. Is it any wonder that people are cynical about sports these days? You have have McTeams all over the place, giving the impression of competition but masking the limited choices on offer.
Pro/rel is an idea that deserves to be seriously discussed among sports fans. It’s time for a serious change in how sports is organized here.
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One more thing: if you looking at this as “major” vs “minor” league, then you’re missing the point. With pro/rel, all teams are simply competitors, with most of them only good enough to play in a lower division during a snapshot in time. When a team gets good enough that they can replace a team that has not succeeded in maintaining their level of competition, then the new team gets to compete at a higher level, and the old has to now compete at a lower level until they can recover in points enough to go back up.
Yes, there was a time when Manchester United had to compete in the second division. Look it up! Same with Liverpool and Manchester City. Leeds was once among the elite teams but is trying to get back to the top level now.
But that’s just sports. The real reason I support pro/rel is it takes away the legal incentive to extort cities to get tax monies for facilities and other things. The elites are scared of real competition for that very reason. They most likely not earned the wealth that they have but inherited it from someone who did accumulate it. Many of them are rich because of natural resources, the stock market or have the right connections, otherwise. They simply see owning teams as a way to get themselves famous. If they had to do it the hard way by buying a team in the lower division and spending to bring it to the highest division, then they’d lose patience because that’s what it requires before there’s any success.
A person like Malcolm Glazer will not spend his own money to buy a team but uses OPM (other people’s money) by borrowing vast sums and then saddle the purchased team with debt that has to be paid down. No wonder the likes of him are afraid of pro/rel. The risk of Man United going down, even if low right now, has to give him some pause. A lot of rich people are cheap by nature. It is one of those unwritten rules about wealth.
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Alternative model:
Franchise the two revenue sports. They ARE the minor league professional sports team. They pay a franchise fee to the University that they are associated with, and whose name, mascot, etc. they use, plus a revenue share. The revenue sports organizations are permitted to pursue a profit. As part of the quid pro quo, their players are allowed to enroll in classes at the University on an expenses-paid basis so long as they maintain a satisfactory GPA.
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Hail to Pitt
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One thing that I am curious (and clueless) about is how much does the University name and reputation add to the value of a player? If Manziel had attended Grand Valley State University and put up the same numbers as last season barely anyone would have noticed. He certainly would not be a name brand.
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If Manziel played the same schedule and lit up the same teams as he did with A&M he would’ve certainly been noticed even if he played at GVSU.
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Pingback: ACC Football Daily Links — Can Virginia Tech’s Defense, Toughness Carry Them All Season? | Atlantic Coast Convos
Off this topic, but an interesting interview with former Illinois AD with some comments on RU/MD expansion.
http://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/local_sports/article_8097a746-2720-11e3-9f24-0019bb30f31a.html
Rutgers and Maryland will join the Big Ten next year, and Guenther was deeply engaged in that unexpected development.
“We ran out of options,” he said. “That was not what we started to do. Jim had challenged me to come up with ways to increase the conference value, and I worked with the Pac-12 to put a collaboration together whereby we would play a 12-game series with them in football, staggered over the first three weeks of the season. We’d then be able to capture all three time zones, thus increasing our TV dollars. Unfortunately, right at the end, the Pac-12 pulled the plug because some institutions had contracts they couldn’t break.
“The challenge then was how do we increase our revenue? I looked at the population base going east. Once we take the Big Ten brand into New York, with that population and the good high school programs … give this 10 years and we’ll see.
“This is so different from what we thought we were looking at. But I like our strategy. There were some other ACC schools that showed interest but that didn’t work out.”
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“Unfortunately, right at the end, the Pac-12 pulled the plug because some institutions had contracts they couldn’t break.”
Being just a bit kind to the PAC, or politely laying the blame elsewhere?
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The world of collegiate athletics is, pun intended, highly collegial. They usually don’t throw each other under the bus.
There was never a scenario where USC and Stanford were going to drop Notre Dame. Either the Pac-12 agreed to the deal without ensuring the full support of its members; or USC and Stanford gave their initial assent without thinking through the consequences very thoroughly.
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USC and Stanford gave their initial assent without thinking through the consequences very thoroughly.
By most accounts that is what happened. Specifically, about a year after signing off on a 2016 start date those two plus Oregon asked to delay the start alliance by I believe 5 years, when their schedules cleared, but the Big Ten (who had already dropped their planned 9 game schedule and whose teams had already begun cancelling upcoming OOC games) said no.
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Frank,
Good article but you point 2 is complete crap especially when you lead off by saying you a free marketer. Everyday people make huge decisions that effect the rest of their lives without protection against the consequences. Do we give a lottery winner the money again after they foolishly blew it all? Do we refund the small business owner all the money he or she lost after they had to file for bankruptcy when their business fails? Does a student get a refund on their college education when they graduate in a major that isn’t in demand and are saddle with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loads? What about the guy who had to drop out of school, even high school, because he had a child and now has to support a family? Should he be protected from himself? Is it right to give him extra at the expense of those who didn’t have a kid? Should military recruits be able to back out of their enlistment when a war comes because they didn’t fully understand their commitment at 17-18? What makes athletes so special?
Also, if an athlete chooses pro sports and wants to go back to college, he can go back to college. He is not forever barred. He just has to pay for it like everyone else. There are many individuals who pass up scholarships out of high school to pursue other things only to have those scholarships unavailable when they choose if ever to go back. Do we have to protect them?
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@Psuhockey: Your examples are highly selective. It’s true that there are many life decisions that come without a safety net; but there are many that do. For instance, if a stock broker persuades an old lady to invest her life savings in speculative penny stocks, the old lady can get her money back if the stocks collapse. This is based on the principle that the stock broker has WAY more information than the old lady does.
That’s the situation we’re describing here. The agent persuading the 17-year-old to turn pro has WAY more information than the athlete. Beyond that, there are practically no consequences to the agent if he’s wrong, but profound consequences for the athlete. This means that the agent has far less incentive to get it right.
Also, if an athlete chooses pro sports and wants to go back to college, he can go back to college. He is not forever barred. He just has to pay for it like everyone else.
That may be the wrong analogy. As Frank noted, if a 17-year-old computer whiz kid goes straight out of high school to a tech start-up, and fails, he is not precluded from going back to school, and receiving a scholarship based on his technical ability. Only in athletics is the student forever precluded from receiving a scholarship.
There are many individuals who pass up scholarships out of high school to pursue other things only to have those scholarships unavailable when they choose if ever to go back.
That’s true, but there is no nationwide rule precluding them. It’s up to each institution to decide each case on an individual basis.
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There is no nationwide rule in this case either. Only a D1 NCAA rule. No organization outside that club is bound.
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A D2 NCAA school is allowed to give athletic scholarships to students who have previously been pro?
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Oops, sorry. Meant NCAA, as their rules govern NCAA schools. Was thinking about the eligibility clock and its variance in different divisions.
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Marc,
Actually the NFL Advisory Committee offers evaluations to college players
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The issue is not paying the players
The issue is enforcing the education of the players
As stated above the issue may not be about paying the players because getting a free education is an immediate benefit and also a long term benefit (if the added 1 million in lifetime income is correct) to the student athlete. The issue is enforcing the education aspect of the contract between player and school. If you are a student athlete and you are recruited to play sports the university that recruits you is responsible to see you get an education and not some “Rocks for Jocks” classes that release you onto the world with no real education.
If you are a student athlete you should be required to take basic finance classes so you learn to be responsible for your wealth instead of blindly diffusing your future riches among groupies and street agents who whisper in your ear to enrich their own pockets. As a student athlete you should be required to take a basic course on contracts and reading comprehension so you take some responsibility for your own future. It would be a safe bet to believe most of these kids never read their entire contract and some may have not been able to read it at all. Also included in the student athlete education would be a class on life after sports and a course on basic ethics.
My personal opinion is that in addition to the actual education of student athletes the NCAA – in cooperation with the member schools – include injury insurance with every letter of intent a student signs with their recruiting institution. This may be the real solution to cash or stipends as it actually provides student athletes with a real benefit while not putting actual cash in a young kids hands. It also teaches kids to focus on long term issues then getting laid while on a school visit.
On the other side schools need to budget more like scottish bankers and less like kings with legions of paid yes men. When AD’s salaries go from 100K per year to 500K or 1 M at a time when the economy is shot it is counter intuitive and creates “ivory towers of sports” instead of “ivory towers of education”. This is more pronounced because you do not get “lottery rich” as a professor the same way you do as a worker in the AD’s office staff. My observation of the “government waste” levels of money waste in school’s sports front offices and facilities is getting obscene. It is not about prudent spending and reinvestment but spending ever increasing budgets so you get more next year wether you need it or not.
If you are setting an example for 18 year old kids where the first thing they see is how college sports spend like drunken sailors are we surprised when they demand a piece of that action?
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GEAUX Tigers!
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I keep seeing people mention Johnny Manziel, RG3, and other elite transcendent athletes as poster children for why college football and basketball players deserve to be paid. I’m pro-stipend and the full cost of attendance. I’m talking about having an actual payroll of players.
Question for Frank and others: What percentage of athletes provide more value ($$) to the school than the cost of their four-year scholarship (tuition, room & board, food, insurance, training, tutoring, etc.)? How many generate more than they receive? One percent? Five percent?
Follow up question: Why is it a good idea to set up the rules for ever FBS football player based on these statistical outliers?
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I think you raise a very valid point. To quote the NCAA commercial, practically all of them are going pro in something other than sports.
I favor incremental changes that require no new financial commitment for the school, beyond offering the full cost of attendance, such as allowing players to hire agents; allowing players to enter the draft, and then return to school if they’re drafted poorly or not at all; allowing players to monetize their own value; and so forth.
There is an inherent contradiction in the NCAA’s position. If sports is an extra-curricular activity, then treat it like other extra-curricular activities. In no other activity is the student prohibited from earning money outside of school.
If sports is a field of study, then preparing the student to earn a living ought to be considered a success. If a music student releases an album, the music school doesn’t declare him ineligible.
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“Follow up question: Why is it a good idea to set up the rules for ever FBS football player based on these statistical outliers?”
That’s the million dollar question.
The problem that we have is that almost all athletes are getting either fair value or more than fair value by receiving a scholarship in exchange for their athletic participation.
Even among football and basketball players, it’s not like every player is worth more than they’re currently receiving.
Maybe upwards to 15-20 athletes maximum should be receiving more than they are currently.
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Shoot, people throw Michigan around a lot in these discussions. Look at them right now, a ttop 20 team, solid television ratings, undoubtedly going to be at the top of attendance figures and near the top of total revenue figures as well. Now tell me who on the current Michigan team is creating that value? This is the team with the 2nd highest revenue, I believe, and you would struggle to point out who on their roster really deserves more than the value of the scholarship.
Even for the teams with the most revenue, it isn’t always clear that there are players that should really be paid. Some years? Maybe. But as you said Zeek, there is probably only a handful of players nationwide that could possibly expect that, and should a national policy be based on such a small portion of the total number of student athletes?
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Yeah I think that’s the big issue. How much of this value can we really ascribe to individual players or groups of individual players (skill positions/linemen etc.)? To much of the general public, they don’t even know many of the players on their own teams let alone other teams, especially with how much player turnover there is in college football.
And how do we do it? Do we do it by recruits’ star ratings? But what about the fact that some of these superstar-type players were never more than 3 stars and conversely some 5 stars don’t pan out…
And what happens when a player transfers? How do you deal with that? What happens if they don’t perform as expected at their next school?
But yeah, it always comes back to that question. The Johnny Manziels, the Denard Robinsons, the Tim Tebows, the Andrew Lucks, etc., the might be marquee names to the public, but they’re so few in total number, how or why do you make a national policy based on such outliers.
Generally, we’re talking about superstar basketball players (the top 2-3 players on the team) as well as the skill position (mostly QBs, but some RBs, WRs) football players that are worthy of note, but is that really more than a couple athletes at each school?
Are we really going to turn this into a situation where the QB earns like $1 million in an escrow account for starting 2 seasons at his school, but most of the other athletes don’t get anything? I don’t think people want to see something like that, it’d encourage jealousy, especially since most athletes (including football/basketball players) won’t even make it to the pros.
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Former Illinois AD Guenther on ground floor of NCAA overhaul.
When he says “New York”, is he referring to NY City and the Rutgers addition, or bigger plans that include upstate NY including the Syracuse and Buffalo areas? Sounds like there’ might be more to come with B1G expansion in the east.
“Once we take the Big Ten brand into New York, with that population and the good high school
programs … give this 10 years and we’ll see.”
http://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/local_sports/article_8097a746-2720-11e3-9f24-0019bb30f31a.html
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“There were some other ACC schools that showed interest but that didn’t work out.”
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Georgia Tech is the most obvious one. There was always a lot of chatter about them, and given that they were among the most recent additions to the AAU along with the fact that the Maryland conversations started between Loh and the Big Ten presidents at the AAU, it makes sense to consider them to have been the most likely to show interest.
FSU probably was the second given that they were testing the water on all of their options.
I don’t think any of the Virginia or North Carolina schools had any discussions to this effect. The UVa AD sounded like he had no idea what was going on at all and made it sound as if the administration didn’t either.
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zeek, we’re all aware of the chatter, but were there any substantiated claims? Interesting to see a B1G official mention this on the record.
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No mainly because this was being played above the ADs. I think if any conversations were had, they were between 1-2 ACC presidents and a few Big Ten presidents at most.
We’re not likely to hear about it until way later when the presidents are out of their posts and talk about it.
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The Big 10 ADs didn’t know about Penn St. until it was already decided.
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Almost definitely FSU. Very likely Miami (definitely once they got wind that FSU was potentially talking to the B10 and other leagues and possible before; Shalala came from Wisconsin). Possibly the VA schools. Possibly GTech.
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I have information that GT were the ones who contacted the B10 about potential membership and weren’t originally even in the B10’s expansion radar. GT was really proactive about finding a home in the B10 in case the ACC were to implode as they knew they had no home in the SEC…
Not sure how interested GT really was unless the ACC really did implode. I’d assume other schools like FSU, Miami, Clemson, Virginia and others had similar discussions with Delaney, Slive, etc.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9731696/ea-sports-clc-settle-lawsuits-40-million-source
Video game producer EA Sports and Collegiate Licensing Company will pay around $40 million to settle lawsuits brought by former players whose likenesses were used without compensation, a source familiar with the negotiations told ESPN’s Tom Farrey on Friday.
The number of players to benefit is between 200,000 and 300,000, said Steve Berman, managing partner of the law firm Hagens Berman, who served as co-lead counsel in the class-action lawsuit brought by the players.
Current players are eligible to take part in the settlement, sources told ESPN. The NCAA would have to make a determination as to whether payments to current players would affect their eligibility.
…
NCAA chief legal officer Donald Remy told USA Today that the NCAA was “not prepared to compromise on this case.”
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So EA settles for about $160 per player.
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I wonder how much each player will get after lawyer fees.
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They will owe the lawyers an additional 200 per player.
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This tells you, that O’Bannon is not about “Protecting Rights, or “fairness” it is nothing more than an attempt for Lawyers to get rich. And for every winner there is a loser, and that means losers like consumers who will not have the opportunity to purchase EA College Football, shareholders, and people who want to purchase other games and find out that cost is being passed on to them.
This Lawsuit is another reason I oppose paying College players. These “poor, oppressed athletes” everyone feels sorry for, will get crumbs and Lawyers get rich. I can only imagine the fun Scott Boras will have with an additional weapon to use when trying blackmail teams into overpaying for his players. The other side of course, will be more teams not drafting Boras clients just like the White Sox. You see that with the lack of Russians Drafted by NHL Teams because of the KHL. Who loses? The players, fans and the competitive balance.
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“Plus, lest we forget, the NBA tried the “direct from high school” route not too long ago and the results were pretty abysmal.” Because players were jumping directly into the NBA instead of into a developmental league where they could develop their skills.
Your third point would seem to either obviate the second point or they’re really the same point, and in any case they both miss the point, which is that in an ideal world, colleges would have as little as possible to do with developing athletes for the pros, something that is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of the student-athlete they profess to uphold. In other words, if you would never otherwise get into college I want you to start making money off your talents and I don’t want you to even consider college as an option, even if you’ll never develop into an NFL- or NBA-caliber talent.
I want more educational opportunities for lower-income students who wouldn’t otherwise get them as much as the next guy, but college athletics strikes me as a very poor way to get them, resulting in a bunch of kids that place no value on a college education and just go through the motions while playing the sport they’re really there for, often ending up with the school fudging their grades or funneling them into easy classes to keep them on the field. We left behind the notion of “mens sana in corpore sano” in the 19th century, certainly once the GI Bill broadened access to college beyond the children of the elite and thus turned it into more than a training ground for “gentlemen”. I’d much rather correct that imbalance with explicit affirmative action on the basis of class (NOT race), and preferably with greater investment in our public school system in inner cities, but now we’re getting into a far bigger issue.
NFL Europe failed because it was also another in the NFL’s long line of failed attempts to get Europeans to care about football, but the bigger point is this: why do colleges make so much money and football and basketball minor leagues don’t? Is it because of the athletes that go to college? No, because then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; if the best athletes were to go to the minor leagues they’d make a lot more money and then your last point is moot. It’s because of the passion of the fans. To go back to your first point, from the NFL and NBA’s perspective they have sold the rights to the names of their developmental teams (well, and any access to revenue and exposure to risk) for a fanbase. People cheer for college teams because of their loyalty to that college, because of college sports’ role in the collegiate experience, the way it appeals to their tribal instincts in the way that all team sports do.
The whole problem is that there are two kinds of student-athletes: the kind that “go pro in something other than sports” and those that, well, go pro in sports. College sports claims to be for the benefit of the former, and as the Iowa State AD pointed out in a tweet that was read on Fox Sports Live last night those kind of student athletes make up the vast majority (“almost all of them”, right, incessant March Madness ads?), but they’re being asked to serve both purposes at once and it just doesn’t work. I’d love to see some sort of other system for developing talent, whether it’s a baseball-style farm system, the way they develop hockey players in Canada, even the team-by-team academies European soccer teams have, something so that college athletics can go back to focusing on actual student-athletes. But Jim Delany and the NCAA would have to meet them halfway, and something tells me getting the pros-in-training out of college athletics is treating the symptom and not the cause. But embracing the way college athletics now appeal to students’ tribal instincts means we’ve obviated the reasons the colleges started the teams to begin with.
(The Iowa State AD also claimed that paying players would end all sports other than the revenue ones, to which I say: well, no one said those non-revenue sports had to be intercollegiate as opposed to intramural.)
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The Iowa State AD also claimed that paying players would end all sports other than the revenue ones, to which I say: well, no one said those non-revenue sports had to be intercollegiate as opposed to intramural.
Well Title IX says an equivalent number of women’s sports do have to be intercollegiate. Also, the NCAA mandates a 14 sport minimum for FBS schools.
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ISU is one of the nation’s leaders in women’s basketball attendance, averaging close to 10,000 a game. I doubt the Cyclones plan to shut down that program (or wrestling, for that matter).
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Vincent,
While true Iowa State women draw well you are not looking at who they draw. Men get high dollar tickets and corporate folks writing big donor checks. Women draw families and senior citizens so you are looking at fixed income or no income in the case of the kids. Just because the numbers are high does not mean the dollars are high as well. I do not think there is a female college sport that ruins in the black. Teams like Connecticut and Tennessee have multi million dollar coaching contracts to pay for games with 10 dollar tickets (and free for kids),
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. . . in an ideal world, colleges would have as little as possible to do with developing athletes for the pros, something that is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of the student-athlete they profess to uphold.
Since when is the world “ideal”?
All of the major collegiate programs embrace the idea of preparing athletes for pro sports. That’s not an “ideal” that the NCAA talks about very much. But it would be crazy to deny that it’s the reality.
I think that’s part of the hypocrisy that Frank is referring to, that their claimed goals and actual goals are not really consistent.
In other words, if you would never otherwise get into college I want you to start making money off your talents and I don’t want you to even consider college as an option, even if you’ll never develop into an NFL- or NBA-caliber talent.
What world are you living in, if you think it will ever work that way?
I’d love to see some sort of other system for developing talent, whether it’s a baseball-style farm system, the way they develop hockey players in Canada, even the team-by-team academies European soccer teams have, something so that college athletics can go back to focusing on actual student-athletes.
There’s no perceptible market demand for that “other system”. If you’re Cam Newton and not yet NFL ready, what would you rather do? Compete for a national championship at Auburn, or play in a developmental league in Muncie, Indiana?
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Frank – great post. It got me thinking about comparing Minor League Baseball with College Baseball since high school players can choose between the two.
Regarding attendance, LSU’s per game average (11,006) exceeds that of any minor league team. The AAA Columbus Clippers lead of MiLB with an average of 9,212 per game. Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss State, and South Carolina would rank in the top 13 of MiLB attendance, and all outdraw the best AA team, the Frisco (TX) Rough Riders with 7,057 per game. The top 13 college teams would rank in MiLB’s top 100 in attendance.
Forbes recently valued the top minor league teams with the #1 Sacramento River Cats valued at $38 million.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/07/17/minor-league-baseballs-most-valuable-teams/
The River Cats average attendance for 72 home games is 8,435. LSU’s attendance of 11,006 was complied over 43 home games, including regional and super regional games. Sacramento’s total revenue is $14 million with an operating income of $7.1 million. The average for the top 20 MiLB teams is #1.6 million. Keep in mind that the MLB parent team pays the salaries for the MiLB affiliate’s players. LSU’s revenue is around $8 million with about $850,000 in expenses.
I guess my point is that college baseball played and supported at the highest level is at least comparable to the best minor league clubs in terms of revenue and attendance. I realize that LSU is a bit of an outlier, even when compared to Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss State, South Carolina, Texas, Clemson & Florida State, but so was Sacramento to the rest of MiLB.
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Regarding attendance, LSU’s per game average (11,006) exceeds that of any minor league team.
Besides that, I believe the sabermetrician Bill James once did a study, and concluded that college usually does a better job of preparing a suitably talented athlete for the Major Leagues than going directly to the minors out of high school.
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Well, studies show that college players drafted in early rounds have a higher success rate than HS players drafted in early rounds, but it is far from clear that a talented HS player who already will get a decent bonus for signing is better off forsaking that bonus to go to college. A big reason why college draftees are more successful is because a certain percentage of highly touted HS talents who go to college wash out or get a career-altering injury. In fact, when it comes to development, scouts tend to think that college is worse than the minors. That is, they expect a 24 year-old college draft pick to be where a 22 year-old HS draft pick to be.
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Do you have any numbers on what minor league baseball players get paid on average?
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Sorry, should have googled first. This is what I found from 2010 FWIW.
http://nationalsportsandentertainment.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/pay-structure-of-minor-league-baseball-players/
“The current [2010] salary system for the minor leagues [baseball] is a follows:
• First contract season: $850/month maximum.
• Alien Salary Rates: Different for aliens on visas – mandated by INS
• Triple-A – First year: $2,150/month, after first year no less than $2,150/month
• Class AA – First year: $1,500/month, after first year no less than $1,500/month
• Class A (full season) – First year: $1,050/month, after first year no less than $1,050/month
• Class A (short-season) – First year: $850/month, after first year no less than $850/month
• Dominican & Venezuelan Summer Leagues–no lower than $300/month”
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Not sure if this has been posted before
http://hawaiiathletics.com/documents/2013/9/12/Strategic_Plan_for_UH_Athletics_v6-_09032013.pdf?tab=strategicplan
Revisited as the Hawaii AD (Ben Jay) is speaking today at the Athletics Summit.
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(Sorry for being late to the party.)
@ FtT.
I am sorry, Frank, but I cannot disagree more with what you have written. With due respect, the devil is in the details and you didn’t offer a single detail about exactly HOW you propose to pay the players. It makes a HUGE difference how you define “pay for play.”
In general, I really don’t know where the impetus is coming from for this “pay-for-play” trend.
Maybe this is driven by celebrity-struck people. They say to themselves: “my goal in life is to be a celebrity, have my life on TV as a reality show and have lots and lots of money. Manzeil is my hero, I want to be like him and instagram from all these cool places and he deserves to get the $$.” That’s a bit snarky, but I dont really know how to articulate it better.
Frank, I caught of just a hint of this in your last sentence when you said: “The only thing that I want to see is that [the money] flows down to the people that we’re actually cheering for as fans.”
I can’t agree. The stadium has to be paid for, and everything else. And without everything else, there wouldn’t be “people that we’re actually cheering for.”
Maybe people think these athletes really are impoverished victims, enslaved by their schools.
Frank, I caught a hint of this when you said that “… this money isn’t flowing at all to the people that are generating all of this revenue.”
It is false, of course, to say that the money does not flow “at all.” The $$ flows (in the form of scholarships, room, board, training, health care, etc.), even if you don’t think the flow is sufficient.
In any event, I do not agree with the view that the players are impoverished. These kids are not slaves working without anything in return. Adrian Foster claiming he was starving and wasn’t able to buy tacos? I call bu****t on that.
Maybe people are outraged at the billions made by the universities and pity the players who aren’t getting their “fair share.” This is the main point of the line just quoted. To repeat, Frank, you said: “What I have a massive problem with, though, is that this money isn’t flowing at all to the people that are generating all of this revenue.”
First, that is communism.
Second, like it or not, this is how American business works. When you enter the workforce and do anything where you are creating (research, writing code, copyrighting, design, etc.), you sign away all your rights. If the company makes millions off of your invention, tough luck.
I don’t see anyone agitating for the code writers to get a more of the royalties from the program or video game.
Why is this group of exploited “employees” (college athletes) deserving of more attention/protection than any other group?
Here’s another example: If they are lucky, at a mid-sized to large firm, a 2-7 year lawyer gets paid $50-75 an hour if you divide it out by 2000 billable hours and the Firm bills him/her out at $350-700 an hour. That’s exploitative, but that’s the way the system works.
Frank, you also gave us a good example of how (and why) LeBron James is underpaid. That is another way of saying he is exploited. So, are you similarly outraged that the money isn’t flowing to James?
My guess is that you are okay with James being exploited because he is rich. So, how about articulating an argument here? Where your is your line and is it relative or absolute? In other words, if James is getting $20M a year, but the Heat makes $100M, are you outraged on behalf of LeBron James? Do you become outraged if the Heat suddenly makes $1B but now REALLY exploits James by keeping his pay at a mere $20 million?
And, how much money should the schools be paying the players? Cuz, here’s the problem. No matter what number you choose, someone is always going to argue exploitation.
Bottom line, I don’t buy any of these arguments about “exploitation” and am not particularly outraged by it.
I had other issues with the article. Frank I was puzzled and a bit worried when you started writing about how the players “need to be protected from themselves.” I am not sure what point you were making. You fail to tell us who is going to do this “protecting.” Later, there is mention of agents and lawyers, but I hope that is not what you meant. Is the government going to “protect” the players? the Party? the NCAA? the Universities?
And you end up offering no argument why this subset of high school students deserves to “be protected from themselves” any more than the whole great unwashed mass of high school students.
If this was just part of your point that going from high school directly to the professional leagues is a non-existent option, then I can agree.
I confess to be most astonished by your idea that colleges need to provide a safety net for the players.
I am at a loss. By what logic, by what line of thinking, by what set of philosophies do you assert that colleges have some sort of responsibility to high school students?
There is no constitutional, moral or God-given right to play college sports.
I confess to be nearly as astonished by your discussion of money flows. If this was merely an effort to reinforce the point that no option exists for the high school player to “get paid” in the minor leagues because there aren’t any, okay. No argument.
But the way you phrased it is cringe-worthy I won’t parse it, but essentially the Universities should pay because they have the money? Sorry, but no. That’s not the way a free-market system works.
In many responses to comments, you (I think) articulate an additional reason for pay-for-play which is bringing the sleazy booster money into the light.
You said for example:
“@Richard – Your suggestion of the Olympic model has a lot of validity. As you’ve said, it alleviates the issue of having to pay the non-transcendent players above market value and probably any Title IX concerns.
As I’ve been ruminating about this, maybe the best way to set this up is to have school booster clubs register as the college sports equivalent of Super PACs in politics – they’re organized, have reporting obligations, and clearly support a particular school in practicality, but they can’t coordinate anything directly with that school’s athletic department. This is essentially what’s occurring today (with shadow organizations of boosters providing under the table payments to top recruits), but the benefit is to get it all out in the open and allow players to take those payments.”
I am sorry, but I am now more confused. What problem are you trying to solve here?
Further, who are you worried about? Are you worried about the poor “exploited” athlete or about Johnny Manzeil?
The Olympic model does nothing for the allegedly impoverished and enslaved marginally talented right tackle. It does nothing to help “protect players from themselves.” If anything, it will be worse for the high school players
Further, the Olympic model doesn’t address your big moral bugaboo: the schools getting richer and richer while the poor players get crumbs and scraps. As put forth, all this $$ in the Olympic model is booster money.
I am sorry. I don’t understand what problem you are trying to solve and I don’t understand what “people” you are trying to protect.
Anyway, I could not disagree more. If you start paying players in any sort of direct way, CFB as we know it comes to an end.
There are only two ways of doing it without fundamentally destroying the system: (i) increasing the scholarship or (ii) putting money into trust for every athlete (male and female) in exactly equal amounts that would be available when eligibility is exhausted.
But neither address the outrage elicited in some by billions going to the schools and mere scraps go to the players. As noted, I do espouse to said outrage.
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that is, “I do NOT espouse to said outrage.” (So hard to edit long posts.)
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Second, like it or not, this is how American business works. When you enter the workforce and do anything where you are creating (research, writing code, copyrighting, design, etc.), you sign away all your rights. If the company makes millions off of your invention, tough luck….
Here’s another example: If they are lucky, at a mid-sized to large firm, a 2-7 year lawyer gets paid $50-75 an hour if you divide it out by 2000 billable hours and the Firm bills him/her out at $350-700 an hour. That’s exploitative, but that’s the way the system works.
American businesses and law firms are free to offer workers whatever deal they want. There is no NCAA of law firms, restricting on a nationwide basis what every member firm can offer. If there was, it would be illegal. The best 2 percent of lawyers get partnership deals that the other 98 percent do not. That’s the free market working as it should.
Once you (the worker) have made your best deal, the employer is clearly going to own the work product. That is the whole point of the transaction: You pay me $X, and in return, you own the work that I produce. It’s a fair trade.
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Workers are exploited; the players are (allegedly) exploited. So what?
I see no logically or intellectually sound basis under the rules of free-market capitalism for saying the “exploited” “deserve” to get their “fair share.”
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Meant to add: The college sports system is the system. If you don’t like it, go to college and become a lawyer. No one is forcing any of these high school students to go to college and play sports.
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There was a lot of discussion in the main article about a “free-market” for college athletics. Here is an effort to imagine what that would look like.
I am not sure what point (if any) I am trying to make. But I wrote it out; figured I’d post it.
Before I begin, I note that there are two existing systems (in baseball and hockey) where a college system co-exists with a pro-feeder system. I confess that I don’t really know anything about them. So, maybe some folks with familiarity can offer some insight?
Anyway, here goes:
Pure Free Market for players.
The schools are going to write checks to the players for “salary.” The players sign W-2 forms, etc. Obviously, there is no paid tuition or anything like that. Because the team wants good players, there is still coaching, training, free facilities, medical care and food.
Since they are just employees getting paid, there is no need for the athletes to be students. In fact, arguably, they should not be ALLOWED to go to classes (other than at night and in their spare time) because that would interfere with them doing their jobs.
Under this system, the whole NCAA rulebook goes out the window directly into the dumpster. If we are paying the players, there no need for scholarships (since they are not students or going to classes), no need for scholly limits, recruiting rules, NLOI Day or anything else.
There would be no need for roster limits. Those schools with Billion Dollar Boosters could fund teams of 200-500, or whatever. Those schools with lesser resources have a smaller stockpile of players. Since there is no rule book for football or for men’s bball, all the boosters and the money can come into the light. No need for PACs or registration. Who cares anymore?
There would be no restrictions on transferring. If someone can pay Braxton Miller more than tOSU, then Mr. Miller is free to go and take that job.
[This is pure free market here. If you begin limiting the roster or limiting transfer, then you are limiting the free market.]
As for payment, each high school player would negotiate what he felt he was worth. In this regard, agents and lawyers and boosters and everyone is free to chime in, get their cut, etc. etc. In practice, the schools will say: “we pay this, take it or leave it.”
There is also no reason to have age limits (other than child labor laws). If some 16 year old is good enough, then let him get his $$.
There is no guarantee of course. If you are not good, you will be cut and you will not get paid.
No players’ union since we are being all free market.
Given the massive pool of labor here (thousands upon thousands of potential players), I am going to guess that standard OLineman is going to get, what… $20,000 a year? Assume a school has 200 paid players, $20k each equals $4M for them; then maybe the QB gets a million and the next top 9-14 players get $4M between them? I honestly don’t know. I am just taking a stab at possible numbers.
whatever the numbers, these future paid “college” football players are NOT going to get NFL money because there is no artificial restriction on supply or demand. The NFL has both.
Many many problems: is anyone watching this on TV? Is anyone filling up the Big House or the ‘Shoe to watch these paid non-students play minor league “football.” and does a school maintain its 501(c)(3) status given that it is paying athletes, etc. etc. I guarantee donations for the new stadium aren’t going to be tax deductible anymore.
~~~
Well, as said, not sure what point I was trying to make when I wrote this out. But, as said, I post it for what it’s worth.
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oh, I think at least one point I was trying to tease out is that a pure free-market system will not fix the exploitation. That requires a players’ union.
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Under this system, the whole NCAA rulebook goes out the window directly into the dumpster. If we are paying the players, there no need for scholarships (since they are not students or going to classes), no need for scholly limits, recruiting rules, NLOI Day or anything else.
There would be no need for roster limits. Those schools with Billion Dollar Boosters could fund teams of 200-500, or whatever. Those schools with lesser resources have a smaller stockpile of players. Since there is no rule book for football or for men’s bball, all the boosters and the money can come into the light. No need for PACs or registration. Who cares anymore?
There would be no restrictions on transferring. If someone can pay Braxton Miller more than tOSU, then Mr. Miller is free to go and take that job.
I don’t think this necessarily follows. Even the pro leagues have roster limits. Even the pros have “transfer” restrictions.
One can argue that the players ought to be free to monetize their value, without implying that the entire rule book goes by the wayside. That’s a classic, and flawed, “slippery slope” argument.
Remember the case of the University of Minnesota wrestler who was declared ineligible because he issued a music album? It wasn’t even related the sport he participates in, and the NCAA didn’t allow it. There’s a lot of anti-free-market nonsense in the rules, having nothing to do with the universities paying their players directly.
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@MS
This was an effort to just try and imagine a completely free-market system. The NFL and NBA are not free-market in any way other than name.
I am not advocating this system. My effort was to see what “complete free-market” would imply. Logically, a completely free-market, imagined, hypothetical, like imagining Man in the State of Nature, would entail no NCAA rulebook, IMHO.
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The NFL and NBA are not free-market in any way other than name.
I am not advocating this system. My effort was to see what “complete free-market” would imply. Logically, a completely free-market, imagined, hypothetical, like imagining Man in the State of Nature, would entail no NCAA rulebook, IMHO.
Sure, but not even the most intense free-marketers are suggesting an NCAA with no rules at all. The NFL and the NBA are not totally free, but they are nowhere near as restricted as the NCAA.
I’m not saying that the NCAA should open up to the degree the pro leagues do. But by the same token I don’t take @ccrider55’s view, which is that whatever rules we have are necessarily the best ones, because the people deciding are so wise and far-seeing, and they decided it long ago, and there’s no reason ever to question them.
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agreed. I would probably favor many changes to the rules. You mentioned the Minnesota player who lost eligibility because he made a song track. Dumb; should be changed. Butter vs. cream cheese. dumb, tho’ changed IIRC. golf cart rides are extra benefits. dumb again.
but paying players doesn’t solve any of these problems; changing the rules does.
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@BuckeyeBeau: Then we are probably agreeing more than we disagree.
Yes, the “bagels and cream cheese” rule was changed. What people thought was funny was : A) The NCAA ever had such a rule at all; and, B) The amount of work it took to get such a simple thing changed. That rule was probably on the books for many years.
As I’ve been saying, the NCAA moves very slowly. By the time THEY realize that a rule is wrong, change is probably years overdue.
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Scholarship limits are a way of restricting entry and limiting competition. Pitt signed 105 players in Tony Dorsett’s freshman class and went on to win an MNC. That was a big factor in imposing scholarship limits. And conversely, allowing the big schools to signs 85 players and control movement of those players keeps a lot of talent out of lesser name schools. Schools don’t need 85 players. Most freshmen redshirt anyway. The NFL for a long time went with 40 man rosters and a 7 man taxi squad. With academic issues and the difficulty of calling someone up on short notice, 47 would be too low for colleges, but they could do it with 60. However, that would mean the big name schools would have more ups and downs. More talent would go elsewhere and they would pay more for players who they mid-judged in recruiting.
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The pros can replace injured players mid-season but colleges can’t. The NFL has fully developed adults, the NCAA doesn’t. The NFL has players whose career is football, the NCAA has student-athletes. Many college teams regularly have 75 or fewer healthy players out of their 85 allotment. A cap of 60 would mean 50 healthy bodies to cover 25 starting positions. It’s ridiculous to expect colleges to fill a roster that way since they can’t replace missing players.
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25 starting positions? Are you counting the QB who wears the headsets and relays the call from the coach’s booth? Or is that kind of like the referees these days who can’t figure out penalties or fumbles?
A lot of schools don’t sign punters to scholarships. Mackovic and Mack Brown at Texas for a long time did not (I’ve always thought that is a very valuable position). One placekicker on scholarship is often all schools have. Noone has players who only hold for kicks w/o some other role. Schools have 20-30 walk-ons. They used to have their 60 man traveling squads. Division II is limited to 36 scholarships over 60 players. 60 could easily be done. But, it would make the power schools less consistent, so its not going to happen.
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bullet,
“25 starting positions?”
K, P and LS are all counted as starters.
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My comments below refer to content obtained from the link below:
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/85112/big-ten-friday-mailblog-156
“Delany’s response would be that there were great college players in the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s and so on, just like there are great players today. They come and go. The reason the Big Ten makes money is because of its brand and the brands it represents. The platform is the reason revenues are going up, not because players are so much better now than they were 15 years ago. He would say the Big Ten gets rich because of what Big Ten football means, because of what Big Ten football has created over the years. If you want to be a part of this platform, you have to agree to the collegial model. If you want to go pro, you can. He also is willing to negotiate on the value of scholarships, but he doesn’t want a system with agents and contracts and endorsements. It would get out of hand.”
What is missing from these statements of Mr Adam Rittenberg is the fact that a “brand” is considered an “intangible asset”. This is one reason why this discussion is complicated, because an intangible asset has “value”. Another reason is that “my value” of an intangible asset may be greatly different than “your value” of the same intangible asset.
Now, I am not a professional accountant. I also grew up on a farm in a small town community and never played a day of organized sports. And I am not privy to the accounts and accounting methods of universities with college athletic departments.
But I would be surprised if such intangible assets appear on the income statements or balance sheets of such institutions. Why? Because they are considered as non-profit organizations and thus have no need to expense depreciation for tax reasons.
About 10 years ago, I remember eating in a Phnom Penh restaurant called “Pizza Shack”. By most accounts, it looked and tasted (almost) like “Pizza Hut”. Now, if somebody at Pizza Hut would had known about this, then they probably would had immediately tried to shut-down such restaurant, not because they worried that the lower quality would affect their reputation, but because they “own” that brand.
Mr Delany may be disingenuous. But he is also one shrewd dude.
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To be intellectually rigorous about whether the players are exploited, IMO, we have to evaluate, at least, the following variables.
1. What is the actual value of what the the players are getting?
2. What is the objective state of their status as victims?
3. What is the subjective (felt) state of their status as victims?
4. What roles does personal responsibility play?
5. What are the “unfair” riches being extracted (that is, what revenue streams are in play)?
6. Who is doing the exploiting: the AD or the volleyball team?
7. What percentage of the “unfair riches” is legitimately attributable to the universities own efforts and assets?
The final one goes to the point you are making BigTenFan.
I am not an accountant, so I don’t know how intellectual property is carried “on the books.”
But this is my take:
We can all agree that, as an example, the “Michigan Brand” has value. Think of it as something that creates royalties.
For my purposes, I assert that the “brand” belongs to Michigan, the University.
Now, of course, if you want to go all Marxist, we can run down the argument that the “brand” was created from the labor/athleticism of all the players that ever played for Michigan. Consequently, the “brand” is owned by the players. I understand the argument, but that’s not the American way. Further, I don’t think all those players over the years object (now or at the time) to adding to the Michigan Brand. “The Team, The Team The Team.” (Yeah, I know, brainwashing, opiate for the masses, blah blah blah…. whatever.)
But, IMO, if we are going to say the players “deserve” their “fair share” of the “value” of what is created on the football field, then equally, the University “deserves” its “fair share” of the “value” created. Michigan’s FY 2010 operating budget was $94.4 million. I feel confident that a significant portion of that revenue was generated by the “brand.” IMO, Michigan is also “entitled” to be “credited” a rate of return on the capital investments (example: the stadium).
So, what portion of that $94.4 million in “value” do these “exploited” players claim to have “created?”
To delve deeper, what revenue streams are we talking?
Here is a link to a nice little side-by-side for the 2010 Operating Budgets for Boise State and University of Idaho. http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2012/07/02/bmurphy/boise_state_324_million_idaho_151_million_submit_athletic_budget
Note that the general-level revenue categories are: program revenue, student fees, state revenue and institutional revenue.
You could certainly argue that the “exploited” players “deserve” some share of student fees. After all, sports teams are valuable in advertising terms. Why go to Boise State except to watch the football team on the Smurf Turf?
But, personally, I do not think the “exploited” players have any claim to their “fair share” of student fees.
I also see no reason for the players to get their “fair share” of tax revenues. I am not sure what “institutional” resources are.
Delving deeper, let’s look at the categories in a more micro-manner. Idaho has these numbers for us:
“Revenues by sport (top 4): football ($2.8 million), men’s basketball ($132,000), women’s basketball ($38,250), volleyball ($10,000). Idaho projects to make $440,000 in football ticket sales.”
Okay, so our impoverished victimized exploited players get their “fair share” of exactly what? Do the football players get a share of the $10,000 “generated” by the volleyball team? Do the volleyball players “deserve” a share of what the football players supposedly “generate?” IMO, that means the volleyball team is exploiting these impoverished victimized football players.
Let’s pause for a moment on those Idaho ticket sales. $440,000 in revenue from ticket sales. Arguably, 100% of that is “generated” by the players since without players there would be $0 in ticket sales.
Let’s also, for the sake of argument, say that $440,000 is the floor, the minimum amount of $$ a school generates from fielding teams. In the FY 2010 budget for Michigan, it budgeted $37,714,000 in “spectator admissions.”
At this point, we have to ask the question of why MI’s ticket sales are budgeted to be $37M and Idaho’s ticket sales are $440,000? Many reasons, to be sure. But I feel very confident in saying that NONE of that difference was “created” by the players.
Btw, if you believe that the players are exploited, do you think the Idaho players are exploited? After all, Idaho only budgets $15.1M in revenue for FY 2010.
It is not enough to simply say that the Universities make a lot of $$, the players make no $$ and therefore, the players are exploited and should get their “fair share.” You gotta get the numbers. Saying “billions of dollars vs. a scholarship” is, sure OMG!! exploitation. But saying “$15.1M vs. a scholarship” doesn’t seem so OMG!! exploitation.
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Here’s the link to the FY2010 Michigan budget.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.regents.umich.edu%2Fmeetings%2F06-09%2F2009-06-X-19.pdf&ei=CtdGUv-wI6jm2gXtoICwAg&usg=AFQjCNHJ9czXwFQ15Z-2yyJQA7od2eLX7g&bvm=bv.53217764,d.aWc&cad=rja
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1. What is the actual value of what the the players are getting?
2. What is the objective state of their status as victims?
These questions have easy answers: open up the rule book. Let players monetize their value as they see fit. We would soon know what they are worth. No speculation would be required.
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@MS
Please.
My point was well articulated. If you espouse the view that the players are exploited (and therefore must get some sort of “fair share”) then you must present an argument as to why they are exploited. IMO, to support such an argument, you must address at least seven issues.
And the answers are not “easy” and don’t come by “opening the book.”
You might be making a point that, as an additional issue, we need to evaluate what are the lost opportunity costs to the “exploited” players.
My initial thought is to doubt that lost opportunity costs are validly considered on the question of “exploitation.” But maybe.
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If you espouse the view that the players are exploited (and therefore must get some sort of “fair share”) then you must present an argument as to why they are exploited.
I don’t speak for others’ viewpoints, but I do not suggest that they are exploited. Exploited is a strong word.
It does not necessarily mean that the rules we have are the best or the fairest ones. It sounds like you agreed with me that the Minnesota wrestler ought to be able to sell his record album. One might start there.
But the NCAA would probably respond that if you start, there is no principled end point. Johnny Manziel might be able to record a bit of nonsense and sell it for $10,000 a disc. No doubt some boosters would pony up. That’s what happens when markets are free.
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The law allows anyone to create their own system, with what ever rules they choose, and compete. A system that is currently the most successful does not need, and isn’t required to change simply because of its success. It hasn’t prevented anyone from choosing an alternative. It would seem either the schools bring the value, or the limited compensation model is providing superior enough preparation for life after school (pro and/or not) that no competing model is very attractive. Or both.
The success of the current model is being sold as evidence of failure.
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The law allows anyone to create their own system, with what ever rules they choose, and compete.
That is, until it doesn’t. Standard Oil’s monopoly was legal, until it wasn’t.
A system that is currently the most successful does not need, and isn’t required to change simply because of its success.
Except: even the people running it think it needs to change. What do you think the whole “Division 4” discussion is about?
So: if we all concede that changes are needed, are any of us entitled to independent opinions? Or do we sit back, fat dumb and happy, until the geniuses at the NCAA tell us what we need?
It hasn’t prevented anyone from choosing an alternative.
Of course it has. It’s a monopoly. I could see the argument that, like many other lawful monopolies, this one is good, and ought to be left as-is. But to say that anyone can try another format is absurd. Standard Oil said so too; intelligent people saw through that argument.
The success of the current model is being sold as evidence of failure.
By that logic, the schools wouldn’t be proposing “Division 4.” In fact, they realize that the current model needs a course correction. The only question is whether we trust their wise judgment in every case (as it seems you invariably do), or if we are allowed to consider whether the reforms they’ve proposed go far enough.
As I noted elsewhere, the NCAA is notoriously slow to react. By the time they fix anything, typically it is long overdue. One would need to be awfully credulous, to believe that every rule they have is precisely what’s needed at that moment.
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“Of course it has. It’s a monopoly.”
No, it’s not. Many far less successful models are, or have been available. The schools are not buying out the WFL, Arena league, multiple semi pro teams, etc. and shutting them down. Nor are they offering more cash payments to limit competition by out bidding. What the school has to offer, outside cash payments is obviously of far more value. Hopefully, for most its the lifetime opportunity of an education. For a few it is pro preparation with an obligation to learn enough to be eligible, even though a few would mistakenly prefer not to.
“What do you think the whole “Division 4″ discussion is about?”
Have I said I think it is a sound idea? In as much as it is intended to merely exclude those who choose not to participate I’m not a fan. Where it is able to address the variances from school to school in actual cost of attendance (think cost of living in S Cal vs Ames), I don’t mind. It’s a school related cost.
There is a long way between a correction and an abandonment of the system for a not pseudo, but flat out professional system. Payments, boosters, self marketing…I really am shocked at the number of folks supporting moving toward that cesspool.
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“What do you think the whole “Division 4″ discussion is about?”
Have I said I think it is a sound idea? In as much as it is intended to merely exclude those who choose not to participate I’m not a fan.
Your opposition to Division 4 is a reasonable viewpoint. But in that case, when these proposals come up, you ought to argue the merits, rather than simply saying: “They decided it years ago, and I trust their wise judgment in all things.”
My argument with you is not so much the viewpoint itself, but your seemingly blind faith that the NCAA is always right. Now that they’re on the cusp of a rules change that you disagree with, perhaps you might concede that they could be wrong on other occasions too.
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@BuckeyeBeau
I purposely crafted my comments to be ambiguous so that people could interpret them in their own way. In fact, I expected that if there had been any criticism, they would be the opposite of yours. So I am surprised by your response.
Can it not be the case that in my analogy Johnny Football is the “Pizza Shack”? By selling his autograph, isn’t he generating income from a brand that he does not own?? Now the analogy is not perfect. At that time it is highly doubtful that anybody in Phnom Penh knew anything about “Pizza Hut” and so it made no difference.
Another analogy is when a celebrity appears in a TV commercial to promote another brand, for example, the famous Coca Cola & Mean Joe Greene commercial. In this case, Coca Cola is not only paying for the TV commercial, they are also paying Joe Greene to appear in the commercial. However, both Coca Cola and Mean Joe Greene add value to their individual brands for appearing in the TV commercial.
This leads me to the point that I actually wanted to spotlight. As a corporation, Coca Cola can amortize these costs and record them on their balance sheet as an “intangible asset”. Thereafter, they can depreciate this value and record this depreciation as an expense on their income statement.
But there are other ways to quantify the value of an intangible asset.
Suppose that Coca Cola spends money to create a new logo. Total costs are US$ one million and they amortize these costs as an intangible asset on their balance sheet. After a while, this new logo is a bust and they decide to spend more money and create another new logo. The previous value of that intangible asset has now changed and could be revaluated at replacement cost, or according to impairment costs, etc.
Now, Coca Cola is also listed on the stock exchange and its stock can be traded on an open market, where this open market can valuate the company’s equity according to supply and demand. In this case, the value of that new logo can also be quantified as the additional incremental profit that the new logo would generate if there had been no new logo. Now this is when it becomes complicated, because this valuation requires an accurate forecast not of tomorrow’s additional profit but for the life of the logo. In other words, one stock trader’s value can be greatly different from another stock trader’s value.
Now return to the Coca Cola & Mean Joe Greene analogy, but replace Coca Cola with Texas A&M and Mean Joe Greene with Johnny Manziel. Now, Johnny Manziel could claim that he is providing more value to the “brand of Texas A&M, and thus Texas A&M should pay him more to produce the commercial.
But Texas A&M could counter-claim and say that the “brand of Johnny Manziel” is also receiving additional incremental value, because without the commercial then Johnny Manziel has less chance of earning a lucrative NFL contract, and also possibly a lucrative career as an ESPN broadcaster thereafter, etc. Although the future additional incremental profit to Johnny Manziel is uncertain, these profit forecasts can be discounted to arrive at a net present value, and that value represents the “intangible asset” that Texas A&M is providing to Johnny Manziel on top of the money they already provide him for appearing in the TV commercial.
And that is one reason why universities like Texas A&M don’t want a pay for play system. There is no absolute way to determine the value of an intangible asset. Your guess is as good as mine. As evidence, simply turn on Bloomberg or CNBC and watch the stock markets in action.
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@ Big Ten Fan.
You said: “Now return to the Coca Cola & Mean Joe Greene analogy, but replace Coca Cola with Texas A&M and Mean Joe Greene with Johnny Manziel. Now, Johnny Manziel could claim that he is providing more value to the “brand of Texas A&M, and thus Texas A&M should pay him more to produce the commercial.
But Texas A&M could counter-claim and say that the “brand of Johnny Manziel” is also receiving additional incremental value, because without the commercial then Johnny Manziel has less chance of earning a lucrative NFL contract, and also possibly a lucrative career as an ESPN broadcaster thereafter, etc.”
I think that is really well articulated, much better than I think I could have done.
For me, this goes to my Variable 1 (what is the value of what the players are currently receiving). To really argue about “exploitation,” you have to really evaluate the value of what is being received and the value of what is being “taken,” so to speak.
Currently, the players receive a scholarship. We can debate the “value” (in dollars) of that. FtT notes $16,950 (See response to comment above at September 26, 2013 at 9:36 pm). However, I Purdue AD pegs the value at $250,000. http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/9723411/big-ten-commissioner-jim-delany-discusses-possible-football-basketball-changes
Whatever the number, clearly other “value” is given here, one of which is “creation/enhancement of personal brand.” I think you articulated that very well and also articulated the feedback effect. Manzeil enhances A&M and A&M enhances Manzeil. I think many college players are perfectly happy to freely give away the enhancement of the school’s brand.
BTW, I think the “enhanced personal brand” is quite substantial at the local, fanbase level. Take Kenny Guiton for example. He didn’t win ~~~ not gonna win ~~ a Heisman, might never get a look from a NFL franchise, but, locally, he is famous. His “personal brand” in C-bus is valuable, even if he only ends up selling cars. Over a lifetime, that is quite substantial.
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For me, this goes to my Variable 1 (what is the value of what the players are currently receiving). To really argue about “exploitation,” you have to really evaluate the value of what is being received and the value of what is being “taken,” so to speak.
Can you agree that, for at least some athletes, they are being “paid” less than they are worth? Clearly, if it wasn’t for NCAA rules, many of them would be getting outside money (commercial advertisements, memorabilia, autographs, agents). It seems undeniable that the NCAA is artificially holding down their “earnings”, well beneath their true market value.
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The boosters would be paying every player, but not everyone would get what they are worth. Players at schools with rich boosters like Oregon and Oklahoma State would be overpaid while Mean Joe Greene would have to get by on a pittance since he played for North Texas. It is really not about what the players are worth, but what the rich alumni can spend to stroke their egos by bringing a national championship to their school. All of the NCAA rules were put in place because of what SWC and SEC boosters (among others) did years ago (Miami just recently) to put money in the player’s pockets from their favorite schools.
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@MS
You asked: “Can you agree that, for at least some athletes, they are being “paid” less than they are worth?”
Yep, agreed 100%.
In fairness, of course, some are overpaid.
Personally, I think the value of the scholarship is more in the $200,000+ range (depending on the academic reputation of the school and other factors).
However, I am not at all worried or agitated that some players are underpaid. FtT makes a great point about LeBron James being underpaid. I personally think I am underpaid. 🙂
Being underpaid is, IMO, just part of life and part of our system.
My point is that “being underpaid” is not the same as “being exploited.”
You said: “It seems undeniable that the NCAA is artificially holding down their “earnings”, well beneath their true market value.”
Partially agreed. The NCAA has created an artificial “economy” here. Whether that causes a player to get more or less than his/her “true market value” is not so obvious. In a true free-market unrestrained market (like the one that I tried to imagine), I am not sure that generic moderately talented right guard gets paid more than $20,000 a year. Obviously, the Manziels are going to make $1 million.
You also said: “Clearly, if it wasn’t for NCAA rules, many of them would be getting outside money (commercial advertisements, memorabilia, autographs, agents).”
I think ALL of the players would eventually get outside money.
“Mike’s Meatmarket on Lane Avenue Sponsors the Ohio State OLine. Come visit us on Sunday, the Meat The Line.”
“Macy Kay Realty Sponsors Kim Parker (or whoever), PSU’s best volleyball player. Let me sell your house and I’ll donate $1000 to the Kim Parker Fund.”
“Fishbourne’s Book Store Sponsors the ‘Cats LAX team. Come drop some $$ into the bucket to support your National Champions.”
I don’t think everyone is really understanding how big a firehose spigot the Olympic model would open. There is no limit to Booster money; no limit to fans enthusiasm.
In the main article, FtT writes: “The only thing that I want to see is that it flows down to the people that we’re actually cheering for as fans.”
As a fan, I agree 100% with this. If i went to a “meet the team” event and there was a box where I could drop in $5 to give money directly to Braxton Miller, I would do it in a hearbeat (well, truth is I would drop the money in Kenny Guiton’s box … but you get the point). The fans would throw money on the field. Just remember those Tennessee fans that got robbed by 2-3 Vol players. Afterwards, the fans were quoted by the press saying, if they had known they were football players, they wouldn’t have called the police.
There is no end to the money that would flow under the Olympic model.
Is that really what we want?
Clearly, if it wasn’t for NCAA rules, many of them would be getting outside money (commercial advertisements, memorabilia, autographs, agents). It seems undeniable that the NCAA is artificially holding down their “earnings”, well beneath their true market value.
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oops, got an extraneous MS quote there at the bottom.
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From this link (Drew Sharp of The Detroit Free Press):
http://www.freep.com/article/20130928/COL08/309280060/drew-sharp-jim-delany-big-ten-college-football
Mr Sharp says:
“They (college conferences) also want those players to be good enough that they might excel at the next level because that potentially increases the commercial value of the football/basketball program.”
Here’s talking to you SEC.
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I suppose a clarification is needed.
IMO, the current NCAA system is an artificial “economy” and, it is within that “economy,” that we are discussing the “fair market value” of players like Manziel. But the NCAA “economy” is not a natural economy and is not the same as the artificial “economies” extant with the current NBA/NFL.
I say this because I think we have to be clear in defining what we mean by “economy” and clear in understanding what “fair market value” means.
Thus, if the NCAA system is thrown out and we envision a “natural free market economy” based on supply and demand, the FMV of a generic moderately talented left guard might be $20,000 a year.
But in this artificial NCAA “economy,” the FMV of even the laziest untalented left guard might be $200,000 for his scholarship and $10,000 a year from boosters and fans. In other words, IMO, players have more “FMV” in the current artificial NCAA “economy” than they would in a “natural” free-market economic system.
This then causes me to think again about where this “value” is coming from. I think the value rests with the Universities and their “brands.” That is, the extra “FMV” of the player is really “value” created by the Universities.
As an example, I am happy to give $$ to Kenny Guiton, not because I know him or like him personally. For myself, I am also not just giving him money because I was entertained. No, Guiton was “great”, he made my school look great on TV, he beat Purdue and kept the undefeated streak alive, he loves tOSU and I love tOSU and I want him to be happy.
Untangling the cause and effect is difficult here. Is my desire to donate “created” by Guiton and his heroics, or “created” by tOSU brand. I tend to think it is because of tOSU’s brand since I want to subtract $$ from players that drop TD passes in the endzone and I would very pointedly NOT drop money into a box for a certain former tOSU QB since, even though he won 34 games, I am still mad because he sold his gold pants memento.
Bottom line, this is all quite complex in my mind. I think we have to be very careful with our definitions, be clear on what is being proposed and careful with what might be lost.
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From this link (paraphrased):
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/what-the-iliad-the-odyssey-and-mean-joe-have-in-common
“Penny Hawkey set out to write the Great American Novel. Instead, she ended up writing the Great American Ad. “What does a great novel have to do with a great ad?” you ask. They both have the same DNA, the stuff of great storytelling … The acclaimed American scholar, Joseph Campbell, identified the DNA found in all great narratives. An archetype, known as The Hero, embarks on some kind of quest to achieve some lofty ambition. Shortly after his or her call to leave their ordinary world, the hero moves through a series of stages – refusing, out of fear, their call, and facing various tests and ordeals. But finally, the hero overcomes his fears and enters the cave, tunnel, dungeon, rough sea or some other terrifying place, moving him closer to his quest. Along the way, the hero often faces a world of misery. But he keeps moving toward a resolution or a reward, empowered by an elixir that transforms him or his adversaries … From the storytellers in her family and from reading great literature as a child, “I understood, intuitively, the Hero’s Journey,” she says, without any formal instruction in the narrative craft. So when she began to storyboard “Mean Joe,” she instinctively constructed the narrative from the same models as Joseph Campbell. “The ordinary world, conflict, the cave (or tunnel), the elixir, resolution, redemption” – were all woven into the creation of the 60-second commercial, Penny says.”
The same can be said about sports. For this reason, the DVD/book “Rites of Autumn – The Story of College Football” is highly recommended.
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@ Big Ten Fan.
thanks for posting that; it was a nice read. interesting how the “hero” narrative resonates through so much of what we see, read, do. now that I think about it, some very memorable advertisements have that theme. the oft-cited, but run only once, Apple superbowl ad where the heroine throws the sledgehammer at “Big Brother” on the screen.
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@BuckeyeBeau
In the spirit of Frank the Tank’s “Random Thoughts on Politics, Pop Culture, and the World”:
Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” both DVD and Book is also highly recommended. Here are some nuggets from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth
“Campbell defines the function of a mythology as the provision of a cultural framework for a society or people to educate their young, and to provide them with a means of coping with their passage through the different stages of life from birth to death. In a general sense myths include religion as well and the development of religion is an intrinsic part of a society’s culture. A mythology is inevitably bound to the society and time in which it occurs and cannot be divorced from this culture and environment. This is true even though Western society previously learnt from, and was informed by, the mythology of other cultures by including the study of Greek and Roman writings as part of its heritage.”
And
“Campbell states that modern society lacks the stability it previously derived from being educated in the mythology and legends of the Greek and Roman classics. Campbell and Moyers agree that there is no effective mythology in modern society by which individuals can relate to their role in the world. An analysis of the national symbols of the United States is used by Campbell to illustrate the ability for myths to incorporate the beliefs of a whole society and to provide the mythology to unify a nation. More recently, when the image of the earth, taken from the lunar landings, was published, it led to the universal realization that human beings must identify with the entire planet. This concept of the emergence of a new mythology based on global aspects of life is reiterated several times by Campbell.”
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And this is one reason why Woody Hayes went for a 2-point conversion in 1968. Not because he couldn’t go for three. But because he was a patriot who wanted to stick it to all those pot-smoking hippies in Ann Arbor protesting the war.
I’ve seen TV interviews of people who believe that he actually succeeded in that 2-point conversion.
That’s the stuff of legends!
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I am happy to give $$ to Kenny Guiton, not because I know him or like him personally. For myself, I am also not just giving him money because I was entertained. No, Guiton was “great”, he made my school look great on TV, he beat Purdue and kept the undefeated streak alive, he loves tOSU and I love tOSU and I want him to be happy.
Individual athletes clearly do matter, though. Why else would schools invest so much money (both legally and illegally) on recruiting, if the brand is all that really matters.
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There is no end to the money that would flow under the Olympic model.
Is that really what we want?
I am not yet comfortable with that either. I would favor incremental reforms, like modifying whatever the rule was that prohibited the Minnesota wrestler from publishing a song track. Let players enter the draft, and if they don’t like their position, come back to school. Let players be represented by registered agents.
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In the same way that nobody flushes their toilet using water from Company Inc, while at the same time bathing their body using water from Company Plc, yet this could change in the future because the costs of desalinating seawater is much higher than the costs of processing ground water or surface water:
Better regulation regulates better.
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Figuratively speaking, Texas A&M is providing Johnny Manziel an “NFL option”. This NFL option is similar as a stock option. If he signs an NFL contract, then the NFL option is “in-the-money” and he becomes the owner of an NFL career. However, this NFL option also has “out-the-money” value before he signs a NFL contract. But it would be absurd to claim that Manziel can “cash-in” this out-the-money option, but still pursue an NFL career, because he gave up his NFL career when he cashed-in the option.
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Figuratively speaking, the “NFL option” provided by Texas A&M does not include the intangible value provided by its “Degree option”.
But nobody is willing to pay TV money to watch Johnny read at the library.
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Some college educated brainiacs invented TV, cable, satelites, the Internet. I suggest their impact/value far surpasses transient athletic entertainment even though nobody paid to watch them learn.
What’s Johnny’s entertainment value at University of Southern North Dakota? Or any semi-pro team in the country?
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But Johnny can’t read!
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My point here is that Texas A&M is providing two opportunities to Johnny Manziel, and that each of these opportunities has intangible value, and that the NFL option is in addition to the Degree option.
Note also that the legacies provided by college football also provide intangible value to the nation.
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To be clear, I personally don’t support pay for play. There are kids in Africa who would row a boat across the Atlantic for the chance of a free education at a top American university. But that’s just me.
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For me, Richard nailed it (again) when he commented above: “It’s ironic, but baldly stated (and yes, I’m generalizing), the way economics in major athletic departments work now is that poor black males sacrifice their bodies in football to generate surplus revenue that goes to fund scholarships for middle-class white females playing sports that few people care about.”
In other words, if college sports was subject to free market principles, then there would not be any college sports as we know it. But then there would be no reason to pay student athletes. Problem solved.
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To be clear: In a free market there are no subsidies, including government subsidies. My comment above thus assumes that there is no justification for revenue sports to subsidize non-revenue sports, and as a non-profit organization there is also no justification for universities to organize revenue sports. There is then no reason to pay student athletes, because there would be no “student athletes” to receive the money.
By the way: My joke above (“But Johnny can’t read!”) was posted using a blog moniker that had a typing mistake and thus required moderation before it was posted. I also intend to discontinue the use of the moniker “Big Ten Fan” after this thread because I originally used it to post comments about Big Ten expansion (divisions, scheduling, etc), and now have nothing more to add about that topic. IF I post any more future comments after this thread, I will use another, more neutral moniker.
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“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
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“It’s ironic, but baldly stated (and yes, I’m generalizing), the way economics in major athletic departments work now is that poor black males sacrifice their bodies in football to generate surplus revenue that goes to fund scholarships for middle-class white females playing sports that few people care about.”
Universities were doing that long before there was a Title IX. At Michigan, where my son is a freshman, the tuition is the same whether he majors in a lab-heavy subject like Chemistry or an “all-talk” subject like Philosophy. The student’s cost is the same either way, even though the Chemistry degree costs the university a lot more to produce.
On top of that, on pure free-market reasoning, the university ought to charge more for the Chemistry degree, because graduates in that subject have so much more future earning power, making the degree far more valuable.
In some states, legislators have asked why the government subsidizes universities to offer degrees like Art History where the graduate’s earning potential is so low. A utilitarian legislature might say: “We’ll subsidize degrees like Engineering, where graduates go on to build roads and other useful things the public needs. But if a kid wants to become an Art Historian, let him pay the freight himself.”
No state has adopted that line of reasoning.
In other words, if college sports was subject to free market principles, then there would not be any college sports as we know it. But then there would be no reason to pay student athletes. Problem solved.
It’s quite the opposite. Many of the students are obviously getting paid under the table now, although the rules don’t allow it. In a free market, they’d be paid a lot more.
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@Marc Shepherd – Interesting that you bring that up since Illinois is now charging higher tuition for engineering, chemistry/life sciences and business majors (regular in-state tuition is about $12,000, but those particular majors are $17,000) on the basis that grads from those areas generally earn higher salaries. They also happen be the most selective programs to get admitted to in the university. So, that’s one example of market-based adjustments in tuition based upon future earning potential and demand for admission.
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@Marc Shepherd − Thanks for clarifying that illogical proposition. College sports as we know it can function according to free market principles − it’s happening now − except that is now distorted by inept (or corrupt) governance.
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@FTT: Thanks for that info. We often speak of the original ideals of collegiate athletics. Well, another of the original ideals was that all subjects a university offered are equally noble pursuits, which is why schools (historically) charged the same, regardless of which degree you studied. No one in academia was going to say that Chemists have a higher economic value than Philosophers. Whether that ideal ought to change, I am not sure.
The [engineering, business, and the sciences] also happen be the most selective programs to get admitted to in the university. So, that’s one example of market-based adjustments in tuition based upon future earning potential and demand for admission.
At Michigan, once you’re admitted to the liberal arts school, which they call “Literature, Science, and the Arts” (LSA), you can major in any subject for which you complete the required classes. But business and engineering are separate colleges with their own competitive admissions, and those do cost a bit more.
But the differences aren’t substantial. The freshman/sophomore in-state tuition for LSA, business, and engineering, are $6,474, $6,722, and $6,933. (Juniors and seniors pay more.) Those numbers are pretty close, bearing in mind the vast differences in earning power for graduates of those schools.
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For this real-life example, we should also recognize that many laboratory facilities in North Campus were partly financed by private donors. The Herbert H. Dow Building of the Department of Chemical Engineering is self-explanatory. The Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Building of the Department of Aerospace Engineering was mostly financed by the Swiss parents of a former student of the program who died in a tragic helicopter crash. And those laboratory facilities are mainly intended for research and graduate students. The College of Engineering is simply achieving economies of scale when using some of the facilities for undergraduate students.
In the same way, during my undergraduate days, engineering students didn’t take courses offered by the College of Engineering until mainly their junior year. Before that all the preparatory courses in mathematics and sciences where taken in the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts.
And at that time the College of Engineering had its own small Humanities Department, but those professors (including a good friend of mine) were forced into early retirement, and the Department was thereafter shut-down.
And nothing stopped me from walking into Border’s and purchasing a book that cost 10 bucks but whose true value was priceless, as it contained the incalculable riches of 2,000 years of human culture.
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Engineering textbooks are also valuable, but often the answers need to be provided by the professor, if the answers are not provided at the end of the book.
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And they’re boring as hell!
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So…should we charge higher tuition to QBs/NFL caliber players based on their higher earning prospects if they get drafted? 😉
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In the same way, during my undergraduate days, engineering students didn’t take courses offered by the College of Engineering until mainly their junior year. Before that all the preparatory courses in mathematics and sciences where taken in the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts.
When I was there, I sent the Dean a letter suggesting that the engineering humanities department ought to be abolished. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that I was responsible for the idea, but the Dean wrote back, “I agree.”
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Man, there was another dude there − Henryk Skolimowski – whose ideas were quite far-out in left field. Too liberal for my taste, but I liked the guy personally, as my ancestry is Poland and he was the first Polish national that I ever met.
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Marc:
They actually charge very different tuition (based on what’s required to conduct classes) in Japan.
In any case, the thing is that engineering, sciences, and medicine bring in gigantic amounts of grants and other revenue. So much that they are almost certainly self-sustaining and could probably educate their students at a substantial discount or for free.
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In any case, the thing is that engineering, sciences, and medicine bring in gigantic amounts of grants and other revenue. So much that they are almost certainly self-sustaining and could probably educate their students at a substantial discount or for free.
Even if that were true, it is clearly not a market-based approach — not that I am suggesting it ought to be. I am just pointing out that subsidy transfers between programs of different value is not limited to athletics.
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Only because you don’t consider how multiple markets inter-react, are interrelated.
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Marc:
Sure. For that matter, subsidy payments exist between students as well (kids from well-off families who can afford to pay full-tuition subsidize poorer kids on financial aid in the form of school grants-in-aid); also between the state and the school (for public schools).
However, while I think it’s pretty easy to justify rich families subsidizing poor kids so that bright poor kids don’t get denied an education that their potential calls for, it’s harder to justify poor black males subsidizing middle/upper-class while females so that they can get scholarships to play sports that few people play or watch.
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@Marc Shepherd
That’s funny! Small world, isn’t it?
Actually, I value my humanities education as engineering student and find it useful for my job (contract negotiations, managing construction sites, etc).
But I agree, no reason for the College of Engineering to have its own humanities department, as the LSA offered plenty of excellent courses as well.
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“So…should we charge higher tuition to QBs/NFL caliber players based on their higher earning prospects if they get drafted?”
Well, that would mean that the value of those players’ athletic scholarship is higher. But how to determine that when these players are still in high school?
As part of the solution: Maybe the NFL (“National Freeloader League”) could organize and finance summer internship programs?
But that would probably lead to the P5 organizing themselves separately from all other conferences.
But I am not against that idea (being the selfish Wolverines alum that I am).
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Forgive me for going off topic like this, but this personal story compels itself to be told:
My good friend in the humanities department was a guy who taught a course called the “Modern European Novel”. What I loved about this course (which started with Fyodor Dosteovsky and ended with Albert Camus) was that he was exactly!! like Dosteovsky’s protagonist in “Notes from Underground”.
And I remember that he had a plan to start his retirement by pursuing his life-long dream of sailing a boat from San Francisco to Hawaii which he intended to finance by selling his apartment in Ypsilanti.
And I will never forget the day – two months later – when I received a letter from his sister informing me that he had passed away from a heart attack.
Rest in Peace, Chet Leach!
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About 10 years ago, I remember browsing in a Hanoi souvenir shop and finding a hand-crafted chess-set made of wood. There was no price tag, so I asked the shop owner the price, and he replied 20 dollars. Before entering the shop, I had no intention of buying anything, so I soon left without buying the chess-set. An hour later, I changed my mind and decided it would be nice to have that chess-set. So I returned to the shop and asked to buy the chess-set. The shop owner informed that it costs 100 dollars. I was outraged, and argued that it was earlier 20 dollars, but he smiled and pretended to not understand my English. So I again left the shop without buying anything, and this time never returned. I didn’t want to participate in a commercial transaction – for something that I didn’t really need – according to these transaction principles.
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Maybe my “Buddhist solution” commented in Frank’s previous Post has merit:
“Requiring student athletes to live like Buddhist monks during their first semester, i.e. shaved heads, monk robes, morning alms walks to collect food, etc.”
In this way, student athletes would learn something of true value that is:
“The greatest obstacle of student athletes with ambitions to be professional athletes is the fact that they have ambitions to be professional athletes.”
At the every least, they would have the opportunity to network with their dorm-mates.
(Please note that I am not trolling and that my joking and ambiguity is not intended to offend anyone: “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”).
Tram phan tram!
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Finally, in the same way that the value of an intangible asset is intangible, so goes morality.
We can discourse together to clarify our thoughts, orchestrate together to create a symphony, or together perform charity at a hospital. Your moral values are as good as mine.
And that is why this Big Ten Fan greatly appreciates that Frank allowed him to post his blathering comments on Frank the Tank’s Blog (which I discovered six months ago to be the best Internet source of sports commentary anywhere).
Xin cam on!
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303983904579093432304563144.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
This is the worst idea I’ve heard of in a while.
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I don’t agree at all, some of your points are valid, but you missed an entire side of the argument. How is this different from the university owning and profiting from all patents created by graduate students. How is this different from university hospitals profiting from residents (where the money involved is an order of magnitude larger). The university provided the venue, facilities, brand name, and training. Athletics is really no different.
Or from a different angle, an argument could be made that Johnny Football should be paying A&M money since he is using their brand, training, facilities, and television network to build his own personal brand, that he is going to cash in on for millions of dollars. How is this different from a resident at a top medical school?
You completely neglect the fact that the universities are providing an extremely valuable service to these athletes (training for their future career, plus a mechanism to promote themselves). How is this different from any engineering graduate student. These kids should arguable be paying for this like the rest of us!
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I don’t agree at all, some of your points are valid, but you missed an entire side of the argument. How is this different from the university owning and profiting from all patents created by graduate students.
The huge difference is that each university is free to make its own deal with its graduate students. There is intense competition for the best students, and universities offer a wide variety of incentives to attract them. There is no NCAA-like institution that limits what a university can offer.
Or from a different angle, an argument could be made that Johnny Football should be paying A&M money since he is using their brand, training, facilities, and television network to build his own personal brand, that he is going to cash in on for millions of dollars. How is this different from a resident at a top medical school?
By that argument, Derek Jeter shouldn’t be paid either, since he obviously couldn’t achieve what he’s achieved without the New York Yankees brand, facilities, TV network, etc.
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@MS.
You said: “There is no NCAA-like institution that limits what a university can offer.”
In other words, the NCAA is a monopoly. And monopolies are bad. So what? All sports are controlled by monopolies and paying players is not going to make the NCAA go away. What problem are you trying to solve?
All employees (in this case, players) are exploited. So what?
Btw, I assume you do not deny the players receive some “compensation.” That is, I assume you agree the scholarship has some value, yes?
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You said: “There is no NCAA-like institution that limits what a university can offer.”
In other words, the NCAA is a monopoly. And monopolies are bad. So what? All sports are controlled by monopolies and paying players is not going to make the NCAA go away. What problem are you trying to solve?
I am not saying that all monopolies are bad. I am only saying that if you’re going to make analogies, you need to make the right ones. The markets for graduate students and lawyers are open; the markets for college athletes are not.
Btw, I assume you do not deny the players receive some “compensation.” That is, I assume you agree the scholarship has some value, yes?
Yes, absolutely. I am asking whether a free market (or more free than it is now) might be a better system.
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@ MS
You said: “I am asking whether a free market (or more free than it is now) might be a better system.”
Well, the devil is in the details. What is this “free-market” system that you think is/would be “better?”
While we’re at it, who will this system be “better” for? The Johnny Footballs or the nameless other players?
And what is the philosophical underpinning?
FWIW, I have no problem with “the NCAA system sucks, anything is better!” My response is “the NCAA is the worst possible system, except for all the others.”
But I am not in favor of paying players on some flimsy, unsubstantiated idea that they are being exploited.
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As a matter of law, your work product is owned by your employer. The question is, Are student athletes employees of their schools?
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On the roles that personal responsibility plays, I have this to offer:
http://csnbbs.com/showthread.php?pid=6544940
“[Ray] Small, whose senior season with the Buckeyes was in 2009, said he sold the [championship] rings midway through his Buckeye career because his regular scholarship check for room and board didn’t cover his year-round costs of living in Columbus. He also felt compelled to unload them because he lacked the funds to afford a car he was driving at the time, a 2007 Chrysler 300 that carried a $600 monthly payment.
“Being young, I wasn’t good with my money,” he said. “I made a bad decision on a car and I had to pay it.””
Before this admission, Small added to the urban legend of a poor impoverished football player who couldn’t pay his rent. But in truth, it was because he was paying $600 a month for a car. He used his money for what he wanted, not for what he needed.
I feel confident something like this explains why Adrian Foster was hungry and had no money to buy tacos.
Again, no victims here. Have some personal responsibility to manage and budget your money.
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I love Saturdays in the fall. I’m off to my friend’s mancave for 12-14 hours of CFB. Woooo!
Go Bucks! Crush the Badgers!
Have fun all.
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600 bones? Wow! I lease a brand new honda accord for $125 a month ( granted there was money down.) and I live in a house with a payment for 600… Guess I am the sucker
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GBR
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Pingback: Thoughts on College Sports: Part I, Title IX | ATLANTIC COAST CONFIDENTIAL
Football Pay to Play: How will it look? The inhibitor of pay to play is not the NCAA, but Title IX. If a school has to pay $10+ to non-revenue athletes for every $1 that goes to the revenue athletes that tax will kill the economics. As Maryland found out, you can be sued for a Title IX violation just for dropping a women’s sport, so no easy answers. Let’s assume Title IX is not an issue.
Pay for play will be a conference decision. To the extent that a school does not agree with the conference there will be some realignment. The higher the academic standing of a conference, the more likely the choice is not to participate in pay to play. Many academics view the current state of college sports as beyond the mission of the school, and running a minor sports league will be unacceptable. So it is likely that the B1G, ACC, and PAC will opt out of pay to play while the SEC and the XII (at least TX, TT, OK, OSU) opt in. The XII will pick up schools that want to participate in pay to play. Gang of 5 schools are already subsidized by student fees and cannot afford to participate.
The non-paying schools refuse to play the paying schools citing liability concerns if an amateur player gets injured playing against a professional. With the vast majority of NCAA schools either unwilling or unable to participate in pay to play, the SEC and XII resign from the NCAA before being kicked out. They are free to make any rules they want about pay, recruiting, etc.
Pay rules are set modeled after the NFL. Schools are allowed to bring in twice the roster limit to training camp with token payment to players that are cut. Immediate play for transfers from non-pay schools, but transfers not allowed from pay schools. If cut the player is free agent. A premium is placed on the ability to play immediately since every player is taking a roster spot and being paid. Participation limit is set at 5 years from high school graduation.
Delany in response to a question about pay for play says: “All the athletes knew when they signed on that the B1G was a non-pay conference. If an athlete wants to get paid they need to transfer to the SEC or XII. The B1G member universities do not consider running a professional sports league as part of their state funded educational mission.”
NCAA makes a rule to clarify that participation in a paid training camp forfeits eligibility even if the athlete does not accept the payment offered. Athletes that get cut by the top paying schools often can sign on with one of the lower ranked schools. Athletes that get cut from the bottom schools are screwed.
So the end result will be more hypocrisy by the B1G since it has cover from the SEC. The average athlete will be screwed more as the pay schools end a high percentage of participants college athletic careers in a few weeks of training camp (pro sports is a brutal success now business). A few exceptional athletes will get more $$ while prepping for the NFL.
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You can’t leave Title IX out of it. Any university (whether in the NCAA or not) that pays any athlete will have to pay all exactly the same amount. Even in the big conferences, most athletic departments already lose money over all, so the only possible result of paying athletes is shutting down nearly all sports.
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Read what I wrote. Title IX is what is preventing pay for play because even the SEC cannot afford to pay $10 to other athletes for every $1 that goes to football and men’s basketball players. There is no law that requires colleges to belong to the NCAA or restricts payment to players. If it was not for Title IX requirements it would be viable for the SEC to quit the NCAA and pay football players. That would get them the best recruits. They would not have to play anyone else since they could set up divisions like the NFL and do home & home within the division, set up their own 4 way playoff, etc. All of this would be economically viable if it were not for Title IX requirements. The point was that in the less football centric conferences, including the B1G there is going to be very little support from the presidents to sponsor minor league professional football. For most of the B1G schools getting in player payment competition with the SEC is going to be a losing proposition. Even a school like Michigan that could afford to pay, might not because the academics in charge are too snooty to get involved in pro sports. Therefore, even if some conferences start paying players what they are worth, the B1G will not be one of them. We are talking about pay for value here, not the enhancement of scholarships by a few thousand $$$ of pocket money not dependent on athletic achievement. That is favored by the B1G.
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the scenario has some validity. Title IX is a problem and one reason you read Delany responding to O’Bannon questions with a shrug and “Congress will have to get involved.”
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Is Mark Richt related to Barry Switzer?
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He seemed overly emotional to me to, but a ‘Bama friend offered some context:
My friend wrote:
“1. Murray, whose had a reputation of losing it in big games did not lose it. He has come back the last two seasons when he could have been drafted just to prove himself and help Georgia to a NA game. Murray is as much Richt’s son as Meyer-Tebow, Tressel-Pryor, Petersen-Moore.
2. Metternburger was an original Richt’s disiple, and must have been hard dismissing him while his morther worked for Richt. Seeing him perform well after looking like he life was going to wash out a few years ago, had to be comforting
3. Richt……..has never beaten LSU/Bama during the Miles/Saban(only beat Meyer-Florida once in which the next two years Meyer hung about 100+ points on Georgia). But LSU/Bama he can’t get past and are the two most responsible for Richt not being able to win the big one(after Meyer left Florida)
in 2012
Georgia is in the SEC championship game…..win that game and they are in the NC game where they also would have trounced Notre Dame
Lost to Alabama by potentially five yards
in 2011
Georgia is in the SEC championship game….win that game and they are in the NC game…
Had a 20pt lead evaporated in the 4th by LSU
in 2008
Georgia misses going to the SEC championship game because of a loss to Alabama a few weeks earlier, which allowed Florida to go on and win NC game
in 2007
Widely known as best team in the country, was #2 in all polls end of regular season, only to watch LSU jumped it after SEC game and go on to win NC.
As you know this…..if the game is close…Mark Richt loses it, he ALWAYS loses the close one(even this year with Clemson, Georgia was ahead and lost). I can’t remember the last time he won a close games, so for him this was a this was an exorcism of demons.”
HT: RollTideHammond.
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One of the things I think many are missing on this board is the misconception that athletes are not being informed.
The NFL has what is called the NFL Advisory Committee. Potential pro players can request an evaluation of their draft potential. SO the NFL will happily tell someone around what level of the draft they will probably be chosen. To my understanding it is a conservative bunch and they rarely give out 1st round grades. If the NFL decided to start accepting 18 yr olds than that same advisory committee could tell incoming kids what chance they have of being drafted.
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This committee was created in 1994. It was done because after the NFL started allowing junior’s to go pro people noticed that these young players were being misinformed by agents as to the their value. The board is made of former general mangers, personnel directors, and the directors of the BLESTO and the NATIONAL scouting groups.
In 2007, 167 athletes requested evaluations, so the board is well known and people do utilize it. Whether they listen is a different question.
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Although that board is better than some random agent, there have been some big misses. They’d probably miss even more with 18-year-olds, simply because there is less evidence upon which to base a recommendation..
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Any bigger than San Diego’s miss drafting with Ryan Leaf? Any projection will involve uncertainty.
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I think a “miss” is if they tell a kid “first round” and he gets drafted in the third round. It’s up to every player to maximize their potential. What stinks is when a kid has no business even being in the draft–being told that he should go, when he is so far away from ready that nobody even takes a real chance.
Leaf. Russell. Couch. Those kids made a lot of money. They can always go back to college, but you cannot always be a top 5 pick. Take it and run.
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For Leaf: not unless its a correspondence school from his current grey bar hotel. 🙂
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Absent an actual minor league system though I just don’t see what good draft advisory board would do for an 18 year old for the simple fact that I doubt NFL teams would ever take anyone outside of maybe a kicker or punter straight out of high school. Without somewhere to put them until they physically mature their would be no reason to draft someone and then just sit them on the bench until they grow enough.
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Southern Cal sacks Lane Kiffin after a 62-41 loss at Arizona State leaves the Trojans 0-2 in the Pac-12: http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-usc-fires-lane-kiffin-20130929,0,7787298.story#axzz2gHcsBODS
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I really thought they’d keep him another year at least, let him ride the sanctions through their end.
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I really thought they’d keep him another year at least, let him ride the sanctions through their end.
It’s probably the best bet to let Kiffin’s replacement put in his system during the final sanctions year, so that USC can come out firing in 2015. What’s more surprising to me is the mid-season firing. Most of the plausible candidates are already employed elsewhere, so probably the best Haden can do today is put in a care-taker until December.
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I thought that Kiffin was definitely gone after the year, but a mid-season sacking is surprising.
What the heck happened to that defense?
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my guess is that is part of the reason for the mid-season firing. This is the same AZState team that lost to Stanford last week by the score of 42 to 28.
IMO, the only thing ‘saving” Kiffin of late has been the good defense that has been holding opponents to under 14 points. Now you give up 62 with Stanford, ND, Cal, RichRod’s AZ and UCLA are still to come. Nope, this season is lost.
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Plus (pure speculation here) you have to wonder if the NCAA enforcement staff whispered into Haden’s ear during the meetings in Indy this last week. Violations have been following Kiffin and Orgeron. Let’s not forget the whole deflating footballs on the sidelines fiasco.
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Does anyone think Silas Redd would like a do over? If he would have stayed with Bill O’Brien at Penn State, he might have been an NFL 1st Rounder (look what he did with Matt McGloin). Instead, he went from “Nittany Lion” to “Cowardly Lion”, left his teammates in the foxhole, and ran up the Hill straight to Kiffin and USC, and got hurt. Now, he probably cost himself millions, and who knows if he even will have an NFL Career? Good Riddance.
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The NFL will find talent (or pass over it) where ever it is.
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yeah, Silas Redd probably would have done better staying at PSU. But hindsight is always 20/20.
Plus, hard to blame the kid at the time. Pretty much everyone lost their minds over the Sandusky horrors, there was a lot of panic and USC was still basking in the glow of Pete Carroll’s “glory.” To Redd, USC probably seemed like an excellent landing spot when PSU looked about ready to implode.
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and agree with Richard’s point too.
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Does anyone think Silas Redd would like a do over?
Undoubtedly, but it’s no different than any other recruiting decision gone awry. There were many who foresaw a mass exodus. I think I was one of the very few (outside of PSU homers) who thought most would stay. Redd should have stayed, but you could see why he made the choice he did.
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What Redd did is very different than other Recruiting Decisions went awry. The Recruit who changes his mind has no obligation to the University or guys he does not know. As Mario Puzo says in “The Godfather” : “it’s just business nothing personal.” So my primary objection to Redd was not what he did to the University (although as a Penn State fan of course, I think that was wrong also), but what he did to his “Band Of Brothers” aka teammates was worse (hence the “Running up the Hill” remark). As for his future, it is 100% correct that the NFL almost always locates talent, but there is still a big difference in upfront First or Second Round $$$$ versus what you get in the 5th, 6th, and 7th Rounds, or being undrafted.
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I don’t know. He could have gotten injured at Penn St also and USC gave him a chance to play in a bowl game.
While his USC experience probably hasn’t gone as he hoped I’m not sure it is haunting him either.
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Good Riddance? Your schadenfreude is a bit harsh, I think.
Silas Redd is not the person that Penn State “fans” should be angry at. If anything, be angry at yourself for being so bitter and petty.
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The Ranks of the undefeated (20 teams) after Week #5 :
Big 5 schools 16 of 62 = 25.81% of population : 16 of 125 = 12.80% of total
PAC = 04 of 12 => 33.33% : Washington, Oregon, Stanford, and UCLA
B 12 = 03 of 10 => 30.00% : Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and Baylor
ACC = 04 of 14 => 28.57% : Florida State, Maryland, Clemson, and Miami (FL)
B1G = 03 of 12 => 25.00% : Michigan, Northwestern, and Ohio State
SEC = 02 of 14 => 14.29% : Alabama and Missouri
Non Big 5 schools 04 of 63 = 06.35% of population : 04 of 125 = 03.20% of total
AAC = 02 of 10 => 20.00% : Louisville and Houston
MWC = 01 of 12 => 08.33% : Fresno State
MAC = 01 of 13 => 07.69% : Northern Illinois
IND = 00 of 06 => 00.00% : NONE undefeated
SunB = 00 of 08 => 00.00% : NONE undefeated
CUSA = 00 of 14 => 00.00% : NONE undefeated
.
…
.
Undefeated schools ( schools that did not play are highlighted in bold )
ACC Atlantic : 4-0 Florida State, Clemson, and Maryland
ACC Costal : 4-0 Miami (FL)
B1G Legends : 4-0 Michigan and Northwestern
B1G Leaders : 5-0 Ohio State
B 12 : 4-0 Oklahoma and Texas Tech :::: 3-0 Baylor
PAC North : 4-0 Washington, Oregon, and Stanford
PAC South : 3-0 UCLA
SEC East : 4-0 Missouri :::: SEC West : 4-0 Alabama
AAC : 4-0 Houston and Louisville
MAC East : –0– :::: MAC West : 4-0 Northern Illinois
MWC West : 4-0 Fresno State :::: MWC Mountain : –0–
IND : –0–
Sun Belt : –0–
CUSA East : –0– :::: CUSA West : –0–
.
…
.
Undefeated teams playing in week #6 (both undefeated in bold)
ACC vs ACC
4-0 Clemson @ 2-2 Syracuse
4-0 Maryland @ 4-0 Florida State
3-1 Georgia Tech @ 4-0 Miami (FL)
AAC vs AAC
4-0 Louisville @ 0-4 Temple
B12 vs B12
2-2 TCU @ 4-0 Oklahoma
4-0 Texas Tech @ 2-1 Kansas
3-2 West Virginia @ 3-0 Baylor
B1G vs B1G
4-1 Minnesota @ 4-0 Michigan
5-0 Ohio State @ 4-0 Northwestern
MAC vs MAC
4-0 Northern Illinois @ 2-3 Kent State
WAC vs IND
4-0 Fresno State @ 1-4 Idaho
PAC vs PAC
4-0 Washington @ 4-0 Stanford
4-0 Oregon @ 2-1 Colorado
3-0 UCLA @ 3-1 Utah
SEC vs SEC
4-0 Missouri @ 3-2 Vanderbilt
Sun Belt vs SEC
0-4 Georgia State @ 4-0 Alabama
Undefeated teams not playing in week #6
4-0 Houston in AAC
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Results of week #5
AP – Notre Dame & Wisconsin dropped out / Arizona State & Maryland moved in
(7) SEC : #1 Alabama, #6 UGA, #9 TAMU, #10 LSU, #13 S Carolina, #18 UF, #24 Mississippi
(5) PAC : #2 Oregon, #5 Stanford, #12 UCLA, #15 Washington, #22 Arizona State
(4) ACC : #3 Clemson, #8 Florida State, #14 Miami, #25 Maryland
(4) B12 : #11 Oklahoma, #17 Baylor, #20 Texas Tech, #21 Oklahoma State
(3) B1G : #4 Ohio State, #16 Northwestern, #19 Michigan
(1) AAC : #7 Louisville
(1) MWC : #23 Fresno State
USA –
Mississippi, Notre Dame, and Wisconsin dropped out
Arizona State, Northern Illinois, and Nebraska moved in
(6) SEC : #1 Alabama, #6 Georgia, #9 Texas A&M, #11 LSU, #12 S Carolina, #19 Florida
(5) PAC : #2 Oregon, #5 Stanford, #13 UCLA, #18 Washington, #24 Arizona State
(4) B1G : #3 Ohio State, #15 Northwestern, #17 Michigan, #25 Nebraska
(4) B12 : #10 Oklahoma, #16 Baylor, #20 Oklahoma State, #22 Texas Tech
(3) ACC : #4 Clemson, #8 Florida State, #14 Miami (FL)
(1) AAC : #7 Louisville
(1) MWC : #21 Fresno State
(1) MAC : #23 Northern Illinois
.
…
.
B1G : B5 = 2-2 : NB5 = 1-1 : FCS = 0-0 : OFF = SIX :: U = (3) teams
ACC (DNP) : B1G (2-2) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) :::::::: FCS (DNP)
AAC (DNP) : IND (DNP) : CUSA (DNP) : MAC (1-1) : MWC (DNP) : SunB (DNP)
ACC : B5 = 4-4 : NB5 = 3-1 : FCS = 0-0 : OFF = TWO :: U = (4) teams
ACC (4-4) : B1G (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) :::::::: FCS (DNP)
AAC (1-0) : IND (DNP) : CUSA (0-1) : MAC (1-0) : MWC (DNP) : SunB (1-0)
B 12 : B5 = 1-1 : NB5 = 3-0 : FCS = 0-0 : OFF = FIVE :: U = (3) teams
ACC (DNP) : B1G (DNP) : B12 (1-1) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (DNP) :::::::: FCS (DNP)
AAC (1-0) : IND (1-0) : CUSA (1-0) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SunB (DNP)
PAC : B5 = 5-5 : NB5 = 0-0 : FCS = 0-0 : OFF = TWO :: U = (4) teams
ACC (DNP) : B1G (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (5-5) : SEC (DNP) :::::::: FCS (DNP)
AAC (DNP) : IND (DNP) : CUSA (DNP) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SunB (DNP)
SEC : B5 = 4-4 : NB5 = 4-0 : FCS = 0-0 : OFF = TWO :: U = ALABAMA / MISSOURI
ACC (DNP) : B1G (DNP) : B12 (DNP) : PAC (DNP) : SEC (4-4) :::::::: FCS (DNP)
AAC (1-0) : IND (DNP) : CUSA (1-0) : MAC (DNP) : MWC (DNP) : SunB (2-0)
xxx : B5 = xxx : NB5 = xxx : FCS = xxx : OFF = xxx :: U = (x) teams
ACC () : B1G () : B12 () : PAC () : SEC () :::::::: FCS ()
AAC () : IND () : CUSA () : MAC () : MWC () : SunB ()
.
The schedules – good schedules = ACC, PAC, and SEC
Most Big 5 games = ACC, PAC, and SEC
Fewest non Big 5 games = B1G and PAC
Fewest teams OFF = ACC, PAC, and SEC
The schedules – bad schedules = B1G and B 12
Fewest Big 5 games = B1G and B 12
Most non Big 5 games = ACC, B 12, and SEC
Most teams OFF = B1G and B 12
.
Observations :
3 teams are still undefeated – the good
Purdue is 1-4 already – the bad
Northern Illinois is 2-0 vs B1G – the ugly
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SEC’ Missouri is the only school both undefeated and unranked. No SEC pass for a week schedule where Vanderbilt this weekend will be their toughest opponent so far this year.
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Won all 4 games by an average score of 46-20, including a win on the road against a Big Ten school. We’ll see how Mizzou does in the SEC but I’m thinking 8 or 9 wins at this point.
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Um yeah, IU’s a B10 school, but beating IU (in football) doesn’t mean you’ll go .500 or better in the SEC (any more than beating UK would).
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Didn’t just beat them. Totally dominated them. 623 yards of offense. Most yards ever vs an Indiana team. Scored 45 points but it could easily have been 70 if not for some turnovers.
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What has happened to defense this year? Its like it was forgotten over the summer by half the schools in FBS?
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Yeah, it’s the same story almost everywhere.
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“The news of my death appears premature”
Keep in mind this is the first 1/3 of the schedule and most schools are scheduling before they play in conference. You would expect lots of offense and little defense in such a time. Review this in another month or at the end of the season and my guess is the defense numbers rise and the offense numbers fall.
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“Didn’t just beat them. Totally dominated them. 623 yards of offense.”
Um yeah. Congrats. It’s IU. Everybody knows that they don’t have a defense.
Northwestern gained 581 yards on Syracuse but you don’t see me come on here and crow.
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Andy,
IU lost to Navy – enough said. They are a widely considered the worst team in the BIG on an annual basis. TO’s are a part of the game, and the Hoosiers had some of their own.
But, I think this is a year where Mizzo can beat much of the lower half of the SEC.
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Mizzou also blew out Toledo, who won 9 games last year, and Arkansas State, who won 10 games. The opponents themselves aren’t super impressive but the margins have been.
Remember, Mizzou has gone to 8 bowls in the last 10 years, and averaged 9.5 wins over the last 6. Last year their starting QB, RB, and 6 OLs were out with injuries. Everybody’s healthy so far this year, and it looks like the offense is returning to its usual potency.
Time will tell and hopefully the current health level holds, but 8 wins seems fairly likely at this point.
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Andy, I would think that is Missouri KoolAid Effect. Your Tigers have not played a conference game yet and your non conference schedule was soft – I will admit to “irrational exuberance” for Indiana early on – while your fellow conference mates did just the opposite. Here is your remaining schedule, and 4 more wins looks bleak :
@ Vanderbilt = 50%
@ Georgia = 15%
Florida = 25%
South Carolina = 20%
Tennessee = 60%
@ Kentucky = 75%
@t Ole Miss = 40%
Texas A&M = 20%
If you beat Tennessee and Kentucky that just gets you to 6-6. The problem is your final 9 weeks are composed of 8 conference games and 1 Bye Week near the end. The only upside I see is you do not have to play Alabama again this week.
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It’s too early for those computer numbers to mean much. Check back in a couple weeks.
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AP poll has Maryland at 25, getting credit for that win against WVU after WVU beat Ok State.
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I’m sure vp has the answer to this, but when was the last time Maryland was ranked?
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They were ranked #23 in the final 2010 AP poll.
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Yep. The Fridge did quite well there. I think he had good reason to be pissed by how he was treated by his alma mater.
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Despite the vast amounts of internet ink I spilled above, FWIW, I have no problem giving players more money.
In fact, I am in favor of giving them more $$ within current parameters ~~~ well, maybe within loosened parameters.
Personally, I see no reason the schools couldn’t double or triple or quadruple the room and board allowances, add specific allowances for travel, for “misc. expenditures,” and five other to-be-determined categories. I see no reason the schools can’t increase the discretionary funds and lower the requirements for accessing the funds, etc. Why is the clothing fund only $500? How about giving each athlete $2000 a year in clothing allowance?
There are lots of ways to funnel money to the kids and still call them “amateurs.” (Yes, this does not eliminate “hypocrisy” but it also doesn’t tank the system as we know it. And yes, it does not adjust for each athletes individual “FMV.”)
We can debate the “value” of the scholarship and other benefits like “enhancing of the personal brand,” etc. etc. etc.
But on a practical day-by-day level, it seems clear players are not getting enough money. This seems clear to me even if I call b******t on Adrain Foster and his claim of starvation and no money for tacos. (But, who knows, maybe I am wrong.)
I think I remember seeing this posted years ago. But here it is again. http://www.holyturf.com/2011/05/football-players-receive-17000-annually-in-cash-all-within-ncaa-rules/
Take the author’s post with some salt. The comments are better I think. The author says each player gets $17,040 annually in cash.
Even if true, IMO, that’s not enough $$ practically speaking for living day-to-day given what we expect of the players. After rent, food, car payments, etc., at a minimum, the players have no walk-around money. They may have more $$ than the average college kid, but those other kids aren’t playing on TV in front of 105,000 fans either.
Plus, the $17,040 number is not true. It includes a $5,000 Pell Grant that is not available to most athletes and, per the comments, is almost always granted at a partial level (e.g., $1500).
Here is a cut&paste from the comments. He says he got $11,000 or so in cash.
“I played D1 football at a well respected institution in the midwest. I don’t think I saw a single player get the full Pell Grant figure of $5,500 that you posted above. Now, it’s entirely possible that some did, and perhaps far more did than I know of. I never did and I came from a single-mother family in which there were 3 other children in the house at the time. My mother worked 3 jobs, and had to take loans from aunts and uncles to help with groceries while we were growing up. Our family household income at the time was ~$16,000, and yet the most I got in a year from Pell Grants was $3,500. Also, our room and board checks for athletes living off-campus averaged ~$650/month over my 5 years at the university (which, before a comment is made about inflation, ended in 2009). So, either you inflated your numbers, or I should have played at Arkansas, because we never saw figures over $900 (and our monthly rent rates were generally in the $350-$450 range as well). Now, I did utilize the $500 clothing stipend, and my tuition and fees, as well as books were covered, but I never, ever received $17,000 cash in any year I played while on scholarship. If you take our figures for room and board, the clothing stipend, and all the money I ever pulled out of the SAOF (which was $0 in 5 years, and I don’t remember anyone else using that except when there was a death in the family and they had to fly home), it comes out to $11,300. My rent over this time averaged $400/month, with cable and internet another $75, gas $100, utilities $85 (which puts us over $650/month already, so we’re getting into Pell Grant money, which remember, the most I ever received was $3,500/year, or ~292/month), miscellaneous (going out to eat, movies, etc.) $100, food $200. Those are fairly conservative, as that’s not taking into account a cell phone plan, car loan, car insurance, renter’s insurance (if your landlord required it), and we’re already at $960/month, and that’s more than I got per month from scholarship checks and Pell Grant money. Those estimates of monthly expenses were very conservative too. One night out every two weeks would take up the $100 miscellaneous expenses each month right there.
This doesn’t even take into account that we, as football players (I can’t speak for athletes of other sports) spent ~50-60 hours per week practicing, lifting weights, watching tape, sitting in meetings, and having our entire weekend taken up with games. This is all on top of time spent going to class and studying. If I spent 60 hours a week at a $10/hr job, I could have made (assuming 1.5xhourly wage for overtime) $700/week, or ~$2,800/month. That’s $33,600/year. If I would have went that route, I wouldn’t have to worry about the arthritis I have in my right hand or my left shoulder from surgeries I had, both of which will surely cost me money in the future. Or the multiple concussions I suffered. Or the ligaments I tore in my left wrist and right ankle. Or the multiple sprains and strains and cuts and bruises that the average student never had to deal with.”
Anyway, I agree that the Universities should give the players more money. But pay-for-play is not the way, IMO.
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here is a more recent article.
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/daily-take/201307/living-high-life-not-so-much-college-athletes-say
FWIW, in my opinion, this “cost of attendance” idea is inadequate. An extra $200-300 a month is good, but not near what is needed.
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My brother rents a house to FB players. They pool housing expenses (rent, cable, electricity, etc) and are each pocketing 3-400 per month from their “housing allowance”. Probably more than regular full time students who are fortunate enough to find a part time job with an employer who’ll work with around/with a constantly changing school schedule. They also eat better at training table better than profs and admins. 🙂 I hired a BB player one summer who said on road trips they were fed, and provided $100 meal money anyway. Constant access to new shoes, workout gear, etc. His friends appreciated “his” largess.
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this is really good.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20130922_29_b1_cutlin998899
gets to some of my other variables on the question of exploitation. the quotes from some athletes I thought were very interesting.
here’s a sample:
“TULSA – Cody Wilson – Football, senior, Broken Arrow (Lincoln Christian), Degree in communications, pursuing graduate degree in education, Married
“I lived, basically for everything, off my food stipend. It’s a pretty generous stipend. It really is a blessing.”
OKLA ST Un (“OSU”) – Darnell Bortz – Wrestling, junior, Preston, Kan., Industrial engineering and agricultural economics
“You figure in all the hours we put in as athletes and divide out by how much we’re getting paid through scholarships, tuition, we’re getting paid less than minimum wage.”
OSU – Caileigh Glenn – Cross country, junior, Ontario, Canada, Political science and economics
“We just got a new track facility, and really nice new locker rooms and training rooms and ice baths – and I feel really spoiled.”
OSU – Charlie Moore – Football, senior, Bullard, Texas, General business
“Do I think it’s right that these guys sell their jerseys and don’t see a penny of it? No, I think there should be some compensation.”
OSU – Malika Rose – Tennis, senior, Miami, Fla., General business
“My check pays for my rent and gives me like $700 to spare. So if I’m complaining, there’s clearly something I’m not doing right with my money.”
Again, for me, these are complex issues.
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“My check pays for my rent and gives me like $700 to spare. So if I’m complaining, there’s clearly something I’m not doing right with my money.”
BOOM!
Teaching kids how to handle money is the best education of all.
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I’m betting the wrestling athlete isn’t getting a full scholarship. Its the football and basketball that complain about not getting paid, but they do get full scholarships. Scholarships are usually split multiple ways in most of the other sports (there are 6 or 7 sports that only have full scholarships).
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Don’t know the reliability of this list, but it appears there are four women’s and two men’s head count sports.
http://scholarshipstats.com/ncaalimits.html
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this is really good….
gets to some of my other variables on the question of exploitation. the quotes from some athletes I thought were very interesting.
The question in my mind is: if the current subsidy is adequate, then why are the P5 leagues agitating to create a new division, with raising the subsidy as their banner issue?
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Because they want a new division anyways and the subsidy gives them the political/PR they need to pursue it?
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Bingo!
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Because they want a new division anyways and the subsidy gives them the political/PR they need to pursue it?
That’s an inadequate answer for at least two reasons. We do know they want full cost-of-attendance scholarships. Smart people don’t spend money for no reason, so you have to conclude they do not think the current scholarships are adequate.
Beyond that, if you don’t think that’s the reason (or part of the reason) why they want a new division . . . . then why do you think they want it?
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No, they want the new division to divorce the lesser D1 schools. Those schools will have much more difficulty affording the costs. It’s like increasing the membership fee to the top “club” by potentially a half to one M per year. That is a significant % increase to the lower funded schools, none of whom break even now so it’ll involve the school increasing the subsidy (hurting the rest of the school) or dropping sports (if they have enough to remain D1 after the drops).
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…No, they want the new division to divorce the lesser D1 schools.
Right, but they want to divorce them, because they want to “pay” their athletes more, a change the lesser schools have resisted.
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Again, no. The allowing of payment is the way to get the lessees to choose to separate. They aren’t throwing anyone out. They are making it in the lessers best interest to opt out.
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Again, no. The allowing of payment is the way to get the lessees to choose to separate. They aren’t throwing anyone out. They are making it in the lessers best interest to opt out.
Nice try, but still incorrect. The power schools want to separate for various reasons.
What are those reasons?
Among other things, they want to change the rules, in ways the lessers object to.
What are those rules?
Among other things, they want to pay their players more.
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If you’ve been watching a while, they keep raising the price of entry and making it more and more difficult to move into Division I and stay there. They’ve had periodic moratoriums. Yet schools keep moving up and very few move down. Someone made the comment recently that they have made it too easy to move up and too easy to stay.
The new division is to make rule making easier, but its ultimately about separating themselves from the schools who don’t seriously invest in sports, but just are in Division I for the publicity and share of the NCAA tourney money.
IMO, this is merely the first step in an eventual “divorce” from the rest of Division I.
Actually, with the slow disintegration of the NAIA, there is a need for another division. Division I and II have gotten too large. Division III has as well, but it is united in being a non-scholarship group.
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MS:
Yes there are reasons they want to separate. As bullet says one is to discourage move up leaches. Example, UNO with no consultation with coaches, boosters, or donors ended FB and wrestling (multiple D2 NC’s, AD called the coach during the celebration minutes after winning the last one to tell him the locks were changed and escorts would be needed to access lockers and offices for clean out). A study suggested that investing in BB and moving to D1 would be more profitable because of march madness payouts.
I think it has more to do with wishing to be more closely associated with like minded, similar institutions than the lower end. They want more control similar to how schools aren’t simply admitted to AAU when/if a certain threshold is reached. Snobbery? Sure, but it is their right to choose who to freely associate with, and what rules will govern that association. Currently the NCAA fills that need, but changes need to happen to keep the top group from beginning a complete divorce. The best way to achieve this is making it too expensive to “live” in their neighborhood.
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I believe the agitation isn’t from all of the P5 leagues and instead comes from the coaches at that level. I think that a lot of coaches would like to winnow out the smaller schools and force them down while also getting a chance to afford better athletes. I believe the ol’ ball coach said he would pay his athletes out of his own pocket if he could. To that I say we can agree, go ahead Spurrior, take from your million dollar pay check and give each of your football players 2000 or 3000.
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No, they want the new division to divorce the lesser D1 schools.
But if that happens, you’ll have to schedule football entirely amongst the five big conferences, plus Notre Dame and Brigham Young…and every one of those teams can forget about getting seven precious home games unless they expand to a 14-game schedule.
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vp19:
Why? We talk about but never eliminate playing FCS and their lower limited scholarship numbers. The only incentive hasn’t been effective yet, that being a W against a 200th ranked school still helps your ranking more than a loss to a highly ranked team.
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Updated Sagarin after week 5 run with SoS rank :
first 6 numbers are Sagarin Rank by week (preseason included)
last 6 numbers are Sagarin SoS by week
B1G
009 013 014 015 015 013 Ohio State – 128 / 157 / 123 / 165 / 119
017 021 020 016 018 015 Wisconsin – 160 / 217 / 200 / 182 / 135
019 019 012 027 034 040 Michigan – 129 / 81 / 145 / 110 / 133
021 029 029 040 029 047 Nebraska – 116 / 152 / 99 / 98 / 121
030 035 044 045 046 041 Michigan State – 124 / 164 / 182 / 161 / 168
033 033 038 035 031 031 Penn State – 74 / 142 / 83 / 116 / 108
041 036 035 036 041 039 Northwestern – 44 / 71 / 107 / 129 / 123
054 054 060 061 055 036 Iowa – 80 / 137 / 103 / 139 / 85
066 066 065 065 061 072 Minnesota – 141 / 169 / 196 / 184 / 156
071 068 069 055 056 064 Indiana – 143 / 134 / 117 / 72 / 79
074 074 101 093 097 119 Purdue – 23 / 91 / 46 / 12 / 21
099 103 072 059 063 054 Illinois – 142 / 113 / 57 / 53 / 103
SEC
001 001 001 001 001 001 Alabama – 34 / 22 / 1 / 10 / 6 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
003 006 007 004 008 008 Texas A&M – 95 / 119 / 64 / 92 / 50
005 005 004 003 005 009 Georgia – 7 / 6 / 2 / 6 / 1 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
006 004 005 006 006 007 Louisiana State – 15 / 65 / 120 / 78 / 31
010 009 009 009 012 017 South Carolina – 72 / 16 / 21 / 8 / 5 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
012 012 015 013 013 018 Florida – 98 / 39 / 23 / 27 / 36
027 020 031 021 023 025 Mississippi – 24 / 118 / 25 / 23 / 2 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
034 034 043 038 040 042 Vanderbilt – 54 / 171 / 38 / 88 / 126
035 039 056 050 039 048 Mississippi State – 10 / 163 / 19 / 75 / 82
038 046 040 037 025 027 Missouri – 170 / 174 / 171 / 90 / 134
039 053 028 039 045 058 Tennessee – 198 / 204 / 143 / 42 / 80
044 045 036 032 033 035 Auburn – 114 / 112 / 87 / 39 / 33
047 041 049 046 051 049 Arkansas – 105 / 150 / 163 / 130 / 86
075 083 080 089 090 089 Kentucky – 96 / 160 / 121 / 117 / 46
Big 12
004 002 006 005 003 021 Oklahoma State – 46 / 78 / 126 / 101 / 63
008 008 008 007 011 004 Oklahoma – 112 / 108 / 113 / 118 / 89
013 016 024 043 037 044 Texas – 158 / 94 / 45 / 41 / 35
014 015 022 025 026 030 Texas Christian – 17 / 74 / 12 / 5 / 28
024 028 034 034 044 045 Kansas State – 82 / 100 / 132 / 83 / 64
026 023 010 010 007 003 Baylor – 133 / 167 / 165 / 178 / 172
037 032 033 022 022 019 Texas Tech – 53 / 128 / 74 / 119 / 100
042 052 052 053 071 057 West Virginia – 149 / 53 / 154 / 69 / 13
057 063 063 075 074 065 Iowa State – 108 / 105 / 105 / 68 / 42
082 070 081 087 096 099 Kansas – 212 / 136 / 136 / 170 / 175
PAC
002 007 002 002 002 002 Oregon – 188 / 136 / 76 / 76 / 104
007 003 003 011 009 006 Stanford – 93 / 93 / 111 / 77 / 41
020 018 016 012 010 011 UCLA – 103 / 110 / 48 / 115 / 130
022 017 018 017 019 016 Arizona State – 201 / 116 / 116 / 13 / 10 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
023 024 037 028 027 038 Southern California – 84 / 96 / 97 / 66 / 30
025 037 042 041 048 050 Oregon State – 109 / 148 / 100 / 74 / 92
040 026 021 018 017 010 Washington – 55 / 40 / 35 / 73 / 40
049 044 026 023 020 028 Arizona – 140 / 143 / 158 / 155 / 98
058 055 045 047 042 032 Utah – 83 / 138 / 88 / 52 / 39
059 059 074 080 077 086 California – 68 / 124 / 60 / 57 / 7 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
094 085 066 056 050 046 Washington State – 31 / 9 / 20 / 70 / 17
103 102 091 088 088 083 Colorado – 119 / 153 / 142 / 142 / 78
ACC
016 011 017 014 014 012 Clemson – 27 / 117 / 109 / 37 / 74
018 014 011 008 004 005 Florida State – 41 / 25 / 70 / 108 / 73
028 030 023 020 021 022 Miami (FL) – 144 / 99 / 79 / 190 / 161
029 025 027 031 038 024 Virginia Tech – 1 / 63 / 43 / 58 / 9 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
043 040 046 048 047 075 North Carolina – 5 / 46 / 41 / 3 / 12
046 048 032 024 024 034 Georgia Tech – 169 / 215 / 140 / 82 / 76
050 042 054 060 064 069 North Carolina State – 106 / 147 / 173 / 121 / 162
056 058 057 063 059 063 Pittsburgh – 43 / 21 / 85 / 38 / 60
063 062 053 049 032 020 Maryland – 147 / 193 / 164 / 146 / 142
067 064 068 064 062 060 Syracuse – 42 / 18 / 42 / 103 / 77
068 061 064 062 067 078 Virginia – 70 / 19 / 6 / 55 / 22
070 093 094 101 093 104 Wake Forest – 205 / 185 / 153 / 152 / 109
086 095 071 071 072 079 Duke – 199 / 195 / 124 / 85 / 113
091 090 083 090 086 076 Boston College – 127 / 156 / 114 / 84 / 38
AAC
031 027 019 019 016 014 Louisville – 111 / 159 / 131 / 168 / 174
036 031 051 044 049 055 Cincinnati – 104 / 83 / 133 / 148 / 158
048 043 047 054 052 053 Rutgers – 35 / 158 / 206 / 160 / 155
052 057 039 030 030 023 Central Florida – 162 / 172 / 134 / 138 / 69
061 091 102 135 129 162 South Florida – 138 / 128 / 128 / 113 / 54
064 077 061 074 068 059 Houston – 194 / 184 / 209 / 137 / 137
069 072 085 082 092 098 Southern Methodist – 67 / 90 / 72 / 14 / 3 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
072 088 084 086 082 108 Connecticut – 125 / 80 / 80 / 49 / 34
093 084 100 122 113 142 Temple – 6 / 24 / 110 / 81 / 95
126 116 127 127 105 100 Memphis – 103 / 102 / 102 / 111 / 122
MWC
016 022 025 029 035 033 Boise State – 18 / 72 / 122 / 65 / 114
051 050 041 042 036 026 Utah State – 39 / 28 / 78 / 47 / 45
055 051 055 058 057 061 Fresno State – 77 / 106 / 125 / 71 / 75
062 086 104 099 094 106 San Diego State – 137 / 49 / 29 / 33 / 51
073 075 093 102 111 120 Air Force – 166 / 151 / 58 / 59 / 53
077 071 062 068 078 087 San Jose State – 150 / 56 / 62 / 21 / 14
080 073 078 095 087 090 Nevada – 12 / 82 / 4 / 54 / 107
105 092 079 069 060 071 Wyoming – 21 / 98 / 175 / 144 / 116
121 113 125 113 132 130 Hawaii – 58 / 27 / 15 / 15 / 27
128 126 140 138 117 117 UNLV – 49 / 37 / 54 / 109 / 132
130 130 120 108 101 096 Colorado State – 97 / 60 / 98 / 51 / 91
155 170 151 151 148 152 New Mexico – 172 / 146 / 104 / 97 / 136
IND
011 010 013 026 028 037 Notre Dame – 113 / 42 / 53 / 56 / 32
032 038 030 033 043 043 Brigham Young – 45 / 32 / 36 / 30 / 47
065 060 059 052 053 070 Navy – 35 / 35 / 115 / 104 / 70
108 128 139 137 150 129 Army – 211 / 190 / 75 / 96 / 128
158 164 180 162 166 163 Idaho – 88 / 61 / 162 / 28 / 37
165 150 170 186 185 189 New Mexico State – 11 / 33 / 81 / 26 / 62
MAC
053 047 048 057 058 052 Northern Illinois – 38 / 26 / 77 / 93 / 68
076 067 076 067 065 074 Toledo – 8 / 4 / 9 / 22 / 20
083 081 092 085 076 082 Ohio – 19 / 52 / 73 / 106 / 83
087 069 058 072 070 067 Bowling Green – 86 / 88 / 66 / 107 / 140
090 087 077 084 083 073 Ball State – 136 / 175 / 148 / 175 / 153
102 110 108 111 120 123 Kent State – 171 / 154 / 90 / 29 / 58
107 099 131 139 159 176 Western Michigan – 25 / 120 / 28 / 16 / 26
114 109 118 142 144 153 Central Michigan – 13 / 51 / 93 / 80 / 61
127 107 112 116 121 094 Buffalo – 9 / 2 / 5 / 2 / 16
132 136 160 161 167 184 Miami (OH) – 66 / 44 / 44 / 36 / 19
151 162 165 168 174 175 Eastern Michigan – 201 / 132 / 37 / 61 / 48
161 155 156 140 134 137 Akron – 40 / 77 / 18 / 48 / 25
164 153 175 176 175 171 Massachusetts – 14 / 62 / 13 / 17 / 11
CUSA Tough schedulers in the CUSA EAST according to Sagarin
045 056 067 078 079 101 Tulsa – 51 / 87 / 33 / 24 / 24
079 078 105 118 119 147 Louisiana Tech – 29 / 139 / 172 / 132 / 129
081 065 070 066 075 077 Rice – 2 / 1 / 17 / 35 / 59 (Rice schedules tough early)
084 089 086 076 085 056 East Carolina – 145 / 188 / 138 / 154 / 84
097 094 071 073 066 062 Marshall – 146 / 219 / 198 / 123 / 124
106 125 130 148 138 156 Southern Mississippi – 151 / 73 / 24 / 18 / 8 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
111 118 111 117 102 110 Middle Tennessee – 183 / 121 / 168 / 134 / 90
115 108 128 123 136 157 Texas – El Paso – 194 / 194 / 195 / 186 / 164
124 122 115 109 112 112 Alabama – Birmingham – 89 / 17 / 8 / 89 / 29
131 120 113 100 091 080 North Texas – 168 / 144 / 129 / 62 / 57
136 137 154 175 182 197 Florida International – 47 / 34 / 52 / 9 / 4 :::::::: Top 10 SoS
140 133 146 121 130 114 Florida Atlantic – 22 / 20 / 31 / 60 / 44
147 148 150 131 128 102 Tulane – 190 / 218 / 197 / 156 / 141
181 171 144 132 106 115 Texas – San Antonio – 122 / 57 / 11 / 31 / 52
Sun Belt
078 076 089 077 080 081 Louisiana – Lafayette – 28 / 14 / 30 / 63 / 56
089 082 107 098 104 141 Louisiana – Monroe – 4 / 129 / 71 / 11 / 55
095 101 096 097 115 131 Arkansas State – 191 / 130 / 147 / 133 / 71
110 098 098 105 108 088 Western Kentucky – 85 / 29 / 63 / 120 / 94
120 121 114 104 122 125 Troy – 139 / 227 / 178 / 141 / 110
157 144 136 144 125 085 Texas State – 91 / 199 / 211 / 126 / 118
174 177 163 150 152 113 South Alabama – 156 / 161 / 151 / 164 / 93
200 201 208 213 216 208 Georgia State – 155 / 182 / 141 / 180 / 163
Top 10 SoS for week Big 5 schools denoted
01 Georgia = @ Clemson + South Carolina + BYE + North Texas + LSU
02 Ole Miss = @ Vanderbilt + SE Missouri State + @ Texas + BYE + @ Alabama
03 SMU = Texas Tech + Montana State + BYE + @ Texas A&M + @ TCU
04 FIU = @ Maryland + Central Florida + Bethune Cookman + @ Louisville + BYE
05 South Carolina = North Carolina + @ Georgia + Vanderbilt + BYE + @ UCF
06 Alabama = Virginia Tech (GA) + BYE + @ Texas A&M + Colorado State + Ole Miss
07 California = Northwestern + Portland State + Ohio State + BYE + Oregon
08 So Miss = Texas State + @ Nebraska + @ Arkansas + BYE + @ Boise State
09 Va Tech = Alabama (GA) + Western Carolina + @ ECU + Marshall + @ Ga Tech
10 Arizona St = BYE + Sacramento State + Wisconsin + @ Stanford + Southern Cal
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An argument to set scholarship limits per athletic department (and gender) rather than by sport:
http://espn.go.com/espnw/title-ix/article/7959799/the-silent-enemy-men-sports
An argument can be made that football and MBB need strict limits for “competitiveness” (though really, does anyone think that S. Alabama is competitive with ‘Bama just because they offer the same number of scholarships)?
For the other sports, though, why can’t LSU offer more baseball scholarships than Minnesota? It’s not as if Minnesota is competitive with LSU in baseball now. Minnesota can then devote more scholarships to sports that they care more about up there (like hockey).
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“…does anyone think that S. Alabama is competitive with ‘Bama just because they offer the same number of scholarships)?”
Probably not, but it does increase the parity between princes and kings.
“…can then devote more scholarships to sports that they care more about up there (like hockey).”
They already have made a choice through which sports they choose to sponsor. It’s not like they (or anyone) sponsor every NCAA championship sport.
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“Probably not, but it does increase the parity between princes and kings.”
But why does that matter for non-revenue sports? Nobody is watching anyway.
“They already have made a choice through which sports they choose to sponsor. ”
Which still isn’t a good reason to have scholarship limits that don’t match up with the popularity of sports in non-revenue & revenue-neutral sports.
You can argue that it’s a big deal in the revenue sports because football (and basketball) fund everything else, so actual money is at stake, but does it really matter if one school dominates in women’s water polo and another one dominates in women’s fencing? Why should it matter?
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Phil Knight (a non revenue sport athlete) watches. And cares. I care, and watch. Many (no, not FB level) others do too.
Scholarship limits are not in any way attached to the popularity of a sport. FB would never have instituted limits, lowered them, lowered them again (and I believe again) if that were the case. It is a competitive balance issue addressed through limiting the costs, and keeping the mega rich from stockpiling talent.
Most of the world doesn’t give a rat’s ass about American FB. Does that make it any less interesting/important to those who do?
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Yet the part of the world that does watch American football funds it with a ton of money, which is what matters,
Phil Knight would probably support this plan as he could fund an extra 100 track & cross-country athletes under it.
As for competitive balance and stockpiling athletes, again, outside of the revenue sports, why does it matter? If 50 more track stars run for Oregon rather than other schools, why is that a bad thing? More kids get to run where they grew up wanting to run and at a place where fans really care about track rather than some place they don’t care to run and nobody shows up to watch them. More athletes are happier More fans are happier. Who loses?
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The scholarship limits explain why women’s rowing (20) is offered by a lot of schools, and why equestrian (15) is even a sport. Both offset a lot of football scholarships at low cost to the school. The equestrian rider needs to provide the horse, board, and feed.
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The entire concept of Title IX bothers me no end. If someone thinks about it the entire purpose of Title IX and Affirmative Action, they were “supposed” to settle past wrongs. So why should a black man lose scholarship opportunities in sports like football and track to a white woman in sports like women’s rowing and equestrian that almost no one cares about? What about the Hispanic in College baseball? Basically the reasons are fear and politics. Democrats and Republicans alike know that the white female vote is fluid so they need to kiss up to them, while Blacks will always vote Democratic, so there is no reason to do the same. Beyond that, in an era where the Supreme Court is striking down Affirmative Action Programs (right or wrong), why not get rid of Title IX? I have no idea why gender based quotas do not receive the same treatment? Are they any better than racial ones? I would prefer a “Free Market” solution where every sport must compete equally, and if equestrian (or even football) must go so be it. That is much more fair.
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Title IX is necessary. Without it, women’s sports were ignored. Now like a lot of good things, it has been turned into a bad thing by carrying it to extremes. Texas, who has been one of the nation’s leaders in women’s sports, has been repeatedly sued because there isn’t an exact 1 to 1 ratio. So around the country, sports like rowing and equestrian get added to try to add the numbers to match football, while men’s swimming and wrestling and other Olympic sports get dumped.
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Bullet, you just made my point about Title IX and how unnecessary it is. Equestrian is not exactly a sport you see the middle class (let alone the poor) competing in, so why not let those rich girls (or their parents) who can afford to pay their way to college, do so? The only reason they get scholarships is fear of lawsuits, not to help some disadvantaged kid from Compton (another variation of the EA “Settlement” where Lawyers get rich, and the kid who can use a few bucks gets $160.00). The sooner that quotas are ended (STARTING with Title IX), the sooner the divisive tactics that are used to break us down into various groups end. It should start with the polo pony set having to make sacrifices, such as anyone making a certain amount of money being ineligible for athletic scholarships.
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There are a lot of women’s sports that end up catering to middle and upper class females from the suburbs. Although equestrian seems to be more a rural thing. I don’t think it fits as much into the rich girls group as you might think.
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You can prove compliance with Title IX by showing that you have equally met interests, but that is a lot tougher and more expensive than simply showing equality in numbers. So schools try to do the latter by adding sports with limited female participants in high schools like equestrian and rowing that have large numbers on the team.
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Almost across the board, the same sports have higher NCAA scholarship limits for females than males even though there are probably fewer female participants in basketball, softball, golf, track, etc., in order to comply with Title IX in schools that have football and no female sport that has 85 scholarships. Schools have even limited walk-ons in some sports because they would have bigger squad numbers on the male squads and might be at risk on Title IX.
Its a silly, litigious society warping something that is good in concept.
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Even more crazy was the UC Davis (I think) wrestling team that allowed several girls on the squad to train for opens and international. Not only was the coach fired (he won the resulting lawsuit) but those girls counted as men when compiling T9 stats. The team was cut a couple years after their first ever individual wrestling national champ. Helping provide an opportunity for women contributed to its demise, and the loss of that opportunity.
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If you read my article:
A. I cite a source that claims that Title IX has not gone FAR ENOUGH in equalizing women with men.
B. I opine that Title IX, as it relates to sports, should simply set a floor for women scholarships–but also exclude football at the FBS level from the mix because it is a self-sustaining program. The remainder of sports (mens and womens basketball cancel each other out) are funded by the school–those should be roughly equal.
Left unsaid, but logical, is that any other sport that becomes revenue generating could be excluded. I left that out, however, because it would lead to fancy accounting. Better to just recognize the obvious–that football is in a class by itself.
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I agree. It’s the fight/argument wrestling has been making for over 30 years. My quibble is with categorizing FB as self sustaining. The justification is that it helps/supports (in most D1cases) the whole athletic department (M and W), not that it is self supporting. Most wrestlers have no problem with improving women’s opportunity but although there are three ways to be in compliance only proportionality seems to be able to withstand challenge. And the cost effective way to do that is to reduce the over represented sides offerings.
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Because you’re dealing with ideologues. They don’t care if men are being discriminated against in Title IX. It’s all about female empowerment at the expense of men. The women, in turn, are being used by political extremists to further their goals.
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I did enjoy the irony when I saw (can’t remember her name) a USA softball leader expressing complete shock and dismay at being excluded from the Olympics. She cited the metrics men’s teams have for years, unsuccessfully. Popularity, growth, expanding participation, etc. I’m sorry they are out (along with baseball), but I don’t think of either as an actual Olympic sport. It hasn’t hurt the opportunity for kids to compete in any but one competition every four years.
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White females in this country are the most privileged group. Time to level the playing field (love the irony in that statement).
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Q&A: Princeton AD Gary Walters on student stipends
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20130928/NJSPORTS02/309280045?nclick_check=1
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What’s interesting is, he’s right on point about the NCAA’s hypocrisy, but then he indulges his own:
Alrighty then: how many Ivy League athletes go pro, in relation to the power leagues? I know it happens, but it’s not a common occurrence.
He can watch whatever he wants, but is the typical fan going to stop watching Oklahoma because the players get a $3,000 stipend? I don’t think so.
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The Ivies are typically recruiting kids that come from good homes with financial support. It’s a different dynamic.
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Several Ivys are close to being able to provide academic scholarship for nearly every student. A couple years ago an article suggested that Ivy FB may have a resurgence, if they choose to, as they wouldn’t have the artificial limit of 85 athletic scholarships. There are a few other hoops to jump through, though.
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There are a few other hoops to jump through, though.
Yeah, I would say so. On just about any team, your 86th-best player is not a big contributor. In a world without scholarship limits, Alabama’s 86th-best player might be a starter at Ole Miss. Harvard’s 86th-best player is probably not going to start anywhere we care about. If the Ivies wanted to be competitive, at the very least they’d need to play a full schedule and allow their teams to enter the playoffs.
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1) Prior to scholarship the 86th player at a power program is the current fr or so starter at any number of schools today.
2) you don’t get to assemble 110 or more kids, evaluate and then distribute scholarships. You will always have misses-4* busts and walkon standouts. A few years ago the Belitnikoff award was won by a walk on in the PAC (iirc) who got scholarship jr or sr year. He’d probably have gone to a lot of other places if a schollie was offered.
3) The point is that a part of the Ivy de-emphasis was the elimination of athletic scholarships. Near universal academic scholarship eliminates that particular significant cost and concern. And a big part of creating competitive balance was the limitation, which is also bypassed in this way.
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I agree with that analysis, but I don’t think the Ivies can resume athletic relevance by offering effectively unlimited scholarships, without doing more.
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Mac:
Not in football.
In non-revenue or revenue-neutral sports or sports where they only need to convince a couple of the right kids to play for them to become good, definitely.
Have you been following Harvard basketball or Yale hockey?
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@Richard: Yes, I agree in non-revenue sports. @ccrider55 had referred to Ivy FB.
I know that Ivy basketball teams sometimes have decent NCAA basketball tourney runs. The fact that they allow their teams to play in the tourney is a point in their favor, something they can’t do in football.
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I referred to an article that said they may, if they were to choose to make the additional investment as a primary impediment for many teams would be an advantage for teams where everybody was on scholarship, not just 85. I didn’t say I thought they would try to, but I do think they may unintentionally improve through that policy if it happens.
I’d choose an Ivy, Stanford, etc. even with NFL goals knowing they’ll find the talent wherever it is (if I had it). And post competition, whenever that happens, you really can’t beat that sheepskin.
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Is there a sport other than FB the Ivy’s don’t allow post season participation?
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The Patriot League has only just started awarding football scholarships this season. (They had relented on the other sports a number of years ago.) Rather quaintly, they cap the team total at 60, just 3 fewer than FCS allows. If you’ve gone all the way to 60, I’m not sure the point of holding back the last 3, but them’s the rules.
The entire reason the Patriot League exists is to supply like-minded non-conference opponents for the Ivies. Could this be a leading indicator of a future Ivy policy shift?
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Doubtful.
In any case, I don’t think you’ll see much of an arms race in football. The Ivies have pretty decided that the only thing important to them in football is the conference title, and for that, there’s little sense to engage in an arms race.
ccrider:
Well, for football, any kid who can get in to an Ivy would also be able to get in to Duke, Northwestern, and likely Stanford, so there’d be little reason to go play football at an Ivy (unless he really, really loves the school) since he could get a great education & network and still play at the topmost level of college football.
BTW, if you ever read “Friday Night Lights”, the TE (Brian Chavez) gets in to Harvard (probably due in part to his football prowess) but quits because after playing for Permian in Texas high school football, Ivy League football seemed like intramurals.
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For the Ivies, I don’t think they’ll try to stockpile talent even if they can effectively offer full scholarships to most students now (at Harvard, you qualify for financial aid if you parents make less than $200K/year, and I believe it’s all grants, not loans). As they won’t be expanding class sizes cavalierly, their opportunity cost in taking in 100 more football player is rejecting 100 more amazing future leaders-of-the-universe types, a handful of whom may become super-rich alums and donate a bunch of money in the future. And all for what? So that they may win the Ivy League? Except that if one school does it, all schools would and no one gains a competitive advantage, so it’s in everyone’s interest (except maybe Cornell, which is double or more the size of some of the other Ivies) to agree to a gentleman’s agreement to not engage in the arms race. And Cornell would refrain because it wants to be a team player.
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Not sure. Is the Chavez situation is an incitement of the Ivys or Texas?
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UConn has fired Paul Pasqualoni.
It seems there’s a growing trend (ok, two schools) to fire coaches mid-season. That used to be pretty rare in football, because you can’t really install a new system until the offseason. Plus, the most likely hires are employed elsewhere, and therefore untouchable before December or January. The old thinking, therefore, was that firing the coach in September doesn’t really accomplish very much. That seems to be changing.
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Better to have a potential lame duck rather than no one at all.
Its a knee jerk reaction. Haden firing Kiffin at 3 in the morning in the airport? Amateur hour in the ADs office. Haden probably is even more incompetent in his job than Kiffin was.
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A Rhodes scholar cleaning up the prior AD’s mess is an incompetent? AZ got the jump on the post season coaching carousel just a couple years ago. At first everyone thought the same as you, but came to see it as an advantage. Besides, judging by his meeting with the Pres behind the bench during the third qtr, I’m not sure it was Haden’s call.
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Bullet:
Sounds like Earl Campbell thinks USC has gotten a head start on UT.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/23929643/earl-campbell-thinks-its-time-for-mack-brown-to-go
“”I’d just say this, I take my hat off for USC for what they’ve done. They didn’t mess around with it. They just said ‘let’s do it now.’ I think at some point our university’s people are going to have make a decision.””
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Basically mid-season, your recruiting comes to a stop. Players don’t know who the coach will be and start jumping ship. They don’t know the people, the defensive or offensive system. Not knowing is much worse than an embattled coach. The mistake with Kiffin was hiring him in the first place.
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I agree. While typical crisis management tells you to cut ties ASAP, this isn’t a typical situation due to the year-round nature of recruiting, especially late in the year.
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I agree. Certainty is preferred to uncertainty, unless the cost of that certainty is is judged to be no longer acceptable to the brand. There is now certainty at USC that change is happening and recruits won’t wonder if a change may happen. The sanctions end in a year. The new regime will have a window to get going without the expectation of instant success (wait until year two 🙂 ). Is there any question as to the type and profile of the next coach Herritage Hall?
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Also just want to add that Mack Brown and Lane Kiffin are in such different spots in terms of legacies and how long they are/were in their spots.
You’re not going to find two more polar opposite situations. Brown’s been there well over a decade, won a NC, and is very close to Dodds/Powers. Kiffin has made a young career of getting unwarranted promotions, and he had 1 good season there that led people to overhype the situation to a preseason #1 ranking that led to his downfall. There’s just too many differences to equate the situations.
Also, I do think Texas (Dodds/Powers) want to let Brown leave in dignity, not like how Kiffin was evicted.
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Zeek:
Oh, I agree. One is approaching retirement, the other apparently was a cancer in need of immediate excision. Whether that is accurate I don’t know, but I can see where it has provided a different kind of clarity for recruits considering U$C, that would not in my mind be needed or necessary in Austin. At least not yet, and I don’t see Mack ever letting it reach that point.
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USC recruits were jumping ship left and right even before Lane got fired and the recruiting class was awful (by USC standards) so the thinking probably was that little harm could come from jettisoning Boy Wonder in-season.
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Its a knee jerk reaction. Haden firing Kiffin at 3 in the morning in the airport? Amateur hour in the ADs office. Haden probably is even more incompetent in his job than Kiffin was.
I am leaning towards the view that it was the right move. I am not quite seeing the need to pull him off the bus, and do it at the airport at 3 in the morning.
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This is where I think Haden was pushed by the admins.
Prez: “Pat, is he gone?”
Haden: “In the morning, sir.”
Prez: “No, do it now. Before he hears it from leaks from those I’ve been talking to!”
Haden: “As soon as they land, sir.”
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Alan,
Tough loss for your Tigers but excitement level from the talking heads after probably helps you long term if they keep on wining.
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duff – thanks. It was a tough loss, but a great trip. LSU still controls its destiny with November games against Bama and A&M, but needs to get the defense straightened out before that time. But give Georgia credit, the Dawgs have the best offense in the SEC.
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Mettenberger (LSU QB) was from Oconee County which is the Athens suburbs. His Mom actually works for coach Richt. Richt gave her last week off.
Richt said last week he thought Murray had better practices and probably would have won the UGA job. But Mettenberger did have the better spring game, so a lot of people thought he would get the Georgia QB job before he got kicked off the team.
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Delo$$ Dodd$ reportedly announcing tomorrow retirement effective next August.
http://www.mystatesman.com/weblogs/bohl-games/2013/sep/30/sources-dodds-stepping-down/
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Been a lot of wishful thinking rumors, but this is what has been his obvious retirement date for quite a while. There’s been a story for over a year he had a $1 million bonus if he was still employed by the AD in August 2014 (think there was an FOIA on his contract).
People have been throwing Bowlsby’s name around, but I don’t think that’s realistic. Swarbick, Luck and Jurich are the other names that get mentioned frequently.
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For anyone who doesn’t understand the James Street reference-he was the 1st wishbone QB and led Texas in the game of the century vs. Arkansas.
Article below has the iconic photograph with him and Darrell Royal who also passed in the last year. After beating Arkansas 15-14 with a 4th Q rally (after a 4th down pass) in a #1 vs. #2 battle at the end of the season, Texas was behind Notre Dame 17-14 with 2:26 left, 4th and 2 in this photo. Notre Dame broke 50 years of bowl abstinence with their trip to the Cotton Bowl.
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/tag/1970-cotton-bowl/
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Living in Texas my whole life I just assume everyone knows who James Street was. And his son was a helluva baseball player for the Longhorns a few years ago.
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ASU is converting bowling balls to helmets?
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/arizona-state-introduces-fiery-helmets-notre-dame-photo-224632945–ncaaf.html#more-33922
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ASU should play Maryland with each wearing some shades of red, yellow, & white.
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Well, someone smart should know how to market the wearing of the traditional helmet designs. Call it “Retro Helmet Week” or something like that. Get Skrillex to help you with the outreach to youth groups. Maybe that’s the ticket to bringing some sense into it. 😀
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Rutgers-WSU game will be played in Seattle in 2014
http://seattletimes.com/html/cougarfootball/2021922440_wsunotebook29xml.html
IIRC, this was the game Wisconsin had to back out of when they made the 2-game deal with LSU.
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http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/10/01/games-in-all-sports-at-service-academies-suspended/
In a press release sent out a short time ago, Navy announced that the Department of Defense has suspended all intercollegiate competitions at the nation’s service academies due to the government shutdown. At the very least, the Air Force-Navy game as well as Army’s game at Boston College are in danger of being canceled.
As far as the former contest is concerned, the Navy wrote in its release that the academy “will cancel contests as appropriate and notification on Saturday’s football game against Air Force will be made public prior to 12 noon on Thursday.”
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2013/10/01/naval-academy-air-force-army-government-shutdown/2901611/
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Squabbling is Washington in a city ruled by government and government contractors is one thing but let that spill out into the streets of mainstream america and you are just asking for trouble. Are these guys so disconnected from the mainstream they pull this? Imagine if the government shut down Twitter, American Idol, and Miley Cyrus?
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This is good news. A threat of a football game being cancelled might actually get Congress* going again. I wish I was being sarcastic here, but I’m totally not.
Never mind the 800,000 people who just want to go to work, but if the Navy-Air Force football game is cancelled!
*By Congress, I mean the Tea Party – this current shutdown is 100% their fault.
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The Tea Partiers didn’t create the deficit that keeps requiring these debt extensions. There is plenty of blame to go around. Both parties wanted the shutdown for their own reasons. But football takes priority! That may get the two sides to come to some sort of agreement.
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I think you’re right.
In fact, I think the whole reason why this part is being publicized so well is that it will put pressure on Congress.
The fact that this is a top story on ESPN, etc. as well as other stories related to the shutdown being top stories covering other facets of life, just shows how broad the government shutdown is and that it has unintended consequences all over the country.
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On more responsible negotiations, DISH and Disney have agreed to a short term extension while they continue to negotiate.
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bullet, the debt ceiling deadline isn’t for 17 days. Today’s shutdown is over a different ideological conflict.
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Correct, the current shutdown is not about the National Debt, it is just one last ditch effort by the Tea Party Repubs to repeal or stall ObamaCare before it went into effect today. The Tea Party members have basically held the rest of the republican party hostage because if they don’t get what they want, then the more sane GOP members know they will face a primary battle from an ultra-right conservative funded by the Tea Party organizations and big money men, like the Kochs. So, Boehner kowtows to a bunch of freshman tea party congressman resulting in the entire House GOP refusing to do their basic duty of funding the goverment unless the Senate and Obama agree to repeal/delay/cripple ObamaCare (which everyone knows they aren’t going to do).
The White House/Dems know that they need public pressure on the House to get a quick resolution to this, that is my guess behind the publicity about football games being cancelled. A missed football game will get people to complain to their congressman. If it was a SEC game that was threatened, a deal would already be done (as more people would care and it would be people in Red States).
The Debt Ceiling government shutdown will be coming in a few weeks.
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I’m not about to get into a long argument about this, but my take on this is that Boehner and McConnell seem to have completely lost control of the Republicans in the House and Senate respectively. Cruz and Paul (along with Lee) have basically led the Republicans in the Senate on almost every major issue this year. In quite a few cases, they’ve forced the caucus in a direction that McConnell doesn’t seem like he’d be going in otherwise. Ditto for the house, where Boehner has often tried to negotiate in private with Reid and Obama, but he continually gets flanked by Tea Party outrage as soon as the discussions come to light, and then he has to backtrack and pursue another path. In both chambers, the tail is wagging the dog now.
It seems as if Boehner is letting the Tea Party members overextend themselves, and that when the public outcry over the shutdown becomes strong enough, he’ll be able to put an end to this.
Bottom line: this is a complete abdication of leadership on the part of the Republican leadership apparatus in Congress, and at this point, the country is going to be ungovernable if a minority of a Party controlling one house of Congress can basically shut down the government to try to force changes to laws (and will presumably threaten to default on the national debt in furtherance of that kind of goal).
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Spot on, Zeek.
And I’d say there are two reasons that the Tea Party has this power over the Repub leadership:
1. Gerrymandering
2. Vast increase in the amount of money being funneled into congressional races by national organizations
The first causes districts in which normal Republicans are more likely to be defeated by a ultra-right conservative in their primary rather than by a Democrat in the general election and the second allows these challengers the means to outspend the incumbants.
Hopefully football can save the day. And since the Debt Limit debate will also occur in football season there might just be hope for that one too!
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@Greg
Its still the same idea-budget/debt limit/fiscal responsibility with Obamacare being the target of the Tea Party.
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It will be interesting to see if the SEC Network and Longhorn Network get carriage when Disney/DISH work out their agreement. This is the renewal of a 2005 carriage agreement.
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I believe sanity is the tea party’s target.
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@Duffman
Do you think they could successfully shut down Twitter and Miley Cyrus? That WOULD be a good thing!
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If they could just shut down Miley Cyrus, Twitter will explode. Two birds, one stone.
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Perhaps Boston College could call Colorado (which lost its game with Fresno State as a result of flooding) and set up a game later this season. There would be precedent; in 1969, Holy Cross had to cancel its season after two games (hepatitis, I believe) and BC and Syracuse were among the schools who lost games. They weren’t scheduled to play each other that year, so they arranged to play at SU’s Archbold Stadium the final game of the season, the day that BC would have played Holy Cross (then a big rivalry).
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The GOP wasn’t consulted about Obamacare and not a single Republican voted for it. A large majority of Republican voters don’t want Obamacare foist upon them (nor does most of the country). And Republicans are the problem because they refuse to allocate funds for it? Really?
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Obama repeatedly tried to bring a number of conservatives into the negotiation process and was repeatedly rebuffed. If the Republicans had gotten engaged with the process from the beginning, the end results would not be so odious to them. Its kind of hard to complain about legislation that you were invited to help create but refused to do so.
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Mitt Romney instituted near the same thing in Mass years ago. What party is he?
It’s not the opposition I dislike. It’s the hostage taking. Tea party won’t allow continuing federal funding to come clean to to the floor without the majority of the GOP reps. support. It would pass imediately if it did. 117 (29%) is able to control a body of 435. Makes filibuster, and ending one look like child’s play.
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Oops…<27%…
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Republicans are the problem because they refuse to allocate funds for it?
Actually, the funds have already been allocated (and in some cases spent) for it. But who am I to let facts get in the way of a good rant…
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To me it has nothing to do with Obamacare per se.
It’s more like, how do you govern the country if every time the government needs to be funded, we could end up with a situation where one party tries to blackmail the other into getting some changes to laws through this.
You realize they’ve passed these Obamacare defunding bills like 40-50 times in the House prior to this?
What exactly makes this the right time and place to have this debate? This isn’t governance; this is a hostage situation.
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On a side note, has an opposition movement been so successful at branding legislation but so unsuccessful at actually opposing that legislation? EVERYONE calls the Affordable Health Care Act Obamacare, regardless of political viewpoint. Most news organizations even use the term. I think every single poster on this board used it. Yet, it still has not been stopped.
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The ironic thing is, if it becomes a success (and chances are good that it will follow the same path as SS and Medicare: strenuous opposition in the beginning but now widely accepted as great middle-class programs), the GOP would have helped in increasing the Democratic brand.
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If Obamacare lasts as long as SS and Medicare and is still colloquially known as Obamacare (which I think is going to be the case), Obama could end up being one of the most famous and well-known presidents of all time.
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Richard says: …”it will follow the same path as SS and Medicare: strenuous opposition in the beginning but now widely accepted as great middle-class programs”
SS and Medicare are great programs? Really? Don’t you realize that neither of those is financially sustainable?
Do the math. A significant proportion of current government largesse is already paid for by borrowing. This will only get worse as more and more baby-boomers retire and claim their SS and Medicare.
Adding the massive cost of Obamacare to this fiscal timebomb is stupid beyond belief.
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Count on a conservative to be unable to read.
Here’s what I said: “widely accepted as great middle-class programs”.
I know that in your conservative bubble, you actually think that the vast majority of Americans want to get rid of both programs, but that’s not reality. You can debate the merits and sustainability if you like (and even if both would require cuts–which granted, may be difficult; in large part because of the opposition of geriatric conservatives–they’re both sustainable), but whether they are extremely popular programs isn’t up for debate.
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@zeek – Speaking as an extremely disaffected Republican, you’ve touched upon exactly what my issue is with all of this. I’m actually sympathetic to the fiscal concerns that the Tea Party has brought up, yet the procedural tactics are counterproductive and could eventually drive me to the other side of the aisle when all is said and done. There’s a certain point where you have to govern instead of grandstand, and this is a situation where it’s all grandstanding. Even though I personally have a lot of reservations about Obamacare, it’s been passed, the Supreme Court affirmed it, the American people have voted back in the President that created it, and, as you’ve mentioned, the House has voted to repeal it dozens of times to no avail. I fail to see the end game for the Tea Party faction here other than firing up the fundraising from its base (which could very well be their end game with the rest of the Republican Senators and Congresspeople that have to deal with competitive states and districts be damned). Obamacare, warts and all, is up and running as of today, so Obama isn’t going to agree to a delay or any other changes attached to this funding bill anymore than George W. Bush would have ever agreed to roll back his tax cuts or Clinton would have reneged on NAFTA.
The problem for the Republicans that actually want to govern (as opposed to only throwing red meat to the base) is that the Tea Party base is acting logically with respect to their own narrow political interests to the detriment of the Republicans’ national interests. Here’s a New Yorker breakdown of the districts of Tea Party members in Congress:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/09/meadows-boehner-defund-obamacare-suicide-caucus-geography.html
As someone noted earlier, these are districts that are *very* Republican and represent about 18% of the country with demographics (more whites, fewer minorities, more males, older, more rural) that belie the demographic trends in the other 82% of the nation. So, representatives in those districts are more worried about a Club for Growth-funded challenge from the right in the GOP primary instead of a Democratic opponent in the general election. Unfortunately for the Republican Party as a whole, the party is probably going to have to get blown out yet again in 2016 for it to readjust. To be sure, the Republican leadership generally has been fully ready to engage in soul searching in the wake of the 2012 failure (the inability to secure the very winnable Senate was a complete dropping of the ball and indictment of the GOP primary process these days even more so than the Presidential election), yet the Tea Party faction has essentially prevented any of that self-critical analysis on issues such as immigration reform and other items that are necessary to actually start to win swing elections again (not just the safe seats).
Not too long ago in 2004, the Democrats were the party that were getting run by a rabid red meat faction (