If I were running the NFL, I'd be pushing HARD for the NCAA to pay athletes.

[JAF-N72EX]

24 minutes ago, Iamcanadian said:

Heck, back in the late 50's, a letter whose envelop carried the University of Kentucky insignia, broke open in the post office containing $20,000, addressed to a top basketball recruit. If they were paying $20,000 in the 50's, imagine what a top recruit might get today!!!

1) It was in the 80's, not the 50's.

2) It was 1,000, not 20,000.

27 minutes ago, Iamcanadian said:

The NFL really does not care if fewer and fewer players actually play football, for all poor kids, scholarships are a way out of the slums where white politicians have kept them,

 Let's not go down this route....

[PARROTHEAD]

I wouldnt dare tell the NCAA to pay athletes. Id be telling all the teams, "Hey. Lets start up farm systems, scoop up all the 4-5* recruits with solid pay and make money off these future prospects."

[JAF-N72EX]

Personally, I'm tore on the idea of college players getting paid. On one hand, I do believe they should be compensated for the physical damages and the work that they put in that ultimately generates millions for others. But on the other hand I feel like they already get a substantial amount with free room and board through college that can add up to 150k+. This gives them an opportunity to either full-fill their dream to play in the NFL or use that time wisely to start another career, or both. There is no bad option either way. That alone is a great deal. 

[Iamcanadian]

10 minutes ago, JustAnotherFan said:

1) It was in the 80's, not the 50's.

2) It was 1,000, not 20,000.

 Let's not go down this route....

Then perhaps it must have happened more than once. I'm 74 and remember the incident quite well! 

[CriminalMind]

make it a job & salary dictated by the market. acess to class, lodging & food are direct paid benefits.

[JAF-N72EX]

7 minutes ago, Iamcanadian said:

Then perhaps it must have happened more than once. I'm 74 and remember the incident quite well! 

Your talking about the Chris Mills incident bud. In the 50's, I don't think they had even started scholarships just yet so it would have been more understandable back then??? But don't quote me on that.

[Iamcanadian]

11 minutes ago, JustAnotherFan said:

Personally, I'm tore on the idea of college players getting paid. On one hand, I do believe they should be compensated for the physical damages and the work that they put in that ultimately generates millions for others. But on the other hand I feel like they already get a substantial amount with free room and board through college that can add up to 150k+. This gives them an opportunity to either full-fill their dream to play in the NFL or use that time wisely to start another career, or both. There is no bad option either way. That alone is a great deal. 

It doesn't cost the school anywhere near that amount, the school is out only room and board and their scholarships do not allow them to even work in the summer months and only about 63% of them ever graduate. They risk concussions, broken bones, torn ligaments, ruptured spleens and even death on occasion, they have to work out in the gym for hours each day, travel every other weekend, maybe across the country, train at practices starting even before school starts  and spend hours watching film every week, but yes, that scholarship is worth 150 thousand dollars, but how many students could even pass any type of serious course, with having to put in those hours, to keep their free ride, not many IMO!!! 

The football program alone can bring in anywhere up to 400 million in donations as donations can be seen to be closely related to how good the school football or basketball programs are. Then there is the TV money and the ticket and merchandise sales and we are talking about a multi million dollar industry for the top programs, maybe 25 to 40 schools.

In the old days, before schools were embarrassed into working harder to graduate their players, most schools only graduated in the 40% range, flunking out large groups of their football players as soon as their season ended on January 1. It was a national scandel that just went unreported till finally somewhere in the 90's or even early 2000's, a few newspapers began to report on graduation rates for student athletes in football and basketball and in order to maintain their recruiting edge, most schools started making a better effort to graduate a higher %, but I still wonder how many graduate in easy programs with few serious paying jobs and are discouraged from taking programs that would require real study time to get through ??????

But you go on thinking that they are getting that $150,000 free ride!!!

[JAF-N72EX]

1) Learn to read more carefully next time.

2) Iam glad to hear that a 74 year old Canadian can tell me how much it costs to go to college in America.

[lancerman]

1. If you pay football players you have to pay other student athletes whose sports are money losses. Title IX will also screw schools over 

2. 90% of the students, faculty, staff, boards might enjoy athletics and the benefits of it, but they already think that these kids are dumb as rocks who are fortunate to even be there and get a bunch of underserved privileges like fake classes and recreational advantages other students don’t enjoy. Not saying this is 100% accurate, but that’s the stigma. Internally very few people will fight for them to get paid, and if they do, they’ll be a massive push to remove scholarships to offset it. 

3. Maybe Alabama and schools like that will play ball, but smaller schools will just jump out of the game. It would have a major impact on the sport.

4. A disruption of the NCAA doesn’t benefit football. Unlike basketball, a player can’t join the pros out of high school. 

[Iamcanadian]

1 hour ago, lancerman said:

1. If you pay football players you have to pay other student athletes whose sports are money losses. Title IX will also screw schools over 

2. 90% of the students, faculty, staff, boards might enjoy athletics and the benefits of it, but they already think that these kids are dumb as rocks who are fortunate to even be there and get a bunch of underserved privileges like fake classes and recreational advantages other students don’t enjoy. Not saying this is 100% accurate, but that’s the stigma. Internally very few people will fight for them to get paid, and if they do, they’ll be a massive push to remove scholarships to offset it. 

3. Maybe Alabama and schools like that will play ball, but smaller schools will just jump out of the game. It would have a major impact on the sport.

4. A disruption of the NCAA doesn’t benefit football. Unlike basketball, a player can’t join the pros out of high school. 

I think a case could be made that athletes get a share of the revenue they produce, which would severely limit Title IX in the discussion and make it possible not to pay all student athletes?

Considering that football and basketball brings in the alumni donations to an extent that it pays for all those facilities and makes possible all that can be built on campus, and likely pays for most of the professors salaries, I think it is just blind ignorance that people would think that way. These guys risk their future health every day they participate in the sport of football and a few have even died for their schools!!! Again, considering that only around 63% of football players actually graduate and likely another 25% are in useless courses that the schools know quite well, will not give them much of a future, these guys are the real losers in this whole game. Students get to enjoy their performance get to have pride in their schools and come out way ahead for the experience and it can also help greatly in their future careers, but yeah, you go on talking about undeserved privileges and recreational advantages other students don't enjoy, I just wonder how they feel when they are recovering from their second concussion or the torn ligament in their knee or the ruptured spleen they suffered last game and you tell me who is privileged!!!

No school that is currently benefiting to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars in alumni donations which have been clearly shown to be related to how well their sports programs perform, are going to really squabble about paying their athletes if forced to do so.

Also remember, Alumni donations do not count towards football or basketball revenue, so the schools still come out way ahead and since a scholarship really only costs them room and board, it is hardly that expensive to keep a program going that is also based on revenue generated. Obviously, the best athletes will likely want to go to the schools that produce the higher revenues where they will make more money, but isn't that exactly what happens in MLB and the NBA and they survive quite nicely!!! 

If paying athletes is tied into revenue, a case will be made for a lot of schools to avoid the necessity of giving up the sport, sure, you may end up with super leagues vs all the division 1 schools you currently have, but it would survive quite nicely IMO with at least 40 decent programs divided maybe 4 ways.

The only reason a player cannot jump from high school to the pros in any sport, is simply because the pros do not want to anger the schools or force them to drop their cheap feeder system.

If I had a nickle for every time I heard a pro coach say, he wishes he could get started teaching these kids the PRO game right out of high school, before they got taught a whole bunch of junk by college coaches who do not give a damn about a players future as a pro, except how it will help their recruiting, all a college coach is interested in is getting that player to help him win games in college and if it hurts his pro potential, well so what, it worked for his college team. 

Sure, a lot more schools might have to accept being Div 2 programs, but they are not going to give up a sport that generates alumni donations, they will just have to make the Div 2 championship a bigger item. 

Not saying the transition will not be messy, but hey, the last decade saw so many schools switch conferences, it looked pretty messy as well, that's life!!!

[ET80]

9 hours ago, JustAnotherFan said:

Let's not go down this route....

Agreed.

Very simple rules, people. Follow them.

- ET

[youngosu]

8 hours ago, Iamcanadian said:

I think a case could be made that athletes get a share of the revenue they produce, which would severely limit Title IX in the discussion and make it possible not to pay all student athletes?

Nope, Title IX requires equal benefits to all athletes, it doesn't matter if their sport makes money or not. If you pay a football play $10,000 you have to pay a woman's soccer player $10,000

[lancerman]

8 hours ago, Iamcanadian said:

I think a case could be made that athletes get a share of the revenue they produce, which would severely limit Title IX in the discussion and make it possible not to pay all student athletes?

Considering that football and basketball brings in the alumni donations to an extent that it pays for all those facilities and makes possible all that can be built on campus, and likely pays for most of the professors salaries, I think it is just blind ignorance that people would think that way. These guys risk their future health every day they participate in the sport of football and a few have even died for their schools!!! Again, considering that only around 63% of football players actually graduate and likely another 25% are in useless courses that the schools know quite well, will not give them much of a future, these guys are the real losers in this whole game. Students get to enjoy their performance get to have pride in their schools and come out way ahead for the experience and it can also help greatly in their future careers, but yeah, you go on talking about undeserved privileges and recreational advantages other students don't enjoy, I just wonder how they feel when they are recovering from their second concussion or the torn ligament in their knee or the ruptured spleen they suffered last game and you tell me who is privileged!!!

No school that is currently benefiting to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars in alumni donations which have been clearly shown to be related to how well their sports programs perform, are going to really squabble about paying their athletes if forced to do so.

Also remember, Alumni donations do not count towards football or basketball revenue, so the schools still come out way ahead and since a scholarship really only costs them room and board, it is hardly that expensive to keep a program going that is also based on revenue generated. Obviously, the best athletes will likely want to go to the schools that produce the higher revenues where they will make more money, but isn't that exactly what happens in MLB and the NBA and they survive quite nicely!!! 

If paying athletes is tied into revenue, a case will be made for a lot of schools to avoid the necessity of giving up the sport, sure, you may end up with super leagues vs all the division 1 schools you currently have, but it would survive quite nicely IMO with at least 40 decent programs divided maybe 4 ways.

The only reason a player cannot jump from high school to the pros in any sport, is simply because the pros do not want to anger the schools or force them to drop their cheap feeder system.

If I had a nickle for every time I heard a pro coach say, he wishes he could get started teaching these kids the PRO game right out of high school, before they got taught a whole bunch of junk by college coaches who do not give a damn about a players future as a pro, except how it will help their recruiting, all a college coach is interested in is getting that player to help him win games in college and if it hurts his pro potential, well so what, it worked for his college team. 

Sure, a lot more schools might have to accept being Div 2 programs, but they are not going to give up a sport that generates alumni donations, they will just have to make the Div 2 championship a bigger item. 

Not saying the transition will not be messy, but hey, the last decade saw so many schools switch conferences, it looked pretty messy as well, that's life!!!

There’s too much wrong with this. One you’ll never get by Title IX. Don’t even think there is a case there. Don’t even think you’ll have public opinion on your side there. It will be a nightmare. It won’t win in court and in the meantime you’ll basically further destroy the support of the schools and athletic departments. 

You wont be able to tie it into revenue. The entire athletic department will be forced to pay minimum wage the minute you designate athletes as paid positions to every athlete. Whether their sport makes money or not. 

Ahd their just isn’t the internal support whether you like it or not. Most non athlete students view athletes as kids who unlike them didn’t earn their spot there, didn’t have to take out a loan to go, and take fake classes to get a Bachelors degree that they are killing themselves for. They might go to the games, but they don’t care if the players make money. Most teachers feel the same way and have to deal with the students who have to watch over the athletes to make sure they are in class and deal with constant grade lobbying. The only people internally who care enough are the board members who see dollar signs. And they will sour on it real quick if you start talking about splitting the revenue. The push comes from the outside. 

Also coaches might want to teach kids pro systems, but the best 18 year old in the world isn’t hanging with NFL players and they know it. 

[43M]

Nope.   Terrible idea for so many reasons.

College players ARE paid.   They are called scholarships....often full tuition through college.    Beyond that, they are often given alot of extra perks beyond scholarships, including alot of under the table stuff, especially for the better players.

If anything, kids will stop playing football because of the health affects, and partially because every generation gets progressively softer and weaker.

[cddolphin]

16 hours ago, DontTazeMeBro said:

I’m also pretty sure if you pay the football team you have to pay the women’s field hockey team too

If all the other obstacles (unionization, etc) were cleared, I think they could just follow the NFL model: tie the player compensation to the league revenue. In the NCAA's case it would be TV advertising deals, radio deals, apparel sales, etc. Therefore you should be able to seperate revenue streams by sport. The volleyball team wouldn't be paid nearly as much (if at all) in that case.