Calipari Likens NCAA to Dwindling Soviet Union; Offers Suggestions for Player Compensation
Some remarkably poignant and common sense ideas from a man I've never respected re: player compensation. Ideas include:
• Players should receive stipends of $3,000 to $5,000;
• The NCAA should cover eligible players' insurance premiums;
• Athletes should be able to accept loans up to $50,000 against future earnings;
• If a coach leaves an institution, players should be able to transfer from that program without having to sit out a season;
• Athletes should be allowed one round-trip flight home every year.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10760355/kentucky…
Soviet Union metaphor seems fitting. Insurance premiums and flight-home ideas in particular indicate that he's thought about it and seems to have kids' interests in mind. Is there more to this man than ruining programs and one-and-dones?
He means EVERY team should be able to pay their players like he does. Also, he wants players to be able to leave so that he can take them with him when he gets in trouble and moves to another school.
April 11th, 2014 at 10:15 AM ^
[I see both sides of the pay argument, but I really wanted to make a Yakov Smirnoff joke.]
Yakov Smirfnoff. Car drive you!
Come on.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:13 AM ^
Those factors had nothing to do with his metaphor. Read the article.
A legitimate minor league for basketball and football would solve most of these problems, right?
Though unrealistic. Too much opportunity lost in player/league marketing.
is any indication almost all college football players and basketball players would take a huge pay cut.
Yeah, I'm sure people would pay a fortune to watch Johnny Football play for the "Texas Rail Cats" or Jabari Parker play for the "Durham Bloodhounds."
These teams wouldn't make any money, and thus could never afford to pay the stars the money that people think is out there.
These schools instill more value on these prospects than most people care to realize.
How much more popular is college baseball compared to the minors? Or is it more popular at all? Do they really make more money than the minors? I'd guess not actually.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
It is interesting how valuable the current de facto farm system is as an economic engine compared to what a real one would be worth. Without the ties to the beloved institution (even if many of the fans of a given one conceive of it as primarily an athletic institution) and the amplifying effect of the same brand across many sports (Do you KNOW how many national championships our gymnastics/golf/curling team has?), this level of basketball or football would be diddly squat.
That's what I like about the NCAA critics. Everybody cheats and kids get oodles of money, but they go to bed hungry, too.
You really believe that over a four year period the average minor league player makes less than 200k? The value of a player in a minor league system isn't how many people would go to see them (though I think minor league baseball has more fans than college baseball anyways) it's on their potential future value to the teams that own the minor league team.
make $2150 a month in their first year, $2400 in their second, and $2700 in their third. So the most any of them make (with the max of $2700) over a four year period is $129,600. Well short of the $200K figure. They also do not get paid during spring training. This also does not calculate their mandatory dues they must pay.
And that's Triple A. The guys toiling away in Single A ball make meager peanuts.
Those guys make about $16K a year before they pay dues.
April 11th, 2014 at 10:18 AM ^
Minor leaguers are non-union. That's why they were drug tested well before the MLB players were. Also why they are paid like shit.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
but players pay what are called clubhouse dues. Those dues pay the salary of clubhouse managers. I should have been more clear on what type of dues are paid.
Agreed. I would rather have legitimate minor league systems for basketball and football for athletes who really do not care at all about receiving an education.
Have no problem with any of these...good for him for actually thinking about it. More than most can say on such a hot-button topic.
"Is the NCAA afraid we're going to make them fat? Give them too much ice cream and chocolate cake?" he writes. "The whole thing really defies sanity."
As we have since discovered, of course, that you can provide fruits, nuts and bagels per the rules...just not cream cheese. I am guessing you can supply the cake only if the cake is made generally available to the student body though.
What if they have chocolate cake, but no icing?
April 10th, 2014 at 10:17 PM ^
Let them eat cake.
Cake or death?
Well I meant cake.
seems fitting? Interesting. Do players face the very real possiblity of being shot should they decide to leave the school of their choice? Do player's families face the very real possiblity of disappearing should an athlete not peform to standard? Are players forced to perform and should they not meet an arbitrary quota, they are then denied sustenance until such time they meet their quota? Are there guard towers around campuses manned by guards who receive bonuses for killing those trying to leave?
Metaphors do not require exact fit - just pertinent/illustrative likeness. If exact fit is required, it seems there would be no such thing as a metaphor. E.g., the NCAA is . . . the NCAA. Not very illustrative.
Calipari's metaphor draws us to the pertinent/illustrative likeness of 'dwindling but still apparent power.'
Players have choices and they can leave. The Soviet Union did not offer choices and people were not free to leave.
You and he broke an addendum to Godwin's law.
Not sure what role 'choice' plays within narrowed confines of the metaphor 'dwindling but apparent power.'
pertinence is still about choices. The USSR offered no choices, players have choices.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:16 AM ^
Read what he actually said. You're creating your own metaphor.
I still don't understand how 'choice' has anything to do with Calipari's metaphor, which seems to instead deal with institutional inflexibility.
He does deal with the issue of player choice in his suggestions though.
April 10th, 2014 at 11:22 PM ^
that Russian citizens may emigrate, don't you?
edit: I didn't realize you were referring expressly to the Iron Curtain Soviet Union. My bad.
April 10th, 2014 at 10:02 PM ^
'dwindling but still apparent power.'
In that case, then maybe he should have used USs of A. In case you've not noticed, Soviet Russia is on the rebound.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:15 AM ^
None of those things have anything to do with his metaphor. Soviet Union = apparent crumbling power. That was the extent of his comparison.
April 10th, 2014 at 10:06 PM ^
I'm guessing most of the posters here are too young to get this reference, but for us old timers, we will never forget that debacle of an ending to the 1972 Olympic gold medal game.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:19 AM ^
Wow. That's the first I've ever heard of that and just read up on it. The IOC and the NCAA are basically the same corrupt organization, but that was already known.
Also beyond the coach sharing the fact he is leaving there is to be no contact between players at the old school and the coach preventing the coach from recruiting those players he is leaving
April 10th, 2014 at 10:17 PM ^
I get that, but there's no doubt that the coach is going to recruit the players he's leaving. Just like anything that goes on today in the NCAA, it'll be hard to monitor. It could gut a team, depending on how many left or the quality that do leave. Its all hypothetical, and one persons opinion vs another. Should any of this come to fruition, I'd be real curious to see how this situation plays out. I have little doubt in my mind it'd become dirty, just like how it is now.
April 10th, 2014 at 11:11 PM ^
You do realize universities can and do prohibit players from transferring to their departing coaches new university?
April 11th, 2014 at 10:40 AM ^
Blueisgood is arguing about Calipari's proposal is that athletes would be allowed to follow the coach, not about the current situation.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:33 AM ^
Calipari said players should be able to tranfer without sitting, not follow their coaches. If the school, player and coach agree to allow such a thing then who cares?
April 11th, 2014 at 12:48 PM ^
You're correct that it wouldn't have to be in order to follow the coach, and I'm conflating that with the release. If the proposal is just the NCAA waiving the year off, and the school still needed to issue a release, then you'd be correct. However, I read the proposal as the player automatically being given a release--thus the school wouldn't be able to impose a restriction.
Edit: read it again, and you're correct--I think the player would transfer from the school as usual, and the year off is the only thing that changes.
The NCAA and NBA/NFL like it the way it is and it should stay the way it is. Nobody is shooting you or forcing you to play. You go through 2/3 years of college and then you get payed millions. I'm not sure what these players are bitching about. They have no student loans. They have the cost of eating payed for and free gym membership and no living expenses. I would love to be in their situation.