A Case for Paying Division-1 Football/Basketball Players
As we all know, there have recently been many scandals involving paying football players (Cam Newton, recruiting, OSU players selling gold pants, Tattoo-gate, etc). It's not just football players involved, either: we all know what happened with the Fab 5. Is paying sports players so bad though? We all know that universities make millions of dollars based on their football - and to a lesser extent basketball - programs. In addition, many players come from extremely poor backgrounds and must support their families and/or kids. Obviously, if we were to pay them, it would need to be legalized by the NCAA.
First, I know that many of you do not believe in paying sports players. Why pay them when they're already receiving a free education worth 200K? I would like to present an unusual but strangely compelling analogy between football players and PhD students. As an engineering PhD student, I've noticed many similarities between the two. Obviously the analogy isn't perfect but I consider it to be an interesting one.
- Both PhD students and football players provide more value to the University than they receive in direct compensation. PhD students draw grants worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars from companies (if you're an engineering or science PhD student) and the federal government. A good PhD student provides a lot of exposure for the University in the research community and in the news: when you read about some professor's science breakthrough in the Science section of the NY Times, keep in mind that the PhD students working for the professor are the ones who did 99% of the work. In compensation, the PhD student receives free tuition (sounds familiar?), and a minor stipend for living expenses. Obviously, we all know that football players generate way more money in athletic revenue and generate tons of exposure for the university: see the Doug Flutie effect. Also, would anyone not in Idaho have heard of Boise State University if it weren't for football?
- Both PhD students and football players get a free education. All PhD students do not pay for their tuition, either receiving funding through teaching (TA), research (RA), or an internal or external fellowship.
- The #1 job of PhD students and football players is not to do well in class. The #1 job of the PhD student is to do lots of research. Taking classes is mostly to learn some background information, although one or two classes will suffice for their research area. Of course, they need to take more classes to graduate. After the first few classes, all other classes are just for the sake of your own interest, to "make you a better person." Your advisor will also pressure you to spend more time on research and less time on classwork (assuming that you're not in danger of failing out). Obviously most coaches would rather their star football players focus on football rather than studying (assuming that they're not in danger of failing out).
As we can see, from a high level perspective, there are many similarities. The difference is that PhD students get a stipend, which varies based on the school and the location. Also schools may offer PhD students different amounts of money for their services based on how good they are. For example, an OSU PhD student choosing between OSU, MIT and Stanford will probably get a larger offer from OSU than one who just got into OSU. Stipends range between 15K to 30K a year, based on the department, school, and your attractiveness as a candidate.
Aside from these points, PhD students and football recruits share another similarity: recruiting visits. Obviously they aren't as lavish as the football recruiting visits, but schools still make an effort to wine and dine you, paying for your airplane tickets, hotel rooms, and gourmet food.
So if we wish to pay football students, how much money should they be offered? It shouldn't be too crazy: they're still basically amateurs, and frankly many smaller schools can't afford it. However, they should be paid enough to support themselves and possibly a family. Guess what? That sounds exactly like a PhD stipend! PhD stipends are already designed to support a student's living expenses and be able to just barely cover them if they already have a family. They are designed to be affordable for the school, competitive with other schools, and support the student based on the cost of living in the area.
Based on these facts, I propose that football and basketball student athletes be paid as much as the minimum PhD student stipend at the university (maybe multiplied by some value between 0 and 1 since athletes already have many aspects covered such as food). The stipend is enough to support them and encourages universities to pay their PhD students more money if they would like to raise the stipend for their sports players, thus fostering better research. The NCAA has said many times that student-athletes are students first, so now it's time for them to prove it or shut up. Making the football stipend based on some academic stipend is a good way to do it since it will improve the quality of graduate education as well as giving student athletes enough money to support themselves and their families back at home.
What if the school does not have a PhD program? An alternative strategy is to make the student athlete stipend based on the minimum professor salary. Here are some examples for what the student athlete salary can be:
Athlete Salary = A * (Teaching Assistant stipend)
Athlete Salary = B * (PhD stipend)
Athlete Salary = C * (Assistant Professor salary)
Where A and B are maybe between 0.5 and 1, and C is around 0.1 or so.
TLDR: Here's the main question that I'm posing: how do we distinguish between Div 1 basketball and football players from PhD students, in light of the fact that they both produce more value than what they receive?
Some players will have a deeper sense of entitlement than they already have. I think it's human nature, the NCAA legitimizes it and it will be easier to take extra. It's not for lack of money that the rules are broken , it's lack of morals.
Some things to consider.. Revenue sports at major programs help fund non-revenue sports at the programs... the Conference they belong to, NCAA itself, etc. It's not necessarily true that a select few big whigs are benefiting from the sweat and tears of these kids.
The NCAA needs to bulk up their enforcement staff, so there's at least one officer to each program (at least!). Also need to find the money to establish Orientation programs for prospective athletes, as well as job prep and placement programs for Athletes, so they're better equipped for the professional world.
Comparing the life of PhD students to those of top university football/basketball players is about as far from reality as you can get. Having gone to grad school a ways back and recently seeing my sons go through grad school at Michigan, I have some idea as to what is involved. Most PhD students I know, and I know a bunch, work reasonably hard but no where near as hard as athletes who not only have the rigors of their academic load, albeit in some cases with help, but the 20+ hours of training per week on top of their studies. The fact that any student athlete playing in major programs gets through school is amazing in its own right - that some athletes have great academic success in difficult disciplines is truly a statement of incredible levels of brains, dedication and self-discipline at its very finest.
I believe that the reason you can't pay student-athletes is that for a host of reason enumerated in previous posts, it simply won't work. It introduces more problems than it solves and would do nothing about booster money transmitted by a handshake. The system has its faults, but it works and at Michigan it works well. It is not perfect, no system is.
I would also suggest that the OP, who has put a fair amount of effort into defending his position, spend a little more time and see what the life of a collegiate athlete is like, the time the day starts, when it ends and how jam packed it is in-between. Try a few hours of heavy weight work and then study when all you want to do is sleep. The comparison he makes might then seem a bit far fetched.
Have you gone to grad school for a Masters or have you gone through a PhD program? Those two are vastly different. A Masters degree is trivial compared to getting a PhD, both in terms of the amount as well as the technical difficulty of the work.
Case in point: today is Friday night and I'm posting from the lab. On most days (including weekends), I don't leave the lab before midnight. The last few days I left the lab around 2AM. I spent most of spring break in the lab too, and also worked during winter break (although I worked from home in Michigan, having went to visit my parents).
Don't worry, it's not all work though. Since today is Friday I'll probably leave the lab and go home "early" today.
I'm not too sure what you were trying to say though. Were you saying that being a student-athlete is harder than being a PhD student? Doesn't that imply that they deserve even more money than PhD students then?
Again, here's the summarized question in case you missed it: How do we distinguish between Div 1 basketball and football players from PhD students, in light of the fact that they both produce more value than what they receive?
A Masters degree is trivial compared to getting a PhD
At this point it is obvious that you are full of yourself and are viewing the world through the narrow prism of what you are specifically involved with.
Here's something you may want to consider. If you in fact do not produce more value than what you receive from your employer, you are of no value to your employer. Period. If you do not produce something in excess of what it costs to employ you why would anyone bother to employ you?
SysMark beat me to it...
ertai must have gone to
Sure, my thesis is not comparable to a dissertation, but that's based mostly upon page count and duration spent writing it. To make any assumptions about being trivial otherwise is just plain asinine.
ertai, quit while you're ahead. The dialog was entertaining; now you're just looking desperate because the forum doesn't agree with you:
1. The link between PhDs and athletes, in your argument, was weak at best. Your follow up comments have done nothing but weaken it further.
2. Your notion of paying players, ethics and amateur status aside, only works if the organization is profitable. Around 90% of DI athletic departments are not.
3. The more I think of about it, this whole notion of "value", "pay", "worth", etc., reeks of entitlement. A university is an academic institution first and foremost. Sports are extracurricular. What part of "student-athlete" is not clear to you? When students sign their letter, they know what they are getting into... regarding the current system and from a contractural perspective, there definitely is consideration: play in exchange for tuition/books/room & board.
I have a masters in EE and a JD. The coursework for a PhD at Michigan was two or three courses more for the PhD and then years of your life doing research. I have spent way too much time around universities, particularly Michigan and know a ton of people who have received PhD's to think that your situation is typical if you are literally spending every waking moment in the lab.Success and hard work are synonymous in virtually every aspect of life, but that is crazy. You chose the wrong lab or the wrong thesis advisor or you code slowly.
I am not sure I subscribe to your premise about PhD students and athletes producing more value than they receive for a host of reasons. You can make the argument, but if your time is worth so much less than you are paid, why bother? You really don't make a hell of a lot more with a PhD than an MS, at least not from most studies I have seen. If you think otherwise, why sell your soul for a pittance of what you claim it to be worth. Go out and find a job and get paid your real value if you are unhappy with your situation. You know damned well what you bought into when you signed on the dotted line; if it doesn't meet your expectations, you can leave tomorrow.
As far as athletes in major sports go I also have second thoughts. They play on a huge stage created from University and alumni money. Most of them have careers that will end at Michigan; only a very select few will go on to the NFL. From my perspective as an OOS'er, they get an education that costs 50-60K+ annually. It is not only the athlete but a synergy between the athlete and the Michigan brand, as Dave Brandon puts it, that makes their stage so large.
Maybe you have never played a sport, but I have and its hard work but a shit load of fun. Why else would you do it? I would give my left nut to have had a skill set good enough to allow me to run through that tunnel on Saturdays and play in front of 110,000 people and millions nationwide who live and die by my on-field achievements. Dude, you had better believe that is priceless.
If you have all this time to post on MGoBlog. I don't see Denard debating Diaries on here.
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<br>Maybe if you didn't have dozens of responses, you could go home early.
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<br>Have YOU ever been a college athlete? Since you seem to think it's fair to ask tge comparison. If you think you work as hard as a combined class/practice/studying/film studying/working out, fine. Bullshit, but fine. The difference is being a PhD doesn't involve you being physically exhausted after having the shit kicked out of you for hours each day. Clicking the mouse is NOT having Mike Martin hit you.
Re-quoting from my previous post that you responded to:
Were you saying that being a student-athlete is harder than being a PhD student? Doesn't that imply that they deserve even more money than PhD students then?
I'm really not too sure what your point is.
April 10th, 2011 at 11:54 PM ^
No, the difference between a PhD student and a student athlete is that the PhD student is mentally exhausted at the end of the day, I have literally spent 24+ hour shifts in my lab. Trying working a MCD spectrometer for a day and a half while trying to keep up your fine motor skills around the 30th hour so you don't eff up your sample that has an estimate cost of over $2000 and took over one month to prepare. but yeah that research environment is a cake walk.
I didn't know what mental exhaustion was until grad school. I had thought that I was a hard worker before, but this was like nothing I'd been through before. It's sort of like being drunk w/o alcohol. Also, I developed a sort of mild dyslexia for a while and short term memory issues. It all cleared up after I graduated though.
Also, posting here doesn't indicate that someone isn't working hard (referring to another post). There were occasionally strings of several days where the internet provided the only social interaction I had. Months where it provided the bulk of it.
It wasn't like that most of the time though. Just at the end. The first few years of grad school, atheletes probably work harder. ...it's just that final stretch that's a doozie.
Ie they pay the school for their education, they pay for the strength and conditioning coaching they get and use of facilities, pay their own dorm and pay for the food tables.....and let the schools pay them after they pay all that first........
Title IX. If you pay the football and basketball players a stipend, you must pay the women's sports the EXACT same amount. No athletic department could afford the cost. The vast majority of university's don't make a profit anyway. What would they do, only have the top programs from each major conference pay their athletes? Talk about the rich getting richer. And besides, You'd never beable to control how much the next "star" gets once he "decides" to go to school X. How much does it increase each year? Is there a contract? If so, who will represent the players' interests? Agents, a union?
Nothing good can from this. Paying players will lead to disaster. Besides, only 1% make it to the pros anyway, so that "free" education that so many say isn't worth anything might be something everyone should pay more attention to.
I would have loved a free Michigan degree. That degree would have opened more doors and oppportunities to me than any stipend I get while playing sports. If you are good enough to go to the next level, the $$$ will be there. The schollie these kids get is worth so much more than they could possibly understand. Each of the Forcier kids that came to UM and transferred threw away a great opportunity. When the going got tough, they bailed. Good luck to Tate, but I figure his playing days end in Miami. The Miami degree he might get won't be as valuable as the Michigan would have been.
You can talk all you want about paying players. If it happens, it will be the beginning of the end for college athletics. It won't stop the cheaters from cheating, it will actually make it easier.
How 'bout the NCAA clean up the cheating first and then deal with the players $$. Hand out some real penalties and actually enforce them for a start. I don't think USC is suffering signing 30+ players on signing day, when they are supposed to give up 10 a year. Bust Auburn, LSU, OSU and Bama for all their bullshit. Shut 'em down for a year or two, TV bans, no conf. championship or bowl games . When they do that and show they're serious I'll listen to the next idea.
FWIW, Tressel should be fired and banned from coaching for at least 3 years, OSU should get hammered for the repeat offender bullshit and Saban should get nailed too. If the NCAA would deal with the elephants in the room instead of looking at the $$ these programs make for them, things would get better. But, as we all know, it's all about the $$ and as long as these schools make the NCAA money nothing will change.
One thing never looked at is most ahtletes are not allowed to have jobs
You're first assumption is where this entire argument goes wrong. You assume (or at least base the argument on) the fact that there has been an increaes in pay-to-play scandals.
These types of scandals would not go away if the NCAA started paying them. Say there's a kid choosing between Auburn, UM, and OSU and they get 30k to play at either school. There is still no incentive to keep, say, an OSU booster from throwing 30k more in the mix for him to go to that school. The kid doesn't care that he gets a stipend, he's still getting offered more money to play somewhere else.
Obviously, I am assuming all athletes are greedy--which they aren't, but to think that paying players each year will get rid of pay-to-play scandals is borderline ridiculous.
And I agree with a previous post--if you pay them, take away their free tuition.
Eh, paying players is just not a good idea. Although there are valid reasons to do it, it's a very slippery slope.
No player should get paid, especially when they get a ridiculous amount of free stuff, most importantly an education. Regardless of how many hours they put in, and how much revenue they help create, it doesn't justify payment.
Playing sports is not their job, their job is to get an education, they are paying for their education by playing. If they wanted to skip college and go pro, by all means, good luck trying. If they choose to go pro, playing in college will only help their chances. It's exactly like the rest of us. I went to Michigan to get an engineering degree to find a great job. I could have Good-Will-Huntinged-it; learned everything on my own and then applied for jobs. Players go to college to get better and showcase their talents, and find a professional career.
I think for student athletes, the education is payment enough. The majority of college athletes will never be professionals, so for them college sports should be an opportunity to turn their skills into a degree. I guess I feel like the student athlete should have the mindset that he's been given a gift: the opportunity to take a skill that wouldn't otherwise translate into employment and turn into a skill that does. That's their payment.
Also, PhD's do spend most of their time on research and the classes are ancillary, but the research is a big part of their education, too. A PhD who doesn't finish his research will never get his degree. An athelete who doesn't play or performs poorly can (and really should) still graduate.
I originally thought that both of these differences would point to athletes not being paid, but looking back I'm not so sure.
Of course, it's all theoretical since it's never going to happen.
April 10th, 2011 at 11:46 PM ^
I have one major problem with this post. Your assertion that some PhD student receive a different stipend depending on their productivity of research is not true, especially in technical fields such as the biological, chemical, and physical sciences. When I was a PhD student, every student in my department (biophysics) received the same stipend no matter whether they were on fellowship, their advisor's grant, or a GSI appointment. It doesn't matter whether you were accepted to MIT, Harvard, Princeton, and Michigan or just Michigan. You receive an equal stipend. Secondly, stipends are set by the minimum cost of living. Hence, why I received a higher stipend at Michigan compared to the other offers from Michigan State, Pitt/Carnegie Mellon, and Minnesota. Departments and individual thesis advisor grant monies are very limited, especially in this current legislative environment. Therefore, the money offered for graduate and post-graduate research assistants are set at the minimum level that will allow you to live in the area and perform your work. It is this way MSU, Harvard, and Michigan. Two years ago I was my departments graduate rep on the faculty meetings, believe me, departments are using every means to use the limited resources they currently have.This is true even at Michigan, which currently has the highest level of NIH funding in the country.
When I was a PhD student (engineering), stipends varied from person to person and from year to year. The prof that wanted to hire you would make whatever offer he thought was appropriate. It was pretty much just as described by the OP.
I guess it is different in the pure sciences in Rackham. Even if you received a NSF fellowship, which I believe is around $30K at the moment, the extra funds gets held by your department for summer support after the 2 year run of the fellowship. I have a friend in physics who received NSF fellowship and she pretty much got the same stipend as I did.
The only way you can receive more support in my department is if you pick up an extra 25% appointment through an added GSI/GSM appointment. I got offered a 75% appointment a year ago after one of our GSI's flaked out and they needed someone to pick up his lab sections to teach.
April 11th, 2011 at 12:28 PM ^
cant get over paying of players. The US Federal Courts will make it mandatory to pay all players because of Title IX.
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