WSJ Article on "Pay to Play" lawsuit and Chris Webber
The Wall Street has a nice summary article this morning on the Pay to Play lawsuit status and some other interesting information on formulas that might be used to determine how much players should get paid. The article has a Michigan theme and of course was written because of Webber's ending "excommunication."
I am not going to try to summarize more than that and just say that it is an interesting read.
"Figuring out how to share revenue with athletes, of course, is a labor unto itself. In a brief prepared for the O'Bannon plaintiffs, Stanford economist Roger Noll outlined how much a Michigan basketball player would have made in 2008-09 and 2009-10, based on a model that mimics the revenue-distribution rules in professional leagues. The answer: about $250,000—or $30,000 less than Webber took. Under a formula by Robert Brown, an economics professor at California State University San Marcos, Webber was worth four times the booster money he took.''
Apples/oranges. Medical interns aren't the product. Schools are charging professional prices to watch college basketball players (i.e. the product). Plus, you need a medical degree to be a doctor. You can't major in "basketball."
Your insurance is not charged any less because your were seen by an intern instead of a full doctor. It is one of the ways hospitals save money. And FAR LESS people are qualified to play at Div 1 level basketball than get into a medical school.
teaching hospitals
in a training envirnoment you are cared for by both the intern/resident/fellow and an attending physician. interns do not practice or bill independently.
generally, third party payers pay a higher rate at teaching hospitals.
I'm pretty sure you pay "professional prices" at the hospital whether you have the chief of medicine or the newest intern managing your care. Nominally, an attending is in charge, but let's face it - most of the time you're dealing with the intern/resident. I also disagree that you can't major in basketball -- how many one-and-done players have we seen? That's exactly what they do. Even football student athletes who have professional potential and leave after three years could be considered majoring in football.
Really, I just find it laughable that you're saying we should pay student athletes who need no degree for what they do more than we pay medical interns who need eight years of school plus two degrees.
Are "worth it" and apparently they also "should be paid", despite the fact that their job is apparently an audition for the US Senate or similar political bauble (the fact that only a small minority of ADs manage to go this route is irrelevant since the same fact applies to college players with respect to the pro leagues).
I will only listen to pro-shamateurism arguments from people who explain why they don't apply to coaches and ADs.
The big issue I see is the player sometimes benefits, the bigger schools always benefit. I'm not sold on paying players as the way to go, since handing out money left and right to college kids just seems to be begging for various disasters, but the overall compensation package of players at major schools should be increased.
Or just give athletes the rights to their own images, so they live and die by their own swords for lack of a better metaphor.
That is an interesting perspective. Can doctors start treating people and charging them before they complete their residency? At least in basketball I feel a bit more comfortable with the lack of compensation to athletes since they have the option of turning pro, but in football this is impossible for many years.
Here is a debate on this topic: http://www.the-counterpoint.com/discussion/new
misconception that the value is in the players, the value is with the university. One can function without the other. Certain players elevate the visibility of schools, but is Trey Burke NPOY had he gone to Penn State? There are very few exceptions, but you have to wonder, does Tim Tebow have a similar following at Florida State or Miami? College athletic fans root for players of the their favorite school, not the other way around. How many players do you root for that decided not to go to Michigan?
Your use of "Trey Burke winning the NPOY at Michigan" as an example kind of argues against your point. Michigan hadn't had an NPOY in forever and hadn't been a real player on the national scene in almost 20 years before Trey Burke stepped on campus. So ask yourself: Did Michigan's basketball program make Trey Burke what he is, or did Trey Burke make Michigan basketball what it is?
Is there a symbiotic relationship? Sure, but judging solely by attendance/ticket and donation prices before and after Trey's coming, I'd say there's a whole lot of evidence that Trey made the basketball program what it is more than vice versa.
Yes. Trey Burke would be receiving the same opportunities because he's one of the best basketball players at his level and became so not because he stepped on the campus of the University of Michigan but because he put in the work to become what he is.
Remember, they jacked up the prices and required donations after last season, which ended in the first round of the tournament. They did so because Trey led the team to its first B1G championship since Antoine Joubert and Roy Tarpley.
i think it's important to disassociate the athletic department from the school. The AD isn't part of a public institution (well, not really). The AD is a profit machine independent of the school, and the profits go towards unnecessary construction projects (big HD screen scoreboard at the baseball stadium) and funding non-revenue programs. Sure, it gives some to the university's general fund, but largely it's a "non-profit" corporation in which the AD and coaches are millionaires, built solely off unpaid labor. I have no problem with Brady Hoke, John Beilein and Dave Brandon being paid what they are. But no one's coming to the stadium to watch Brady coach.
So you're telling me that if Trey Burke just worked as hard as he did at UM for two years, but didn't go to college and instead trained in his driveway and at a gym, he would still have the opportunity to go number 1 overall in this year's draft? Heck, even if he did the same, but at SDSU for two years? If you believe that, then I guess there's no point in debating cause we are on totally different wavelengths. Oh, and you won't find me arguing with you about the out of control arms race in terms of spending college athletics has become.
The basketball argument is really weakened by the European leagues. Want to get paid? Go to Europe. Plus, that gets SOME bad-apples out, as the kids who don't want to go to school just don't. Can you still Lebron-it to the NBA (sorry, not a fan so I don't keep up on the rules). The NFL is a different story because 1. no other league, 2. kids are too small coming out of high school to make the jump.
Maybe it's just me because I have just about a quarter million in school debt through my undergrad and grad school, but I hate how everyone just seems to gloss over the free education part. That's a fucking mortgage hanging around my neck for the foreseeable future, and I would have let the universities make as much money off of me as they wanted if that would get this anchor off me.
huh, you know I kind of like that idea;
Here is 60k a year, but you have to pay tuition/board/meals out of that, anything left over is yours to keep. You could still do partial scholarships with this set up too but I guess the kicker is how many womens sports are "full ride" rather than partial scholarships which could make this expensive.
this will not stand up to Judicial Review.
OP: Please edit your post, Webber admitted to taking about $30,000 AFTER he announced for the NBA. The NCAA alledged he took $280,000 but it was never proved.
You made a rational economic choice to attend college, figuring that your debt would be paid off by your increased earnings (or that it was worth it for the happiness you derived from attending college).
You could alternatively have attended a cheaper college, a less selective college that might have offered you a full ride on academic merit, or not attended college at all.
This rational economic choice is denied to upper-tier college players, who are forced to attend college and be "paid" less than their market value for 1-2 years at the minimum, while suffering the risk of career-ending injury. This is the problem with the shamateurism situation.
(The fact that some people are better off than others and do not have to make the tough choice you had to doesn't really enter into it due to the "no politics" rule.)
I knew what I was getting into before I started down the path of student debt, and I'm happy with my decision, but it still doesn't change the fact that the debt sucks. And you say I have the choice to attend a cheaper university or not to attend college. But then you argue athletes don't have that choice? Where does it say in any professional league that you HAVE to attend college? You don't want to put in the work for a college program? Ok, then don't go. If you're a basketball player, then just sit out one year after you finish high school. NFL? Then sit out three years. Don't risk injury, don't let an oranization make million off you. Then you can just jump right into a professional team. Profit.
is not that a college scholarship is a terrible deal (it's obviously not, otherwise some fraction of athletes would do as you suggest and sit out). It's just that it's not as good a deal as some athletes would get under a more market based system. Which is why I compared it to the general student situation, where colleges do not agree to limit the amount of merit aid they give to academically-inclined students.
In fact, when the Ivy League did do something a bit like that, they got taken to court. Kind of "surprising" that the NCAA doesn't suffer the same fate.
You say that you're happy with your decision. That's pretty much the ballgame right there. Is Denard Robinson happy that he wasn't able to make a couple of million dollars from endorsements before taking his chances in the NFL?
By the way, my personal political stance is actually at odds with the "reward the brightest shining stars" philosophy. I just think it's hypocrital in the extreme, with strong class/race undertones, for colleges to make a ton of money out of college athletes, a lot of which they then hand over to athletic directors, coaches and bowl executives, under the banner of "amateurism".
I would actually go further down your path, F.M.H.; I think both systems are flawed.
Attending college these days is not so much a "choice" as a prerequisite for access to any kind of decent employment opportunties. Yes, there are still some decent-paying jobs you can get without a college degree, and you hear the occasional story about some person who skipped college and went off to fantastic success in some field or another. But for the most part, if you don't want to be flipping burgers at McDonald's then you need a credential. And I don't feel it is either fair or socially sustainable for that credential to cost $20K, $40K, $60K and up wherever you go. The massive amounts of student borrowing and the resulting debt traps are sharply limiting the opportunties of our young people and impairing social mobility. This is a serious problem that we, as a society, will need to address.
Because the basic higher education model that exists in this country is so deeply flawed to begin with, I don't think it makes an effective counterpoint to the situation facing student athletes. Student-athletes (at least, the ones who play major college football or hoops) don't have an acceptable set of choices IMO--but comparing their dliemma to the supposedly "rational choice" confronting most ordinary college students probably makes student-athletes' situation appear less unfair, not more so. Is it objectively unfair to Trey Burke that he can't cash his skills in for beaucoup $$ while he's till in college? Sure. But that's a first world problem next to the ordinary student borrowing $40Ka year and deciding between some entry-level job someplace or plunking down even more borrowed cash for grad school.
hear that? it's the sound of the secondary education bubble bursting. for a quick visual glimpse at the subject (written by a professor at UM - Flint): http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/04/update-on-the-higher-education-bubble-…
also: great avatar, EGD.
No one is forcing players to go to college. Individuals who want to play pro basketball have t0o decide whether the college route is best for them, or not. The argument that athletes should be employees rather than students ignores the fact that people who would rather be an employee than a student can do so right now. The University of Michigan is under no more obligation to hire a basketabll player than a janitor. No one is forced to become a janitor at Michigan, nor a basketball player.
I like your first idea, but the whole "I have student debt" is lost on me. Your school (I assume U-M) didn't make millions (if not billions) off of you in ticket sales and TV revenue based on the time you put in outside of your studies and weren't allowed to have a job because of archaic if not draconian regulations.
If you want to know how shitty of a deal it is, go to your office today and offer to forgo all forms of compensation if your office will give you a shitty one room apartment that you have to share with someone else and two meals a day. And you're not allowed to have a second job for spending money. And if anyone wants to give you any kind of additional assistance, it has to go through your employer to ensure that it doesn't go against regulations.
I don't think you know how much a BILLION is. I somewhat agree on the job issue, but the problem is that it has been abused in the past. Sure, Booster X would love to employ USC's football team, they'll receive some compensation too, at $75 an hour. The office comparison is not valid. They are NOT just working. They are getting a FREE education. Jesus, sometimes I think people really do just want to cut off the STUDENT from student athlete. Hell, that's fine with me. Why not just say, if you can't academically qualify or don't want to go to school, here's some $, show up everyday and represent Michigan. Fine by me. Be an athlete or a student or both. The "student-athlete" thing is a sham for many anyways as athletes are either coddled or shoved through to make sure they can play in big games (SEC, UNC, etc). Let alone picking classes first, academic "tutors", separate dining halls, living facilities, gyms, academic centers, athlete-classes, etc. Not exactly the ole-1960s walk-on to the football team, live at the fraternity, and be treated by the university like any other student.
Just a reminder that "scholar-athlete" was a term coined by the NCAA in the 1950s as a means to evade potential workman's compensation claims made against member schools by injured athletes.
I'm pretty aware of how much a billion is. It's $250 million times four years of a football superstar's career. Is it conceivable that in the very near future (say, two years from now) that's what B1G/SEC athletic departments will be earning over four years with the new playoff and the money that will bring in, ESPN/ABC rights deals, and conference TV network revenue, forced donations (aka seat licenses/waiting list fees from football and men's basketball), ticket sales, sponsorships, in-stadium advertising, etc.? I'd certainly say so.
if you are in the MMB you have to actually pay a lab fee to be in it, the alumni can hire you for gigs and events, you help bring in millions in donations, and you dont see any of that money. You pay for your tuition, room and board, go to class and practice an extra 20ish hours a week. some have to take a job or two to pay rent or to stay in school. and i believe athletes are allowed to have jobs as long as they get paid at the market rate for the work.
Additionally, we always talk about paying "student-athletes" as if they are all equal. Every time, people who are PRO-pay cite Tim Tebow or Denard Robinson as examples of athletes being undervalued. That might be the case, even after you account for the $250,000 dollar scholarship. But why doesn't anyone remember that every university has probably 10-12 women's teams (all lose money, increase school visibility to a very minimal extent) each with a dozen or more student-athletes receiving a $250,000 scholarship package. Then add on the 8-10 men's sports (football and basketball make money at SOME schools, every other sport loses money except for a few random exceptions and don't do all that much to raise visibility). So yes, Denard is "underpaid". But by underpaying him, 400 (something like that) student-athletes who are "overvalued" with $250,000 scholarships get to play a sport and attend college FOR FREE. There are a lot of 3.8, 34 ACT biomedical engineers who are paying full-boat and working their asses off too. Plus, we always talk about Michigan... one of the top 5 athletic-performing, revenue-earning, fandom-winning schools. What about Memphis? Or USF? There, you have AVERAGE students contributing hundreds of dollars a year to SUPPORT the athletic programs. This on top of paying tuitions which have roughly doubled in the last two decades. So yes, lets keep complaining that a few athletes are underpaid so that thousands more can receive a very-expensive education (at schools they possibly aren't even academically qualified for) FOR FREE. (Sidenote: What's up with MGo lately... if I "bold" it won't let me unbold and I can't create paragraphs which leads to the above wall of text).
Totally agree. There are 444,000 student-athletes in America. A small fraction receive full rides.
If every player on every sport had to be paid that full ride that would be $27 billion a year just in scholarships. (444,000 x $63,500).
Right now: The NCAA research staff estimates that college athletics programs collectively spend about $10.5 billion annually.
So if everyone had to be "paid" just tuition on every team the expenses would go up 300%.
This would be impossible. And if Webber type players actually get paid their "true worth" of above a million a year (as they claim), how does that fit with title IX? It can't. College sports would revert to the pre-title IX days of only having men's football, basketball.
So the Sherman Antitrust Act is head to head opposed to Title IX.
Most atheletic programs already lose money:
Major-college athletics departments last year “increased the amount of money they generate" by nearly $385M, but “increased operational spending" by more than $665M, according to Berkowitz & Upton of USA TODAY. Only 23 of 228 public schools in NCAA Division I generated "enough money to pay for athletics, a figure basically unchanged for three consecutive years.” This marks the “fifth time in the last six years sports programs have added more to their annual operating expenses than they have to their revenue.”
This seems fine to me. It allows the player to actually collect on his fame and doesn't "harm" anyone. Assuming a player makes... $1 per jersey sale of his number or $.01 per copy of NCAA Football sold, any booster trying to corrupt the system would not get very good returns on a $60 purchase. It also avoids the, "How much is a 2nd string women's water polo player worth?" question. Nor, in my opinion, would the players be making ALL that much money (even Denard / Tebow jerseys... how many are sold per year? 10,000 tops?)
As pointed out above - this can't be dealt with (paying players) unless it is equal to all athletes under scholarship. While you could proportionatly "pay" at some point with football and hoops at the top - I guarantee it is only a matter of time before you have a class action lawsuit by fieldhockey players who have a good season and believe they have been "paid less" because of gender. Also, would it only be limited to scholarhship athletes or walk-ons who are playing (think Kovacs prior to earning a scholarship).
I like the potential of letting players own their rights to their images although that could become pretty damn destracting on a team at some point (QB is earning $'s and the O-line gets squat). I think doing something along these lines would also allow to the industry to make a decision to push the school ($'s aren't shared) and not focus on the player (so these situations would be minimal.
Given them a stipend is going to be challenged too as either being too little, too much, or not consistant.
I agree that players should own their own images, and that any game company that wants to use players' actual images would have to negotiate that right (presumably under some compensation rules so that this doesn't become a back route to booster payments for playing for a given team), but not jersey sales. College jerseys should be sold sans names.
I do support the payment of a stipend in exchange for the restrictions on student-athlete employment.
Stipends assume athletes WOULD get a part-time job anyways. I doubt they'd have time during the season. I would think it's okay in the summer as most students do get summer jobs (although the school pays for their room and board during the summers if they stay, correct? That's not an option for other students and worth more than what you'd make working for minimum wage). Plus, what percent of students have part-time jobs anyways? 50%? I'm not sure but you'd certainly be giving extra money to some athletes who wouldn't work anyways (remember, the maj. of athletes play sports that aren't exactly lower-class sports, Golf, Water Polo, Tennis, Soccer, Baseball, Hockey, etc). And for most, your parents should be slipping you some $ if they have any means whatsoever, as 1. the athlete is possibly saving them for paying for an education or, 2. at least getting out of the house and getting free room and board. Hell, if my kid gets a full athletic ride to Michigan, I'm taking him/her to a car dealership and saying, "Pick one and I'm giving you all the pizza money you want, you just saved me $100,000-$200,000". Obviously that's not the case for everyone, but a lot of athletes come from normal, if not very wealthy backgrounds (ever met anyone who plays Water Polo... BMWs baby, BMWs).
...it is that the NCAA should never, ever, commercialize the images of individual players.
Not for one minute do I think that collegiate athletes should be paid to play sports. But if the whole idiotic video game market is a problem, the NCAA should just stay out of it altogether. Don't allow the recognizable individual images of ANY players at all. Get out of the video game industry and stay out, if any personal images are involved.
It's mind boggling to me that one stupid endeavor (video games) carries with it the risk of an even stupider "solution" (paying collegiate athletes for video game images).
go make your 25K a year in the Gulf Coast League NFL equivalent, paying your own room and board if you don't want to go to school. I'll bet your jersey sales will be the same as they would have been with a major university logo on it ... /S/ I'll bet EA Sports will come out with an NFL Minors video game with your image on it that sells millions of copies over 4 seasons ... /S/ No one was buying those jerseys and video games because of the brand value and awareness of the Universities represented. /S/
The truth is 99% of these downtrodden, exploited athletes would get way less if paid for the value they generate than they do in the tuition, training, room and board benefits they get. I guess for the remaining 1%: if Adidas or Nike want to do a shoe contract, or Subway wants to shoot an ad with them - like the Olympics model - just let it happen.
Car dealerships or tatoo parlors providing the official supplier of team x non-cash benefits for their own commercial gains ... well smaller schools will challenge that on grounds of competitive disadvantage. They are fooling themselves. They are already disadvantaged in facilities, etc. anyway.
Under the table payments by shady ex-auto workers - not so much. Therein lies an avenue for point shaving, etc.
Yeah, and really the anti-trust is against the NFL and NBA. If this suit wins this minor league will happen. Athletic scholorships will disappear. There is no way colleges are going to pay students. They could go all walkon and people would still go to games - it's the game experience (tailgating), traditions and University that is the draw - not the individual players.
Then, poor kids will have only the opportunity to live on a bus and get payed shit wages by a semi-pro team. A team with one quack doctor and crappy health insurance.
Then you rip your knee up and you are done - no degree.
...than see it turn into a minor league pro sports operation.
These athletes get a ton if extra support from the University at no cost whatsoever to the athlete. That's why taking the time to use your degree for something is important. These guys leave Michigan or any other University w a degree if they finish Debt Free while others are in the hole for $200K plus....meanwhile whole on campus they get a ton of extra benefits w scheduling, dining, clothes, tutors, living quarters, not to mention the "notion of being greased by in most classes" unless the athlete is a total dirtbag and does not do some or most of his assignments and skips class he will leave any major University w a Degree. And that enough is fair enough for 4 years of service on a athletic field.
The recurrence of their story gives the media one more opportunity to recite that Webber got an unconscionable amount of money under the table from a "Michigan booster."
That "Michigan booster" was not a Michigan alumnus, he wasn't a donor (at least not to my knowledge; certainly nothing significant); he wasn't a former letterwinner, wasn't a coach, wasn't a faculty member or staff member; he wasn't a parent of a Michigan student.
He wasn't shit. He was a factory worker, a sometime-numbers game operator, a union operative, a gambler, and a self-proclaimed procurer of young black athletes in Detroit. Today would be a good day to piss on his grave.
it would be outrageous if pay-for-play ever happened. If Michigan charges students $300 for season tickets with 'free' players, imagine if you have to start paying players 20k, 50k, 100k, on top of that. Our wallets will feel it because the AD (and all AD's) will be forced to pass the cost on to the ticket holders
Possibly. Or they would just institute "athletic fees" like 95% of universities do... forcing students to subsidize money-losing athletic programs so that others can play games. And yes, there is some argument that "but then the students get to watch sports and MARKETING!" Unfortunately, there is no opt-out option if you don't want to attend athletic events or don't have any connection to "school spirit" (grad student).
Also, how many schools are actually helped by sports visibility? Does Memphis get any additional applications because they have crappy sports teams you can watch? Maybe some people choose certain schools to watch A sport, but I doubt anyone has ever chosen to attend a school due to their fandom of any women's sport (save UConn / Tenn) or men's non-revenue sports (outside of a few random teams). The school will just tack on an additional $1,000 at the beginning of each semester... who's gonna notice that on top of the $20,000 or $40,000 bill they're already paying? But hey! At least the players are gettin' PAIDDDDDDDD biotch.
PEOPLE FORGET AT MOST SCHOOLS THE NORMAL STUDENTS ALREADY F***ING SUBSIDIZING THE PLAYERS JUST TO BE THERE BECAUSE THE MARKET DOESN'T SUPPORT HAVING 20 CRAPPY SPORTS TEAMS NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH. NOW PEOPLE ARE BITCHING AND MOANING THAT A FEW PLAYERS MAY OR MAY NOT BE GETTING "UNDERPAID" AFTER RECEIVING A $250,000 SCHOLARSHIP AND GETTING ACCEPTED TO A SCHOOL MANY OF THEM WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN INTO IN THE FIRST PLACE? (yes, picture an old man yelling, if it's good enough to get O'Reilly's point across, it'll get mine across as well.) That's what a university is all about.
Let's assume that Webber was worth $500,000 for the two years he played at Michigan. How much did ten to fifteen years of living, fucking hell for the program cost the school? I bet it was a lot more than $500,000.
I have been advocating that players be allowed to take money for years now, but it doesn't justify breaking the rules. I want a mea culpa and an apology from Chris Webber. All he is doing right now is promoting his personal brand at the expense of the school he supposedly "loves."
A little bit of contrition goes a long way. Sadly, I don't think it is forthcoming in the "book" he is working on.