A Modest Proposal for "Paying" the Players
In the comments we tend to go back and forth with "of course/of course not/won't-someone-think-of-the-childen/what-about-the-other-students", so I thought I'd lay out a specific proposal.
The goal of the proposal is twofold:
First, channel some of the obscene money flowing to athletic departments, the NCAA, and bowl committees to the people who make the money train possible.
Second, avoid the quagmire of trying to determine exactly who deserves what.
1. Lifetime free/reasonable-cost health coverage.
This is obviously of most value to our football players, but one thing student-athletes do more of is get hurt. Some of those injuries can have serious long-term consequences, so give them lifetime coverage for those risks. Whether this is health insurance or actual health coverage can be discussed, but I would imagine health insurance would be the better way to go, as health coverage has geographic limitations that aren't always convenient. This in and of itself would soak up a tremendous amount of the money pouring into collegiate sports and give it back in a way that I contend is fair - student athletes incur more long-term health risks than their fellow students, so giving them a benefit to counteract that risk - and has less of an impact than straight-cash payouts.
This has the further advantage of doing the right thing with regards to our increasing knowledge of the price that our student-athletes pay in terms of long-term brain injuries.
2. Allow athletes to profit from their likenesses. If EASports wants a Michigan QB #16, Denard Robinson gets a cut. Again, other students aren't restricted in such a way, so removing this restriction seems fair.
3. Remove the restriction on outside student benefits (i.e. bagmen and boosters). This restriction doesn't currently exist for other students (or, technically, for high school students not yet subject to the NCAA), and hence is also fair.
The last restriction seems like the most likely to cause havoc, but I have a few counterarguments:
a. Those who believe that the $EC is already deploying bagmen for football and that everyone is doing so for basketball should welcome a leveling of the playing field. This is the "it's already happening, and we're losing a battle that's not worth fighting" argument.
b. Those who think that auctioning off the top talent every year would lead to a totally different football landscape ... well, if you take a look at the top 10 teams each year for the last 10/20/50 years, you will find a strong correlation between the wealthiest universities and the most successful. Put simply, they can pay for facilities and coaching talent, and if they make a mistake they can pay to make it go away anyway. What, exactly, will change?
c. I have no doubt there would be a turbulent few years as people gave "f-you" money to top prospects and people decried "the kids these days", but all it takes is one top target who flames out to get people to realize that throwing giant piles of money at 18-year-old boys to play a sport with a horrific flameout rate is not sustainable. It will stabilize pretty quickly (within about ten years, I think) and the Rashan Garys of the world will get injury insurance money to wear someone's laundry, while the others will get new-car money, and not much will change.
d. This has the benefit of not running afoul of Title IX, as the athletic opportunities aren't changing and the university isn't doing any of the payouts.
e. I am not making the argument that our athletes aren't being compensated. I'm making the argument that they are not being compensated adequately. We cannot make the argument that "Hey, it's a business" when a recruit switches his commit to us or gloat over the Nike deal and say "No, it's amateur hour" when we want to keep our sports the way they are.
f. Aside from the moral arguments around "why shouldn't they get what they can?", Michigan has resources it can deploy more effectively than most, so it's to our benefit.
g. Arguing that we shouldn't pay players because it would change things is, at its core, an old-man-get-off-my-lawn argument. Just because it would change things is not a reason to do something if the problem is bad enough, and I think it is. Particularly in light of the concussion issue.
Argue away :<)
February 14th, 2017 at 8:56 AM ^
That currently exists.
Athletes living off campus also get room-and-board checks to cover rent. When they room together, that usually leaves them some extra spending money,
As for allowing them to profit from their likeness, that's basically the status quo these days. It's just under the table.
February 14th, 2017 at 8:52 AM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 9:18 AM ^
Here's the issue.
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
Allowing revenue-sport athletes - all men - to receive benefits beyond what athletes in other sports get probably can't hold up in court.
February 14th, 2017 at 9:26 AM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 10:05 AM ^
It's a safe assumption, though. Consider what happens if a school were to throw its ratio out of balance by offering a new men's sport. Even if womens' investments and opportunities were not reduced by one cent, it would be a Title IX violation.
In that environment, it's highly likely that Title IX would require a school to equalize its "salaries." And what school is willing to spend tens of millions defending litigation in order to find out?
February 14th, 2017 at 11:39 AM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 8:57 AM ^
Yes to:
Healthcare for life
Increased monthly stipends
A players' representative at the NCAA who can advocate for players' rights
Players receiving a cut from things like video games, but the money is kept in trust until the player graduates.
No to:
Booster benefits. Bad idea. I see hookers and blow in this picture.
Players getting salaries
Players getting paid for their likeness while still in college.
Ultimately, I believe the value of the education has to be maintained, even if the player doesn't value it. There are people who have to take out loans, work two jobs while in college, etc... to pay their way -- let's not devalue that. But, players should receive benefits for what they put in.
February 14th, 2017 at 9:40 AM ^
When I was an undergrad I had a paid internship and got 3 credit hours while I worked. Couldn't the role of student athlete and paid intern be blended? I feel like Brian has floated something like this before. Maybe not but this doesn't seem crazy:
Student gets scholarship.
Student practices 20 hours per week enrolls in Football & Athletic Studies for 3 Credit Hours(PREREQ: must be NCAA qualified and member of UM Football team)
Athletic Department hires paid 'interns' from the Football & Athletic Studies program and pays them for game days (whoever is on travel list?) and ancilliary promotional events.
Say it's $1000 per game and you're paying 100 guys. That's $1.3 million over a season. That's $13000 a year for a 'part-time' job for a college student.
February 14th, 2017 at 9:47 AM ^
I understand the desire to drop the hypocrisy. Many other sports have done so and have flourished. Tennis used to only allow "amateurs" into the grand slams until the Open Tennis era when so-called amateurs and pros could all play and everyone benefitted.
Another aspect usually left out of the discussion is the lack of good preparation - YES, good preparation.
1. Consider, many students spend time and take on debts in order to be trained for a professional career. They are "betting" on themselves.
2. They seek out the best programs they can afford and that will accept them.
3. They are incentivized to do well in their studies because that is how they will get a job.
4. Why isn't a "athletic scholarship" treated the same way? In truth there is often little "scholarship'.
5. Imagine this situation in LSA or Engineering College: "we'll train you to be a really great college mechanical engineer or college biologist, but the pros want something completely different" - yet, this is what is done with a lot of kids playing QB in many systems - they come out never having had to read defenses like a pro QB.
6. Make professional athletics a real degree concentration.
7. Some on central campus may howl but many top schools grant degrees, even masters, in the performing arts, drama, art, and music. The lives and likelihood of making a living from art, acting, or music is as slim if not slimmer than athletics.
8. If we eliminate the ridiculous training limits (e.g. imagine, being told, Sorry you've already stayed up till midnight studying twice this week - that's your limit) and make training serious for the pros, it will sort out a lot of issues. Schools will have their "job placement" percentages readily available. Why go to school to play QB when they have never sent anyone to the NFL?
9. The university student orchestras and bands are mostly NON-music majors and there will always be students who want to play and will play but won't be on the pro-athlete concentration major.
10. The sad part of the current situation is that a lot of kids just while away their time; get no serious training, and have no education. They get strung along because they are needed to flesh out teams.
Thank you for your attention.
February 14th, 2017 at 11:30 AM ^
I don't see the point. For one thing, many athletes major in things like sports management, physical education and so forth. For another, they are already getting a de facto degree in their sport - an ex-college football player can generally get a high school coaching job without too much difficulty. It's not like they come out of school unqualified to participate/coach in their sport.
Having a degree in something outside of sports simply makes them more marketable. They already can enter the sports field, but this allows them to go into other fields, too.
February 14th, 2017 at 9:57 AM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 9:59 AM ^
c. I have no doubt there would be a turbulent few years as people gave "f-you" money to top prospects and people decried "the kids these days", but all it takes is one top target who flames out to get people to realize that throwing giant piles of money at 18-year-old boys to play a sport with a horrific flameout rate is not sustainable. It will stabilize pretty quickly (within about ten years, I think) and the Rashan Garys of the world will get injury insurance money to wear someone's laundry, while the others will get new-car money, and not much will change.
The illicit money spigot has not turned off in basketball - why would it eventually slow down in football? It's entirely worth it for shoe guys, agents, and so on, to throw money at ten or twenty flameouts in order to score the next Stephen Curry.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:17 PM ^
And not everyone does it. If everyone can do it and it is no longer illegal by rule, I would predict an influx of cash immediately, and then two things would serve to taper the results:
1. Rich people didn't get rich by spending their money foolishly. They will end up setting a budget and having to choose how to allocate it. Today, because the payments have to be under the table, and there is no direct competition, essentially anyone can dump a small amount of benefits without a cap.
2. The hit rate beyond the very top athletes, particularly in football, is brutallly small. The fact is there just aren't that many people worth spending large sums to get. The Rashan Garys of the world would get f-you money, but the 50th-best guy isn't going to find that much out there.
February 14th, 2017 at 10:18 AM ^
between amatuer athletics and professional? Also they are compensated very nicely for playing a sport in college. If they don't feel everything they receive is enough, then stop playing. Become a regular college student and get student loans and a job to help you pay for college. That way you are at no risk of an injury.
February 14th, 2017 at 10:24 AM ^
Perhaps the most equitable solution is to have the revenue sports be less closely affiliated with the universities and more like club teams. They would have a strong tie to the university but rather than the players be student-athletes, they are mainly athlete-students... you know, like they are now. The teams would be run like a minor league system for 18-22 year olds with players being compensated and having an option to take classes either during their season, following their season, or at the end of their playing careers. Maybe they are required to take 1 or 2 classes a semester, or only in the off-season.
The players get top coaching, great facilities, money, an enthusistic fan base, and exposure. The school still captures revenue to support the rest of their athletic department, students have a rooting interest, and the NCAA can go fuck themselves.
I'm not sure how European club sports work or how the Wolverine swim club operates, but I'm sure several on the board will know.
February 14th, 2017 at 12:45 PM ^
Pay them in gum
Post sponsored by Trident Layers
February 14th, 2017 at 12:56 PM ^
Some good proposals here.
Note that lifetime health coverage could easily come to over $1 million a player in some cases, and would be difficult to administer.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:34 PM ^
but it would accomplish several goals:
1. The money spigot would be directed toward player welfare, and the benefits spill over onto non-revenue sports, without partaking of the sordid nature of "hand Joe a large pile of cash because he is faster than any 250lb human should be".
2. One of the best moral arguments in favor of paying players is that they end up broken for our entertainment. We can at least care about what happens to them after they stop wearing our laundry. Health care is directly on point.
3. A happy benefit is that some athletic departments would have to fold FBS football because that's the sport with the highest long-term insurance payouts. I contend this is a good thing for two reasons:
a. Colleges bankrupting themselves to field a FBS program when they're never in contention for a bowl bid, let alone a championship, can drop to FCS, and provide more benefits to more students instead of pouring money into a crap team.
b. Reduce the number of baby seals available. Average game quality goes up; fans get better football, and teams get better competition.
4. I don't think it would be that difficult to administer. Every major employer, including the schools, has a health care system, and there are private insurers for things like CORBA and so forth. Essentially, each university has to add a policy which auto-renews and provides the minimum levels of support specified. The athletes are responsible for updating their information and setting it up each year, just like everyone else.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:07 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 1:11 PM ^
why is this still a big deal?
a small stipend makes sense.
campuses already do this for teaching and research assistants in graduate school.
health insurance for life is crazy - probably 1/2 million per player when you add it up.
February 14th, 2017 at 2:45 PM ^
Even at Michigan, that's nothing compared to the current athletic budget. Let's say we have 1,000 student athletes a year. Over a 60 year period, that's 60K people we're adding.
Most of these people will never bill us. We'll be the secondary insurance policy behind work-provided health care, but it will cost something. Let's say that incurs an additional 20K a year. Now we're talking about 12M/yr dollars baseline. That's a small fraction of the AD budget.
But, the football players! OK, there's a 100 of those a year, so we're talking 6K players we'll have to support. They will have the highest costs - let's say that they need 100K/yr of care. That's still only 6M/yr.
All told, it won't be cheap, but it will be affordable when you look at *how much money* these programs raise each year.
February 14th, 2017 at 1:51 PM ^
Am I the only one who clicked this link expecting a far more satirical post?
February 14th, 2017 at 3:59 PM ^
February 14th, 2017 at 8:29 PM ^