PAC-12 Players Open Letter/List of Demands
This feels like the first domino to fall in a larger shift in cage college sports landscape.
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/pac-12-players-covid-19-statement-football-season
You're kidding, right? This very same thread is just four spots down, with 92 comments - and growing!
Take your lumps like a man, dipstick.
This is a link to the actual letter and not just about how the letter was happening. I figure people will be appreciative to the easier link.
I see... I'm actually reading the link now, and I think it's pretty well stated - if not somewhat vague in detail.
Unfortunately, the knee-jerk reaction to your post will be one that many people have. Perhaps you can lobby a mod to add some words about what it is you're posting, and why it's different from the previous (and still being debated) other thread? Some general explanation on a board post goes miles for understanding what the post is about.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
Or maybe others will realize that the other thread was written prior to the demands being posted.
I’d suggest that there are two lessons here and that the vastly more important one is that uninformed knee jerk reactions are bad and make you look like an ass.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:06 AM ^
I'm appreciative. More context is always good!
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:13 AM ^
Well, I guess there won’t be PAC 12 football for awhile because the majority of these demands are ridiculous and not going to happen.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
Majority of them have nothing to do with COVID. While I support every item on that list, I think it's a bit extreme to demand the world right now
Unless they're just trying to bargain down to COVID safeguards by starting at a ridiculously high level of demands
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:30 AM ^
It feels like the opening bid in a negotiation, BUT I think they’re counting on a hysterical reaction to any bargaining down to keep ALL of their demands live. Frankly, I think the PAC-12 should just say, “Fine, no football, it’s a drain on our budgets anyway.” and then move on.
I support the COVID protections, the rest of it....some was already being taken care of by the NIL(sp?) legislation. The rest, meh, it’s a manifesto and it’s going to ensure that people who would be otherwise sympathetic basically take the tack of “Hell with this.” I don’t love it, but it’s in the vein of everything else going on right now, so not sure what anyone was expecting.
I tend to agree and I find it unlikely they are playing football this year. So, if I was the pac-12 I would shut it down now and probably eliminate the possibility of an organized strike in the future.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:25 AM ^
I would say that "ridiculous" is the wrong word. They aren't ridiculous, they make perfect sense. But most are not workable in a couple of weeks. The first few, about Covid things, are completely workable today - get rid of the dumbass liability waivers and cover all of the medical costs associated with it. The rest of them are fodder to get those approved and implemented now.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:27 AM ^
The majority? I’d argue that everything in I related to health and safety is a pretty reasonable starting position for a negotiation. Much of II seems pretty unlikely. Much of III seems like a reasonable starting point for negotiations (with III.2 being the most challenging). Much of IIII also seems reasonable (with fair market pay 1. And 2. being particularly challenging.
While they use the word demands, I suspect that this is a negotiating position, not a list of non-negotiable demands. In my mind the biggest challenge is timing, not the negotiation starting pont.
August 2nd, 2020 at 11:11 AM ^
Well lets just break it down by subsection:
Section I - Covid mitigation. Mostly reasonable but they'd probably have to negotiate a bit on the liability waiver and change it to some sort of limited liability waiver.
Section II - Protect all sports. The entire section is dumb dumb talk. Who defines what is "excessive pay"? Why shouldn't a school be able to pay their Administrators bonuses for performance and how does that affect these students? No school or athletic official has the ability to just tap into a school endowment for whatever they choose. These things have bylaws and rules governing what funds can be used for and are often managed by people that not only aren't affiliated with athletics but couldn't care less about athletics.
Section III - Ending racial injustice. #1 & #3 are something you could set up but there are no objectives listed nor statement of what their powers would be. #2 is an inherently discriminative and racist demand that contradicts the overreaching goal of the entire subsection.
Section IV - Economic Freedom and Equity. Some of these are possible, others are again dumb dumb talk. Splitting 50% of REVENUE is idiotic and would most likely result in the majority of colleges running in the red which would then result in these colleges having to defer to the earlier demand of endowment subsidization which is again not how endowments operate. Ability to transfer one time without punishment is doable except for the fact that per their previous request they are now employees of the school and thus subject to competitive limitations which are governed by individual State laws.
Overall, the letter is filled with a fundamental misunderstanding of finance, contradictions of thought and platitudes. Simply put, this is much more of a wishlist than it is a well thought out proposal and if they truly view them a legitimate "demands" they're in for a rude awakening.
August 2nd, 2020 at 11:19 AM ^
With all respect to the players, it reminds me of urgent solicitations in the Diag back in the day.
"Can you please donate so that we can end a, b, c, ... all at once?"
Stay focused, dudes.
RE: your claim that a 50% split is "idiotic," all four major leagues have roughly 50-50 splits. You're talking out of your ass. (Similarly, the idea that states have mandatory noncompetes by law is facially wrong.)
Last I checked the four major sports leagues aren't responsible for subsidizing the very existence of 20-30 other sports leagues and teams and hundreds of scholarships. For instance, looking at Michigan's 2018 athletics, they reported $196M in revenue and $192M in expenses for a surplus of $4M. Now deduct out $98M (50% of REVENUE) based on the current proposal and Michigan would run a deficit of $94M based on their current expense level. The only three ways an entity not named the Federal Government can affect this is to become more efficient (increase revenue/decrease expenses), finance the losses (go into debt) or have a capital injection (donations in this case). None of those are viable options for this situation so eventually you reach the point of insolvency. I would also venture to guess that the vast majority of athletic departments are required by State law to have a balanced budget so good luck figuring that one out.
I understand the desire to want to support the players in this type of stuff and I too think more can be done than is currently available to them but at some point people need to put their emotions aside and be realistic rather than just regurgitate what sounds good and gets you a pat on the back.
Lastly, I never said there was mandatory noncompetes as I live in a State that has outlawed them. What I said was they are "subject to competitive limitations which are governed by individual States."
re: budgeting: yes, current expenses would need to go down substantially. Probably we would no longer have athletic facilities that are quite as nice, etc etc. I don't disagree that substantial cuts would have to come, I just ... don't mind them at all? Get rid of a bunch of "assistant athletic directors," etc etc. I don't get why you think that a capital injection is unlikely -- people love donating to athletics! -- or why substantial efficiency gains are impossible. FWIW I would very curious how a neutral auditor would read their financial statements; there's a lot of ... opinion, let's say ... in auditing that can swing numbers pretty substantially.
re: "subject to competitive limitations," what would those be?
The problem isn't that there aren't additional revenue opportunities, expenses to cut or people with a willingness to donate. The problem is the sheer magnitude of the dollar amounts that we're talking about and the fact that it'd have to be sustainable on an annual basis. Its just not realistic or even close to being realistic based on this initial "demand".
You're totally right about the non-competes. I don't see how any competitive limitations in state law could harm the players here in a way that it doesn't currently. As to the revenue split, I think it would depend on how the revenue distribution is defined.
Like the pro leagues, college football generates enormous revenues and would benefit strongly from a distribution of 50% of revenues to the players. But the vast majority of NCAA sports operate at a significant loss and are subsidized by the profit-generating sports like football. Many of these sports programs also rely on donations and fundraising to keep the programs running.
For sports that are already running at a deficit, increasing revenue distribution to the players would put the programs even farther into the red and would be strongly in tension with the players' earlier demand that all sports be preserved. On the other hand, for these so-called non-revenue sports, the value of player scholarships are already higher than 50% of revenue. If scholarships are counted as part of the money distributed to the players, the new rule would have no effect on these sports at all.
In that case, the demand for 50% of revenues is likely to greatly benefit players in certain popular sports, while being completely neutral with respect to everyone else.
There is definetly some merit to what you're saying but without having a detailed financial statement to review it'd be tough to determine the exact impact this would have but it does make some sense. The downside is that it also takes you down additional rabbit holes for more problems. For instance, if you include the value of their scholarship against their 50% revenue split and that value exceeds that 50% threshold are those athletes now required to cut the university of check to bring them back down to that threshold limit?
I hope that makes sense, not the best paragraph.
I agree with DTOW, college sports and professional sports are two completely different business models. The current college sports business model would need to be completely torn down and set on fire to accommodate a 50-50% revenue split. This doesn’t even touch any governing laws that might also be at play here.
I see NIL as the easiest and most clear path to getting players paid. I also think that if players start truly getting paid, then scholarships can get dropped. If they are making money, they can pay their way through school. They also can contribute a portion of their pay to the support staff that they get, such as nutritionists, trainers, medical, etc., which is all incurred by the universities now. The players that go pro commonly say that the facilities and care in college are better than what they get in professional sports, and that is because the schools have a “better” model to reinvest in their athletes. Part of this probably being do to Universities looking to balance their budgets.
I could be wrong, but I think getting everything they are asking for quickly could turn into a be careful what you wish for scenario, at least for a majority of college athletes.
I’m surprised they didn’t ask for the moon I mean they want everything else
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:19 AM ^
Does this only apply to cage sports like pro wrestling?
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:24 AM ^
Good. Many of those demands are doable. I'm happy to see the players using their leverage and getting some power back.
They don't have to play. They can quit whenever they like. . .
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:26 AM ^
I don’t care if they play or sit.
I am curious about the size of this considering how vague they’ve been about how many players actually are willing to sit. All I’ve seen is “potentially hundreds”.
Couldn’t agree more. It is very unclear how many are on board and even more unclear how many are willing to actually sit.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:31 AM ^
Interesting list, although many of their "demands" are already in progress and didn't need to be repeated here.
I would be curious to see which players actually sit if the season starts and the PAC/NCAA hasn't "agreed" to their non-COVID demands (since their COVID related demands were already likely to be adopted even before this manifesto was formed.)
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:37 AM ^
"Because NCAA sports exploit college athletes physically, economically and academically, and also disproportionately harm Black college athletes"
Does the NCAA give athletes a fair piece of the revenue pie? No. However, these players agree to play for whatever return compensation they get. So you could argue that the NCAA is offering "market price" and they are having no trouble filling the spots.
As far as disproportionately harming Black athletes, is that claim because the black athletes represent a higher percentage of athletes than the general population? If so, that claim is a little convoluted. Ie, disproportionately harm is being done because black athletes get a disproportionate number of opportunities which they could turn down.
The NCAA is a cartel that caps the market price, though! This is a clear-cut antitrust cartel; the only reason it survives is because we're kicking around whether they are, in fact, employees.
I dunno, I feel like we settled this with minimum wage / safety standards / etc laws back in the Progressive Era: even if people would accept some arrangements, we find them so exploitative, etc, that we prohibit them.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:38 AM ^
Well....bye.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:58 AM ^
They use the phrase “We are United” but never say who the “We” are.
Yes I understand this is Pac12 Players, but the problem with using “We” and not giving names is no one knows who you are, and who is writing this statement.
I think it is good to put out statements where you believe things are wrong, and change is needed, but put your name to it and don’t force others to be part of the “We” if they believe something different. There is too much of this going on where if you aren’t going along with the “We” then you are a bad person and bad things should happen to you
Maybe I agree with some of the statement, but not all, and I don’t want to be part of that “We” that you are projecting...
Will be curious to see how “We are United” they are...
well this is the dumbest thing I've seen today.
August 2nd, 2020 at 11:01 AM ^
So, who are the conference and schools supposed to negotiate with? Does the athlete group have a leader? Seems very unorganized.
August 2nd, 2020 at 11:25 AM ^
I understand their issues with not wanting their scholarships pulled in fear of sitting out due to Covid concerns, but pretty much everything else they are listing is bologna.
Quit crying. I just watched Last Chance U and those kids are sleeping in cars, couch hopping, and scrubbing toilets all just to fight for an opportunity for a D1 scholarship. In fact, most are happy with getting a D2 offer.
Having a full ride scholarship in the Pac 12 is like being handed $100,000+ to play football and get a quality education.
August 2nd, 2020 at 12:01 PM ^
Instead of people railing about college students not getting paid 5, 6, or 7 figures in cash for their after school activity, maybe we should instead ask why we are paying professional athletes 7-8 figures per year to play a simple game? (Not just the players, but the owners, coaches, managers, executives and a host of other positions, too. The answer is mainly advertising revenue, alcohol/food sales, and merchandising - hooray for consumer culture!)
Maybe we could find a more constructive use for that money?
Why not ask why owners make so much when they don't do anything?
Whether we like it or not, these are activities that generate massive amounts of value, and I prefer -- on frankly moral grounds -- to give that value to the people who generate it.
Alright, man, we get that you are anti-capitalism. But last I checked we live in a capitalist country.
That argument rings pretty hollow when 111 out of 124 active NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB stadiums/areans were tax payer subsidized and several teams have packed up and left town in recent years because they were no longer allowed to suck at the public teat for their new venues.
Well it’s not like they are going down to the local orphanage and taking their funding away to pay the employees of the sports franchise.
August 2nd, 2020 at 12:43 PM ^
Some of the demands make sense and sound a lot like things Harbaugh has already been advocating for.
Some of the demands are ridiculous, and I think cheapen the legitimate causes.
The fundamental premise that's wrong with the demands is they read like the athletes have no choice but to play sports or lose everything. Most people in this country go to school and take out loans and get no benefits, they have that option as well.
So what would be appropriate demands for these athletes? Because as far as I can see they're asking for proper health protocols related to COVID, some initiatives to promote social justice, and a piece of the billions of dollars they generate for college athletic departments across the country. Yes, they don't "have" to play the sport in the fall; you don't "have" to work for a company that mistreats you. And yet, a lot of the protections and benefits workers enjoy now is because people fought for them even if they could have gone elsewhere.
It's a list they'd unlikely to get whole hog, but getting some of them off the bat (all the Covid stuff in particular) and then creating more areas for dialog is great. Honestly, it cracks me up people who get mad that these kids are trying to negotiate after they were basically told "sign this waiver and start practicing". I know there are a bunch of people here who survived only on grit and bootstraps their whole lives, but if you were put in a position where you finally have some leverage over an org that previously controlled most of your economic options, why the hell not push to make that relationship a bit more equitable.
No school or league can meet that list of demands, so I guess they boycott.
At the risk of down votes, I have to say what happened to amateur sports"? I know Universities make money from football but players get tuition and board not to mention training and the opportunity to earn a spot in pro sports. I'm ambivalent as to any compensation beyond that.
What ever happened to playing for the love of the game along with those perks?
Do you believe that all of these guys aren't also playing for the love of the game? Shouldn't coaches coach "for the love of the game"? How about the athletic departments? Because they absolutely spend more money on coaches and staff than they do on athletes.
https://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-sports-coaches-cost-vs-athletic-scholarships-2019-3
And more generally, why should any of us care how the money is spent as long as it isn't illegal? If a school decided that instead of spending $5M to refurbish a training facility they'd spend that money on insuring athletes for a couple of years after their careers are done and make a donation to support a program helping disadvantage students do better in HS, it's really no matter to us, the consumers.
Coaches have participated in college sports and entered into their field of vocation. That would be a perk from playing.
This list reads like a union negotiating a contract. If they are acting in solidarity in bargaining as such, they are not amateurs.
Universities are not businesses in that making money is not their mission statement. Once players leave amateur sports they are free to cash in if they have the talent capable of professional player status.
Compensation for participation would in fact be meeting a condition of "professional athletics"
This is why I think athletic departments should lose their tax exempt status.
I read during the pandemic that Universities stand to lose $9billion if there is no football season (correct me if I'm wrong, I do know it's in the billions). None of that is taxed.
Furthermore, if the departments are taxed, it's an IRS issue and these departments can be investigated and there would be subpoena power that the NCAA can't do.
Im not apprised of all the details but the UM budget was 205 million in 2019 and Netted 75 million from football which is shared among the Big I believe. The football budget offsets other sports. Universities are the sacred cow of institutions and are not going to loose tax exempt status. They can't afford to pay Collegiate Athletes under the current tuition rates.
Imagine the relationship change between paying students and paid athletes.
If this takes route among many players it could end Collegiate Athletics as we know it.IMO
Not the universities. The athletic departments.
If I understand correctly, it's already treated as a separate institution. They literally send the funds to pay for the grants-in-aid to the registrar (or whoever takes in the money).