Have you ever watched college football? 
My days as a tax professional are a few decades in my rearview mirror, so regard this with a few shakers of salt. But my WAG is that the IRS would regard such gifts as income for purposes of taxation, that they’d be a form of indirect compensation.
So tell me what happens when football season ends and these schools are on the outside of the NCAA men’s basketball (and, especially if you’re Stanford, pretty much every other sport - I don’t see Boston College liking being told that it couldn’t be in the Frozen Four) tournament looking in?
Also, just as we’re about to have the start of a pretty much undisputed national championship football tournament (tell, say, USC or Auburn how “undisputed” the BCS was at times), the last thing we need is to have a breakaway organization and a return to “which of the two ‘national champions’ is better?” (There is zero chance the NCAA would allow any of its schools to play against the breakaway champion; the threat of taking away the school’s share of the basketball TV money should be sufficient to enforce this.)
Nobody said it was gonna be pretty. I think the “breakaway” scenario of the private schools is pretty unlikely myself. But if a bunch of messy stuff happens because the schools decide to fight for the current amateurism model to the last man, then turn your ire toward the schools. They’ve had a chance to get out in front of this for years; there’s time yet for a reasonable compromise that will protect the rights of players and preserve a semblance of the existing structure that will satisfy the fans. In fact, they’re the ONLY ones who could have done this but they’ve decided instead to go all Custer on the issue.
Schools are professional organizations with lots of smart people employed at them. They can figure out how to make something work that doesn’t depend on players being denied the same freedoms as their fellow students. But instead they’ve let themselves become enslaved to every last dollar being generated and to the overly-compensated people in the athletic departments who insist that the old way is the only way.
“Gentlemen, we must protect our phoney baloney jobs. Harrumph, harrumph. Hey, I didn’t get a “harrumph” out of that guy.”
I’m mad at the selfish, ungrateful players.
I’m sure they are very concerned.
I’ve commented on this board before about being a chemistry tutor at Notre Dame. I was solely employed for the athletes. Non-athletes did not have access to my services.
But here’s the thing: Non-athletes weren’t required by the school to miss multiple days of classes per week. Non-athletes were in a position to benefit from the education. The athletes were just trying to get a good enough grade to stick around, and hope to turn pro.
These were not stupid kids. And they were nice kids, and good kids, and they deserved more than to be dragged through semester after semester of course work they were not prepared to tackle to get a degree they had little use for.
Now, granted, I was a chemistry tutor, so my perception of these kids being in way over their heads might be an outlier. But damn were they in over their heads.
etv78, have you seen an example of the fine education these players are being offered at these institutions of higher learning? Not to judge, but the classes mentioned in the article do not appear worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Oh, I agree many take the equivalent of basket weaving. You can’t force them to take it seriously, but that doesn’t mean you cheapen a legitimate education to give them the easy way out.
There isn’t an NCAA separate from the schools. The schools are the ones that vote on this stuff. Get enough schools together and they can pass whatever they want. Take the private schools and the big football conferences (ACC, Big10, Big12, PAC, SEC) and you’re probably there.
Not to mention if those conferences broke away no one would particularly care who won the NCAA football championship (or even the basketball tourney most years).
So long as colleges garner revenue through things like ticket sales, concessions, memorabilia, licensed goods, and TV contracts, players will have lots of legs to stand on.
Frankly, the idea that players ought to be “grateful” to give up their labor for free is more than a little bit offensive.
I’m not sure free is an accurate description.
They are getting a world class FREE education they likely aren’t otherwise qualified to receive. If it wasn’t for sports most would be flipping burgers. Forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for them, and believe they are looking a gifthorse in the mouth.
Are they?
It’s nobodys fault but theirs if they fail to take advantage of it. If I had my way: abolish athletic scholarships, make them pay their own wag like everyone else!
So, why are you throwing a fit about them getting paid? What the heck do you care?
Here are the choices, as I see them:
- Players allowed to work at real jobs in off-season, take advantage of likeness, get health insurance against catastrophic injury
- Pay own way like most everyone else
- Play in Europe/minor league until draft eligible
Why should they be limited to having the choices you’ve chosen for them? Who the hell are you? Screw that. Not once have you made out any principled case for your position.
Nobody else has made an argument beyond,“Life isn’t fair, these guys are special snowflakes.” Guess I’m the only one willing to do something these guys have never had happen to them, tell them, “No.”
No, that’s just not true. There was testimony in (I think) the NLRB hearings about Northwestern players wanting to organize that many, if not most or all, football players had changed classes or even majors because they were simply not able to keep up with the workload of the classes due to the demands of their gridiron endeavors. And if they hadn’t acceded to those demands, they would have been thrown off the team, and thus out of college. The record is clear on this: players’ time is not their own; they are controlled in most aspects of their life while they are on the football team.
Sure, we can do that, and then the schools will get lesser players. The first school that offers athletic scholarships will have a huge advantage.
You’re entirely forgetting that the school’s aren’t giving out these scholarships on the good of their hearts. They make millions off them. The players should be able to make some too. Its completely disproportionate how much the school benefits vs. the students.