In the great world we live in, they are free to take those “valuable skills” somewhere else. Again, nobody is forcing them to play sports at the schools they are at.
Yes, that’s the priority of the school, to put the best team out there that can to help raise a lot of money so they can spend them . Many schools are better at doing what you want them to do, but many are also mostly about the money.
They’re also, by and large, not for profits. They take that money, and spend it on their school. And while the coaches are paid way too much, the school is not out to make a profit.
People have a choice to do as they wish with their skill set. If they choose to get an education (if they want it) and play sports, good for them. If they choose to skip school and go straight to work, good for them too. Their choice, their decision.
Where, pray tell, is an amateur lawyer supposed to go to hone his skills? An amateur doctor? An amateur chef? An amateur rocket scientist? An amateur person wanting to overuse the word “glib”?
Most of them go to college, to get the skills and education they need to succeed in the future. But the lawyer, doctor, chef, rocket scientist, and glib user aren’t going to get paid very much to get that education and to hone their skills.
They don’t make their schools, nor the employers they intern for, a tremendous amount of money. College athletes do! Their skills are highly valuable, even more valuable than a professional doctor or lawyer or chef or rocket scientist or you or me. They help make successful teams, and successful teams bring in the dough.
When you create value, you’re supposed to be rewarded for it commensurate with the contribution you’ve made. Not only are college football and basketball players not rewarded appropriately, they’re subjected to a complex and ridiculous set of rules that punishes them for the most minor transgressions.
But their skills are only valuable, as you seem to be saying, when they are at the school. Your amateur football player wouldn’t be getting any “value” if they weren’t at a school. They make a choice to use those skills at the school to increase not just the school’s, but their own values. It’s the same decision almost every college kid makes, giving up something now (whether it is tuition, room, board, etc. or not getting paid what you think they should) to get something they value later (a degree, the training facilities and coaching, a shot at the future).
You seem to be under the impression that schools in the NCAA are rolling in dough. They’re not. It’s rare indeed that an AD makes more money than they spend. And, even if they do, the school itself isn’t making a profit, a majority of them are non-profits.
But this is a hijack. Let’s just agree that Tressel is a phony, lying piece of crap and OSU is a joke for keeping him.
This again? Didn’t you get this debunked the last time it was brought up? The keywords are “on average”. This includes the vast number of partial scholarships that are given out to the non-revenue generating programs, mostly at schools don’t have a big name program. I knew plenty of full-scholarship athletes in college, and none of them ever mentioned having to fork over $3000. Why? Because that’s a totally bullshit misleading figure.
If schools were able to pay football and basketball players what you think they’re worth, guess what would happen to every other sport in the athletic department? They’d completely disappear.
The lawyer, doctor, chef, rocket scientist isn’t asked to perform hundreds of hours of unpaid labor as part of a team that earns millions of dollars for the school. I also suspect that if the lawyer managed to earn some shady (but perfectly legal) money, he wouldn’t be sanctioned by the school and denied the opportunity to hone his skills.
Again, the ones who make the money have scholarships, the school’s AD isn’t run at a profit, nor is the school as a whole, and the students make their own choices. Their skills become valuable because they are playing at the school, not because they are valuable in and of themselves. Nobody is watching the NBA D League and there is no profitable football minor league. The choice the student athletes make is the same almost every college student makes, to give up something now to get something in the future.
With one major exception. Student athletes are required to maintain “amateur” status, other students are under no such requirement. Any other student with a measure of notoriety can use that to earn money, student athletes may not. Nobody tells an architecture major that they can’t work at an architectural firm, or tells someone in Pre-Law that they can’t work at a law firm, or an advertising major they can’t work at an advertising firm. Play 1 game for a paycheck and you are out of college athletics, and lose your scholarship.
So, the student athlete not only uses his skills and notoriety to earn millions of dollars for his school, he is specifically disallowed from using those skills and notoriety to earn money for himself.
Your assertion is contrary to the data. Browse the figures here if you feel like messing around in Excel. I think you’ll find that most athletic departments manage to turn a small profit, and big football schools can turn rather large profits (Texas came out about $20 million ahead in 2009). They could probably make even greater profits, but university athletic departments tend to expand the number of coaches and administrators working for them to soak up the windfall.
Fight my ignorance. I was under the impression that the NCAA now lets student athletes to hold jobs in architeture firms, law firms, or advertising (just not professional sports). If Cam Newton wanted to work at a law firm, he would have been able to do so.
But they aren’t disallowed from earning money totally are they? Maybe things have changed since I went to college, but I never worked as a lawyer, a doctor, or an architect in college. I tended bar, I did telemarketing, I was a tour guide, a tutor, and a cookie delivery guy. None of those jobs were really “honing my skills” as a lawyer though.
And, again, part of the deal that these student athletes sign up for in return for their scholarships is not to be professionals. They remain completely able to be professionals, just not on scholarship.
I’m not getting into a cite war with you, and no, I’m not the least bit interested in messing around in Excel. I will say that your conclusions fly in the face of most of what I’ve read. Like here. Or here “If we subtract this allocation from the total revenue average, we find that the average I-A athletic department generated $27.9 million in revenue in 2004-05. This means that without the institutional and government subsidies, the average department ran a deficit of $6.67 million” and “Put differently, 95 of the 117 I-A schools lost money on their intercollegiate athletic programs when
subsidies are excluded.”
Or here “n fact, only a tiny number of college athletics programs actually reap the financial rewards that come from selling high-priced tickets and winning championships. According to a USA Today analysis, just seven athletics programs generated enough revenue to finish in the black in each of the past five years.”
There are schools with Athletic Departments that may be able to turn a profit, but they are, by and large, few and far between. The U Conn’s and Cincinnati’s greatly outweigh the Texases.
In addition to sports, these athletes also may not secure product endorsements. These are the two primary money earning options for athletes, and both are denied the collegiate athlete. They can’t even go to a fucking draft party and eat, because they can’t accept “meals” or “entertainment” from the wrong type of person. Your teammate from last year (who is now a pro athlete) can’t buy you dinner without jeopardizing your eligibility. They can’t hire an agent to discuss their future, or a financial advisor.
Not as long as they don’t earn more than the princely sum of $2,500 per year. Other than that, and not allowing them to use their most desirable skills, or hire anyone to advise them on an appropriate career path, or get a free hotdog from an old friend, it’s just like every other student.
Unlike all those other college students who are making millions endorsing products. And, again, those opportunities likely wouldn’t exist were they not at the college.
Yeah, that’s really rough. Poor guys. Yes, they have to follow the rules. That doesn’t bother me in the least.
Hey, revenues are revenues, wherever they come from. But those figures don’t tell us whether athletic departments could get by without the student fees. It all comes down to accounting. Most likely they’re charging the fees because it’s a way to get around tuition increase limits and the students are powerless to do anything about them (other than not attending the school). If athletic departments can convince universities to charge students fees that they can use to fund facility improvements and pad salaries, then they’ll do it. That doesn’t make the football and basketball programs unprofitable.
You not feeling sorry for them is not a very convincing argument in support of the current system.
Interesting how you glossed over the fact that they can’t even have a part time job that earns them $2,501 per year. The entire point is that the rules are ridiculous. I’m all for following the rules, as long as the rules aren’t idiotic.
Sure, my problem is with the rules, but it isn’t simply about not being paid a salary. The rules are there to ensure the athletes are “amateur”, as in not being paid to play. However, the university unambiguously pays them to play, by virtue of providing them with a valuable full ride scholarship in exchange for playing on the team.
I’m not in favor of turning college teams into pro style teams, with players on salary, just let the kids act like they’re professional players, (earn money, have agents,etc) who happen to be students at your school, and represent your school in the sport.