That seems like the very argument the players are against. The Sherman Act is there to foster competition and allow the free market to come into play. Jordan Michael would argue that his $3 million salary is a result of his value in the market and for him to have to share it with Vires Ultra who has no relevant market value is unfair and anti-competitive.
I guess WV is fucked then. Not sure how that makes college sports better but at least a very few players will make big money.
Indeed it is.
Maybe I’m reading too much into the opinion, but I see some things in the background which are basically saying this (paraphrasing).
If you all in Morgantown (WVU) want to put up your best students against those from the University of Pittsburgh and see which ones are the best at football, then have at it. You can have 25,000 fans paying for a ticket to get in. You can cheer and jeer at each other for school pride, get 3/4 of the way drunk, and celebrate (or lament) at the outcome. As part of this, you can insist that the players be students and not ringers; not be paid so as to keep this competition between your boys and theirs.
But when it has gone so grossly beyond that, that you recruit such as that almost nobody at WVU is even from West Virginia or that almost nobody at Pitt is from or near Pittsburgh, and the governing body is making billions (with a b) then your whole argument for good, clean, healthy amateurism is just a farce. And we won’t let you get rich off of the backs of these guys.
I wish college sports were different, but that train left the barn a long time ago and it is time to quit whipping it.
Sure. I agree that the billions (with a b) should be spread around.
I do not see why you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater though.
The court seemed to make no distinction between college and pro. Why not go further? Where is the bottom here? Why not go after high school students? Why not tell high schools their best players should get a cut of concession sales? After all, they are drawing a crowd and deserve a piece of the action!
I see nothing wrong with noting that college players are fundamentally different from the pros and that we want those players to get an education while playing sports for their university. If it becomes all about money imagine a player suing the university because they impinged on his/her ability to make money by insisting on certain grades so they can play. Their income is based on ability to play a sport, not pass Geology 101. They were recruited to play sports…not pass classes and classes impinge on their ability to make money.
Also, how bad does it suck to be the 4th best player on the team and get nothing while Jordan Michael is pulling down $3 million/year?
It will be a mess.
I think it would be much better and more fair to share the monetary benefit across the whole team. Certainly pay the freshman benchwarmer differently than the varsity star…I am sure a scheme could be figured out.
I do not see how making college sports into pro sports makes things better except for a very few players who are really good. I do not see how adhering to some “free market” ideal works better here (with the caveat that I DO think the players deserve a slice of the action).
The notion of “amateur” sports is pretty gone, and has been for decades.
The Olympics stopped pretending years ago.
Yeah, it’s gonna be “messy” in comparison with what we’ve had. But we can’t allow our nation’s educational institutions to have the unique power to collude among themselves to determine how much money some of their students are allowed to make. They simply don’t have that right and they’ve only gotten away with it to date because of inertia and public support for “amateurism.” And now they’ve lost that public support.
Pardon my ignorance, by I’m Canadian so there are probably nuances that I don’t understand. But I thought basketball players can go from high school directly to professional leagues and there is still NCAA basketball. So why couldn’t college football have the same arrangement?
They can’t right now, because the NBA instituted a one year gap policy. The last big name to go straight from high school was probably LeBron (not a basketball fan myself). It’s resulted in a combination of one-and-done college players, some that go spend the year in the European leagues, and some in the NBA D (or whatever it’s called these days if it’s changed) league.
I think it’s not unfair to say that very few players could go straight from high school to the NFL. Everything from size and strength to playbook complexity would be working against them. And while I wouldn’t be against the NFL expanding the practice squad and the salary cap to compensate (and even the game day roster), I’d expect most any high school player would be an undrafted free agent at league minimum if they were signed.
That would just make the money dry up. A lot of the money comes from wealthy donors who want their school to have the best team. If those donors knew their money would be shared with all the competing schools, they would just stop donating.
Asterion hit on one small aspect of this. There was recently a thread about how soccer outcomes depends on luck. Basketball is the same way. Even the best college basketball teams will likely lose a few games, and those losses aren’t necessarily going to be to the 2nd or 3rd best team. It’s possibly they could lose to the 40th or 50th or 68th best team on any given day. With football that’s extremely unlikely to happen. If the best team does happen to have lost a game, it’s likely that the loss was to the 2nd or 3rd best team. We’ve reached a spot in college football where there’s three teams in the top tier, Ohio State, Alabama, and Clemson. Before the season starts, it’s likely that one of those 3 teams will be the national champion. I haven’t researched the players, recruiting classes, etc. of any of those teams, but I would take odds as low as - 400 that one of those three will be national champion this year, even without doing any research. There’s another small group of teams maybe about 1/2 step down (Georgia, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, LSU) who could possibly sneak in with some good luck. All the other teams are basically going through the motions. Being able to pay the athletes basically cements that system in place.
IMHO the only solution is to make clean breaks with smaller divisions. Having a top division with something like the 32 best teams would help the competitive balance. It doesn’t do anyone any good for Ohio State or Alabama to beat up on Northwest Wyoming Tech just so the athletic department at Northwest Wyoming Tech can earn a paycheck and Ohio State or Alabama get a cream puff game. Break up the divisions into smaller groupings and the competitive balance will be restored.
Remember Chaminade beating Virginia? Or the Only 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed (Virginia again coincidently)? Not only losing but getting destroyed.
But it does happen. Maybe more than we think.
I don’t think it’s going to have a huge difference in competitive balance. The major schools like Alabama (football) and Duke (basketball) already have a massive advantage in recruiting. Paying players could actually level the field–every team is one rich donor away from fielding a competitive team.
Perhaps the biggest influence might be that basketball players stay longer than one year in college. Currently it makes no sense for the best players to continue in the NCAA for nothing when they can make $millions in the NBA. If players can be paid and make money off of shoe contracts they might stick around another year or two.
Whose boosters/marketers are going to pour the most money into talent procurement is one of the most interesting questions about all these changes going forward. Will Alabama be able to land ten potential NFL prospects in every recruiting class when they are competing financially against Stanford’s billions, Buffet’s funding of Oklahoma State or Nike’s of Oregon or UnderArmor’s of Maryland?
While Alabama has historically been one of the most successful football programs in the nation, most of us can remember a time when the Tide wandered for a little bit in the also-ran desert.
I also remember when this debate first started popping up – O’Bannon was launched in 2012! – that one long forgotten poster was opposed to athletes’ economic liberties because “Northwestern and Harvard might use their money to field powerhouse teams.” And we just couldn’t have that.
And that is a bad thing why?
I probably wasn’t clear enough with my question. My assumption was that the top tier of high school football players would go into some kind of minor league/D league and that would still leave the second tier of high school football players to play college football. Is there something working against that?
(I admit I didn’t quite understand FilkTheBlue’s explanation about luck in basketball vs. football.)
I agree that reducing money in college sports wouldn’t be a nad thing. But I doubt the schools and players would agree, since it will mean they will be comparing having a shot at making a lot of money vs. not having a shot. Thus it would seem to me that both sides that would need to be onboard would be disincentivized to make it happen.
I guess the players might be okay with it if they can get brand deals to make up for it. But then, can the schools do the same, and make money that way, bypassing the official system? Could the money be in making Coke the official soda for a particular college?
They do that already. Worth $1.75 million a year
If the goal was to keep football and mens basketball amateur competitions, then trying to keep money out of it would be a good goal. That ship, however, sailed long ago. If there’s going to be money in it, why not have it go to those providing the actual labor?
That is a simplification that really isn’t how capitalism works. For lack of a better term the college is the “intellectual property” that brings in the money.
It’s similar to a profitable cartoon, The people doing the labor of drawing it get much less money than the Copyright owner.
If you took every FBS player and started a new league , let’s call it league A. and moved everybody in FCS into those FBS positions vacated, call that league B. League B would be many times more marketable and and profitable than league A. League A would be another struggling to survive minor league football league. League B needs players, they don’t need particular players.
Are the players really against that though? The players tried to certify a union, which failed, but maybe with a SCOTUS decision that basically affirms players are de facto employees of a school, the NLRB will certify NCAA players unions. And then those unions can enter into CBAs with the schools which can spread the money around (if they so choose).