That’s an argument for not spinning off the teams into a formal minor league, where the championship might be the Tuscaloosa Crimson Tide vs. the Columbus Buckeys who play in League A rather than the NCAA, and whose teams have budgets similar to our actual minor league baseball teams. It’s not an argument for not fairly compensating the players on the University of Alabama Crimson Tide, the Ohio State Buckeyes, and so on.
I’m with Flik on this. While I agree with your point about name brand the players are much more important than back room inkers (to continue your analogy). Alabama makes a lot of money in part because they are always on the mix of best football teams. If they go elsewhere then the brand suffers.
To me this is a no brainer and it’s one of the very few times in economics where liberal and conservative ideals come together: the NCAA is treated like a real market and the labor gets paid.
I believe you are correct in your assessment but it’s not the central point of the compensation issue. Your League B is a collection of brands who are competing against each other to be the most valuable brand. That competition is what will drive player compensation.
Jay Bilas made a curious point in an interview yesterday. He said that many observers don’t understand that the continuing court cases are about allowing schools to compensate players, not requiring them to, though those who understand often consider it a “distinction without a difference.” I don’t understand that perspective at all; the distinction is crucial to understanding the difference. Who would require schools to pay their athletes? Smart schools are going to if the returns are there but smaller schools operate under a completely different set of criteria for their sports programs.
That’s why I believe their should be more divisions. If the major schools were completing just against each other, then schools like USC, Texas A&M, and Florida State would likely be more competitive with Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State. The next division down should be the somewhat less competitive FBS schools, from the major 5 conferences, like University of Virginia, Arizona State, Duke, Boston College, etc. Keep going down the list, with each tier consisting of somewhere around 20 or so teams. The issue of what each school could afford and how wiling they are to spend would sort itself out naturally.
Before long college football will have promotion and relegation and it will be the end of the republic as we know it.
I think people are missing a deeper issue.
With this decision college sports is just another business like pro leagues. The notion that sports was a way to get some kids into higher education and get them to learn is kinda out the window now. If schools will be paying their star players do they even need to pretend at having them as students? They are employees now who are compensated for their work. Can the NCAA demand that they still complete course-work with a minimum GPA and if they don’t they lose their job playing a sport?
Also, does the notion of “teamwork” apply when a couple players on your team are being paid millions and the rest get nothing?
Also also, is there any reason now that the people paying the money won’t go even further and start offering contracts to high school students who look promising? Hell, it might be worth paying $1,000 to get junior high students to commit to a long term contract (all with parental approval, of course, since they are minors…I’m sure they can figure a way).
To be clear: I am not opposed to these players getting paid. There are HUGE amounts of money being made based on their playing. It makes sense they get a piece of the action. I am just dubious about it being unrestrained in any way.
An important point is being missed here: SCOTUS did not say that players’ compensation cannot be restrained in any way. They said the NCAA cannot prohibit its member schools from providing athletes with certain forms of education-related benefits.
Gorsuch said, in his opinion: [This ruling ]may suggest that courts should take care when assessing the NCAA’s restraints on student-athlete compensation, [it certainly doesn’t mean that courts] must reflexively reject all challenges to the NCAA’s compensation restrictions.”
If this ruling is going to be so detrimental to hundreds of smaller college athletic programs, shouldn’t Congress be leaping to do what they’re fully empowered to do – grant the NCAA an exemption from antitrust legislation? The Supreme Court decision was based on statute, not the Constitution. Congress can change statutes any time they want to.
You are correct. However its rationale does not seem to leave any room in a future challenge to restrain a player’s compensation in any way, and Kavanaugh specifically stated so much. @Whack-a-Mole brings up some very interesting questions.
At first I thought that some organizations do have employment requirements like how an electrician’s union requires its workers to be licensed, but there that is a straightforward rational basis, even a heightened one.
What is the basis for requiring a football player to have a minimum GPA?
Ostensibly they are getting a scholarship and an education in exchange for playing on the team. That’s how it actually is for minor sports and all sports at small schools.
To add to my previous post, the tech companies that I have worked for have paid for the education of employees so long as what they were studying was relevant to their jobs. In order to get reimbursed, a minimum grade in the course was required.
Yes, but this would be like if your prior employers required you to take classes and fired you if you didn’t achieve a minimum GPA. And that may be reasonable so you could do better tech work, but it doesn’t relate at all if your job is football.
Their job is being a student.
Being a student isn’t a “job” and it certainly wouldn’t be why they are paid millions of dollars.
Any work study program is going to require passing grades.
If we’re not going to put any restraints on what the schools and coaches can make then I don’t think it’s fair to put a restraint on what the players make.
As an aside, I don’t think payment will have any bearing on teamwork. Certainly pro players exhibit teamwork.
Such programs relate to the job being done. What college course relates to football?
Imagine you have a job as a computer tech and are paid $100,000/year and your employer says you need to take Underwater Basket Weaving-101. If you don’t pass you are fired.
Actually…I should modify this.
It is not your employer mandating this. It is some organization telling your employer they have to do this.
I had to take all sorts of bullshit classes and seminars in my career and pass tests afterwards.
Me too but my employer could always make a semi-reasonable case for why I had to do it.
Make the case for a football player taking Geology or Calculus or Ancient History or Philosophy (etc).