# Should college athletes be able to sell their autograph? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 11, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051 "2014-10-11T17:31:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/41 "2014-10-14T00:28:59Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Without the college name, there is nowhere near the money in the system. And if the College name brings in the gold, they get to make the rules if you want to play. Without the factory machines, they would just be people standing around a big empty floor, so the factory should get to make the rules if you want to work. And if all the factories happen to get together and make exactly the same rules, well… ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/42 "2014-10-14T00:32:11Z")
While Jameis Winston doesn’t seem to have any legal problems for doing something as minor as rape, it looks like he may have problems for doing something serious like selling autographs: > [@](#): > > Florida State is investigating Jameis Winston for signing autographs for money, according to a report by ESPN on Monday. > > ESPN is reporting that FSU’s compliance department is investigating why more than 340 Winston autographs are appearing with one company, James Spence Authentication. JSA is the same autograph business linked to suspended Georgia running back Todd Gurley. > **[Report: Jameis Winston investigated by Florida State for autographs](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2014/10/13/florida-state-quarterback-jameis-winston-autographs-investigation/17215489/)** > > The FSU QB is linked to the same autograph authentication firm as Georgia's Todd Gurley. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/43 "2014-10-14T00:33:10Z")
Yes, they should be allowed to sell autographs or anything else that it would be legal for any professional to sell. They should also be allowed to accept whatever gifts or cash that professional would be allowed to accept. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/44 "2014-10-14T00:54:05Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Without the college name, there is nowhere near the money in the system. And if the College name brings in the gold, they get to make the rules if you want to play. No, they don’t. The rules are made by various federal, state and local governments elected by the citizens of this country. Those rules generally state that [wage fixing collusion](http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-rejection-in-wage-fixing-case/) is not allowed. So far, schools have skirted the issue by pretending these kids are not employees. They are playing out of the goodness of their little hearts, for the fun of the game, and not because they’re being paid to play. There is a small percentage who use college ball as a tryout for the pro leagues. The remainder (and there are a LOT of them) use college ball as a way to pay for their education. They put up with the bullshit rules because the schools have colluded to make sure there is no monetary competition for their services, everyone pays the same, 1 full scholarship. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/45 "2014-10-14T13:22:05Z")
The easiest, and most direct way, to fix this across the board is to get rid of the dumbass restriction that kids can’t come straight out of high school into the draft. Stop making them go play for schools/foreign leagues at all. The ONLY reason basketball players have to wait that year is because if all the best players went straight into the NBA it would GUT college basketball, sending it into irrelevance. There wouldn’t be any marketable players that the NCAA would have to worry about selling autographs, endorsements etc… because no one would want them. The best guys would go straight pro leaving the actual amateurs/students in college. I feel this way about football too. You can make the argument that these kids bodies aren’t physically ready for the pros. Once they are 18 they are legally adults. Let THEM make the decision whether or not they are physically ready. It would probably actually HELP with injuries in the NFL. Instead of giving kids 4 years to hit the gym and get huge after high school you would have normal sized dudes getting drafted instead of 270lb corners we see today. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/46 "2014-10-14T13:54:08Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > The ONLY reason basketball players have to wait that year is because if all the best players went straight into the NBA it would GUT college basketball, sending it into irrelevance. I disagree. NBA went the straight out of HS route for a while, and it’s a terrible way to run a draft. Players with the most raw talent, who are not ready to play, get selected very early. Those players need years of seasoning before they’re ready to compete, but they can’t get on the floor in an NBA game. Thus teams spend high draft picks on unproven players simply to lock in the rights to a great talent. Extremely high risk, with little League Level upside. Having a great talent riding the pine for 2 years (or stink for 2 years) doesn’t raise the visibility of the league. Letting them play on a smaller stage doesn’t detract from the league, and gives the teams more security with the draft pick. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/47 "2014-10-14T14:01:30Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > The ONLY reason basketball players have to wait that year is because if all the best players went straight into the NBA it would GUT college basketball, sending it into irrelevance. There wouldn’t be any marketable players that the NCAA would have to worry about selling autographs, endorsements etc… because no one would want them. The best guys would go straight pro leaving the actual amateurs/students in college. This is complete bollocks. The NBA instituted the wait-a-year rule for its own convenience, not to protect college basketball. There was a period of several years where players were going directly from high school into the NBA, with no deleterious effect on NCAA basketball. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/48 "2014-10-14T14:49:14Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Without the college name, there is nowhere near the money in the system. And if the College name brings in the gold, they get to make the rules if you want to play. > Otherwise it would just be an unwatched minor league like Baseball and Hockey, except for a few top talents being paid to learn the craft by big clubs. And I doubt football would have anywhere the signing bonuses that the others get, It’s damn hard to tell if an 18 year old will turn into an NFLer, and I doubt there would be more than a couple a generation worth a million dollar gamble, with a hard salary cap in place. > > Basketball is much more projectable, and would be more baseball like. That ridiculous argument is the one schools have been using for years. Illegal behavior isn’t justified because it’s profitable. If schools can only make money from sports by screwing over their talent pool, perhaps they need to rethink the whole place of sports in higher education. Another point that hardly ever gets mentioned in these debates is that we should expect better from our universities. They are the ones entrusted with the education of the next generation of the nation’s leaders and I don’t think it’s the least little bit too much to ask them to set examples of the right way to go about things. They shouldn’t give a tinker’s damn about kids making money from their talents; they should be focusing on giving them all a decent chance at getting a meaningful degree, which will be worth way more to most of them than the slight chance of a professional career (which will most likely be short and crippling). ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/49 "2014-10-14T15:57:50Z")
Red: you’re right that education should be their focus. But as was pointed out in another thread, they aren’t students, they are athletes who just happen to live on a college campus. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/50 "2014-10-14T16:09:16Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Red: you’re right that education should be their focus. But as was pointed out in another thread, they aren’t students, they are athletes who just happen to live on a college campus. Which is all the more reason they should get paid. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/51 "2014-10-14T19:16:55Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > The real question should be: why are schools allowed to prohibit lawful activities by their students? The schools don’t prohibit the activities - the NCAA does, and the schools agree to this when they join. Name one student punished _by his school_ for doing something otherwise legal that made him NCAA-ineligible. If you’re going to tell the NCAA that it can’t enforce amateurism rules, then what stops schools from also demanding that the NCAA not enforce scholarship limits, or minimum GPA/SAT requirements? Pretty much the only restrictions imposed by a source outside of the NCAA are equality ones. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/52 "2014-10-14T20:24:29Z")
1. The NCAA is an association created by the schools. 2. They don’t have to join the NCAA 3. The schools can’t absolve themselves from restraint of trade through the pretense of saying that the NCAA is in charge 4. The NCAA should itself be declared an illegal cartel. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/53 "2014-10-14T23:26:16Z")
The schools could make degrees more attainable with a few simple practices. Cut the schedules, eliminate spring football and reduce in-season practice time to an hour and a half a day. If you want to get radical, eliminate some scholarships when graduation rates fall below the student body average. That’s the kind of stuff societal leaders like universities should be doing _and the athletes getting money from somebody doesn’t have a thing to do with any of it._ ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051/54 "2014-10-14T23:56:33Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > Instead of giving kids 4 years to hit the gym and get huge after high school you would have normal sized dudes getting drafted instead of 270lb corners we see today. No you wouldn’t. No NFL team would bother with players just out of HS, they would be useless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-college-athletes-be-able-to-sell-their-autograph/701051.md?page=2)