A free ride at OSU is worth between $20,000 and $34,000 a year.
And how much revenue are the football players generating for OSU?
conservatively, gross revenue from tOSU is near in the high 8 figures (60-80 million) per year, maybe more.
tOSU education for 90 kids at 30,000K
30K * 90 kids = $2.7 million
Many of the kids are going to have live with crippling injuries for the rest of their lives.
Yes, the kids have an excellent opportunity to better themselves, but I do think they are getting the short end of the bargain.
The student-athlete degree is a farce, especially since many of them never complete it, and I’m sure many of those players are worth far more than that.
I’m not saying that there aren’t some shitty things going on around college athletics, but the players aren’t exactly getting shafted.
The players who are good enough to go pro get a gateway to a potentially multi-million dollar career. The ones who aren’t get a free education at a major university. That ain’t nothing. It’s not the school’s fault if a kid doesn’t take full advantage of the opportunity.
Of course they’re getting essentially nothing. They’re faced with a cartel that takes earnings that they should be sharing in in exchange for a questionable benefit. Of course the university is at fault because they are fully aware that many of them won’t can’t “take advantage” of it, many because they don’t have the capacity or aptitude for higher education studies or because they aren’t really interested or because all they’re really motivated to do is seek careers in professional athletics. The income they generate while playing for the university is for many of them the peak of their lifetime earning capacity. Many of them, while generating revenue for their universities, suffer debilitating injuries that leave them with a lifetime of health problems and diminished capacities to earn. The cartel makes them sign unconscionable contracts giving away for their lifetimes the right to control their names and images, which the universities continue to exploit, for decades in some cases, through licensed goods. The universities are 100 percent shits when it comes to athletics. At the very least, the Federal Trade Commission should bust up the N.C.A.A. cartel and stop them from colluding to the athletes’ detriment.
And how much revenue are the football players generating at Northwestern? Or Central Florida? Or Rice? Hint: Much less. And where’s that revenue going, after it pays for the football program? Hint: It’s allowing every other non-basketball program at that school to remain in existence. What’s left after that? Sure - quite a bit - but nothing near what people who bitch and moan think is left.
Uh, they’re still getting a bargain, short end or not. If they were being forced into a truly shitty deal, then they’d go play in the CFL instead. But they’re not, because they benefit greatly from college football, just as the universities do. A $120k education isn’t the only thing they’re getting out of it - they’re also being exposed to top-notch coaching, to state-of-the-art training facilities, national media attention and all the free marketing that school provides.
Yes, it is a form of Socialism. The “Haves” (revenue produding programs) are subsidizing the Have nots.
What options does a 18-19 yr old really have? How many 19 yr regular people do you know that go off to live in another country? (military doesn’t count because all their needs are taken care of. Food shelter etc.) would you want your 19 yr old kid to move off on their own to a different country?
and all this while risking crippling injuries.
I agree. Not to mention the best fraternities, the best pussy the school can offer, the best parties, tons of academic free “tutoring”, free room and board, etc, etc. Even if some of these guys never make the pros they can get their degree and be set up with a very lucrative job as the local hero in many forms of businesses that will hire guys like that at the drop of a hat.
The risk is worth the reward for most, and they are choosing to involve themselves with the University as a student athlete. Its a trade-off, like many things in life. Nobody makes these kids sign on the dotted line.
I mean, what about the military academies? You are getting a high-quality education worth north of $250,000 on the government dime in exchange for a minimum of 5 years of service. Are these young men and women not risking “crippling injuries” when they are called upon to go to war?
The universities are essentially getting something for nothing. The proof is that they keep getting caught trying to give more to the athletes. Bar the NCAA from imposing a collusive cap on compensation and we would see more clearly whether they’re getting fair compensation now.
How did the Military Academies get put into this discussion? Apples and oranges. IMO, We owe the military a debt we can never re-pay.
I am talking about the major football factories like OSU, Bama, Texas etc. They are generating revenues in the millions of dollars for the schools, the conferences and the NCAA. And they are not seeing any of this revenue in terms of CASH. The major stars of CFB are digitalized on video games.
I love College Football. It is my favorite team sport to watch. Yes, I would like to see these kids take advantage of the real opportunity that they have.
I only introduced that into the discussion as a counterpoint to the “risk of crippling injuries” aspect you mentioned and the fact that both at football factories and at academies the free education is there for either venture.
But the players DO benefit. Just because they don’t see hard currency in exchange for their risk and play on the field doesn’t mean they aren’t compensated.
I do agree the whole system is hypocritical in a sense, but to argue that the players get nothing in return is equally hypocritical.
Title IX has a lot to do with it. If there were no Title IX, universities could slash their athletic departments down to the revenue generating sports and a few others. But because of Title IX, they have to give equal opportunities to both sexes. That is, if there are 80 scholarships for guys on the football team, there needs to be equivalent scholarships for women’s sports, as well. Tack on basketball and baseball, and you’re easily up over 120 scholarships for men’s sports. And since Title IX also mandates that the facilities, travel, publicity, and other expenses for sports should be similar, it ends up costing athletic departments a TON of money to keep all these programs alive.
The University of California’s athletic department consistently runs deficits of $3m or more annually, which the University makes up from its general fund. Now you’re going to pay players, too?
When did I say that?
If the major schools can’t make ends meet, how are the small schools supposed to do it?
Lets take a mid major school, the University of Tulsa.
they have 16 sports on their athletic site. (7 mens: football, b-ball, golf, soccer, track/field, tennis, cross country, 9 womens: b-ball, cross country, golf, tennis, softball, volleyball, rowing, soccer, track/field).
They don’t draw 80K fans for a football game. (30K capacity). The MWC doesn’t have the big lucrative tv contracts. etc. etc. etc.
How do they make ends meet?
Well, they don’t pay their head coaches tens of millions of dollars per year, for one.
There’s a lot of good points in this discussion. You can’t forget there is some tangible value to a college education, and these athletes do receive that in return for playing sports. On the other hand, the big schools like OSU or Bama or USC do come out ahead on the financial scale, where the revenue generated by football far outpaces the expense of the scholarships. On the other other hand, a lot of these funds DO provide athletic opportunities for the non-revenue sports, such as track or softball or gymnastics or whatever. So it’s not exactly cut and dried.
I’ve been generally against the entire idea of granting payments to student-athletes over and above the free education they’re already getting. BUT … when these big schools start throwing multi-millions at head coaches, that has almost changed my mind. It’s certainly made me reconsider. If the programs are lucrative enough for the schools to spend that kind of money on coaching contracts, maybe some more of that ought to be going to the students, whether in football or in other non-revenue sports or just the general student population.
When you realize how many college graduates are taking pretty solid debt loads just to get through school, there has to be some value given to that for these athletes who don’t have to worry about paying for college. Whethey they actually take advantage of that opportunity or not really isn’t the school’s fault.
Not to mention, the gap between “football factories” (like OSU or anybody in the SEC) and everybody else is pretty wide. Plenty of schools have dropped non-revenue sports like baseball or wrestling … partly (or perhaps mainly) due to Title IX, but also because they’re not bringing in enough football and men’s basketball revenues to keep those programs afloat (or the equivalent women’s programs in order to keep baseball or wrestling).
In conclusion … I don’t have any answers and I’m kinda all over the place. But Tressel looks pretty dirty, here, and I have few doubts there was much chicanery going on with the Buckeye football program.
The players and the school are using each other. Big football programs make a fortune for the school.
The silent partner is the NFL. They get a free minor league system. The school provides free training and coaching. It develops players for the NFL. Let them pay the players.
I don’t think that would work because the NFL wouldn’t want to pay the collegiate players that they know are never going to be good enough to play in the NFL, and you can’t just pay the really good players and not the marginal ones.
Obviously there is a lot wrong with the current situation in CFB, but I am not sure any proposed solution will make it better, and any proposed solution could make it a lot worse.
It is one of those things that my Father warned me about when I was a kid. Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.
It’s one thing to have the argument over whether or not universities should be paying athletes. But the NCAA,while it makes a fortune off the fame of its athletes, strictly banning those athletes from going out on their own and make their own money off their own image is the bigger problem IMO.
If the players find it that distasteful, they can go play in the CFL, or AFL, or one of the minor leagues. Sure they can try to get more out of the university system, but they’re clearly not being screwed.