For those against Fair Pay to Play - Printable Version
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For those against Fair Pay to Play - OutsiderFan - 10-15-2019
[tweet]https://twitter.com/IlliniFootball/status/1182776604558315520[/tweet]
No argument can be made that allowing players to profit from their NIL is inequitable when you see this. I'd even argue that if a "school" can justify mini-golf as part of its football facility, the players should in fact be paid directly from the school.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 76lsjumb - 10-15-2019
Hello, boys and girls... Can you say "non sequitur" ?
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - ColoradoTree - 10-15-2019
Maybe mini golf isn't the most persuasive example, but I think the central point--that our priorities are hopelessly skewed when we're spending tens of millions of dollars on lavish facilities rather than putting some of those dollars into an account for the use of the student-athletes on whose backs that money is made--is absolutely fair.
Schools aren't allowed to pay players. So instead of funding a 401(k) for these kids, or funding an HSA for sport-related health care needs later in life, or creating a fund to give interest-free bridge loans to players' families when they fall on hard times, they compete for recruits by building these palaces that look cool, but don't meaningfully improve performance or add to the quality of anyone's life. It's absolute madness.
Sure, it's neat to have shiny facilities. They're cool! But surely we can have high quality facilities while also providing a more meaningful benefit to student-athletes.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 2006alum - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 08:19 AM)ColoradoTree Wrote: Schools . . . compete for [students] by building these palaces that look cool, but don't meaningfully improve [academics] or add to the quality of anyone's [career opportunities]. It's absolute madness.
Sure, it's neat to have shiny facilities. They're cool! But surely we can have high quality facilities while also providing a more meaningful benefit to student[]s.
Fixed for you. This is hardly a problem endemic only to athletic departments. Schools have been competing to attract tuition dollars with rock walls, sushi bars, and all sorts of things for several decades now. The real reason is because the 17-year-old "customer" is often neither sufficiently price-sensitive (because loans to be paid in the future and/or scholarships), nor sufficiently savvy to identify the real value-add of a school, so they go based on really noisy proxies like cool amenities. US News has made this worse by making spending-per-student relevant for rankings, but not debt/salary 1/5/10 years out.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - Renaissance Man - 10-15-2019
My basic issue is that we already have professional leagues. I believe that athletes should be eligible for those leagues right out of high school. If they come to play for any college, they should be ineligible for professional leagues for four years. If the current pay for play model in California becomes national, I believe that we will end up with a handful of teams paying NFL level salaries through boosters, and the rest of college football and basketball will wither and die.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 2006alum - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 09:45 AM)Renaissance Man Wrote: My basic issue is that we already have professional leagues. I believe that athletes should be eligible for those leagues right out of high school. If they come to play for any college, they should be ineligible for professional leagues for four years. If the current pay for play model in California becomes national, I believe that we will end up with a handful of teams paying NFL level salaries through boosters, and the rest of college football and basketball will wither and die.
Yup. Personally, I just think any 18+-year-old should be eligible to go pro at any time. I don't see any reason to require a set period if/once a student-athlete chooses to enroll in college. Put that in place, and there's no need for the pay to play relief, which as you say, will likely result in a small number of semi-pro teams and a lot of equivalents to D2 leagues. And I am almost certain that if forced to choose, Stanford will go like the Ivy leagues rather than the Bama/Clemson/OSUs.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - OutsiderFan - 10-15-2019
At the rate things are going, a built-in Gentleman's Club can't be too far away. My guess is that would lure young athletes more effectively than mini-golf. If we only care about getting them on the team, why not use the most effective baits and just be honest about the absurdity of it all?
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - stupac2 - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 09:17 AM)2006alum Wrote:(10-15-2019, 08:19 AM)ColoradoTree Wrote: Schools . . . compete for [students] by building these palaces that look cool, but don't meaningfully improve [academics] or add to the quality of anyone's [career opportunities]. It's absolute madness.
Sure, it's neat to have shiny facilities. They're cool! But surely we can have high quality facilities while also providing a more meaningful benefit to student[]s.
Fixed for you. This is hardly a problem endemic only to athletic departments. Schools have been competing to attract tuition dollars with rock walls, sushi bars, and all sorts of things for several decades now. The real reason is because the 17-year-old "customer" is often neither sufficiently price-sensitive (because loans to be paid in the future and/or scholarships), nor sufficiently savvy to identify the real value-add of a school, so they go based on really noisy proxies like cool amenities. US News has made this worse by making spending-per-student relevant for rankings, but not debt/salary 1/5/10 years out.
I dunno about your time at Stanford, but when I attended there were no general-use facilities I can think of that were useless frippery the same way that OF's link is. The physics buildings, even the new ones, are nowhere near as posh as the athletics facilities, or even the alumni building. Undergraduates don't bring in real money, so they don't get real spending.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - CornFed - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 09:17 AM)2006alum Wrote:Life is about more than career alternatives. I think the way CT had it was perfectly fine.(10-15-2019, 08:19 AM)ColoradoTree Wrote: Schools . . . compete for [students] by building these palaces that look cool, but don't meaningfully improve [academics] or add to the quality of anyone's [career opportunities]. It's absolute madness.
Sure, it's neat to have shiny facilities. They're cool! But surely we can have high quality facilities while also providing a more meaningful benefit to student[]s.
Fixed for you. This is hardly a problem endemic only to athletic departments. Schools have been competing to attract tuition dollars with rock walls, sushi bars, and all sorts of things for several decades now. The real reason is because the 17-year-old "customer" is often neither sufficiently price-sensitive (because loans to be paid in the future and/or scholarships), nor sufficiently savvy to identify the real value-add of a school, so they go based on really noisy proxies like cool amenities. US News has made this worse by making spending-per-student relevant for rankings, but not debt/salary 1/5/10 years out.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 2006alum - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 11:25 AM)stupac2 Wrote: I dunno about your time at Stanford, but when I attended there were no general-use facilities I can think of that were useless frippery the same way that OF's link is. The physics buildings, even the new ones, are nowhere near as posh as the athletics facilities, or even the alumni building. Undergraduates don't bring in real money, so they don't get real spending.
Of course not, because no one will turn down Stanford because of Stern concrete cinder block freshman dorms. When I visited my best friend at Yale, I showered in the functional equivalent of a tin can from the 1950s. My friends who went to state schools and regional liberal arts schools, by contrast, had far, far better dining halls and recreational facilities than anything I saw at Stanford or Yale.
15 seconds of googling came up with a number of stories about this epidemic of competing on amenities:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/caranewlon/2014/07/31/the-college-amenities-arms-race/#7b7bcb354883
Quote:"A free movie theater. A 25 person hot tub and spa with a lazy river and whirlpool. A leisure pool with biometric hand scanners for secure entry. A 50 foot climbing wall to make exercise interesting. And a top-of-the-line steak restaurant with free five course meals.
This isn’t a list of items from a resort brochure. They’re facilities you can find on a college campus. And with college construction costs rising, it could be the best four-year getaway you've ever had."
Here's a few more stories along those lines:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/learning/are-lavish-amenities-on-college-campuses-useful-or-frivolous.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/do-colleges-have-an-edifice-complex-an-amenities-arms-race-or-both
ETA: Here's a research paper on this very subject: https://www.nber.org/papers/w18745
Quote:Summary: “We found that the lower ability students and higher income students have a greater willingness to pay for these amenities,” says Brian Jacob, a researcher from the University of Michigan. “The more academic, high achieving students cared about intellectual achievement.”
In sum, I think 76 had the right first take.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - martyup - 10-15-2019
I agree that anyone should be able to turn pro when desired. I also believe that college athletics should remain amateur. I really don't care if the best talent in football and basketball skips college because they can make big bucks in the pro leagues. The college games will be just as exciting to watch without them.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - stupac2 - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 01:14 PM)2006alum Wrote:(10-15-2019, 11:25 AM)stupac2 Wrote: I dunno about your time at Stanford, but when I attended there were no general-use facilities I can think of that were useless frippery the same way that OF's link is. The physics buildings, even the new ones, are nowhere near as posh as the athletics facilities, or even the alumni building. Undergraduates don't bring in real money, so they don't get real spending.
Of course not, because no one will turn down Stanford because of Stern concrete cinder block freshman dorms. When I visited my best friend at Yale, I showered in the functional equivalent of a tin can from the 1950s. My friends who went to state schools and regional liberal arts schools, by contrast, had far, far better dining halls and recreational facilities than anything I saw at Stanford or Yale.
15 seconds of googling came up with a number of stories about this epidemic of competing on amenities:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/caranewlon/2014/07/31/the-college-amenities-arms-race/#7b7bcb354883
Quote:"A free movie theater. A 25 person hot tub and spa with a lazy river and whirlpool. A leisure pool with biometric hand scanners for secure entry. A 50 foot climbing wall to make exercise interesting. And a top-of-the-line steak restaurant with free five course meals.
This isn’t a list of items from a resort brochure. They’re facilities you can find on a college campus. And with college construction costs rising, it could be the best four-year getaway you've ever had."
Here's a few more stories along those lines:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/learning/are-lavish-amenities-on-college-campuses-useful-or-frivolous.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/do-colleges-have-an-edifice-complex-an-amenities-arms-race-or-both
ETA: Here's a research paper on this very subject: https://www.nber.org/papers/w18745
Quote:Summary: “We found that the lower ability students and higher income students have a greater willingness to pay for these amenities,” says Brian Jacob, a researcher from the University of Michigan. “The more academic, high achieving students cared about intellectual achievement.”
In sum, I think 76 had the right first take.
Those are talking about different things. The schools doing that sort of thing are, as the researcher said, trying to attract a different kind of student than Stanford. Those students are willing to pay for those amenities. On the other hand, the athletics amenities are trying to attract athletes, but then the excess revenue from the athletes' uncompensated labor is what pays for those amenities.
Maybe you consider those situations similar, but I find the latter to be really, really gross. (I similarly find building the posh alumni buildings to help convince them to open their wallets to be gross, and find anyone giving money to Stanford to be bizarre, so maybe I'm just weird.)
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - BobK - 10-15-2019
Marty In 1981 John Elway played pro baseball then Stanford football. That’s a loooong time ago. Pro and amateur have mixed for at least 38 years
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - Goose - 10-15-2019
I think that any athlete should have the option of selling their services to whoever will pay them for those services. I also think that any group of people should be allowed to organize sports leagues under any set of rules they mutually agree upon. If those agreed upon rules allow free tuition but forbid any other form of compensation, fine. The NCAA is notionally such an organization. If the member schools want to change the rules, they can. If a player doesn't want to play by those rules, that player can start an organization of like-minded players that operates differently.
It is quite possible to argue that the NCAA rules are too restrictive regarding compensation and that they should be changed. I do think that a better approach is possible, and that one should be found. However, I think the far more important question here is whether the State of California should intervene in that process. If I address that question, it will be a political position, so I will not do so.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 76lsjumb - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 08:19 AM)ColoradoTree Wrote: Maybe mini golf isn't the most persuasive example, but I think the central point--that our priorities are hopelessly skewed when we're spending tens of millions of dollars on lavish facilities rather than putting some of those dollars into an account for the use of the student-athletes on whose backs that money is made--is absolutely fair.
Schools aren't allowed to pay players. So instead of funding a 401(k) for these kids, or funding an HSA for sport-related health care needs later in life, or creating a fund to give interest-free bridge loans to players' families when they fall on hard times, they compete for recruits by building these palaces that look cool, but don't meaningfully improve performance or add to the quality of anyone's life. It's absolute madness.
Sure, it's neat to have shiny facilities. They're cool! But surely we can have high quality facilities while also providing a more meaningful benefit to student-athletes.
A couple of thoughts:
"...when we're spending tens of millions of dollars on lavish facilities..." So, just wondering, which one are you: Henry Dale or Betty Smith? Otherwise, it seems like YOU'RE not spending any of this money. You may have very good ideas and priorities about how you think that money should be spent, but, if it's someone else's money, maybe their ideas and priorities are different.
"...don't meaningfully improve performance or add to the quality of anyone's life." Given how U of I's season is going, I'm inclined to agree with your skepticism that easy access to a mini-golf course is doing much to improve performance, but it should be noted that at least one of the players described his first look at the new facility as "happiest I've ever been." See, https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/illini/illini-football-players-excited-by-new-home-which-includes-bowling/article_6b944b59-3b35-5e58-8060-380b6eab7877.html . And, of course, the "state-of-the-art sports medicine suite, nutrition center, strength and conditioning complex" will probably help improve performance to at least some extent.
As for "funding a 401(k) for these kids, or funding an HSA for sport-related health care needs later in life, or creating a fund to give interest-free bridge loans to players' families when they fall on hard times," those would all be great, but I'm not aware of schools that provide any of those benefits to students generally, so it's not clear to me why they should be provided to athletes. Moreover, are they only to be given to scholarship athletes -- i.e., those athletes some small percentage of whom might actually be able to make a little money off their NIL -- or to ALL athletes, including those with no chance at all to make money off their NIL? If the former, aren't they already getting a substantial financial benefit from their free education?
(10-15-2019, 02:44 PM)Goose Wrote: I think that any athlete should have the option of selling their services to whoever will pay them for those services. I also think that any group of people should be allowed to organize sports leagues under any set of rules they mutually agree upon. If those agreed upon rules allow free tuition but forbid any other form of compensation, fine. The NCAA is notionally such an organization. If the member schools want to change the rules, they can. If a player doesn't want to play by those rules, that player can start an organization of like-minded players that operates differently.
It is quite possible to argue that the NCAA rules are too restrictive regarding compensation and that they should be changed. I do think that a better approach is possible, and that one should be found. However, I think the far more important question here is whether the State of California should intervene in that process. If I address that question, it will be a political position, so I will not do so.
Precisely...
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 2006alum - 10-15-2019
(10-15-2019, 02:14 PM)stupac2 Wrote: Those are talking about different things. The schools doing that sort of thing are, as the researcher said, trying to attract a different kind of student than Stanford. Those students are willing to pay for those amenities. On the other hand, the athletics amenities are trying to attract athletes, but then the excess revenue from the athletes' uncompensated labor is what pays for those amenities.
I think this is fallacious thinking based on a faulty empirical premise: that the revenue generated for universities from college athletics operations outstrips the costs. If you subtract the many subsidies to college athletics, I would be surprised to find a single university that is exploiting its athletes as you define them - that they each generate more in revenue than they receive in compensation in the form of tuition, living expenses and other services, and in subsidies that go to support those athletic programs.
To start with, all but the approx. 25 D-1 programs run an annual operating deficit. So for the rest, there is no excess revenue, period. So already, there are few schools where the athletes as a whole are generating more revenue than they cost.
Now factor in that if they were being compensated as employees, they'd need to pay taxes on it, which suddenly strips their take-home amount by at least 1/3, probably more. Right now, Uncle Sam is subsidizing their compensation by making it all tax-free. The straw-man cellist comparator everyone likes to mention who works side gigs and to generate income from their talents? Oh right, they would need to pay taxes on those gigs.
Moreover, if athletes are to be compensating by taking a pro rata share of profits generated by the athletic department, then athletic departments will suddenly be classified as private businesses and will lose their tax benefits, including the brobdingnagian benefits of attracting tax-deductible alumni donations and avoiding property taxes on their lush facilities. State, federal, and local governments all subsidize these costs.
If any athletes are still generating a gross profit at this point, it would probably be just a few high-profile football and men's basketball teams. Since the onus is to ensure that athletes get their fair share of revenue, athletic departments would need to strip non-revenue athletes of their scholarships, because otherwise the "excess revenue from the athletes' uncompensated labor is what pays for" non-revenue sports athletic scholarship. But that would violate Title IX, which provides massive subsidies to schools - especially research universities like Stanford - in the form of federal research grants and subsidies, for students in the form of guaranteed loans and subsidized financial aid for students, and so on. All in exchange for giving women equal opportunities to men. So let's strip all that out as well, because why should the federal government be subsidizing male football employees at Alabama raking in their employers' profits while female athletes get nothing but unfunded club teams?
My suspicion is when you do all that math, you're left with zero athletic programs where the athletes are generating excess revenue to their university athletic departments beyond the total dollar value they receive in the form of tax-free tuition, tax-free living expenses and services and federal, state, and local subsidies to both the athletic departments and the universities.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - stupac2 - 10-16-2019
(10-15-2019, 04:06 PM)2006alum Wrote:(10-15-2019, 02:14 PM)stupac2 Wrote: Those are talking about different things. The schools doing that sort of thing are, as the researcher said, trying to attract a different kind of student than Stanford. Those students are willing to pay for those amenities. On the other hand, the athletics amenities are trying to attract athletes, but then the excess revenue from the athletes' uncompensated labor is what pays for those amenities.
I think this is fallacious thinking based on a faulty empirical premise: that the revenue generated for universities from college athletics operations outstrips the costs. If you subtract the many subsidies to college athletics, I would be surprised to find a single university that is exploiting its athletes as you define them - that they each generate more in revenue than they receive in compensation in the form of tuition, living expenses and other services, and in subsidies that go to support those athletic programs.
To start with, all but the approx. 25 D-1 programs run an annual operating deficit. So for the rest, there is no excess revenue, period. So already, there are few schools where the athletes as a whole are generating more revenue than they cost.
Now factor in that if they were being compensated as employees, they'd need to pay taxes on it, which suddenly strips their take-home amount by at least 1/3, probably more. Right now, Uncle Sam is subsidizing their compensation by making it all tax-free. The straw-man cellist comparator everyone likes to mention who works side gigs and to generate income from their talents? Oh right, they would need to pay taxes on those gigs.
Moreover, if athletes are to be compensating by taking a pro rata share of profits generated by the athletic department, then athletic departments will suddenly be classified as private businesses and will lose their tax benefits, including the of immense proportions benefits of attracting tax-deductible alumni donations and avoiding property taxes on their lush facilities. State, federal, and local governments all subsidize these costs.
If any athletes are still generating a gross profit at this point, it would probably be just a few high-profile football and men's basketball teams. Since the onus is to ensure that athletes get their fair share of revenue, athletic departments would need to strip non-revenue athletes of their scholarships, because otherwise the "excess revenue from the athletes' uncompensated labor is what pays for" non-revenue sports athletic scholarship. But that would violate Title IX, which provides massive subsidies to schools - especially research universities like Stanford - in the form of federal research grants and subsidies, for students in the form of guaranteed loans and subsidized financial aid for students, and so on. All in exchange for giving women equal opportunities to men. So let's strip all that out as well, because why should the federal government be subsidizing male football employees at Alabama raking in their employers' profits while female athletes get nothing but unfunded club teams?
My suspicion is when you do all that math, you're left with zero athletic programs where the athletes are generating excess revenue to their university athletic departments beyond the total dollar value they receive in the form of tax-free tuition, tax-free living expenses and services and federal, state, and local subsidies to both the athletic departments and the universities.
Then where is all this money coming from?
Also from what I've seen the various subsidies and such are accounting gimmicks, but I don't feel like diving into this since this issue is clearly two sides yelling past each other, discussion is pointless.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 2006alum - 10-16-2019
(10-16-2019, 08:24 AM)stupac2 Wrote: Then where is all this money coming from?
Also from what I've seen the various subsidies and such are accounting gimmicks, but I don't feel like diving into this since this issue is clearly two sides yelling past each other, discussion is pointless.
Again, what money -- or at least, what profit? Yes, the NCAA is a "billion dollar operation", and in 2015 (the latest I could find) the total revenue from FBS bowl games generated was $509 million. However, the costs of funding 460,000 NCAA athletes per year isn't cheap, and most all of the NCAA money is redistributed to students through scholarships and direct support and to colleges through basketball performance and championships distributions. And consider how much is spent on coaches, AD staff, facilities, travel, sales and marketing, scholarships, tutors, living expenses, insurance and legal, and so on.
If you divide $1.5 billion by 460,000 athletes, then the total revenue generated by the NCAA and FBS schools combined is $3,260 per athlete. Which means all the other money to fund college athletics must come from the schools themselves in the form of apparel partnerships, tickets and advertising, and alumni donations, and from state, local, and federal governments in the form of subsidized financial aid, scholarship assistance, property tax waivers, non-profit operations status, and charitable giving deductions.
And here's some data broken down by average per school - as you can see, most schools spend more on sports than sports operations alone generate in revenue, which means it has to all be offset somewhere. And it is almost certainly the case that some bowl game execs, NCAA execs, etc., are enriched by fat salaries. But if you look at Fortune 500 executive compensation, I see no reason to think that a purely "market"-based system solves any of those problems, and it adds many other ills to the system.
My biggest frustration with all the armchair critics of the current system is that most people lack specific data to back up their sweeping assertions about how much profit there is in college sports, and the data actually paint a very different picture about just how uncompensated most student-athletes are.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - stupac2 - 10-16-2019
...I think it's pretty clear that we're not saying that athletics in general obviously generate revenue, Title IX makes that a weird question. But the revenue sports, and especially football, clearly generate a brobdingnagian excess of revenue (otherwise modern athletics departments wouldn't work).
The problem with wanting hard numbers is that by and large they're not available, and it's in school's interests to make it look like they're not profitable (I've heard of schools doing things like putting concessions revenue into the dining hall budget), so even when you do have overview numbers they might not honest. And you still have things like the above, it's hard to judge from a line item of "facilities construction and maintenance" whether it's necessary or a boondoggle, or something like staffing costs, do they actually need 15 associate directors of thus and such or is it just a way to spend the excess money? Do ADs really justify the salary they get, etc?
But even without that it's utterly clear that there's a lot of money sloshing around. Look at revenues from TV deals. Look at coaches' salaries, look at the facilities arm race that's been well reported on (and was OP's point). This stuff just would not happen if there weren't actually an excess of funds. That admins go begging with their hat in their hand for state money or student fees is, I would suspect, them wanting to have their cake and eat it too, but without detailed budgetary analysis that we'll never, ever get it would be functionally impossible to know. But it strains credulity to say that at the P5 level for revenue sports the athletes aren't generating brobdingnagian amounts of value that they aren't getting compensated in proportion to. (Whether or not you want to argue that scholarships are sufficient value they're clearly not proportional, in the same way that Nick Saban makes many times the Alabama, I dunno, track and field coach.)
If you don't find that convincing, well, I dunno what to tell you. I think it's obvious enough what's going on that it doesn't really take much digging, if you don't then I'm not going to go through financial reports for you.
RE: For those against Fair Pay to Play - 82lsju - 10-16-2019
related to revenue here is the 2016-17 AD annual report (the 2017-18 one is probably out there somewhere but I could not find it)
https://www.daperdevelopment.com/athletics-report-on-annual-giving-201617
2016-17 revenue of $123.77m
- Endowment payout $29.74m
- Broadcast $21.33m
- University Funds $14.30m (primarily covers PE, Recreation, and Wellness)
- Football gate $11.79m
- Buck/Cardinal club $10.77m
- NCAA/Pac-12 $9.38m
- Auxiliaries $8.55m (Stanford Golf Course and The Stanford Red Barn Equestrian Center)
- other $8.27m
- Other annual gifts $3.62m
- Other gate $3.05m
- Marketing Sponsorships $2.97m