Something I've believed for a long time, but Frank DeFord summed it up pretty nicely in his NPR commentary this morning.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=17766826

In All Fairness, College Athletes Should Be Paid

Morning Edition, January 2, 2008

Some things in sport, as some things in life, never really get changed, even when they are indefensible. We say: Life is unfair and move on. Sports, though, are supposed to be altogether fair. Ah, the level playing field! But, alas, that's only so when referees are around.

Still, every now and then, it's worth bringing up some glaring inequity, even if it's pointless to do so.

So now — when college basketball is in full swing and college football is at its climax, with bowls jammed with high-paying customers, with television revenue pouring in, not to mention all the money that hotels and airlines and restaurants and souvenir salesmen and announcers and sportswriters and coaches and athletic directors are raking in — is a good time to lament anew that, my gracious, isn't it interesting that the only people not making money are the people actually playing the games.

Yes, it is perfectly unconscionable that big-time college football and basketball players go unpaid. They are employees, and deserve to be paid based on the National Labor Relations Act.

First of all, a little history is in order. When college football became a popular sensation more than a hundred years ago, the concept of amateurism was in full sway. OK. All Olympic athletes, for example, had to live by what was always called "the amateur ideal."

But all that has changed. The most popular Olympic sports have all gone pro. Today, in all the world, amongst big-ticket spectator sports, virtually the only athletes who are not paid are our college football and basketball players — whose numbers, ironically, include so many poor African Americans.

That this should be so in the United States, bastion of both freedom and capitalism, makes it even worse. That this should remain the case when college sports charge Broadway ticket prices and pay their coaches literally millions of dollars, makes it even more shameful.

Moreover, colleges always emphasize that football and basketball make so much money that they pay for the entire athletic program. To me, this only adds to the cynicism. Not only do poor black kids get no remuneration for their work, they are expected to carry all these other coaches and players and teams on their backs with their unpaid labor.

Basically, a scholarship boils down to a device to keep the players on the premises where they can perform their services for free. OK, they get a lot of perks. They live well. They're the equivalent of what we used to call "kept women."

Besides, why is it that only athletes must perform for the so-called love of the game? Nobody cares if college kids who are actors or musicians or writers or dancers can make a buck using their talent. Why is an athlete any different?

But, at the end of the day, it isn't an economic issue so much as a moral one. It's absolutely evil that only here in the United States do we allow this unscrupulous 19th century arrangement to continue to exist — and nobody anymore hardly even bothers to bring up this awful injustice.

I think the article writes off scholarships too quickly. Some players are allowed to go to a $30,000 school in exchange for playing a sport. If they go pro they make a good deal of money off the bat and even if they don't, they should have a college education to support them in getting a well paying job.

They are paid - it's called a scholarship or a "full ride." 4 years of a college education is a pretty good payment.

I disagree with you PD. I think a kid who gets his pick of some of the finest schools in the country to go to for free just to play a game is more then enough. And lets be serious on one thing, big time collage prospects don't go to some of this schools because of their history anymore. They get cars, houses Ect. So as the story brought out they get a lot of perks, free schooling at a fine university in case their football career doesn't pan out they can still have a future, get on national TV, and depending on how good they are they become gods to a section of this country ever saturday. Plus they get drafted and make millions. Really don't sound like a bad deal to me

agreed. and most college athletes don't make it to the pros.

give 'em a weekly stipend of a couple hundred bucks or whatever.....I think they deserve a small slice of all that TV revenue.

that's a different story there. I think I might agree with that. Cause those athletes can't really get a part time job like a pizza delivery driver or a dishwasher while they're in college, cause they are all wrapped up in practice, traveling, playing games, etc...

Enough so they have some spending cash for a new shirt or some drinking money on the weekends I can agree with. But to get paid like the pros is another thing.

i wish somebody had bought all my books and food and paid all my tuition and housing when i went college. they can get a fucking loan just like anyone else.

while you were at college, did you happen to participate in any activities that television networks paid billions of dollars for the rights to televise?

can you get a loan when you get a full scholarship? i think everyone is thinking athletes are ungrateful for this and they arent, its that they are not allowed to work more than like 5 hours a week due to NCAA rules. unless your parents are rich ala mahorn, you are going to be scraping by in college life

Here's my proposal for a compromise that I've floated around before (not sure if I've posted it at RM before or not):

College athletes can generate as much money as they want from endorsements or whatever else. However, there should be a limit as to how much of that money the athlete itself can actually keep. The remainder of the funds should then be distributed as follows:
--Contribution to the rest of the players on the team who have not surpassed the cap, up to their own cap limit
--Contribution to the school's general athletic fund
--Contribution to the school's general academic fund

This way, the players, the team, and the school all benefit from additional funds, and it should also help develop closer bonds between each.

my tuition was paid for a couple of semesters and i could still get a loan. financial aid may be a different matter, though.

and i don't see any problem scrapping by through college. i paid my way with student loans and shit jobs making $5/hr. i still had a great time and graduated with decent grades and everything is ok now.

here's a good link that i found for financial help for athletes beyond scholarships.

http://finaid.msu.edu/athletes.asp

were you allowed to work more than 5-10 hours a week?

i worked anywhere from 20-30 hours a week all through college.

i worked 40-50 at times, but the point is, student athletes are not permitted to do so

but that has nothing to do with getting a loan. if these athletes are so hard up for cash, apply for a loan or federal aid just like any other student who needs the money.

Um, that's not allowed.

Whoever said they should be paid like the pros? Quite honestly, I don't even think they should be paid based on merit. Then you bring the ugly market into the equation, and you end up with ridiculousness like free agency in pro sports. The players should be paid a base salary, equal for all players on the team regardless of performance or stats. So the guy on the cover of SI should get the same $300 a week as the backup kicker. The big stars will get rich as pros later. I'm just talking about being able to make SOME money from all the revenue they generate.


Exactly.

One thing that DeFord touched on but didn't get into deeply enough IMO is the whole bullshit idea of "the amatuer ideal". Have you ever thought about where that idea even came from?

Think about it. The natural state of affairs is for athletes to be professionals. They have a marketable physical talent, and the incentive to use that talent for the entertainment of others is that they will be paid for playing. Otherwise, why would you do it? For the LOVE OF THE GAME? Give me a fucking a break.

100+ years ago when this bullshit amateur athleticism idea first arose, what do you think the purpose of it was? To keep sport "pure", but not in the sense of any kind of etheral purity of fairness within sport and competition. It was to keep POOR people, and especially poor NON-WHITE people OUT OF SPORTS. This ideal of amateur sport was dreamt up by a moneyed white elite at universities and country clubs to preserve sporting competitions between their own, and keeping out anyone who might actually have to work for a living and might be tempted to use his physical athletic talents to make the money necessary to fund his entry and training for the elites' competitions.

The first modern Olympic games in 1896 was basically a bunch of nobles and their wards playing ancient Greek games to see which western country had the finest athletes. The teams were drawn from colleges in the United States, and everyone knows that poor people and black peopel don't go to colleges. Jim Thorpe was such an extraordinary athlete that the USOC looked past his ethnicity to get him into international competition, but as soon as the games were over, they took his medals away becuase he had played some semi-pro baseball in order to not starve to death in off-seasons.

Bobby Jones, perhaps the greatest golfer of all-time, was a staunch believer in the "amateur ideal", and even while winning multiple US and British Opens throughout the 1920's, he never played professionally. Probably by no coincidence, he was also the driving force behind the establishment of Augusta National in his home state of Georgia, which in addition to serving as the home of "The Masters", also stood until very recently as a symbol of racism in golf, especially in the country club scene of the deep South.

With that sort of history, and with the economic and racial backgrounds of such a huge proportion of major college athletes today, is there any doubt who the NCAA serves, and who serves the NCAA?

I'm pretty sure the boosters have this covered. The athletes I saw walking around USC looked pretty well taken care of.

That, I can agree on. Terrible example on my part to compare them to pros and what the pros make. But I fully agree with you about every player should get paid the same. They should get a cut of the ridiculous amounts of money the NCAA makes just to get by in college.

I would be alright with a small stipend, but nothing more than that. But is it even necessary? Are there guys playing college football not able to feed themselves?