Posted on 03/27/2014 7:43:27 AM PDT by A'elian' nation
College football players should not be paid. Plain and simple. But there is no reason why any player should not be given carte blanche to capitalize on his chosen sport.
Capitalism 101 rides to the rescue once again. In addition to the free education players get, any player, on scholarship or not, should be allowed to sell and hawk his personal merchandise from t-shirt to jockstrap. He or she should be allowed to put his name and school name/logo on his jersey or helmet or whatever - just like the pros do. A player could sell and trade cards with his name and stats - anything he can come up with that is marketable.
Paying athletes to play and unionizing the sport is a terrible idea. It's just another desperate grab by the dying unions. Not only would the athlete earn limitless compensation, but these young college students would quickly learn all about Economics 101 and Conservatism 101 instead of just pocketing a paycheck and paying union dues.
Pro - big programs
Semi-pro - wage limits.
Amateur - only scholarships like now.
The current system is b.s. where colleges make hundreds of millions of dollars for sports programs while paying a pittance to atheletes and forbidding them to earn more.
So, how does a college player, like a star QB, share his jersey revenues with the following people who were provided for him free of charge:
A: his offensive linemen
B: his receivers
C: the coaches who made him better.
D: the trainers who made him better.
E: the university, that filled the stadium with fans long before he got there, and will long after he leaves.
F: the citizens of the state, who built the stadium
G: the journalists who give him tens of millions of dollars of free press
….etc etc etc….see where this is going? The notion that a current crop of players “generate the revenue” is just fallacious.
Ok, since you seem to think you’re the expert and since colleges “make hundreds of millions of dollars” on sports, how many college sports programs are self-sufficient?
I am saying big-dollar programs such as football and basketball should be able pay their players in those programs. Now they milk those kids for millions while paying a pittance. The current system has evolved over time to the point of aburdity. Baseball, for example, maintains a farm league. A player can choose college or the farm system. Pro football and pro basketball use large programs for their farm systems.
A free college education is not chump change anymore. How many kids 18-22 yrs old are making $50,000 a year or more?
Apart from the unions getting their greedy hands in the sport, and most of the ‘pay for play’ money going to the “big programs” you mention; the lesser sports from college lacrosse to wrestling would be severely impacted if not discontinued.
Funny, the NFL has no problem working all that out.
That is the same mindset that says the rich should pay a lot more in taxes than they already do because the poor cannot pay their way.
The same way an NFL player does... he won’t. But notice most everybody on that list you made already gets paid.
So I guess a star college quarterback should face wage limits of $50K a year when the NFL demands he at least go to college for a year or two before entering the draft.
If the NFL maintained a farm system like MLB, I might have more sympathy for that argument. I have a early-twenties cousin who is in AA baseball right now and he has made far already than he would have earned in scholarship money. He can go back to school after he is done with baseball with some good money in the bank.
Decades ago, when I was in college, my stipend was $100/month.
Another solution: remove all age requirements for professional leagues. If a kid applies for the draft, and isn't selected, then he can go play in Europe. Quit horsing around with the "one and done" charade.
Do you share your salary with your employer for your office space, or the human resources department looking out for you or the co-workers who give you ideas, etc. etc. ?
I’m just proposing giving an athlete the right to merchandise himself. If he wants to share his jersey revenues with his linemen, I’m sure he would suddenly find himself better protected in the pocket. The Pro quarterbacks are smart enough to do it.
Coaches and trainers are already paid, and coaches have no problems merchandising themselves.
The NFL doesn’t say they have to go to college, it says they have to be out of high school 3 years, what they do in that out of high school time is up to them. Skill position guys will generally wind up in college, but there’s always a handful of “trench” guys that did other routes usually involving semi-pro leagues.
And, of your cousin ever makes the major leagues, even for a few seasons, he will make some big money.
You touch on something which doesn’t get talked about too much, that these players have a limited career in pro sports, if they play professionally.Then, they have to decide what to do with the rest of their lives, once their playing days are over.
We all limit ourselves in the occupational choices we make. If your ‘Star Quarterback’ is not happy earning $50,000 a year then maybe he should drop out of college and design an app or get a better paying job.
With my Capitalism 101 plan the ‘Star Quarterback’ gets his $50,000 (in free tuition ) plus any monies he can market with his name and skills.
You didn’t answer my question.
Age requirements are a good thing. Players need seasoning before hitting the pros, the seasons are longer, the games are harder, and 18 year olds still have 7 more years physical growth and their body just isn’t ready. The NBA had a serious drop in play when they started getting obsessed with getting players straight out of high school, really the only 2 that succeeded were Kobe and LeBron, the NBA should increase their requirement. It would be better if they could self police, but really only the NHL pulls that off generally making young players they draft hang out in the minor for a couple of years.
I don’t care about your question. Using your logic, an engineer in a profitable company should give up wages in much higher taxes to generate better pay for a journalism major working in a mail room in a poorly-run company.
The NHL and MBA maintain farm systems. The NBA and NFL do not. That is part of the problem. The NBA and NFL don’t want the cost of farm systems. Colleges want to pay their superstar athletes a pittance. So they feed off each other’s sanctimony.
Are you suggesting that the athlete is free to use the school's copyrighted name and logo in order to profit from selling his merchandise?
Colleges have rights, too.
NFL players do not use their team logos without permission.
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