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.
I love the way you think….I’ve often thought college football is the opiate for the masses of good ole boys who are conservative, and who don’t pay attentnion to the cancer that is big education due to sports allegiances….
But to me, that’s a separate issue from pay the players….but I do agree with about 99% of what you say….
Just because you’re entering the industry to be trained doesn’t mean you can’t get paid. It’s not like the players are going to be paid millions, they’re going to get a stipend, and most importantly they will be allowed to sell their own image and signature for money as opposed to now when everybody but them gets to sell their image and signature.
Given that 98% of the players never transition to the pros a year of playing basketball or football is worth NOTHING in future earnings.
Attendance figures aren’t static for games. When the university is fielding a bad team revenues drop, people don’t JUST attend because of the name of the university, a particular group of players IS relevant. Minor leagues won’t spontaneously spring up, you need the major league to be vested in the idea of a minor league so that it becomes a valid destination for prospective players where they can still be noticed. Football and basketball don’t have that, the place to get noticed for them is college, and there simply won’t be enough 18 year olds with the talent and the will to fight the college system and risk their careers in doing it to spontaneously make a minor league.
Manziel’s first game had an audience because of the university, his next season had the audience because of him. And he was paid (against NCAA rules) for his signature because of him. And you can tell the NCAA knows their current system is ridiculous and won’t stand up in court by how they “punished” Manziel for selling his signature. They’re willing to push around kids from a poor background, but give them a kid whose parents can afford real lawyers and all of a sudden the punishment is laughable. His incident more than any other shows why players should be allowed to earn money while playing in college.
Football attendance is more or less static….basketball too….especially for the big “U of “ schools. The fluctuation is very little. The revenues fluctuate very little. The TV contracts are drawn up before the players who are impacted are even enrolled.
The current crop of athletes in college has almost nothing to do with the revenues produced while they are there. And you fell into my Manziel trap…he’s an outlier, and anyone with a brain knows you don’t make policy on outliers...
It’s not static. And more importantly it’s not the sole source of revenue, competitive teams get better TV ratings which spawns better TV contracts. Also there’s memorabilia, living in a town with a team in the Sweet 16 I am once again being reminded just how much more memorabilia money a little success can bring. There isn’t a store in Tucson that can find an excuse to sell UA t-shirts that isn’t selling them right now, and if they win two more and make the Final Four it’ll be even more so. And the ones in stores are licensed and the U gets money for them, money they don’t get on years the team isn’t this successful. The revenues fluctuate a lot depending on the level of success. Football teams get millions just for going to bowl games, being in the half of Div 1 that doesn’t get a bowl bid mean losing those millions.
Sorry but the current crop has a lot to do with the revenues produced. The only outlying part of Manziel is that he had the ability to fight back. Only you and the NCAA got trapped by him. Mike Adams, Dan Herron, DeVier Posey, Solomon Thomas, and Terrelle Pryor (and Ohio State) got a dramatically higher punishment for a much lower “crime”.
you are totally ignorant of this subject matter, how attendance figures run, and how TV contracts run. Therefore, I am done with you…..
Ah yes the ol “you refuted all my evidence and I have no more but YOU’RE WRONG DAMMIT”. Know it well, often used by people that just can’t admit their mistake. So now that we both know I’m right see ya next time.
Guilty as charged. I appreciate your editorship. Will try to do better, but since I don’t get paid for these little blurbs the incentive for perfect grammar is lessened.
look lo fo…..college sports attendance and revs ARE mostly static…not totally of course, but mostly static, especially at the big state universities. It’s a fact. You won’t admit it, thus I’ve no time for you and your delusions...
You forget Kevin Garnett, the player who started the modern 'straight out of high school' craze.
The problem is that whether or not a player is physically ready for the NBA at age 18, he's a legal adult and is entitled to try if he wishes.
The NHL went through a phase in the early 1980s where a lot of 18 and 19-year old players made the league at the same time. Guys like Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque, Paul Coffey and Steve Yzerman all started their careers at age 18 or 19 during that time and the 21-team NHL went through one of its best phases.
Future potential college athletes will rue this day. We'll soon be witnessing the end of college football as we know it.
“We’ll soon be witnessing the end of college football as we know it. “
Especially if players become unionized. If that happens I would hope the university would just drop the sport to prove that it is not an athletic program with a university department.
Operative term MOSTLY. The fact is bad season reduce fan excitement, which reduces fan involvement, and reduces fan spending. And remember some of those fans are booster that stop writing very large checks. Bad seasons DO effect the bottom line. You just accidentally admitted it.
The Major Jrs makes hockey very different when it comes to drafting young guys. It’s basically minor league hockey, but high school kids play in it, they get a pretty brutal schedule and still have to go to school. In a lot of ways it’s college basketball for hockey.
A league has a right to say that players of a certain age lack the physical and mental maturity they desire to project the image they wish. There was a serious drop in the quality of NBA play and an uptick in off court legal issues when they were drafting high school kids. I’m not sure play quality has gotten fixed, but the legal issues have. Might not be related to the age of players being drafted, many explanations are possible. But it’s the league’s right to decide they shouldn’t be bringing 18 year olds into a sport often described as the world’s largest traveling brothel.
You really are stretching here to try and salvage your ignorant argument. For big schools, bad season’s impact is minimal, if at all. Texas just had their best reveune season and yet, one of their very disappointing seasons on the field - so much so they fired a coach who won them a National Title.
Thus, it’s the largeness of Texas and the inherent support of Texas that dictates revenues - hardly anything to do with the current coaches or players.
Game, set, match to me……thanks for playing, drive safely.
Not stretching at all. Just pointing out that things that change revenue. The fact that Texas fired their coach shows how important winning is to the bottom line. And the booster complaints with the new hire show the importance of keeping them engaged. If they were confident that performance on the field wouldn’t impact the bottom line then they keep the old guy, but with 4 disappointing seasons in a row things had to change.
Sorry the facts YOU present show the fallacy of your argument. And your need to declare victory and throw insults shows you know your argument is weak.
all of which proves that current players do not impact revenues hardly at all. Not as much as many other factors. Of course, every factor impacts a dollar here or a dollar there…..but my Texas example, and many more like it, destroy your argument.
But you are too obtuse to follow….that’s your problem…..you can’t/won’t admit this circular argument has come around to bite you in your intellectual a— - GAME SET MATCH ME
The players are the guys on the field having the disappointing season that gets the boosters mad and the coach fired.
The more you need condescension and rudeness the more you tell me you’re wrong.
so what you’re saying is, the way players raise the revs is to lose so ticket sales will jump in antiticpation of a new coach? Your intellectual hole is getting deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeper
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.