for your professional career in whatever field you want to move into. College is the minor leagues of all industry - not just sports. Much of science and research is done at colleges - many businesses are prepared and started at college (facebook!). ADs should embrace and be thankful to have the opportunties to provide student/athletes training and financial opportunities - much like they embrace paying college coaches 10M + per year.

factors. Historically this was not particularly true. I'd say it is true for most people now. But it isn't universal. Many people weigh various factors when choosing colleges. They frequently don't simply choose the most efficient college to best prepare for post-college employment.

The significant difference of course is the fact these "minor league"athletes bring millions of dollars in revenues to the school. Compare the 85 scholarship football players and the revenue the football program generates and find me 85 undergrads on campus who generate a comparable amount of revenue through research grants or any sort of revenue for the University. Hell I would guess the top 85 undergrads dont generate the same revenue as the 12 players on the women's basketball team.

How many professors get paid what the coaches get paid?

Michigan pulls in close to $2b annually, Northwestern just under a billion, and the other tier 1s are generally in the $600-$700 million range at least.

That is professor's and institutes, not undergrad students, but if you took the top 85 students working in those labs, you'd probably get a hell of a lot of money.

Every year. On a superficial financial level that makes their grant raising ability worth tens of billions.

The jock sniffing here is sad.

perhaps we can set you up as the czar (fitting word, actually) of proper salaries.

You can go down the line items, determine how much money people are worth, and reward them (or not) accordingly.

are properly rewarded.

You know, they deserve a dorm room (with a roommate, of course), a few meals a day, and some free clothes.

Sounds fair.

First of all the research money is coming because of the professors and the students get the opportunity to work on the research by virtue of having been admitted into the program. I think the sports is just the opposite. I think the world of Brey and Freeman but I wasnt going to watch them on the sidelines.

Here is my quesiton. Why dnt schools tell told every undergrad on academic scholarship they need to work the same number of hours in their field of study as athletes log in their sports and that all funds generated from their work will go to the University.

I am not talking about a kid in the cafeteria on aid due to his economic background. I also understand that in many graduate programs this is part of the deal. Why is there no expectation the academic kids "earn" their keep like the athletes?

There are plenty of schools with better players and better results than ND. Nd makes more money. Players who come here deserve less of the pie

I can keep going all day.

students being required to work for free with the univeristy collecting the money?

Dump all pure athletic and academic scholarships. Put that money into lowering tuition for all.

Between need-based scholarships and NIL, everyone should be able to field the teams they need.

for the football team? If it is the brand why do we care who is the coach?

I do find it ironic that many on here like to criticize Swarbrick for only caring about the brand and now the answer to not paying players is because the money comes from the brand.

The entire problem is the system (not just ND all schools) was built on a system where it was deemed acceptable to tell the kids they cant get paid, they cant get a job, they cant transfer schools and play. It was less unseemly before the explosion of big money but when you have the money generated today paying thousands of people at schools and the ancillary businesses built around the sport but not the players it isnt right.

As Mr.E has posted look at the % of revenue schools spend on coaches compared to pros. My guess is there is something similar with regard to the front office / athletic department. Then think of the millions the schools raise around or adjacent to these programs.

Want to find out what the players are worth then let the negotiate individual deals. Of course the schools dont really want employees and all the responsibilities that come with that.

the brand and the labor. The question is obviously what a fair split would be.

Notre Dame takes in 77 million in profit. It certainly does not cost ND 85k for 85 athletes, and their costs for food/housing/clothes/etc. are certainly nowhere near what airborneirish would lead people to believe. So is it a fair distribution? Most people seem to agree that it's not, especially for the top end performers. The fact that the schools admit that they're taking from the money making sport to pay for the non revenue sports would seem to indicate that it's not equitable; the football and basketball players derive no benefit from non revenue sports.

Airborne says 85k per student plus factor in the cost of stadiums, coaching staffs, academic support staff, food, transportation, etc etc.

Perhaps I missed it in the posts below, but what do you think the cost associated with a scholarship football player including all of the above is? Also, what are the costs for an Olympic sport athlete?

Not net costs, just what are the expenditures?

(source: ND)

Men's Hoops - $832,109
Football - $699,832
Women's Hoops - $410,001
Men's Olympic - $227, 094
Women's Olympic - $166,070

(these numbers based on dividing the expenses by the # of scholarships allowed for particular sport. Expenses per scholarship player would go up, of course, if a particular sport does not have the full amount of scholarship players on a roster).

I'm going to guess that it's inflated to show the full cost of tuition which is saved by the athlete being on scholarship. I'm going to guess that they include the cost of the support staff, coaches, etc.

To say the least, it's misleading.

Earlier you said that 85k was ludicrous. Now we have an order of magnitude higher costs and you wave it away.

If a teenager moves to Florida to go to a sports academy with Nike sponsorship, we would include the costs of everything from schooling to travel allowances to support staff.

the proper category is "value" to the athlete, not cost to Notre Dame. It does not cost Notre Dame 85k per athlete. If you need the why behind that explained to you, I can't help you.

The coaches expenditure is also a bit silly but is more accurate as it relates to "cost." However, what makes it silly is that the money for those salaries is largely inflated due to the bloat on the staff (which the players don't necessarily benefit from in most cases) and the fact that the money is coming from in part the fruits of the labor and not just the brand. So basically, the players are paying for their coaches without a say in which coaches they have, which are fired, etc. Were players circa 2010 getting more value because Notre Dame was paying for screaming, red-faced, shanty Irish Mick and big fat Weis as well? Man, the cost to Notre Dame per scholarship athlete must have been high during those years--some return on investment that was!

You are treating the football team as if they are the last 85 marginal students and seem to be only accounting for tuition and room and board costs. In that case, the non scholarship players must cost 0.

To the degree it matters, I don’t know why you are minimizing the expenditures on the football team, some of whom are receiving not only a degree but also four to five years of training for the NFL.l and many more are receiving a shot at the NFL though they won’t make it. It’s not dissimilar to Florida prep academies for teens trying to get a scholarship or go pro.

You still didn’t put your marker down on the average cost per player.

again, you need help that I can't provide. You think that it costs Notre Dame full freight for the tuition of the scholarship players? Wow.

Also note that I addressed your second point (which indicates that you didn't bother to read the first time, which is par for the course with you) about value to the player of the scholarship. There is no question there is value much higher than 85k to the scholarship athlete; that still doesn't change the point that it is not a direct cost to the school, dummy.

...delivering an undergraduate education relative to tuition. From what I've seen, highly selective universities like Notre Dame typically spend slightly more per student on undergraduate education than what they charge in full freight tuition. And I seem to recall a statement from Notre Dame a few years back that its spending per student on undergraduate education was about 11% higher than full freight tuition.

Note that none of this has to do with what it SHOULD cost to deliver an undergraduate education, just was it actually DOES cost (i.e., it includes however much bloat one is inclined to believe exists).

All of which is to say that it doesn't strike me as ludicrous to suggest that Notre Dame spends $85K per player on non-football related expenses.

Of course, doing the same exercise - revenue is like $1.6M per scholarship FB player

tremendously lucrative business for Notre Dame (and every power 5 school, and many group of 5 schools, and even a lot of FCS schools).

"most dont really pay that amount" so dont know that it is the right number to use here.

love it if my kids were talented enough to get that.

These kids are among the best in the nation (world) at what they do and bring value to the University. We dont ask the kids on Academic Scholarship to go out and earn millions in revenue for the school so why do we think the scholarship is adequate compensation for those laying sports?

Take top line and divide by 85. That is around $1 million. It’s not even close to “”each player earning million(s)”. You guys need to take a step back and do some honest accounting. Just because the coaches are extracting a ridiculous sum from the school does not mean the players are generating millions each.

There’s also the reality that ND can field a JV team and still generate revenue. To that end the reality is the players ought to be entitled to a share of the incremental revenue they generate. And I reality NIL ought to efficiently accomplish that.

If we can get on the same page regarding value created, the cost to create it, etc we can get on the same page for the value each player ought to fairly capture. As is the ideas thrown out here are risible.

First, I hate the word deserve. Nobody deserves anything. You get what you demand.

Second, take all compensation restrictions off the table. Schools and boosters can write any offer they want to sign any athlete to play any sport. Athletes should have competent representation that has passed the necessary licensing similar to that required of NBA and NFL agents. Write and enforce rules about fraud and academics, tampering, etc. which can serve to protect players and keep the schools at least as honest as they currently are about the academic mission.

It's really not that hard. There is an entire page of posts about worth and value and appropriate restrictions. Who are we to say worth or value. Should the 85th man on the roster "deserve" anything? Maybe, maybe not. No different than the 12th man on an NBA team. But, if they were able to fairly contract for the services then it's a moot point. Maybe for the vast majority of players, the best offer they receive will be a 4 year scholarship. Maybe the top 20 players take so much of the pie that #50-85 no longer receive full scholarships or any scholarship at all. Maybe women's gymnastics and volleyball and tennis and down the line no longer have scholarships to offer or the ability to play in conference matches from coast to coast. Who the fuck cares?! If you do care then please explain to me how it's fair that some athletes should be expected to subsidize other athletes.


If Notre Dame wants to play it like the Cubs and argue for a "home town" discount to market values because of the "added value of the brand" then so be it. Notre Dame is free to contract how'd they like relative to how successful they want the on-field product to be. I'd argue that if they want it to be national championship quality then they are going to need to spend the money acquiring talent. Of course, a middling playoff team could, and probably would, be far more profitable for the University and is probably the route they would take.

Wow, I had no idea it cost the school that much.

Withiout the players putting in the work that revenue isnt there. My point is why do we expect athletes on scholarship to work for the beneft of the school but not students on academic scholarship;

I disagree we could field a JV team and generate the same revenue. A JV team would not compete agains the top teams. Goodbye NBC contract. Goodbye ticket sales. Hell look at what is happening with ticket sales to lesser games on the schedule. To generate the revenues we do you need a top flight program. A JV tean would be in the Ivy League and we know they dont generate the same money.

You are saying now they shoud get the incremental revenue they create but that is starting from a place where the system was designed to prohibit them from being able to get the revenue they generated in the first place.

To me implicit in this objeciton is the romantic ideal these students are just kids on campus who hapened to be good at a sport and get togther and play neighbor schools. If it truly is just the University creating the value and the players are not adding any the stop recruiting, hold tryouts in August for any student admitted and field a team. You could even use the interhall teams as a farm club or development squad and if someone gets hurt pick up replacement players from those teams.

This point and a few stand outs can arguably profit from NIL. I doubt anyone here can name more than 20 players. These guys are getting after tax benefits worth nearly $100k a year. On a pre tax basis that’s around 180k in income. If you guys think they should be paid all you’re going to do is make it so the irs gets them some of the pie. This whole argument is dumb and enabled by the bogus accounting that goes on with non profits.

let's eliminate the barriers and find out, shall we?

You and I (and others) can speculate all we want, but I think it's better to let the market decide. If the courts decide that these kids are employees (decent chance), there will need to be a plan in place.

simply stomping your feet and declaring, "they're not worth that much!" isn't going to fly; I can be pissed off that my costs for employees has doubled over the past 8 years, but I can't just decide to not pay them because I don't think they're worth that much.

How foolish.

And allow (force) the NFL to get in on it as well.

But unfortunately, I don't think most college players are worth that much. A small percentage are. I don't make the claim that colleges can't afford it, but I'm not convinced that most D1 college football players - let alone most D1 college athletes - will be better off in a market based system. A small percentage will do dramatically better (though maybe not much better than NIL allows), a larger, but still small chunk will do about the same, and the vast majority will be worse off.

The top 6 cap hits on the Chiefs make up more than 50% of the total team salary. College will likely follow a similar route where Isaiah Foskey, Mayer, Ben Morrison, Joe Alt and Sam Hartman get compensated the highest compared to the guys at the bottom of the roster.

At the end of the day, I’d rather those guys get the money compared to the coaches and Admin. The players are the ones sacrificing their health for our enjoyment.

If Chris O’Leary makes, say, $500k, Morrison is worth at least 3x.

If Al Washington makes $500K, I’d pay a stud edge prospect like Keon Keeley $2M per year. He’d be worth it, even if "unproven" - just like Will Anderson, unproven as he is, will be worth whatever he gets from the Arizona Cardinals with the 3rd pick next month.

Sam Hartman should probably be making $5M this year.

The NFL has always been able to change their rules to suit their needs. The NFL players have collectively bargained for the three year rule. And your answer, rather than remove compensation restrictions for college athletes, is to force the NFL players and owners to change their rules?

Why does it matter that some will be better off but most won’t? Even assuming that’s true, which I doubt it is, a system of artificial restraint which is then partially filled by black market compensation hardly seems the better alternative. But, maybe the whole thing burns itself up, and we go back to some form of the current system in 20 or 30 years. Seems a worthwhile risk compared to watching schools taking advantage of free labor to sign $10m contracts for mediocre coaches.

You probably don’t think Brian Kelly is a $10m coach, but he is according to LSU. So that should guide your thinking when you say “I don’t think most college players are worth that much”

If it wasn't for a specially granted congressional exemption.

The idea that the existing employment based model should be allowed to continue to collude to not hire people while the existing amateur model should be forced to pay people doesn't quite make sense to me.

I'm advocating removing restrictions on pay which I think is a pretty big difference. If schools don't want to pay then so be it -- as long as the athletes have appropriate representation.

Then it's forcing pay.

Now, I'll admit that I haven't researched whether Hollywood actors are characterized as independent contractors or employees. I thought at one time that professional athletes were independent contractors, but based on what I have found online in limited searching, they are employees.

I don't feel like getting into the IRS definition of employees vs. independent contractors. I would guess based on the captive and control provisions, it is likely the IRS would deem NCAA athletes employees.

Based on the black market compensation historically and now with NIL, it appears that both sides are in agreement that there is surplus value provided by the service providers. I'm not forcing universities to change their rules. I'd force the NCAA to abolish the amateurism rules thus allowing its member institutions the freedom to contract with the athletes as they'd like and for the athletes to procure proper representation. If Notre Dame wanted to continue with their current approach of NIL and scholarships and no other compensation, then I don't have a problem with it. They won't win, but I have come to expect that result anyway so no change there.

$25K per scholarship player per year. That's the same payroll as Texas Tech's football team's player payroll.

I believe at least a small group of high-performers get a lot more (mid 6 figures) or have done so in this most recent year. "NIL"...or whatever.

Ohio State is targeting $13M per year. Penn State/Franklin are on the record for wanting similar for payroll. Harbaugh thinks Michigan could do 2x that. Locksley (Maryland) says he could do well with 1/2 of the $13M Ryan Day wants.

Imagine that. The schools (well, their captive but "independent" charities) are voluntarily raising money to sign these players to deals out of the goodness of their hearts. That's so sweet of them. I was told in this thread that it's not a market so it can't be supply and demand driving these payments. We all know that 1st round All-American tight ends are a dime a dozen.

And, if anything isn't a more clear example of the stupidity of the current amateur structure, it's every single school funneling donations to NIL funds. So, rather than just removing the arcane amateurism rules around compensation and player representation, they've implemented a system where they are openly paying players but saying "it's not directly from the school". It's the equivalent of the pastor's daughter fucking half the football team but saying she's still a virgin because she only does anal. Well, sure, technically, but not really.

Justin Scott, the 5 star defensive line prospect at St. Ignatius, should have an attorney and an agent (certified by the NCAA) helping him with this process. Certainly not his high school football coach or a "friend of the family". We treat these kids like professionals in every way when it comes to the schools' interest but not when it comes to their own interests. It's preposterous the number of people on this board supporting the continuation of the obvious power imbalance.

They did a little post-mortem on their interview of Swarbrick from earlier in this week.

Wetzel finds it laughable that the NCAA/C. Baker are trying to turn NIL into a consumer protection concern while ignoring/blocking any progress to a free market system (which apparently Baker ran on politically at some point?), and the joke of a system that major CFB is in that it doesn't allow players the basic right of negotiating.

The transparency guy was full of shit. If they want to require disclosure to the school or another governing body, then it should only go as far as KYC-type reporting and not into actual contract terms.

I get most frustrated about the whole thing when people act like there aren't other models to follow for how to execute and where to put guardrails to protect from bad actors. The NBA and NFL have agent certification and registration requirements. I'm pretty sure both leagues also have rules about the kinds of products that can be endorsed.


I don't love salary caps or even collective bargaining at least to start. I'd prefer running it wide open for 5 or so years to see if universities are able avoid colluding to keep compensation down or, on the other end, bankrupting themselves with bad deals. If, after 5 years, the athletes want to consider unionizing and collective bargaining then it might make sense. Jumping straight there will be a bad deal for the players almost guaranteed.

Michael Mayer and Drake Maye are recent examples of success stories. Same with Nigel Pack, Nico I (Tennessee QB), Kansas State basketball, et al. The Rashada deal was unfortunate, but probably a necessary learning point for recruits and current CFB players.

I agree a wide-open marketplace (like the real world job market) would be better than unionized labor and salary caps and floors. I bang the 50% rev share drum primarily to show the discrepancy in treatment between Major CFB and the other 4 major pro leagues. 5% vs. 50%.

I believe the free market is much better. Let Ohio State find their $13M and see if that is enough to compete. If not, ratchet it up to $25M, $30M, $60M whatever it takes to pay the players and still have a shot at the national title.

If Northwestern wants to put all their donations from Ryan into a stadium and keep player payroll at $2M a year, pocket the TV money, and go 1-11, so be it.

Dan Wetzel as guest ("Fixing College Football"). Much of the same from Wetzel plus more. Should be required listening for all CFB fans. A couple of highlights:

"Amateurism is a ruse"

"What is morally wrong about paying people money that are good at sports?"

The NCAA and all the ADs are bureaucrats that like rules, structures, codes and would be better off just letting NIL "go" wherever it may go. There is no problem. As Wetzel continually asked Swarbrick "Where's the problem?"

Freeman wants NIL "enhanced."

Anything to avoid the looming FLSA/DOL/Title IX clusterfuck he's created.

And agree on Justin Scott, he should do quite well if he chooses to shop around.

If Alabama wants to offer ND's best player $1M to play TE for 1 season, he should be able to consider that option, go back to ND with that information, receive a counteroffer and then make a decision.

And same with all players, regardless of star power or benchwarmer status.

Recruits too.

I am fine with this less-restrictive model as well, although I see it being a lot messier than the NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL collectively-bargained rev share structure.

Contracts would eventually start to look like coach's contracts with termination language and fees, guarantees, moral character language, etc.

Colleges and athletic departments would be free to make decisions they think are in their best interests as would athletes. Budgets and pay ranges by position will develop. Some schools and boosters will care more than others and invest what many would consider to be insane amounts. Some will pay lip service to competing, pay below market, and extract huge profits. Same as it's ever been.

they deserve/demand from the system, it would be a much better system than the current one.

I'm not a lawyer, but from what I understand the courts are loathe to override such agreements; setting eligibility for employment is a right that I can certainly see subject to bargaining.

Lou Holtz made around $100k while the cost of a scholarship was around $20k.

In 2023, Marcus Freeman makes $5 million while Michael Mayer earned $80k (the cost of a scholarship).

Do you think it makes any sense whatsover that in the span of 30 years, we've gone from coaches earning 5x more than their players to 50x?

You are right that some players right now have a good deal under the current rules. But the current system is not even close to fair market value for the top 25 percent of the roster.

you might argue that was the "value" of the scholarship, but it wasn't the cost. Of course, that doesn't factor in financial aid, grants, etc.

Don't get fooled by the NCAA shell game. Next thing you know we'll be discussing the ramifications of title 9 if football and basketball players are determined to be employees. It's a distraction ploy.

from the university.

and if you want to pay the players a salary (it would now be around 85k, I believe), you can 1099 them the money for the tuition and pay them a salary on top of it.

These aren't insurmountable obstacles, but guys like Jack and Fr Jenkins want you to believe that they are.

If you don't think Michael Mayer had offers to go elsewhere for big money...

Collectives are being tucked in to internal football program operations at places like Ole Miss so the coach can figure out who to pay what. Brian Polian's job is now basically just that. Ryan Day wants $13M to pay his roster.

Each ND player gets a fixed NIL payment of low 5-figures. Other schools have the same arrangement (Texas Tech just one example). A non-inducement inducement.

The talent is the product. The talent sells TV ads.

And yet for a CFB program that has top line of $100M, the players only get about 5% of that. A steal for the schools.

ND, at $150M in revenue and only $8M in scholarships...and we wonder why JS and JJ are writing op-eds.

Amortization of the stadium and facilities alone is $30 million a year. Then there is the cost of coaching, subsidizing women’s sports, transpiration ($1 million a pop 7-9 times a year) etc etc.

Most enterprises shoot for profitability of 10-12% of top line. For the players to capture nearly 10% of that in all in benefits tells me they are amply compensated.

We have NIL. Mayer etc can get a fair shake. Paying them all more is insulting to the student body generally.

why should the football players be concerned with that?

I'm not sure what transpiration is, but that's an interesting line item. 9 million dollars a year for that seems odd, you would have thought I might have heard of it.

And how exactly is paying them more insulting to the student body? How is it any business of the student body?

You seem to be very concerned about what amount of money other people make, which I find odd. Why would you begrudge someone the opportunity to make more money? Do you feel that their talents belong to the state or something? Would you be more comfortable with a socialist or communist economy?

not the athlete's problem. You can't and shouldn't ask labor to solve management's problems without giving labor something significant in return. The question then becomes, is what labor is getting significant enough to justify what they're giving up? Many argue that it isn't, especially for the top end guys at the highest revenue schools.

We aren't in the oil and gas industry. ND, and other schools, spend profligately because they aren't supposed to be turning a profit. That $30M equates to what, almost ~$1B of capital expenditures? There's also debt service on top of the depreciation, which further degrades profitability.

The number of athletic departments which have revenue equate to expenses is absurd.

the players.

In fact, they spend a ton on facilities to entice players because they aren't paying them. They also don't need a dozen analysts on staff but, again, there's a lot of money to spend.

The Big-10 is about to distribute $100M annually to each of its member schools. That is going to be $50-60M of incremental revenue at almost 100% profitability to those schools. SEC is in the same, enviable boat.

The Big-12 just signed a deal that will increase its TV revenue by an average of 75%.

Also, NFL teams spend about 4% on coaching staffs. CFB is closer to 12-15%.

Right-sizing that spend would free up millions per year

I Would like to see a wage report for the athletic departments of CFB programs. Probably could find another several million per year there too.

And then there's the arms race spending on facilities...the fault of the ADs and Presidents.

We statutorily need to support. The team doesn’t “make millions”. That’s a falsity and until we can agree on that there is nothing to talk about. I hate Jenkins and soredick but they are correct in so far as they say these aren’t the money minting ventures the agents think they are.

First, we dont have the money to pay because schools established a system where they did not need to pay the players and then spent the money in other ways.

The question I would ask is why (ignoring title IX) you think it is right for basketball and football players to be required to work for the same scholarship the non-revenue athlete gets. If you owned a company that had 4 subs 2 made money and two lost money would you tell the employees of the profitable companies sorry I cant pay you more because I need to pay those people?

From your postings on other boards here I know that is not an idea you support.

If these issues are not dealt with well it may mean the end of college sports as we know it but that is more a refelction that college sports did not change its system to reflect the changes it went through.

that question about subsidizing other sports, there is never a good answer given as to why revenue producing sports should subsidize non revenue producing sports. Truthfully, there is never an answer at all. Here, your question is ignored and I've posted it several other times, notably to that dishonest poster irishdog80, and it is never addressed. Worse even, he doesn't note the difference between business partners (the NCAA member schools) distributing surplus amongst the partnership and athletes supporting other athletes who are in different sports and who are not partners in the slightest.

It's a very, very dishonest approach. There are reasons to not pay the athletes any more, but the horse is out of the barn now. You can't treat it as a big business on one hand and then amateur athletics on the other. It just doesn't work that way.

I think an alternate title might be “clean up college sports”. It is at least possible to achieve a positive outcome:
Market based NIL
Athletes motivated by degrees, and by life after both sports and the degree
Students who can actually cut it in the classroom (we do a student no favors by enrolling them in a program for which they are not intellectually prepared, and many well-intentioned efforts to help them may as often as not end up diminishing the experience of those students who are actually prepared for more advanced study)
The transfer portal could (and should), with certain limitations, be regulated primarily to the extent that any academic transfer is regulated. The central criterion should be whether it makes sense for the degree a student is aiming to obtain. The NCAA could legitimately require stronger academic oversight of transfers, which might limit the tendency of the transfer portal to degenerate into a secondary recruiting market.
Hidden in this crisis is the chance for college athletics to return to its natural place within the university structure.
Those who would transfer only to maintain their viability for a professional career might consider a move to a minor league
Possibly less revenue overall in the system (although I doubt it), but there would be an argument for even stricter accountability about where and how the money is flowing, tied to the academic mission of the University

Perhaps most of all, there is a chance to reflect that the value of a college education is not reducible to the financial return that a graduate will realize in a lifetime. A decent college education transforms the potential of the person as such, not just his or her potential to make money or contribute materially to society as a worker. To the extent that this is not true in practice, the logical solution would seem to be to reform the university, not to deform it by further reversing the priority of its natural relation to athletics

It also feels a little strange that the argument is sometimes framed in almost Marxist terms, as if the university is robbing the student-athlete of surplus value in a labor-capital dispute. In either case we risk reducing education to an economic transaction. Standard objections to Marxist analysis could also apply, to the limited extent that the analogy to a Marxist analysis might even be applicable. As I said, it’s a strange path to go down, but some do seem to argue along that path.

podcast and stated ND would need a TV contract generating dollars similar to the SEC and Big 10 in order to keep ND football independent.

predicament. They seem to be implying that football and perhaps basketball players would no longer be students. And in that case, what they hypothesize may be correct -- a bunch of non-revenue sports would dry up. So the answer to that is to keep football and basketball players as students, which means that the women's sports would have to remain. See Title IX.

The way to address that problem is to distribute the revenue from football and basketball among all sports/athletes.

Their timing is impeccable.

It’s interesting…almost everyone agrees that JJ/JS are coming across as whiney douchebags in this piece.

Something about them being out of touch, opportunistic hypocrits.

I go to sports talk radio.

Not defending the op-ed, but there is not worse group of freeloading do-nothing hangers-on than the sportz media. And at some level, they have a huge hand in creating this monster.

It's wonderful when you don't have to win anything, or educate any kids. All you have to do is say things that sportz fans love to hear. They know the audience loves to be stirred against the establishment, and for most of them, anything Notre Dame.

• Click here for link at https://twitter.com/DanMurphyESPN/status/1638896444533792771

the rule as opposed to the payments rumored to be going on at other schools.

Whether that is correct I dont know but i have not seen us rumored to be paying fees like we have heard at other schools.

They extoll the virtues obtaining a college degree & they cite ND's graduation rates. What about grad rates at other P5 FB programs? Among those who actually graduate, how many obtain meaningful degrees? How many P5 players major in parks & rec or PE? How many P5 players even remain on scholarship for 4 or 5 years at the university to which they signed a LOI?

How, exactly, does musical chairs w/ conference ties fit the "student-ahtlete" model? How does athletes from USC and UCLA traveling to RU and MD (and vice versa) for conference play fit that model?

There are multiple other questions to be raised, but those are the obvious ones.

I'll channel my inner ACross as to this column--F

The reporter said (about college athletics): "It's certainly been a money-making venture for a long time in this country."

Swarbrick's response: "It has, for some schools. It's important to note that a lot of schools subsidize their athletic programs. They're not money-making."

Maybe that's true, but it's damn sure not true of Notre Dame. And Swarbrick has made generational money serving as AD as a result.

…was true 25 years ago.

And scholarships. If you want to get real nuts toss in the professors who basically teach football only classes.

From Andy Staples, of the Athletic:

But that level of self-awareness doesn’t exist for the people who run major college sports. They have chosen over decades to build a multibillion-dollar business, and they still think they can appeal to the government and to an increasingly cynical public to hold on to a system that even they admit is broken.

On Thursday, The New York Times (The Athletic’s parent company) published an op-ed from Notre Dame president John Jenkins and athletic director Jack Swarbrick that cloaked itself in nostalgia while nakedly asking the U.S. government to codify a system that will allow schools and their executives and coaches to enjoy all the benefits of running a couple of major American sports with none of the pesky annoyances like paying market value for the talent or negotiating with the workforce. Jenkins and Swarbrick also command the NFL to create its own minor league instead of using the perfectly good — and incredibly popular — one they’ve created. They’d also like the NBA to abolish its age limit.

• Click here for link at https://theathletic.com/4340398/2023/03/23/notre-dame-oped-n

Woo Hoo.

Kobe and LeBron did just fine.

If you can't hack it, go play in Europe and still get paid.

to be drafted because they cant project who will do well as easily? That being said the development of the G league helps with that problem.

everyone in the general public, so why should it be for those who want and can play football or basketball professionally?

There is an obvious recognition that many high school students do not have the acumen for college and are better served learning a trade or pursuing employment in areas that don’t require a college degree. Yet we somehow think that those who play professional sports are all intellectually equipped to meaningfully attend college. Obviously, many aren’t and forcing them into college and expecting them to remain academically eligible ends up making a farce of the whole enterprise.

And have done a good job building up the G league.

I know the NFL looks at the XFL as a lab environment to try stuff (and a good place to source seasoned talent if needed).

my business would be a lot more profitable if I didn't have to pay my staff as well. "But I give them office space to use!" would be my argument.

If they go to some sort of pay model, how do they account for tuition and other costs? Free tuition is compensation. And the range of tuition is wide across major programs where it's cheaper to go to Alabama than ND or Stanford or USC. Do players have to now contribute to their education from their wages earned?

Or are we just dispensing with the notion that these kids are going to class and instead they are just employees of the school with no requirements to actually be students? So there is actually no cost of educating them.

Is it any different from some employers choosing to subsidize a graduate degree or professional certification for their employees?

Could we even have a scenario where some players are employees who choose not to pursue a degree while other players do want to take advantage of the university education given the shelf life of a football player?

Haven't University employees' kids historically been able to attend for free? Is it treated as taxable compensation to the employee?

Does anyone know if employees themselves are able to attend degree-earning classes for free?

my wife works for a large health care provider/teaching hospital and I believe that they give substantial tuition reimbursement for employees getting degrees/certifications.

I believe that it is treated as taxable income, which would seemingly solve this issue. Give them tuition reimbursement for passing their classes and then a 1099 and call it a day. Notre Dame can make a strong argument that the value of the education is worth it, and make a case to compare it to CA schools (as an example) state income tax.

I'm not saying I disagree with many of the arguments and points presented in the article, but my guess is this op-ed is being driven by Swarbrick who is trying to publicly repair his image after the Ludwig/Be Irish fiasco.

None of the points raised in this article are groundbreaking or thought provoking. And in fact, Swarbrick and Jenkins still fail to address how the professionalization of college athletics has created a massive financial windfall for themselves and their institutions without compensating their labor at market rates.

about this long before the Ludwig / Be Irish fiasco. They have been making many of these same points in those meetings.

The ADs, Admins, and coaches are all making obscene amounts of money due to ever increasing TV revenue while keeping player compensation fixed at the cost of a scholarship. Everything else is just window dressing.

universities did not want to give up their money. There is more than enough money in the system but that would require cutting salaries in athletic department budgets across the country and that is not going to happen.

I do think they are trying to find a way to do better by the students and keep the college experience they talk about.

To me the entire endeavor is sort of like the rehab of Soldier Field. The design they have sucks but it is the best solution to a problem for which there is no good solution. I dont think anyone would design a system where you have a multi-billion dollar business built on unpaid labor but that is what evolved. And from my point of view the issue is less about "pay" and more about the ancillary issues related to employees like worker's compensation and health insurance and the like.

bargaining agreement with the players is a WHEN, no longer an IF. Any solution to the current issues plaguing the NCAA that do not address collective bargaining are not good faith arguments in my opinion; the op-ed from Jack and Jenkins didn't address collective bargaining.

In my opinion, we saw the impact COVID had on athletic departments. I think school universities and presidents all know that collective bargaining is coming down the pipe here sooner rather than later and are shitting their pants at the havoc that's going to have on their P&Ls as well as administrative bloat. My cynical take away from their op-ed was that they're hoping for a hail mary from Congress that allows them to continue with their cartel-like business operations.

form of college athletics that most others dont care about. As I said in another post I think they are trying to find the best solution to a problem that does not have a good solution. No one would ever create a business where the labor does not get paid but that is what eveolved here.

discussion/argument. On the one hand, the athletes are already being paid with a tax free scholarship, athletic wardrobe, some stipends, top tier room and board and, as needed, high level tutoring. Depending upon the school the total compensation can range from, on the very low end, $35,000 per year at a public institution to over $100,000 at private schools...not too bad for, in many cases, a part time job for an undereducated 18-22 year old. Add in that many of those athletes are not high performers or difference makers on the field or at the turnstiles for their respective program and you have a system that has worked for over a 100 years.

The biggest complication is most college athletes don't deserve any more than the "league minimum" described above. If you move beyond the top tier programs in football, basketball and, to a certain extent, baseball and hockey, you will find a wasteland of empty stadiums and stretched athletic department budgets figuring out how to get their men's and women's swim teams from California to New Jersey for a swim meet.

If you look at most professional sports leagues and teams, over 60% of the athletes are tenuously earning the league minimum and are happy they got it. The same issue applies to college athletes...the top 20% of players in high revenue sports are making a difference with the top 5-10% truly deserving of additional compensation and that only applies to the schools with high attendance figures for revenue sports...maybe 35% of D1 programs--too many schools are forced to make money by being paid to be cannon fodder for powerhouse programs. If all athletes were "paid", most schools would start dropping sports and the number of scholarships granted.

NIL is a step in the right direction with, unfortunately, too many ethical loopholes currently for it to work for everyone. Star college athletes should be compensated for their jersey sales at the bookstore or in national retailers, appearances in commercials or work with promotional partners of the respective athletic program, and even some form of "performance" bonus for being a true difference maker on the field. The fact is 90%+ of scholarship athletes do not deserve any additional compensation beyond what they are already getting and, if truth be told, many of them don't even "earn" the full value of their scholarship.

Tweak the system, don't overturn it; otherwise, the final result will be a "super" division of school's that are purely minor leagues for the pros and the athletes being employees, not students.

it honestly in terms of the amount of time "required" for the positon you would need to include time in class and studying as well. If a player fails to maintain grades they are not eligibe to play so it is every bit as much part of the time requirement as the practices, film sessions, rehab session etc.

I am not saying they should be paid for studying but I dont think it is fair to characterize Division I athletics as a part time job.

What's ironic is that in his very next paragraph, he unintentionally acknowledges as much in talking about traveling between California and New Jersey for competition.

Anybody who would attempt to assert with a straight face that being a Division I athlete isn't a full-time job hasn't spent any time around one recently. Or at least not ones at programs that are trying to win.

spending 40 hours a week, 12 months a year? I don't think so. And if you are in a non-revenue spring or fall sport during your "off" semester, training does not take up your whole week.

I was unaware an occasional "business trip" to New Jersey from California meant you were now working a "full time" job.

There are over 1000 colleges and universities with athletic programs. Yes, some work, between school work and athletic work, full time during their seasons. The idea that it is truly "full time" 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year is a stretch at best.

See link for what happens to most schools when athletes get "paid".

• Click here for link at https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenweaver/2023/03/20/ncaa-div

...have that be your post, and stop embarrassing yourself.

to go to school is fair compensation for the vast majority of college athletes. Some deserve more, but all the hubbub and hand wringing is largely overblown. Most athletes are lucky to get their school paid for and then some. The truly elite athletes that change the revenue dynamic at an institution deserve higher compensation. End of story.

Please explain your point that someone flying to New Jersey from California for a swim meet means they are working full time. Thanks.

Oh, so if you were one of those who deserved more, you would be totally fine with the situation because of the common good and all?

And of course guys like Jack Swarbrick and Gene Smith deserve it most of all. So you would happily give up any portion of the pie so that those guys could create generational wealth, right?

a ceiling for what that compensation should be. CEO/Coach/Athletic Director, etc. compensation in this country has gone through the roof at the expense of much of the workforce. The same issue applies to sports. If an NFL team overpays for a QB that is league average of underperforms, the team and it's performance is hurt. I am a big believer in performance incentives...too many athletes, corporate executives, entertainers, etc. are overpaid for essentially non-performance and underperforming their replacement level person.

If you look at Lou Holtz's approx. salary in the early 90s (~$120k) to Freeman's salary today ($5-$7m million), you're looking at an around 40x increase.

If you look at the cost of attendance for a ND student over 4 years (cost of a scholarship) in the 90s (~$80-100k) versus today (~$320k), you're looking at a 4x increase.

The disparity is absolutely insane. My guess is if you compared Mike Wadsworth's salary to Jack Swarbrick's, you'd see a similar 30-40x increase.

…or that they should not be paid above some minimal amount without pretending that what they’re doing is equivalent to a part-time job.

I would direct you to nohow’s post below. Start with the fact that coaches are allowed to demand 20 hours per week of activity. And that they therefore demand every second of that 20. Then take a gander at the list of activities (including, but very much not limited to travel) that don’t count towards that 20. Having done so, you will realize that the hours involved are routinely well in excess of 40 hours a week in season. And that the hours off-season, while less, are very much not nothing. Indeed, it is during the off-season when I think being a student-athlete could accurately be described as a part-time job. But since it’s a job and a half in season, the total number of hours expanded in a year is well in excess of what any reasonable person would describe as part-time.

for an 18-22 year old to make. The bottom line is there is a line outside the door waiting for that same scholarship.

Why haven't you explained your earlier comment, "What's ironic is that in his very next paragraph, he unintentionally acknowledges as much in talking about traveling between California and New Jersey for competition." means they are working full time. Are you saying traveling a few times a year means you deserve full time compensation? Back in the day, I must have been working several full time jobs. Please elaborate.

I have stated no opinion whatsoever about what what level of compensation (if any) student-athletes should be entitled to. I have merely defended the obvious reality that being a serious Division I athlete is not a "part-time" commitment in terms of the hours involved when you aggregate those hours across an entire year of both in-season and off-season.

Student-athletes only travel from California to New Jersey a few times per year? Guess what they're doing when not traveling from California to New Jersey. Traveling from New Jersey to upstate New York. Which teams without access to chartered flights often do on buses. And, as already noted, travel was offered as just one example of the dozens of things that students-athletes are required to do that don't count toward the NCAA hour limit.

As you appear to need this spelled out for you like a 5 year old, allow me to do so. I'll use my wife's sport as an example.

Friday - Sunday: Travel and competition. 35 hours, minimum. Even if you're at home and there's no travel, those hours get filled up with other things (e.g., hosting recruits).

Monday: "Off." Except for any treatment, physical therapy, counseling, etc. you might need. Also a common day for stuff like community events and media. So call it 1-2 hours, minimum. But maybe there's a lift in there and/or a "captain's practice" which could push it to 3-5 hours.

Tuesday - Thursday: Practice. 2.5 hours per day, minimum. Lift/conditioning - 1 hour, minimum. Assorted team meetings - 1 hour, minimum. Plus all of the treatment, physical therapy, counseling, etc. from Monday again. Call it 5 hours per day, minimum.

We're now looking at around 55 hours per week in season. On a good week. Without anything that anyone is doing individually to get themselves better (remember all those stories during March Madness about the guys who stick around for 2 hours after practice working on free throws? Yeah - that takes time). And note that this doesn't include class or study hall, which I would allocate to the "student" side of the "student-athlete" equation.

In the "off season" (probably 5ish months out of the year in aggregate), let's call it 15 hours a week (although for many, it's quite a bit more).

Half a year spent working 55 hours per week and half a year spent working 15 hours per week does not a part-time job make.

have to document your hours to prove that you were gainfully working 35-40 hours a week. I truly doubt most NCAA athletes are "working" full time for their sport any more than your average industrious student is working "full time" so they can get into med school or a great job. We all make choices with how we spend our time and it is often dependent upon where we see the return. For many athletes they put in the extra time so they can get a bigger reward.

I get it, your wife puts in a lot of hours and it seems to make you mad. No reason to be a keyboard warrior with the insults. Refute my arguments, don't attack me with histrionics...it's weak.

I'm convinced. Is this like in A Few Good Men? "I strenuously object? Is that how it's done?"

Irishdog80 (whose closest encounter to a Division I athlete is on his widescreen every Saturday): "I doubt that it's a full-time commitment.

jt/FL_Irish/others with direct experience of the commitment required to be a serious Division I athlete: "Actually it is, and here's the math that shows that it is."

Irishdog80: "No, no. I TRULY doubt that it is."

jt/FL_Irish/others with direct experience of the commitment required to be a serious Division I athlete: "Oh. You truly doubt. Then I'll take some time and reconsider."

The hours my wife works don't make me mad. People who have no idea what they're talking about do.

but prattle on. You clearly have a beef about how much time some athletes spend. For most, it is a personal decision to put in the hours to give them a better chance towards a future reward.

The point is even a "full time" athlete at Notre Dame is making the equivalent of around 100k pre-tax. I hope that 18-22 year old is putting in the hours. With respect to most other sports, it is a handsomely paid, mostly, part time job.

who are there so the Univeristy can profit off them in a way the really good student on scholarship is not expected to benefit the University. They also are forced to sacrifice other aspects of the college experience due to the requirements of their "part-time" job.

What would your view be if NCAA schools required students awarded an academic scholarship to work 55 hours a week one semester and 20 hours a week another semster and then stay around for the summer take classes and work for 20 hours a week?

I do not profess to have a silver bullet for the "NIL" situation and fully agree some level of compensation is long overdue yet with the system being also abused, but as an example, a classmate was the first female 4.0 CHEG graduate....and also captained an elite WSOC team that could have won an NC. Women's soccer did not derive a single dollar of revenue from my student game attendance as a free sport, yet many of these fellow alumni have become very successful after; to paraphrase Ike's "I want a man for a dangerous mission. Send me a West Point football player", I may amend to please let me work with the Olympics sports walk-on who woke up at 5am when no one on campus was watching, yet also graduated & became a successful doctor, businessperson, teacher etc. This might be my blue & gold tinted glasses, but I do think ND has done an incredible job with the sports out of the limelight but whom end up wonderful representatives of our University, and no problem whatsoever on my end with them getting scholarships and some sort of monetary compensation.

with the way the Univeristy has supported the non-revenue sports since I graduated.

non-revenue sports.

understand it, maintaining an academic scholarship requires performance commensurate with the reward. If you don't achieve, the money goes away. The University also grants academic scholarships with the belief having quality students benefits the university in terms of prestige and, likely, hoped for alumni dollars down the line from a high achieving and thankful alumni.

You make a good point. Clearly my "part time" reference hit a raw nerve for some. With 20 varsity sports at Notre Dame, many do not require a full time year round commitment thus my reference.

players.

do explain. And when you're explaining, use the math. And don't pull up your bullshit numbers of what it might cost to go buy some t shirts at the store, go ahead and figure out how much it actually costs the school. Same with tuition, room and board, etc. Actual cost to the school, not what it would cost the individual.

If you're going to make that sort of claim, you had better be able to back it up.

Hint: Notre Dame football turned a 50 plus million dollar profit last year, IIRC. They aren't losing money on ANY of these kids. What a bullshit argument.

for the third string offensive guard.

...clue about what they require? Are you aware, for example, that there are non-revenue sports that compete in both the Fall and Spring semesters?

Lay your cards on the table. Both and I jt are of the opinion that is fairly obvious you have no meaningful exposure to Division I athletics based on some of your statements. Prove us wrong. What is your exposure? Which of the sports do not require a full-time year round commitment?

Do you have any actual evidence to offer? Or are we still stuck in the land of what you "truly believe"?

in both semesters. And for what it's worth I have cousins that were D1 athletes on both sides of the family...Big Ten football on my side, Ivy League and mid-major on my wife's. Also have cousin's that are a former D1 head football coach and another that is a current Commissioner of a D1 Conference...smaller schools. I have worked most of my career in trademark licensing working with major television networks, sports associations, and minor leagues. What are your's and JT's references?

I consider full time 12 months a year, 40 hours a week or the equivalent.

…year as you? If so, let me suggest that your relatives’ experience of what it was like to be a Division I athlete in the early 1980s may not be terribly representative of what things are like almost half a century later.

My wife has spent her entire career in college athletics in the Big Ten, Big 12, and Ivy League. I also work in higher education. As a result of my wife’s career, I am frequently asked to mentor student-athletes. I see on a daily basis what the life of a Division I student-athlete is currently like.

I played college football, both at the big school and small school level. I coached high school football for over a decade, and I also coached youth football for over a decade. My dad was a teacher and coach for over 40 years at various levels. I have had several players play in the NFL and one drafted into the NFL. I have immediate family members currently participating in NCAA athletics. I have relationships with a few dozen current division one football players. I have relatives who have coached NCAA football, my godfather was a coach in the NFL and NCAA for years, and I have numerous contacts in and around NCAA football, Major league baseball, college baseball, as well as trainers (basically the new middlemen) throughout the country. For the record, these specific references have been shared with the board ops of this board. I don't know about your second cousin who played D1 (or what sport that was), or what your wife's relatives have to do with this discussion, but my guess is that you either didn't speak to them very much about their situation or you did and you just didn't take much from it.

Nobody else in the country is expected to work 12 months a year, 40 hours a week with no vacation, holiday, etc. Your standards are higher than the IRS', for example.

your point of view. Please tell me what college athletes or any athlete, for that matter, that work 12 months a year, 40 hours a week with no vacation or holiday?

With respect to college athletic scholarships, I believe there should be more of them across the board...revenue and non-revenue sports. Universities are the proverbial plane, it is leaving town full or not full and it basically costs the same for the airline either way. Yes, universities, and especially Notre Dame with it's significant endowment, can "afford" to provide more scholarships and it would likely be to the school's benefit to do so.

Bottom line, for most 18-22 year olds making the equivalent of anywhere from $35,000 to over $100,000 per year is a god send and getting an education while you hone your craft in your chosen sport is an added bonus. If you want to get on your soap box, go do it for minor league baseball and hockey players or golfers trying to make it on the tour. College athletes have it better than all of them.

understanding. That's your definition of full time, which is more stringent than the IRS' definition. You're completely clueless--go look up the actual definition of full time and come back to me. Or don't. Either is fine with me. I find it humorous that you claim that athletes shouldn't get money but yet provide no alternative (other than pulling money from endowments for more scholarships) as to whom should get more money. I can only conclude that you feel that Gene Smith, Jack Swarbrick, Brian Kelly, and guys like that deserve the money. Great. You can keep propping up those kinds of guys. Does not bother me.

You are entitled to your opinion about my claims, that's fine. I don't care one way or the other if you believe me. If it bothers you so and you think that I am exaggerating, feel free to click the "report post" button and type a message to board ops. They know me and how to get in touch with me.

scholarship and other added benefits is generous "compensation" for student-athletes. Some, due to their performance on the field or unique appeal to the market, deserve additional dollars through either NIL or some other legal NCAA method. I never said "athletes shouldn't get money". Yes, full time is 30 hours a week by the strict IRS definition. Then there is this...Student-athletes are only allowed to dedicate a maximum four hours per day, 20 hours per week during the season with one day off and eight hours per week in the offseason with two days off..

During the summer vacation period, student-athletes may not participate in any countable athletically related activities. Strength and conditioning coaches may design and conduct specific workout programs for student-athletes, provided such workouts are voluntary and conducted at the request of the student-athlete.

The paying of student-athletes is a bigger issue than Notre Dame. Please explain what you would do if you were the Athletic Director at St. Francis University or similar institution. Also tell me what you would say to the student-athletes that have a dwindling universe of places they can ply their trade.

• Click here for link at https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenweaver/2023/03/20/ncaa-div

I would need to adjust or risk going out of business. That's what st Francis is doing. That's the way the market works. Exactly why should that be a concern to other athletes? I can see why other schools should care, but not athletes. Maybe notre Dame should chip in some of their nearly 100 million in profit between football and men's basketball?

As to the other athletes who might be losing opportunities, I again ask why that is a concern for football and men's basketball athletes? Seems like a problem for the schools to figure out, but of course they don't have to because rubes like yourself give them an out by demanding socialism for the athletes and free market for the schools.

when I read the St. Francis College posts.

I'm guessing irishdog80 in real life probably fashions himself as some sort of fiscal conservative as well.

"market demand" earnings of others. Pick a lane. And nothing wrong with being a Socially Liberal/Fiscal Conservative like most Independent voters in America.

Long term, if D1 college football players get paid like some on here are saying, it will all boil down to 25-30 college teams playing high minor league feeder level football and waning interest in the rest of the programs. Half empty stadiums at those programs with people paying $5-10 per ticket to watch games between a bunch of no name/nondescript players. Non-revenue sports will become club level for most schools. And I'm not even going down the path of concerns about concussions and other injuries impacting the sport of football in general. It's a slippery slope.

that the star players can play the games by themselves. That's not how this works. I know, it's hard to believe irishdog80, but they even have rules and everything. Referees too! Hey, if those "non-star" athletes won't get paid as much, so be it. If there ends up being some sort of labor agreement which results in some type of salary cap with only so much money available, I'm sure that the stars will generate a high % of the cap (kind of like, oh I don't know, the NFL).

That's how these things work.

Now, it would be kind of silly for NFL players to decide to give up some of their money in order to ensure that the WNBA players got a fair wage, right? I mean, if they wanted to do that and agreed to it, that would be one thing. But to have you or your comrade Czar airborneirish come in and demand that they do it strikes me as kind of odd and likely illegal. And yet, here we are.

If running a business legally (which includes paying the labor, just like the micks got paid for helping build the railroads back in the day) means that there are only 25-30 teams, that's life in the big city. If the schools determine that there is worth in having more teams, they can find a way to subsidize those smaller market teams (like the NFL and MLB have done with their revenue sharing programs and tax systems for higher spending teams). If it would result in more money overall to have more programs, I'm sure that something could and would be worked out.

That's the way business works. And yet, you want to sit here and pontificate over what "might" happen and claim that it is the athletes ethical responsibility to give up money while the school's get to have bloated staff, pay their athletic department employees whatever the going rate is, etc.

foolish.

thrive in the wild, wild, west you envision. Plenty of money flowing into the coffers, rabid fan base, etc.

I also had the joy...I kid...of going to 3 home games during Brian Kelly's masterpiece, his 2016 season. Paid good money to see the Irish lose to Michigan State...it was almost a laugher, but not for me..., the Duke game...nothing like it, watch your team lose to an academic peer school that stinks at football, good times... and the Stanford game...bonehead special by Kelly. Once the dike breaks, if it truly does like some of you envision--revenue sharing with players--more seasons like 2016 are likely unless a cold-blooded, in a good way, approach is taken by everyone involved with Notre Dame football. If you don't, the Fighting Irish become the Chicago Bears or Detroit Lions and middle along--something sort of fun to do a Saturday afternoon in this case.

The labor is paid...scholarships and other benefits--much better than the minor leagues for every other professional sport. NIL is in it's nascent stages and will ultimately have a positive impact--the whole world of endorsements is barely touched by most programs. And the sport of college football is overall healthy. Agents and profiteers want the unfettered world of revenue sharing for 18-22 year old athletes. In time, NIL and some form of basic "salary" of $10-15,000 range on top of their scholarship and benefits will work for the good of all which is good for self.

On another note, are you familiar with any corporations that guarantee 4 years of income even if you are unable to perform the position you were "hired" for due to underperforming? Would Notre Dame have to cease offering that sort of "benefit" if everything changes?

income, even if the employee is unable to perform the duties.

Have you ever heard of major league baseball?

Have you ever heard of amortized signing bonus'?

Have you ever heard of Bobby Bonilla?

You really are quite dumb.

revenues and pay all of the employees equally...guaranteed? If your company, if you have one, had a windfall amount with profits that exceeded expectations, are you planning on giving it all equally to your employees?

I have no idea what you're referring to.

I never mentioned anything about what pay or revenue split should be, you moron.

amount of money ND football makes. You have suggested that "revenue sharing" is the only fair route to compensate college football players and especially at Notre Dame. I am thus led to believe JT Corporation or whatever entity you work for or own must immediately vest all of it's employees in "revenue sharing" for the company and pays them salaries commensurate with last year's profits. Are you saying, revenue sharing is fine for other guys, but not yours?

Again, stop with your straw man approach to your narrative. I have never said the players shouldn't get any money. I have said they are largely more than fairly compensated with a tax free full ride to a premier educational institution, other perks and benefits...clothing, improved food, free tutoring, etc. and that NIL, run properly, will allow players to earn money that far exceeds NFL rookie dollars. I also believe all college and high school athletes should be able to go "pro" whenever the market "demands" it. Tennis players, figure skaters, gymnasts, etc. can turn pro at 14-16 or whenever, why not college football players? And I find your name calling comical and a bit sad.

I am getting the impression if you really put specifics and numbers to your half-baked plan, you would begin to realize it's shortcomings and that doesn't fit your preferred narrative. It's a slippery slope and most Notre Dame athletes and students wouldn't like it.

the players. Back out scholarship values, then the rest is cash-money.

agreement are not guaranteed. Or are you too dim to realize we are talking football here? You avoid the real question and instead answer the question you want to answer.

Your half-baked idea of "revenue sharing" by the players starts to fall apart when the details come into play. Let's play your half-witted game. Notre Dame signs a class of 22-25 players. Your buddy Mr. E. says they should be paid around $440,000 per year as each players share of "revenue"--a pretty generous amount for an 18 year old. The real value of their agreement, according to your cockeyed vision is $1,760,000 guaranteed. Multiply the guaranteed amount times 25 players and it equals $44,000,000 in booked dollar commitments by the Notre Dame Athletic Department for each recruiting class. Beyond the ridiculousness of Mr.E's number, what do you suggest as a economically feasible approach to maintain the integrity of Notre Dame's historical offer of a 4 year scholarship?

On another note, who negotiates on the player's behalf? Do Agents become part of the high school football experience?

And you still haven't answered the question of how much do FCS football players get or D2, D3 or NAIA? They are all putting in the same "hours" in most cases. How should they be compensated? Or shouldn't they other than the scholarships and other benefits they receive?

the NFL salary structure and compensation method was also collectively bargained, as was free agency, the draft, OTA's, etc. The signing bonus and the guaranteed money aspect of their deals has become the main focus, not the annual salary.

What exactly is your point?

through your MLB reference that the boneheaded Bobby Bonilla deal is the norm...it is an outlier and cautionary tale for any organization investing in their "team". In some cases...Michael Jordan's mega-contract with the Bulls...a team will pay the player for past performance. I get it...the MLB reference fit your narrative. Funny.

Are you saying Notre Dame signees will be cuttable or will they get a guaranteed 4 year agreement as they currently receive? Would they be cut at the end of "training camp"? Will the roster be cut down to 55 or so like the professional leagues?

• Click here for link at https://en.as.com/nfl/nfl-roster-cuts-what-happens-next-for-

And, I would hardly call that pay for past performance since he did win championships in those years.

The Bobby Bonilla deal was a Madoff-related boneheaded decision only in retrospect. If Madoff wasn't running a Ponzi scheme and was truly a Buffett-like investor then it would have been a brilliant move.

And, NFL salaries have been trending in the direction of guaranteed money which the owners have been fighting against. But, it appears, for the moment, that the market is winning and the guarantees are trickling down beyond just the true superstars. I would predict that within the next 20 years nearly all NFL contracts (at least non-rookie contracts) will be 75%-80% guaranteed money if not fully guaranteed.

was characterized by Jerry Reinsdorf, conveniently, and Chicago media as payment for past performance--the $30,000,000 one year agreement. Jordan signed for $33 million for the next season. In each case, his pay was nearly double what the next closest NBA player was making...and again, I agree, MJ was wildly underpaid though that is partially 20/20 hindsight given today's agreements.

Also consider that Bonilla's original agreement for $29,000,000 over 5 years was the richest contract in team sports at the time. Bonilla was good, but he was not Michael Jordan level good.

The salary cap in the NFL will continue to have the biggest impact on the direction of new contracts. General Managers are paid to figure out ways around the cap. Guaranteed dollars stretched out over a longer period of time and pay tied to performance seem to be trends.

But of course you know that. You don't include the entire definition because you are a dishonest mick.

Nobody can accuse you of exaggerating your claims. “I have non-immediate family members who played college sports during the Carter administration” is about as weak a claim to expertise as I can fathom.

This has been swell. As noted, I think it’s perfectly possible to make a cogent argument that scholarships are adequate compensation for almost all student-athletes. I would suggest that you make that argument without resort to the ridiculous claim that being a Division I student-athlete is a part-time commitment. Anyone with 5 minutes experience of college athletics in the 21st century can tell you have no clue what you’re talking about when it comes to the demands on modern student-athletes. And what those demands entail has been broken down for you on a day-to-day basis repeatedly in this thread.

I have current connections regarding the relevant part of my major point, paying athletes beyond their scholarships and appropriate and legal other compensation is not sustainable for most college athletic programs. Add in that for many sports the athlete's time is part time, not full time, and you have a system that currently works for most schools and their athletes.

And are you JT? Or JT's answer guy? Lighten up Francis.

Take a look at Colgate's list of sports. Let me know which are full time, or, if it's easier, part time. Full time is described as 12 months a year, 40 hours a week commitment with time off only for holidays as necessary...I recognize there can be some holiday tournaments, etc.

• Click here for link at https://colgateathletics.com

have consistentyly been making.

Read back through your posts you were stating two things repeatedly.

1. D-1 athletes are pt workers at best and only during the season if that
2. Based upon the fact they are part time workers at best they are over compensated by their scholarship except for the few exceptional players.

If you want to have a conversation about the overall impact that is a legitimate one to have and I recognize there will be fall out from a change and happy to engage in a conversation about that but that is not what you have been pushing in this thread.

We can't pay them they're amateur athletes

Becomes

They're getting plenty given the value of the scholarship

Becomes

It's not a full time job

Becomes

Athletic departments will shut down

Becomes

We will have to stop girls sports. Why do you hate title 9?

Becomes

The NFL should pay (the only idea that actually has merit)

Etc. It's all a way of saying, "they don't deserve it, the schools do. Jack Swarbrick does."

exist in 10 years but the we should not continue with an inequitable system simply because we like it and its the way it has always been.

Football will likely be 40 schools. Basketball seems most likely to stay somewhat close to what it is today perhaps with fewer schools. I have no idea what non-revenue sports will look like because it will depend on large part what atletic departments will do.

Look at the athletic department staff list I linked below. I would guess a lot of those people are making more than 6 figures and how many layers of employees are below these people?

For the record I am not faulting these folks their career choices and I am not saying there dont work hard or provide value to the University. However, when you see all these people we can afford to pay but cant afford to pay the athletes it seems a little odd.

The fact also remains the Univrsity has plenty of cash to function without collecting the tuition they lose from scholarships to athletes.

• Click here for link at https://und.com/staff-directory/

if they make the changes I am suggesting, it will likely cost me some money.

I could be a selfish mick jerk like irishdog80 and try and maintain the status quo, or I could use my liberal arts education and determine right from wrong and try my best to be on the side of right.

the poor will get poorer. Prove me wrong.

look at the NFL. People were making similar arguments about free agency ruining the game in 1991. A judge even ruled against it, which resulted in limited free agency, and then I believe they collectively bargained for free agency in their next CBA. Their business model, including smaller market teams like Green Bay and Kansas City, has never been stronger.

In the book "Ball Four" Jim Bouton talks about spring training meetings where management would tell the players to avoid talking to Marvin Miller or forming a union because "the reserve clause is what makes the game competitive." Strangely enough, the game has survived over 45 years with free agency. Now, they could do a better job, but the biggest reason it is a mess now is because of how selfish owners were back before free agency.

In fact, Marvin Miller spoke about his greatest fear was a suggestion by Charlie Finley that every play (star and non star alike) would be a free agent at the end of the year. Marvin knew that this was a path to lesser overall salaries for the vast, vast majority of players. However, the other owners hated Finley and ignored him, due to their desire to try and control the stars.

In other words, my man, if you let all of the players be free agents every year (which you seem to be so afraid of) it will drive down salaries and income for the vast majority of players (NIL isn't going to just be an open checkbook, and schools will have to pay out of their sports revenues). Of course, you will have to give up control, which appears to be hard for you. Hell, if there are only 25 to 30 teams, my guess is that the cost of labor would be very, very low. The supply would FAR exceed the demand, and the points on the graph would have to intersect.

My guess is that most schools and athletic department officials foolishly share your concerns and miss the forest through the trees, so most likely we will end up with a situation like MLB.

professional sports versus college sports is that the value of the franchise is part of the equation. The Kansas City Royals stunk it up for 20-25 years. David Glass of Walmart success swoops in and buys the team for $96 million in 2000...there wasn't a lot of interested parties at the time...and then runs the team like Walmart, gets lucky in 2014-2015 and sells the team for $1 Billion in 2019. Nice move for him. The same opportunity exists across all top tier professional leagues. Uber rich guys like buying a team for the fun of it. It is a limited availability and valued asset. They can spend however they please...spend or not spend...and then sell it for a huge profit down the line. University athletic programs do not work in that world.

The Arena Football League was a trademark client back in the day. David Baker...probably the largest human I have ever met in person...was the Commissioner and lead salesman for the AFL. He was a great face for the league and his primary business was selling franchises and building value for the league.

I remember going to the 1998 Arena Bowl in Tampa...the War on I-4...between the Orlando Predators and the Tampa Bay Storm and being at a big pre-game party thrown by the league. Semi-truly rich guys were walking around with their chests puffed out...owners of AFL franchises at the time. Baker was selling them for around $500,000 in 1998. I wondered how sustainable the AFL was. Franchises did increase in value for awhile until financial difficulties hit. Needless to say, it was fun while it lasted for most of the franchise owners and most lost a lot. If you don't keep up on the treadmill, team performance slips, people stop attending the games or watching on tv, ticket prices go down and tv revenue decreases.Becoming a de facto minor league for a monolith like the NFL is a slippery slope.

• Click here for link at https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/11/27/arena-footb

athletic programs, the athletes don't deserve any money?

So I can start a business and not be able to pay people and they should just accept it? Even when I'm signing billion dollar TV deals and paying my board millions of dollars a year.

You seem to have a limited understanding of fairness here. Would you take less than market value just because your employer couldn't pay you? If you had other options, you might not. Of course, these athletes have no other option, which is kind of a big factor here (which you consistently ignore).

move to Belfast and start blowing shit up?

That works for your people, but the average college football player is trying to make it as a professional, not join the IRA.

they want...go to the NFL, XFL or CFL right out of high school. College isn't for everybody. Play for Alabama, LSU, Ohio State or whatever school is offering more money and might provide a better path to their desired career.

Have you been to Belfast? Why the hate for the Irish and Irish Catholics in particular?

They need to attend class. During the season I think many athletes only take 4 classes so that is 12 hours a week. Assume an average of one hour of work per hour of class. so now you are at 24 hours. They are "limited" to 20 hours per week so now you are up to 44 hours. Add in meeting with coaches, S&C sessions, injury treatment and the like for another hour a day on average which my gut tells me is low you are now at 51 hours. All before you have any game time. Hell the football team for a home game would start at like 4 on Friday and not be released from work until after the game / treatment etc so that would be a good 24 hours there and of course if it is an away game it would be more.

In the off season would it be less yes but I am confident would still be more than 40 hours when you include class / homework which of course is a condition of their "employment" in order to maintain academic standing.

peeves is that many college athletes find it difficult to "work" during the summer. Given that issue, some compensation should be provided so they have money commensurate with what a typical student might earn over a summer.

and they usually go to class as well for a similar amount of time.

for the record, quite a few of them actually do get part time jobs as well, if they need or want extra income. They usually do have a week or so off during the summer to go home or do whatever they want, but my experience is that most of them continue the grind.

Honestly, your statements are really just betraying a lack of true understanding as to what these kids do. I think you should go discuss this with your wife's cousins brother in law who played at the Ivy league level to get an idea. Truly, your comments are bordering on insulting, and I'm sure that you don't mean it to be that way.

They work more than what you think. You should educate yourself. They work harder than Jack Swarbrick, for example.

miners and smoke jumpers work harder and risk their lives, but that doesn't mean they make more money than anybody.

And I thought, based on your earlier comment, athletes work 12 months a year, 40 hours a week with no vacation and aren't allowed to talk to the opposite sex for the entire year...I kid with the last one.

What's insulting about believing that receiving a free education plus myriad other bonuses is a pretty good deal for an 18-22 year old. Yes, Notre Dame makes a lot of money from it's athletic Crown Jewels. I suggest you educate yourself about the plights of hundreds of other schools and the athletes that count on scholarships from those institutions. Think bigger and broader. Open your eyes.

• Click here for link at https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenweaver/2023/03/20/ncaa-div

coal miners and smoke jumpers are subject to market demands, athletes aren't.

You're just not being an honest person here in my opinion; intentionally dense, obtuse, and you just won't say the quiet part out loud--you've determined that they're getting enough, and that's that. No room for disagreement.

You need to go check again with your wife's second cousin, twice removed to see what it exactly is that athletes do.

planet do you live on? Market demand is the aggregate of the individual demands for a commodity from purchasers in the marketplace. If more purchasers enter the marketplace and they have the capability to pay for commodities on sale, then the market demand at each cost price degree will increase...it pretty much explains free agency in professional sports and the complicated NIL world the NCAA is facing. Wow, just wow...you really don't understand. I am flabbergasted at your lack of understanding.

And all of my contacts are first cousins or closer. The ones that were on athletic scholarship value the education and experience they had. In many cases, the fact they played sports at a high level made a distinct difference in their career. No complaints. And due to my lengthy time in the world of trademark licensing, I have some insight into today's NIL that exceeds most. Here's a hint...no one cares about or buys a lot of merchandise for lower level athletes and teams. Look at the list of best selling merchandise for the pro leagues...the jersey you bought with JT on the back of a Chiefs jersey does not sell well. Put Mahomes on a Chiefs jersey with his number and you have gold.

Jersey, keep all the money from it, and in return pay for Patrick to live in a dorm, get a few meals, some free clothes to wear, and pay for some classes, and we are all good, right? That's a fair exchange in irishdog80's world because his cousin rowed for Duke in nineteen dickity eight. And if he can generate some sponsorship money he can keep that.

No, of course not. He makes 40 million dollars per year plus whatever endorsement income he gets because that's his market value.

earning NIL money...the system needs to be tweaked and refined, but the basic concept is valid--Mahomes gets the royalties for his Texas Tech jersey with his name on it. College athletes should be able to earn unlimited income from valid licensing deals, endorsements, appearances, etc. I am also for "living wage" as needed for the athletes that come from modest means though, as I understand it, they do get extra dollars for food and "living".

You are the king of the straw man argument. It's weak. Quit claiming I said something I didn't.

handsomely paid for a part time job. You literally said the 2 and 3 star players are overpaid if they dont make it on the field even if they do their part and bust their ass in practice and make the other players better, do all their off the field workouts and contribute to an environment or hard work and succes.

reference. I stand by my comment that, at Notre Dame, an 80K plus benefits equal to around 20K, for an 18-22 year old that does not make the field is "handsomely paid". I would have gladly taken that for myself and my kids as would thousands of other athletes. Tell me how many 18-22 year olds you know that are being paid the equivalent of 100K per year?

People bust their ass in practice at hundreds of smaller college football programs and they get far less and the schools couldn't afford to pay them. Have you ever been to an NAIA football game? Are they working less hard than Notre Dame players? According to you, they should be paid as much as the guys at Notre Dame since they are doing the same work.

as the kid who earns a full ride based upon their academics is elite at what he or she does while my kid and many others are paying tuition.

The fact that tution is "market value" reflects not the true market value of the players but the value that was established by a monoploy that told them that was all they could receive and enforced a whole lot more rules upon them. Look at what the OSU AD said about NIL - it was taking money away from his department. That shows you there are revenues that were previously going to the school for them to use as they wanted and they were not paying the talent.

Do you think the fans value the players or the random person in the AD's office?

I also am not saying the schools should pay them millions but there should be enough money to pay them something reaosnable and then let them get their NIL money whereever they can get it.

I have agreed they should get something. I am against wholesale revenue sharing concepts like some have suggested...it would be a slippery slope for all of college athletics.

what amounts to a professional sports league?

As I think you pointed out elsewhere the schools in D2, D3 and NAIA seem to find a way to have sports teams without million dollar tv contracts. Without coaches making millions of dollars and without spending hundreds of millions of dollars on stadiums and special facilities only for the teams.

Is it my desire to blow up college sports? Not really but I do think there needs to be a more equitable system and if they are going to keep playing the equity needs to extend to all sports. The amlunt of money being earned by thousands of people while the players get nothing is wrong. And keep in mind when you throw out the ND tuition number as what they are getting paid ND likes to brag about how many people dont pay that number.

Some deserve more and some are "replaceable". In the world, some on here are suggesting...40% revenue sharing for the top tier college football programs actually making money...the art of negotiation would be part of the equation. If I am a lower level player and demand bigger dollars, schools can pass on that player and find a substitute. It goes on in all of the leagues...the average NFL career length is 3.3 years and that is the average not the norm. Most players...wash out with maybe a practice squad on their resume. Star players will thrive at the collegiate level...all the others, not so much. If they want to play, they will have to play along. Only the best players are worth the extra dollar...don't kid yourself, it goes on in every professional sport.

• Click here for link at https://www.sportskeeda.com/college-football/how-many-ncaa-f

the NCAA needs to revenue share.

It's not the athlete's concern.

the NCAA should share more revenue. That said, running D3 swim meets and bowling tournaments costs money...so they do that.

is they go to summer school. Of course there will also be S&C workouts and various "practices".

My son is a HS junior and a private HS that does not emphasize sports. His Basketball team practiced three hours a day 5 days a week with games on the weekends for the entire month of June. He also worked with a trainer 2-3 times a week.

I am fairly confident D-1 athlete is putting in more time than that in the offseason.

extent travel baseball and basketball. One year my oldest played 140 games between the three sports...yes, he still loves to play them at 30 years of age...80 soccer games--outdoor, indoor and futsal, 30 basketball and 30 baseball. His soccer team even took a trip to Las Vegas for a showcase tournament as well as Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. At the end of it all, they both chose major universities with big time D1 programs that they were not quite good enough for...both were late bloomers physically one is my size 6'2" and the other grew to 6'6" both during their senior years...curse of the Irish.

Depending upon the sport, the year round time commitment will vary and thus my glib "part time" reference. Paying athletes is a slippery slope. I am for a "living wage" as needed beyond their tuition, room and board. And NIL is something that can work for the "top earners" in college athletics.

carry on.

And I'm sure other sports do as well. Irishdog80 just sounds like an unreasonable guy, to be honest.

kid wants to play summer baseball to pursue his career in baseball instead of digging ditches, I think that is a reasonable choice by the athlete. Are they working full time in the Cape Cod league and similar? I hear it's a good time. I also know they aren't paid at all for their work.

Your view seems to be Notre Dame centric. I assure you most colleges can not afford to pay their athletes any more than tuition, room and board and I am confident many student-athletes are happy to have the opportunity. Paying players is a slippery slope that most school's can't afford to stand on.

ditch the TV money and get out of the game.

That's how the market works, irishdog.

with a market value that far exceeds the compensation for most 18-22 year olds. Why is that hard for you to understand? Oh, that's right. You're the guy that thinks people pay to watch 2 and 3 star guys and the game "wouldn't exist" without them. Sounds like the whining of a wannabe player.

Have you bought the XFL jersey for your regional team? Maybe your favorite player on the Brahmas or the Battlehawks is available for an appearance and jersey signing. Check out the declining ratings in the attached for a league without stars and big name teams. Hilarious. You're wrong about most of what you have said.

• Click here for link at https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/03/xfl-ratings-week-fi

We don't artificially reduce people's income simply because some employers can't or won't pay.

It's not your place to determine what something is worth. The market can and does pay more.

You are 100 percent incorrect.

your point. What does the current market pay for an 18-22 year old college football player? D1? D2? D3? NAIA?

Thanks.

barriers to receiving compensation.

Boy, are you dense.

and you are still dense.

"compensation" would assume taxable income. I don't believe these players are receiving any compensation because the NCAA is an illegal cartel.

What does the current market pay for an 18-22 year old college football player? D1? D2? D3? NAIA?
or more succinctly, what SHOULD the market pay an 18-22 year old college football player? D1? D2? D3? NAIA?

You realize D1 players aren't unionized and aren't paid, but coaches are making $10M per year, Northwestern is building a $700M football stadium, and TV contracts are in the billions now. And under-the-table payments have set some level of competition for talent in a "black market" of sorts, which is now coming to light with above-the-table NIL deals, to some extent, albeit in a clunky and not perfectly efficient fashion.

Swarbrick and Co are desperately trying to build the case for not paying CFB players their market value (40-50% of revenue).

blue bloods of college football and to a lesser degree, basketball, hockey, wrestling at Iowa, etc all make a lot of money that makes the whole concept of paying the athletes a valid discussion. If you break it down to the idea of "pay college athletes", it becomes a lot more complicated. Paying college athletes across all sports other than a full tuition plus room and board, is not viable for the lion's share of college sports...893 schools play college football, around 5300 total schools play some form of sports.

If the idea of 40-50% of revenue was applied, the college football world would be cleaved into 50-75 programs that can pay...to varying degrees...and everybody else. The idea of Notre Dame's "4 year degree" would be tossed out the window...and every player would be a free agent every year with teams bidding on the talent available within the "salary limits" each school has. In short, a minor league for pro football.

If the idea of 40-50% of revenue was applied, the college football world would be cleaved into 50-75 programs that can pay...to varying degrees...and everybody else.

Yes, this is exactly what is going to happen. The schools that generate TV revenue will be in one bucket and those that don't will be in another bucket.

The idea of Notre Dame's "4 year degree" would be tossed out the window.

It will certainly be lessened, but football is still not going to be a viable career path for many of the players. I think many players will still be interested in a ND degree while also earning their fair market value.

every player would be a free agent every year

This is already in effect. And guess what, every student can be a free agent every year if they want.

teams bidding on the talent available within the "salary limits" each school has.

IF the coaches and ADs can be bidded on by all teams for millions of dollars, why not the players too?

get 40-50% of the revenue, what happens to the funding for all other "loss leader sports that have previously received funding from the varying success of the football program?

In order to compete with the other programs, the ND "four year commitment" would have to be gone. Add in the issues ND has with transfers admissions and the Fighting Irish would suffer against their soon to be former peers in college football.

I agree that players should be able to be free agents.

And be careful what you wish for applies to bidding wars for college athletes. The result would be a dwindling supply of viable opponents...no one wants to watch a team of superstars play an objectively bad team. If it happens, the 50-75 will become 25-35 viable programs that mirrors the NFL. I also doubt that most college administrations would agree to 40% revenue sharing so there is that issue too.

not sure why it should concern the football players. What value do they get from those sports?

Perhaps the athletic department can and would lower their expenses down if they wanted to support those sports and saw value there.

Every time we say we cant afford X we are saying I dont value X enough to forego Z. Maybe those players dont get the same amount but they get something more than they do today.

I am not saying I have completely settled on all the answers but contiuing a system where the players dont get paid just because that is how it has always been isnt right.

the college football program would be shut down due to no longer being in the "haves" and being a big cost center and ultimately liability. The money would go up for players in the "haves" and would disappear for the "have nots".

Players get a scholarship and other benefits plus earn NIL money as their performance proves they deserve. I have heard $10-15,000 bandied about as a possible "wage" above and beyond the scholarships and benefits plus NIL money. That number seems fair and equitable for largely unproven talent on the collegiate level along with other items they receive.

the shortcut and short term approach is NIL, but it is problematic for everyone.

The answer is likely a de facto minor league setup for some programs and club status for others.

big step in the right direction if run correctly.

equitable. Plus full scholarship.

NIL would be gravy on top earned the way Aaron Rodgers gets paid by State Farm, or Michael Jordan by Gatorade.

(this is just for Major CFB players, not any other athletes).

for the whole season, $277,200. The percentage of NCAA D1 football players that make it to the NFL is 1.6% of players. Do you want to reconsider your number?

• Click here for link at https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/2/27/football-probability-o

50% rev share should be the solution.

Average wages of an 85-man roster for 50% rev share would be closer to $530,000 per player (on top of their full scholarship).

If they want to have practice squads, so be it.

YOu could ratchet down scholarships to, say, 70, and keep a practice squad of 15 or whatever. Just keep giving $50M a year per program to players in scholarships + wages.

of organization would pay entry level 18 year old employees $530,000 per year or anything close to that number?

On another point, if you gave $50M per program to the 120..or so...D1 programs, the total number is $6 billion on the low end. Are you aware how much most "programs" make and do you understand that Notre Dame along with maybe the top tier of Power 5 programs are in rarified air...and that's when the team(s) have a good season. The money is not only flowing at high levels.

All P5 college programs, save for a few, are operating at 40% to 60% margins in CFB due to the free labor system.

Players should get 50%, or $3B per year.

requirement and let the 18-22 year olds go pro whenever the NFL says they are ready...draftable.

like your idea, too.

are suggesting unproven 18-22 year olds at Iowa State University or similar should get, on average, $407,000? Sorry, but that is nowhere near realistic.

all those unproven NFL draft picks sign huge contracts. It's in their CBA.

It's a different industry from Major CFB, Inc.

the program in the red. Professional sports are focused on one sport. College athletic departments use dollars earned from the revenue producers to fund the non-revenue sports that are a big part of the fabric of a school. Would you pay those other athletes too? They work hard.

It's profound respect for the work they put it and the sacrifices they make. Which is why I don't care for that work and those sacrifices being minimized by someone who very clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

You're perfectly entitled to the opinion that scholarships are sufficient compensation for the value created by most student-athletes. You are not entitled to an alternate reality in which being a Division I student-athlete is some 20-hour-a-week gig.

I was somewhat glib in my "part time" reference though I still believe in a universe of 20 varsity sports at Notre Dame, many of them require a "part time" commitment compared to the real workaday world.

I stand by the belief a full ride scholarship is adequate compensation for most 18-22 year olds with high performers deserving more. In the bigger picture, the overall concept of "paying" college athletes will lead to more St. Francis's. I truly believe if more schools drop more sports to fund the paying of athletes for high revenue sports, it would be detrimental to and greatly reduce the overall universe of student-athletes...a sad result to appease the big revenue sports.

• Click here for link at https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenweaver/2023/03/20/ncaa-div

that sounds like the market at work.

If it bothers the NCAA so much, they should take some money from Jack Swarbrick and Notre Dame to help pay. That's the sort of thing that the NFL has done, and it's worked wonders. And the NFL is even able to stay in compliance (for the most part, with notable exceptions) with federal labor law.

schools drop their athletic programs. JT is on the side of the haves...tough it out have nots. You're welcome.

cashing checks and claiming poverty doesn't fly in any other employment arena.

Perhaps someone else will step in in that instance and subsidize things. Hmmmmmm, is there a professional league in need of a developmental program? Why I believe there is! Do they have an interest in making sure there is adequate training and development? Why yes they do! If schools can't afford it any longer, will this league still need the development? It would seem so, wouldn't it?

Gosh, we don't even have to go that far. Are there football programs and basketball programs that do turn a profit? Why yes, apparently Notre Dame made 77 MILLION last year. Do they have an interest in making sure that they have enough teams to play? Why I think they do! Imagine that. Might they be able to share some of that burden with these poor, poor schools that just can't afford it, or should we dump all of the burden on the athletes and make them play for free? (of course we all know your answer there).

How does the NFL make it with a team in small market Green Bay? Can the Packers even pay their bills? Do they get players for free?

My goodness, you don't even understand exactly what it is you're supporting--you're supporting the billionaires holding wages down under the guise of amateur athletics. It's quite foolish.

Let the market decide.

to win and hundreds of other institutions currently offering collegiate sports and athletic scholarships will fail in the subsequent arms race. The bottom portion of the FBS will begin to de-emphasize football and other costly sports and only the "billionaire" programs will succeed.

And if the market decides compensation, I assure you most 2 and 3 star athletes will not get compensated at the same level as the 4 and 5 star athletes or the player that rises to the top through their standout performance on the field. If you think those players are "needed", you are a fool. They will be replaced with the next guy that wants a free education and all the glamour that comes with being a D1 athlete. Next man in applies to all of them except for the genuine stars/difference makers.

So, let's use your own words here to help explain it to you:

"Notre Dame has the capacity to win and hundreds of other institutions currently offering collegiate sports and athletic scholarships will fail in the subsequent arms race. The bottom portion of the FBS will begin to de-emphasize football and other costly sports and only the "billionaire" programs will succeed."

All right, so if it is important for Notre Dame to keep those other non-billionaire programs around, they'll find a way to share the wealth, right? And if it isn't, they won't, right?

So why is it an athlete's problem? It sounds like a school problem. If the argument is that the current athletes should sacrifice so that other athletes can survive, you need to make a more compelling argument. Let's say that you are a division one athlete (so put yourself in the place of one of your cousins, I suppose); what value is there for you in ensuring that someone else whom you've never met who doesn't compete in the same sport you compete in and who goes to a different school than you gets a similar opportunity to you?

You want the athletes to sacrifice without having the schools sacrifice; you and people like you basically create the problem and then claim there is no solution without tearing the whole thing down and "ruining" it for everyone. You create the billionaire class, and then try and defend it. It's the labor that needs to sacrifice, not the ownership.

It's the same nonsense that people were saying about granting baseball players free agency in the 60's; "oh, if we take away the reserve clause it will ruin the game and the league will fold." Yeah, the courts disagreed and were proven right. Same thing with NFL free agency. "Oh, the small market clubs like Green Bay will be decimated." Didn't happen.

from being against "socialism" to saying the billionaire programs need to share because they can. Pick a lane and stay in it.

With the opening up of the transfer rules and other changes, college athletes have a choice. Stay and except what they have...dozens of wonky parameters that will determine the true "value" of their current opportunity--playing time, visibility, NIL potential, education, etc. Or they can go to another program for a better set of "values"--more playing time, more TV time, NIL dollars, whatever is important to that particular player. For some, education might be the most important consideration--play at Harvard, etc.

At best, college sports is high level minor league professional sports. The "haves" of the college sports world represent around 5-10% of the overall college football market...893 schools play college football and around 50 or so are "making money" in any given year. For comparisons sake, check out how much most minor league players make and you have the beginnings of what the "market will bear" for most college athletes in a free market system. Bottom line, it is clearly wrong that minor league baseball players are woefully underpaid in today's market for less skilled athletes. College athletes are living like kings compared to them and with NIL, run properly, they have the opportunity to "earn their value".

• Click here for link at https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/07/16/minor-leagu

I have not jumped back and forth on anything.

If the NCAA members find value in having programs that aren't money makers on their own, they should pool resources and fund them. It's not up to the players. I've said that the whole time.

The NCAA is a cartel. Look that word up and get back to me. The athletes have very limited choices, and the NCAA is likely avoiding employment law illegally.

I will let you worry about the haves and the have nots. That's an NCAA concern, not an athlete concern. I'm concerned about the athletes; if you can come up with one good reason as to why a football player should be concerned about women's basketball players getting a fair wage, let me know. But I have asked you and asked you and asked you and you've refused to answer, just like you refused to give the full IRS definition of full time employment; it's because you are a dishonest person.

It is more comparable to the NBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL than to any minor league (or other college sports, for that matter).

As such, players should receive close to 50% of total revenue, instead of the paltry sum they currently receive (5% or so).

other mechanisms to "fix" their leagues. The NHL was late to the party and suffered financially and MLB still hasn't truly figured it out. CFB at it's highest levels...50,000+ seat stadiums filled to capacity and multi-million dollar TV contracts shared equally across a conference, etc...is a "professional" sport. The rest of college athletics, much less so. Giving college football players 50% of total revenue would change the sport and I wonder if it would be for the better.

Back in the day, I worked with the trademark licensing firm that represented, among other entities and brands, the CBA...a nice little minor league basketball league that was a form of a feeder for the NBA. It plodded along, but it was viable. Isaiah Thomas "bought" the league and it's demise soon followed...much like he ran the Knicks into the ground. A cautionary tale. The number of schools that would be able to "pay to play" would boil down to 50-60 schools...good for them, bad for others.

• Click here for link at https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/sports/sports-business-pl

business every year.

If the CBA had been more valuable to the NBA, it wouldn't have gone under. It was poorly run, so it went under. It happens. It's a cautionary tale about bad business ownership, but it has very little to do with the current situation.

If it is only the top 50-60 schools (and it would be more, but we'll go with your numbers), that's too bad but it still isn't a good reason to break employment law. If the NCAA finds value in having more schools participate, then they can pool their resources and make it happen.

You're going to have to do much, much better.

cautionary tale. They overvalued the league and ran it quickly into the ground. I witnessed it first hand. Found the egos involved to be almost comical and ultimately delusional.

The average student puts in more hours studying than an NCCA Division One athlete puts into the sport? That's so wrong it's laughable, and you know it. Anyone that shared a dorm with an athlete at ND knows that too.

know a lot of students put in a lot of time especially if they are striving for med or law school or other demanding graduate program or a high paying job right out of school. Notre Dame has 20 varsity level sports. Are you saying all of the athletes are working harder than any other student on campus and putting in full time hours year round? My point has always been that those on full scholarship are handsomely compensated for their time and commitment and that only some deserve more due to their results on the field. Nothing more.

the same benefit and not asked to benefit the University the same way.

it's borderline stealing on behalf of the universities (at least w/r/t football).

which I would argue ND has not done a good enough job advocating in the past on recruiting trails.

The value of a scholarship at most other state schools is much, much less. Furthermore, it doesn't cost the schools anywhere near that amount of money to have the kids there.

It's a one sided relationship. No doubt. You can try and yell at the clouds if you want, but you sound pretty unreasonable. There is no doubt that if you were in the situation described (especially as a star player) you would be upset (rightfully so).

more since they generate dollars above what most scholarship athletes produce.

And I agree, Notre Dame and other high perceived value educational institutions should tout the value of their degree over others more often. That said, are Ivy League players asking for more money than a free ride, though most don't get one, than the student a Directional University.

Most athletic departments operate at a deficit. Pay athletes more if they bring in more money than a replacement athlete...there aren't very many that do.

And why am I being "pretty unreasonable"? Is it just because I disagree with much of your argument? The world is not black and white. The answer is in the gray.

realize the entire system depends on the entire team right? From your viewpoint only a handlful of players drive that value. What would happen if the other 75 decided not to show up for their part time job on 9/23/23 when OSU is in town? I guess their replacement value would look a lot better than it does today.

their tuition, room and board as unskilled non-educated 18-22 year olds and would have to find another school. The high level players would find takers if they agreed to never pull a stunt like that again. The bench riders would have to look for student loans to pay their tuition. They would be out of work. The larger point is it would never happen so it's a straw man argument.

WAR or Wins Above Replacement is a great concept. Small market MLB teams in baseball that don't have unlimited budgets to buy and trade players, use it to remain competitive. The Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Indians are solid examples of the validity of the approach.

If all Notre Dame needs is a bunch of 2-3 star guys, maybe Tyrone Willingham should be brought in as a consultant. As I recall. he was great at identifying guys to fill a roster and not so good at getting the star guys. How did that turn out?

shit, go to NMSU, UNM, or a similar school for damn near free.

our football team and what they would be able to do in terms of going to college.



Also does not sound like you have a very high opinion of the athletes at ND off the field or court.

and everything to do with the ridiculous example of 70 football players walking out on playing a game. If they did that, yes, most would have a tough time righting their proverbial ship.

I have a very high opinion of ND athletes. I do not have a high opinion of players that would do what you suggested.

nobody is tuning in for 7 on 7.

don't be dense; just because you don't value their contribution as much as you likely should doesn't make them overcompensated, it simply means that you don't calculate their worth the same way others can and do. Now, go ahead and convince me that Jack Swarbrick deserves the generational wealth that he's been making off of his job.

get docked for the poor vision and ill fated result of the Under Armour relationship. UA is old news and kids don't like their shoes. At best, they are a third choice for athletic footwear. It hurts recruiting.

so you'll take the money from Jack and give it to whom? The school? The poor? Lower tuitions?




What a fantasy land you live in.

or to hire a dedicated trainer for basketball. Make up your mind, is Swarbrick over-compensated or fairly/under compensated? You want it both ways.

swarbrick is paid what the market will bear.

Boy, you are dense.

you have a liberal arts education, right?

My argument has been consistent all along; yours is the one that has changed, similar to how the NCAA changes and pivots when caught.

and like the NCAA, you will lose the argument. Mainly because you don't really know how to honestly and coherently articulate a point, but more importantly because you're simply wrong. Not one shred of a point in any of your posts. 100% and completely wrong.

market decide. Your early "market demand" comment was laughable. Some of your other comments ping ponged all over the place. Should I cut and paste a few? Your argument has always been...JT is right. Irishdog80 is wrong. The truth is somewhere in the middle and thus some of my subtle changes. My basic tenets have remained the same.

I've said that the NCAA problems should not be solved by the athletes, it should be the NCAA. Since the NCAA is a membership driven organization and not simply a bunch of individual schools, that makes sense. It does not make sense for the athletes to solve the NCAA's problems; there is absolutely nothing in it for them.

There's no waffling, you just are not very smart.

Read an article about the change in mindset when you refer to a job as low wage not low skill. One of the examples was being a line cook at a restaurant in NYC where they have skills I dont but those skills dont draw a wage.

The poster does not value the skills here and the value they generate for everyone else.

For me a system where Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler get millions to talk about kids playing a game for a scholarship is just wrong.

major sports network was a client. At dinner one night with a Senior Vice President for the company, he expressed frustration at some of the negotiations he was having with their announcers. His comment, and I am paraphrasing it a bit, was, "No one tunes into a game to listen to XYZ announcer. They are there to watch the game." That said, he understood that some broadcasters provided unique insight that had value but he felt most were over paid for their work and could be replaced.

Today's world has also changed for "line cooks" with the emergence of celebrity chefs, cooking competitions and other chances to improve your lot. More and more Americans appreciate the skill it takes to craft a great meal.

I value the skills provided by college athletes and recognize the scholarship and other benefits they receive is fair compensation for most. Those that deserve more, can now get it through NIL relationships.

it's basically one guy saying, "I don't value what you do, therefore you should be happy with whatever your employer decides to give you."

That's just not the way things work in this country.

not value your contribution to the company, you have the freedom to seek better employment and a higher salary with an organization that appreciates your work. If it turns out other companies do not have the same high opinion that you do for yourself, some introspection and hard work can change your path. The same applies to student-athletes. You are always free to leave if you feel there are better opportunities for you at another school...that is the beauty of the new transfer rules. If you want to stay and get "more money", athletes now have NIL...let the market determine your worth.

prevent athletes from being able to make those moves. In fact the changes you are complaining about coming about as the system moves toward what you are saying is the way it shoud work.

I am honestly baffled about what you believe. Part time but not part time. Overpaid with a a scholarship but should get a living wage.

Sports in our society have changed significantly in the last 40 years. No longer are MLB / NFL / NBA players required to have "real jobs" in the offseason to the pay their bills. You want to compare college football and basketball to minor league baseball bit of course they generate billions more in revenue than minor league baseball.

not. For some athletes, due to their family background, the scholarship "pays them" more than enough. Some college athletes come from less privileged backgrounds and need a "living wage" to bring them up to their fellow classmates and athletes level.

"In fact the changes you are complaining about coming about as the system moves toward what you are saying is the way it shoud work." Not sure what you are trying to say in this one.

The top tier of college sports generates a lot of revenue. There are 893 schools playing football. I assure you most are not making money.

I get it. Viewed through the prism of the money sports in college athletics, it makes perfect sense the players deserve more. Viewed in the context of entire athletic departments and budgets for non-revenue sports, the "pay the players" argument gets less sensible.

Go back to October 15, 1988. Catholics v. Convicts #1 v #4. Lou Holtz was mking something like $300,000 ($762,000 adjusted for inflation) as the head coach. Tickets were $21 ($53.40 adjusted for inflation).

Last year Freeman made somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 million reportedly. Tickets for the worst games had face values that were more than the inflation adjusted price of that game and for the best games were 6 times higher in some cases.

The University has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the Stadium not once but twice. They have raised millions of dollars to build practice facilities for the team indoor and outdoor plus the amenities around the Gug. This is going on at every school to some degree or another and if they chose they could share revenue like every other major sport does in one way or another.

Assuming it is true there is not "enough money to play the athletes" it is because the Universities have chosen to spend the money on other things.

for not fixing the unpaid labor trick-bag they now find themselves in with the legal system and the professional league of CFB they've been operating for years.

Their hand will be forced on this issue anyways. Hopefully.

They have:

A. Preferential admissions for student-athletes. Like, very preferential (although still requiring pretty decent academics given how high the standards for normal admissions are to start).

B. Need-based aid available regardless of athlete status that is so generous that it ends up benefiting significant numbers of student-athletes.

The stories of someone's neighbor's brother's cousin who makes $1 million a year but had their kid go to Princeton for free because he's so good at football are self-serving fabrications.

My wife coached in the Ivy League for a decade. I currently work in the Ivy League. My social circle is largely comprised of Ivy League coaches. The stories about stealth athletic scholarships are simply not how it works.

Preferred admissions for athletes is definitely under fire at some Ivies…also likely the reason Stanford tried to cut half its athletics programs.

Unless you are referring to cumulative value. It’s worth about $15k in Texas for an in-state player.

College athletes have no such discretion. Good luck to the sophomore that wants to opt out of “voluntary” film study.

behalf. For most college athletes they are paid for their work as an athlete representing the school with a scholarship and that comes with rules. In every "job" there are rules, if you don't like them you can look for a different "job" that does not require "voluntary film study".

illegal monopoly in any other industry,

that their sport generates.

When ND Football generates north of $150M in a year, it's probably time to start viewing it as a separate and unequal venture from women's rowing or men's tennis.

Does women's rowing just cease to exist? Sorry, we can't fund it, the 3rd string QB needs his share of the TV contract.

Honestly, I'd rather see the whole NCAA model stripped of money and blown up before whatever this current crap is goes wherever it is going.

If ND wants to have a non-academic pro team, then so be it. Pay the players appropriately, run it like an NFL team, and use the profit to fund (hopefully) worthwhile university endeavors.

ND, as one example, has $70M+ in profit to play with annually from football as it is today. Shifting $45M or whatever to the football team's player payrolls just creates a lower-margin business unit. Tighten the belt elsewhere like in the real world (Coach salaries, staff cuts, reduction in facilities spend, etc.)

But it doesn't work for the majority of the CFB world. If we're going to bankrupt 90% of the universities we might as well stop pretending we have anyone's best interests at heart.

I'd be happy to cut coaching and admin salaries but it's a gigantic Mexican standoff.

Profit sharing isn't even a thing in the NFL. I don't get a share of my company's profits, can I have that?

I do have a salary, and I agree there needs to be consideration of that for students, commensurate with the work they are doing, and protection for the dangers of the job they are doing.

Profits - I simply brought those up to illustrate how much Jack Swarbrick are raking in.

I don't disagree that that's ridiculous, as is 10 mil + for Saban. You're basically paying demand pricing, and it's ugly and brutal. If you offered 200k to a football coach you'd probably be laughed out of the room.

By comparison, at Purdue Mike Bobinsky makes ~750k. Morgan Burke made 500k. I don't know what a "reasonable" AD salary should be, but this seems closer to it.

If we're doing profit sharing, what's left after the facilities, the equipment, the scheduling, the logistics, and all the other outlay to get the sport going?

Let's say my company is young and still barely breaking even as it struggles to grow. Do I make $0? What about the 200+ football programs that lose money?

1. As has been repeatedly discussed back here, Swarbrick made $3M in one specific year (FY16) in which he received a $1.8M bonus. His typical total annual compensation (which includes base, incentive, deferred, etc.) is more like $1.7M to $1.9M.

2. Mike Bobinski does not make around $750K. That was his starting base salary when he got an extension almost 5 years ago. That extension also included various forms of deferred and incentive compensation. His total compensation is comfortably north of $1M a year.

All of this information is readily available. But even without digging into the numbers, people need to exercise a little more common sense about this stuff. I get that Notre Dame is poorly run. It is not, however, "we pay Jack Swarbrick two times the going rate for top ADs and 4 times the rate of Purdue ADs" poorly run.

Below someone suggested that Tim Murphy gets paid $75K (based on an article that he didn't realize was from 1993). People need to exercise the smell test with some of this stuff.

I'd love to excuse myself by saying it was a quick google, but that doesn't mean I need to stop there. Also to be fair, jacks salary showed up on multiple Google searches as that, so it'd be easy to be mislead. I was far more confident in Morgan Burke as we lived in the same neighborhood.

Honestly, I think I was also blinded by the fact that there is so much disparity in college coaching salaries. "Why not ADs as well?" my naive self thought. Whoops!

I'd go back to a basic issue I have with a lot of these discussions. What IS an appropriate salary for a good AD? What IS an appropriate salary for a good football coach?

The demand economy dictates what it is under the current system, though we would rather it not be so. I don't think we can change that without essentially making the demand nonexistent.

I'm mostly just firmly against sudden massive revenue sharing in a single sport just because it has more eyeballs than another sport in which athletes have the same level of effort.

If people want that, fine - go make it a semi-pro travel team, then it's a fundamentally different league.

None of this is to suggest the current system is great or ok, as is inevitably a counter-argument that seems to fly in. Just because one doesn't support the specific change mechanism doesn't mean I support the status quo either.

and the NBA / NFL never needed to develop a minor league system like MLB had in place.

These players are the entire basis of a billion dollar industry and the only ones not allowed to profit off it.

Don’t your realize that the Big-10 contract isn’t worth a BILLION dollars without the role players?

And add bigger brands/markets. Or they'd play additional games against the same teams. Or they'd shrink rosters like the NFL. They'd still get the cash from the star players.

Northwestern? No one tunes in if "role playing 2 and 3 star" athletes fill the field for Northwestern and they go 2-10 for the season. You might as well run reruns of Northwestern's Rose Bowl teams if you want ratings. People tune in to watch star players and that's why they are more highly compensated. Last I checked, I did not tune in to watch Notre Dame play Bowling Green to see the guys holding down the bench. And ticket sales/revenues go down for Bowling Green as does the TV ratings thus less money for all. Star power drives revenue and deserves to be compensated. Everyone else should be happy with their free ride and work harder to make an impact so they can get the higher dollars.

NFL salaries are top-heavy, and pretty much an "80/20" arrangement: Elite players get up to $50M a year, the long snappers and backup TEs etc get a fraction of that.

CFB salaries can be structured the same.

Give the stud QB recruit $7M a year, give the punter $250K a year, and so on(on top of tuition, room and board, etc).

the amounts being paid. It make sense if athletic departments are willing to make big cuts in their non-revenue sports. A Notre Dame scholarship and maybe an NIL bump from a local or national company for a punter is doable...250K for a punter if you are the best punter in college might work, but not anywhere near that amount if you are at a less than Top 25 school...ranking in football and probably most of the schools--it gets back to replacement value. A team would go with the guy with a 41 yard average instead of the 43 yard average guy demanding 250K. That said, this whole issue is way more complex than just saying "pay the players".

Unionized players, CBA, revenue share.

Then let the schools figure out how they want to distribute the money/assign value, so you and I don't have to think about it. Just like the NFL

football ultimately loses it's appeal on a broader level and has a negative domino effect on not only the non-Power 5 programs but non-revenue sports across the spectrum. The recent demise of St. Francis
s athletic programs is just the tip of the iceberg if every athlete feels entitled to being "paid" beyond a full scholarship. "Every" athlete does not deserve to be paid additional dollars unless they want to pursue NIL opportunities in their free time.

There’s only ~400 guys per year that are 3-star or above. That’s ~15 teams’ worth of signees.

you need 11 men to a side, irishdog80. Not everyone can be a 5 star guy, so yeah, people do tune in to watch those 2 and 3 star guys, whether they know it or not.

win. They tune out if the product is poor...less attendance, less eyeballs on TV and soon you are looking to join the Ivy League. The same applies to all entertainment. I am not going to the Bruce Springsteen concert if they announce that Bruce's spot is being taken by a cover band. Yes, some will go to see the cover band but they won't pay top dollar and you will have maybe 500 fans there instead of a sold out stadium.

The 2 and 3 star guys are replaceable. If they play well, they earned their scholarship. If they ride the bench for 4 years, they were overpaid. This really isn't that complicated.

the games cannot be played without the rest of the guys--no, really, they have rules and everything. I wouldn't lie to you, Irishdog80.

without Tyreek Hill. The Chiefs just went out and got three new receivers that in total were paid less than what Tyreek wanted, but they got another Super Bowl win with "replacement level" players. Patrick Mahomes was irreplaceable and that's why he got the big bucks. Most of the rest of the guys...not so much.

The game goes on. Players will be found. The 2 and 3 star guys do not matter as much and are replaceable. The stars matter. Put Mac Jones, DaVonte Smith and Najee Harris on Notre Dame in 2019 and Notre Dame probably wins the game. Difference makers matter not "replacement level players".

And wake up. It does matter who they are tuning in for...have you watched the XFL this year? Neither have I.

years, pushes the 4 and 5 stars at his position to keep working hard, pushes the guy lined up against him in practice every day to get better but rarely plays because there the coach recruited better players is overpaid.

Got it.

35K and higher. If they want more, perform at a higher level. It is the sports world. Players are paid for performance. If you want to see the truly grossly underpaid athletes, do a quick review of minor league baseball, hockey and other sports players. They are not even paid minimum wage and can barely cover their expenses.

Let each school (franchise) decide how to spend its revenue-share-based payroll.

If Texas wants to spend $8M a year on a DE, great...but that may mean they can't afford to pay a couple 2- or 3-star recruits more than $50,000 per year.

But maybe that 3-star recruit can go to Kansas State or Michigan State and get $100,000 per year.

Or maybe they can't, and that's just the way the market has been set, just like the NFL.

Above and beyond their full tuition, room and board, etc.

Depth is important plus kids are a bit of an unknown when they first come out of high school.

I'd assume a minimum salary would be set up and an overall team cap for major CFB programs.

Where would you cut off the requirement? With your number, the average D1 Program would need to allot $10-15 million for player "salaries".

CFB programs that average $80M+ annual revenue - in other words, P5 schools. Or a high % of them.

average wage $350-$400K which is on top of the full scholarship.

"non-revenue" sports with the revenue they take in from football, basketball, hockey...whatever...depending upon the school. Most of the Power 5 can do it, what happens to the ones that can't. Do they drop sports? Do some conferences become the Big East of old and drop football? How do the dominos fall?

But I would anticipate collateral damage.

sucked up to the top tier programs and the lower level programs play increasingly meaningless games. Nobody watches the XFL, by the way--the future of the have nots.

just like the XFL.

And he would find no greater value in a hypothetical free-market minor league system.

I disagree with that.

What they should receive is a different quesiton as you might imagine I think it should be more than the scholarship.

minor league baseball players about fair compensation. Many had the choice to play minor league or play college. College is the better paid alternative unless they are a big signing bonus guy. If not, tuition, room and board plus other perks is living in style versus sharing a low rent apartment in some out of the way locale.

When discussing the football and to a lesser extent BB now they do not have that choice.

Which is kind of the point here. The absolute worst player on the UT or OU roster is still worth more to the program (on a revenue generation basis) than the cost of in-state tuition at either of those schools.

For one, performance is only imperfectly correlated to revenue generation. So

Second, the worth of an individual is not measured by imagining a hypothetical universe in which all individuals at his same level would be eliminated. It's measured by the marginal value the individual provides. And the 75th-85th scholarship guys on the roster generally provide very little value either in winning games or generating revenue.

Third, there are also several factors to look at in weighing the value of the degree. States have an incentive to price the degrees at lower than market value by subsidies that benefit in-state students. Most studies would put UT value at well above its cost. And for players that would not be able to be admitted to the schools without the scholarship, that value is considerably greater. Flagship state school educations are quite valuable.

good enough to play. Interesting. What if another less talented player had their spot? I can think of thousands of players that would love a full ride scholarship. Would the results for the program change? Would less people go to or watch the game? Impact on revenue generation is the true driving force.

Just like the other 4 major leagues do it. Back out cost of scholarships.

-concessions, merchandise, ticket sales, parking, and TV revenue.

Let the team/school decide which players get what. Salary caps at aggregate, minimum player salary.

because, as you mention, in order to maintain eligibility they have to go to class. That's 15 hours a week (at least) right there. Plus mandatory study hall (even if they don't need it), plus workouts (10-15 hours per week), plus meetings. Plus outside time working on position specific stuff with their position group ("voluntary" of course).

It's always funny to me to see how the average person actually has little to no idea how much time a D1 athlete spends at their sport.

Notre Dame students do and receive no compensation. They go to class, study and work out on a regular basis and likely play some sports for their hall.

Yes, in-season, the work load for athletes is intense and greater than most have and for that extra effort and performance for the school, they get paid a scholarship. In the case of Notre Dame that compensation is equal to $100,000 per year...nice bank for an 18-22 year old. In the off-season, the work load is much less.

And again some of the athletes deserve more, most, 90-95%, don't other than the scholarship they received. Only a few deserve a lot more, some just a bit more. Just look at the concept of "WAR or Wins Above Replacement Level" in major league baseball. Most college athletes would have O WAR or negative WAR. Or the plus/minus concept in basketball...why pay a "minus" athlete more?

skip a workout if they want to. The typical student is not missing class because they are out of state playing a game.

I remember the season showtime followed the football team. After the game at Fenway they showed Kizer talking about the fact he needed to get home because he needed to study for accounting test on Tuesday. I think that game ended at like 11:15 East Coast time Assume an hour to get players showered and on the buses, 20 minutes to get the bus to the airport, 15 minutes to load the plane, an hour flight time home and assume 30 minutes to get off the plane bus back to school and get to your dorm / apartment. I have no idea if those guesses are right but if anything it seems quicker to me than it likely takes. so just say 4 hours from the time the game ends until a player is in his room. That means they got home at 3:15.

Now planty of students go out until 3:!5 but it is their choice and they dont need to be in the training room for treatment the next day or meet with a position coach.

Pigs are cute hogs get slaughtered. Somewhere between college sports pre-ESPN and today the business went from cute "pigs" like Holtz making 300K in 1985 (890K adjusted for inflation) a year to "hogs" like Brian Kelly making 10 million.

To be clear I am not blaming ESPN nor am I calling Holtz a pig but there is no question the development of ESPN led to an explosion of television content and that drove an explosion of the money. Take a look sometime at the University Athletic Department Staff list. I fault none of those people their jobs but I dont think any of us realize how many people across the country make their living (and in many cases a very nice living) off a system where the players are not allowed to be paid.

an attendant dilution in value for many of the teams. Back in the day, Notre Dame-USC was one of maybe two games on the air. Now it fights for air time with at least four other games. The result? The need for bigger stars on the field and better results for the team to draw more eyeballs and butts for the seats.

Yes, there are a select few programs in college sports...at the most 50 across all sports that generate big revenue. At the same time, partly due to Title IX...which I am a believer in, there has also been an explosion in the number of non-revenue sports at major universities. I am all for it. The net/net is less money to go around unless you are a true blue blood bringing in big dollars to cover the non-revenue sports.

workload of college athletes and what the off season entails.

Uh, I am sort of familiar with this stuff, Irishdog80. I kind of have an idea, and I know that you don't. The idea that the work load is much less in the offseason is basically stating that they go from 80-100 hours per week to 40-50, so I suppose that's true in a sense, but not in the sense you mean, as you apparently believe they spend most of their time snapping towels in the shower at each other and gold's gymming it in the weight room by the curl bar.

I have agreed that high level athletes at major programs put in a lot of hours especially during the season. The concept of "paying college athletes" is not just limited to football and it's not just limited to the top programs in the country. My point is the vast majority of college athletes are handsomely compensated with their scholarships and other benefits. End of story. The issue is only about those that make a difference and how they should be compensated within the overall athletic department budget.

And where am I lecturing? I am expressing a viewpoint...nothing more. You want to lecture me.

and yet presume to tell me how much these athletes (stars and non-stars) are working and how much they deserve (in your opinion) to be compensated.

You know what? I think that you might have a point. I pay my support staff too much. I need to find a way to lock them out and prohibit them from working anywhere else for at least three years. I will handsomely reward them with some cheap meals, some decent dorm rooms, and some sweat suits and sliders that you value at about $1000/year (snicker). Once they're done working for me for 3 years, I will give them a valuable diploma and a reference and they can go work anywhere for however much they can get; if they did a really good job for me and outperformed expectations, they will likely be able to get fantastic jobs with major firms and earn a 6 figure income. That is a handsome reward from where I sit. And in the meantime, I will go ahead and keep all the profits and divert them to good causes like the church, jobs for my family members, etc.

There is a reason that the judges laugh at this argument, Irishdog80. There is a reason that Notre Dame guys like Jenkins, Swarbrick, and Smith are appealing to Congress.

been some growing pains with the new transfer rule and NIL, it is a big step in the right direction. The market has changed so your "argument" regarding your support staff, etc is not valid today. You are shouting into the wind.

Your argument is solely for the big time college sports. My argument has always been about the general concept that a full tuition, room and board and other benefits...much more than the average student...is fair compensation for an 18-22 year old college athlete. If you are arguing about the blue bloods of college sports and the big money making sports, I am pretty much on your side.

And pay floors. And unions. And arbitration. College athletics have none of that. It is so far from an apples to apples comparison that I don’t think you are debating in good faith.

• Click here for link at https://www.2adays.com/blog/flaws-of-the-20-hour-rule/

35k per year at a public institution? No way. Perhaps half of that, including all of the other stuff beyond tuition. I will use several schools that I am relatively familiar with--U of NM, NMSU, U of Colorado, CSU and Wyoming. For a student with even decent grades and/or limited financial ability, you're looking at maybe 10k per year. We had one guy at NMSU figure out that he could have actually been going to school for free without football simply because of his grades and how desperate they are for kids.

At Notre Dame? Certainly. And that's the point that should have been made during recruiting over and over and over and over until the coaches and administrators were blue in the face.

institutions...see article. Frankly some are more, some will be less. Add in the following:

--Wardrobe...Nike, Adidas, Under Armour gear...likely around $500-1000 per year
--Stipend...anywhere from $1000 to much more depending upon travel, etc.
--Upgraded Room and Board--$1-5000 per year for steak and lobster meals and better accommodations than the typical student
--Tutoring $1000+

See link below.

• Click here for link at https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/kansas/kansas-state-u

Perhaps you should look up NMSU or UNM, or perhaps Nevada.

I will save you the time--go ahead and subtract most of those things, except for perhaps the clothes (although I don't know about $500-$1000).

Get rid of the stipend.
Upgraded room and board only works if that's available (which it really isn't at most non-power 5 schools) and is really an unnecessary perk anyway.
You can also subtract tutoring for most of the guys, but I suppose for the bottom 15% or so having someone do their homework.......errrrrrrrrr....keep them accountable for getting their work done is valuable.

your athletes since you would not have the revenue base to do so. What's your point?

Form the rules about classes and grades and fraud and unfair treatment. And enforce them.

But, let the schools and their boosters decide how valuable a 5-star All-American defensive end is relative to the coxswain on the crew team.

Maybe it destroys college athletics. It seems like we're on that path already. I'm skeptical that any kind of compensation "rules" will actually be enforced. And, I don't believe the 5-star defensive end should be forced to accept lesser compensation so the coxswain can enjoy the college athletic experience.

As a side note, we already have multiple college athletic associations (at least 2 that I know of in the NAIA and NCAA), so if the top 30 or 40 schools decide to leave the NCAA to form their own association it's not like it's completely unprecedented.

is completely lost on me.

A person's name, image, and likeness is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it.

Does Dwayne Johnson "deserve" to be the highest-paid actor in the world? Maybe not, but who gives a shit if the people writing the checks think it's "fair"?

incentive to return profit. Boosters are often not. So they really aren’t very similar. Yes, there are plenty of NIL deals based on an enterprise’s primary desire that the investment in the athletes benefits the enterprises business. But traditionally boosters gave benefits primarily because losing money gave them personal value by seeing a team win. That’s not a market decision. They actually had to hide that they did this to the public to keep teams from getting sanctioned. Now that they are pretty much allowed to do this with no regulatory oversight, that is only likely to increase the number of non-market decisions to pay players.

That schools have to recruit donations to keep up with other teams suggests that this isn’t a void the market was just dying to fill at the numbers that are currently being spent.

People are worth what people are willing to pay them, market decision or not. This discussion is a non-starter.

I am not interested in the NCAA becoming the arbiter of who is and isn't allowed to make bad decisions for bona fide market reasons. But there can be reporting requirements for the amount of compensation and nature of the work performed. It could also require having to show actual work performed by the athlete/promotion by the entity of the relationship that exploits the NIL. Students regularly have reporting requirements for internships. The disclosure itself will disincentivize a company from making deals that he knows the market would consider to be wasteful. Alternately, if they believe they are getting market value out of the relationship (increase business with alumni, etc.), they will want to promote it. The reporting itself will allow compliance folks to see outlandish amounts that warrant further scrutiny. These are duties that the NCAA has long performed when analyzing whether employment is bona fide or not.

compared to the actual revenue being generated (especially since the institutions themselves aren't paying any of that revenue out to the players in the form of NIL).

and administrators, that's for sure. It's worked really well for Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh, and Jack Swarbrick has created generational wealth for his family.

That's the problem these guys run into when they argue for reducing compensation to student athletes--people see them as selfish and dishonest, because that's who they've shown themselves to be over the years.

I agree the current system of NIL is broken. But if schools want to rake in billions in tv/gate revenue on the backs of student-athletes, they need to get a cut of the revenue.

I am fairly agnostic in terms of the mechanics. A moderate stipend plus a trust fund that can be accessed after graduation seems like a good way to keep in the spirit of college athletics, but I don't think its moral for the schools to keep all the cash.

Tough to lose all credibility in the first sentence, but they managed it.

"In a teary locker room this month, after the Notre Dame men’s basketball team ended its season with a close loss in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament..."

Edit: A lot of what they say afterwards, like ending one-and-done for hoops I agree with, even if some if it is indeed pissing in the wind as described below.

"Underlying all that is the widespread belief that college athletics is simply a lucrative business disguised as a branch of educational institutions."

Not once do JJ/JS explain how this belief is wrong.

"Professionalizing teams, treating athletes more as employees than as students and weakening the vital connection with the educational mission of their colleges will rob college athletics of its special character. Gradually it will be seen as merely a version of the professional minor leagues."

Please explain how expanding the college football playoff stops the professionalization of college football.

...if/when college athletics is at its best.

Six master's degrees. Even more undergraduate degrees. Locker room as classroom. Invaluable lessons about leadership, teamwork and growing through adversity.

The problem is that college athletics very often isn't at its best. But the fact that it very often isn't doesn't mean that all it is is a "lucrative business disguised as a branch of educational institutions."

All those benefits (degrees, lessons in leadership and teamwork, etc.) are available at lower divisions of athletics where essentially no revenue comes from licensing (television or merchandising) agreements.

Why does Jimbo Fischer make $10 million/year at TAMU while Tim Murphy makes $75 thousand/year at Harvard?

See linked article.

Nonetheless you are correct that college athletics does not require (and usually does not involve) coaches who make 8 figures. But even in the places where it does involve coaches making 8 figures, that doesn't mean that that's all that is going on. Though it often isn't, college athletics can be both a lucrative business AND something that furthers the educational mission of a university.

• Click here for link at https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/07/sports/sports-people-coll

I can't find an updated number easily. Either way, we both know there is a world of difference in salary between the two.

Something else to consider...You use Notre Dame's men's basketball team as an example of college athletics at its best. What happened to the head coach? Why?

Which I can assure you happens at every level of college athletics. I'm not sure I follow your point?

That college athletics can provide an invaluable education doesn't mean that winning isn't also important. Indeed, winning and what it takes to win are part of that education.

Ensuring the students were prepared for life outside of athletics? Isn't that the stated goal of the NCAA? Did Brey fail at this? Or was he fired for not winning enough games?

The NCAA and its member institutions will hide behind an academic mission at every convenient opportunity. However, their athletic decisions are ultimately driven by their wallets, not the wellness of their students.

Which:

(1) Nobody has ever beaten around the bush about as a fundamental goal for college coaches. Pretty much every school competing in college athletics at any level wants to win.

and

(2) As noted, I would argue is not incompatible with or even unrelated to the mission of preparing students for life outside of athletics. The hard work, perseverance in the face of adversity, etc. needed for winning are part of what helps prepare students for life.

But maybe just to cut to the chase, could you spell out what it is you'd like college athletics to look like in your dream scenario? Little to no money involved? Wins and losses not a determining factor in coaching decisions?

If you could wave a magic wand and design the system from scratch, what would it look like?

Congress is the audience. So of course, they'll have to attempt to pay those guys off errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...... attempt to lobby them towards the Notre Dame way of thinking about the situation.

It really is too little, too late for most of society (including the courts, it would appear, which is why this appeal is being made now).

The crisis about to befall NCAA sports was already in motion at that time and it was a topic that had been debated as far back as the 1970s. O'Bannon was the first one to really push the topic because he had an army of intelligent ex-student athletes at UCLA and elsewhere behind him. Swarbrick took over as AD as '08. So we are now discovering that the NCAA is a weak body filled with narcissists?

We are too far down the road. The only option for college sports is the nuclear one. Disband the NCAA and determine whether the mission is money and TV ratings or the education of student-athletes. We all know what the answer will be. We all know what Swarbrick's position is. So a nice idea posed after everybody realizes what a mess we've created is not heroic. It's cowardice. Where was this plan when it wasn't popular?

And I get that there was coverage as far back as 2015 and Jenkins was warning about this years ago. But as the first law partner I worked for told me, this is the real world not law school. You no longer get points for issue spotting.

I liked Notre Dame when they met the KKK ready for a fight before they got off the train, not after they burned down campus.

If Swarbrick demands us to Be Irish, I'd like him to Be a Leader.

It seems to me in general university leaders within the NCAA are fine with how things are as long as the money flows to the institutions and ultimately themselves personally. Regardless of what they say, why would they break up a good thing?

until it costs them donations (see Notre Dame man Gene Smith's comments about Ohio State's NIL money costing the Athletic department donations).

Coaches don't really like it as much because it takes a lot of things out of their control and can sometimes force them to be beholden to boosters, etc. whom they don't want to be beholden to.

If I had to take a guess, I would say that the administrators love NIL but would prefer a bit more regulation whereas the coaches would just prefer to have more of an NFL style system with minimums, caps, etc. that would come from a revenue split.

That’s what I hear whenever I read or hear what Swarbrick says.

In a teary locker room this month, after the Notre Dame men’s basketball team ended its season with a close loss in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, the coach spoke not about lost opportunities on the court, but rather about the six master’s degrees (in addition to undergraduate degrees) that members of the team had earned, the lifelong friendships they had formed, and the invaluable lessons they had learned about leadership, teamwork and growing through adversity. The locker room is a classroom where the lesson that athletics can and should be part of a university’s educational mission is lived every day. Even Knute Rockne said that college athletics should be secondary to academics.

The nation is now immersed in the thrill of the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament. (Our women’s team plays Maryland on Saturday.) But beyond the excitement, college athletics is in crisis.

It faces threats on a number of fronts: the growing patchwork of contradictory and confusing state laws regulating it, the specter of crippling lawsuits, the profusion of dubious name, image and likeness deals through which to funnel money to recruits, the misguided attempts to classify student-athletes as employees. Underlying all that is the widespread belief that college athletics is simply a lucrative business disguised as a branch of educational institutions.

We call on universities to reaffirm that student-athletes are students first and to ensure that their athletic programs serve the schools’ broader educational mission, not the other way around. We call on the N.C.A.A. and athletic conferences to set policies that support that goal. And we urge Congress to protect the N.C.A.A.’s ability to regulate the competition for new players to ensure it remains fair and above board.

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How did we get here? The history of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament is illustrative. It began in 1939 with eight teams and no television. It was so popular that it doubled to 16 teams in 1951, to 32 teams in 1975, and to 64 teams in 1985, then added a “play in” opening round in 2001 that was expanded in 2011. Television coverage grew with the tournament; CBS and Turner pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year (soon to be $1 billion a year) for the right to broadcast the games. As the tournament’s popularity increased, so did the value of a winning team — and the salaries of successful coaches.

The perception has grown in recent years that student-athletes, whose talent and hard work create so much revenue for schools and even coaches, get nothing in return. Echoing public opinion, courts have struck down longstanding N.C.A.A. regulations that barred student-athletes from profiting from their image and likeness. That has resulted in further antitrust suits against the N.C.A.A. and athletic conferences.

We have been vocal in our conviction that student-athletes should be allowed to capture the value of the use of their name, image and likeness (N.I.L.) — in other words, profit from their celebrity — for one simple reason: Other students are allowed to. If a college student is a talented artist or musician no one begrudges him the chance to make money from his skills. And athletes should as far as possible have the opportunities other students enjoy.

Unfortunately, the new N.I.L. rules have proven to be easy to abuse. To avoid the N.C.A.A. prohibition against directly paying athletic recruits, many schools funnel money to recruits under the guise of a supposed third-party licensing deal — regardless of whether a player’s name, image and likeness have any market value whatsoever. We must establish and enforce regulations that allow legitimate transactions while barring those that are recruiting enticements or pay-for-play.

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The claim that student-athletes otherwise get nothing from a multibillion-dollar college sports industry is false — and the misperception behind it goes to the heart of what is at stake.

If a talented high school player heads straight to the minor leagues, he earns a paycheck. If he goes instead to college, he can earn something far more valuable: a degree. Economists estimate a college degree is typically worth about $1 million in enhanced earning power in a lifetime. At our institution, 99 percent of student-athletes who stay for at least four years get a diploma. Because less than 2 percent of all our student-athletes will play in their sport professionally, such a benefit is useful indeed.

At Notre Dame, revenue from football and men’s basketball goes to support 24 other varsity sports, including, most important, women’s sports — most of which did not exist on college campuses before 1972.

Since the advent of Title IX 50 years ago, no development in college athletics has been more significant than the rise of women’s sports. While many female athletes have benefited from N.I.L. deals, those who press for giving a higher percentage of revenue to football and men’s basketball players should understand that such a decision could endanger women’s athletics. At Notre Dame, that encompasses more than 300 female student-athletes, all of whom work just as hard as their male counterparts to compete at the highest levels in their sport and in the classroom.

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Overseeing N.I.L. transactions is just the beginning. To enhance the educational experience and overall health and well-being of our student-athletes, the N.C.A.A. should also set a limit on how many days away from campus a team can require. Part of a college education is the interaction with others in the classroom, the dining hall and the dorms. Student-athletes deserve that experience, too.

The N.C.A.A. or the athletic conferences should create a national medical trust fund to benefit all student-athletes who are injured while playing, regardless of sport, school size or standing. And finally, we should set a policy so that players who leave school to go pro have the option to return — with the same financial grants they had the first time around. At Notre Dame, we have done this for many student-athletes, including the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Jerome Bettis, who returned last spring to complete his degree 28 years after leaving to play professionally.

Congress, too, must act to resolve conflicting state regulations, clarify that our athletes are students, not employees, and give the N.C.A.A. the ability to enact and enforce rules for fair recruiting and compensation.

Professional athletics must play a role, too. Though baseball and hockey allow players to go pro right after high school, the N.B.A. age requirement for draft eligibility forces most of the highly talented players to attend one year of college. The N.F.L. offers no alternative to intercollegiate football until a player has been out of high school for at least three years. Both policies push talented young players to enroll in college regardless of whether they have any interest in the educational experience it offers.

To ensure that players arrive at college only after making an informed choice — and a real commitment to learning — we urge the N.F.L. to establish a minor league alternative for young players. Similarly, we hope that the N.B.A. and its Players’ Union, in accord with the 2018 Commission on College Basketball, use the upcoming contract negotiations to eliminate the “one and done” rule and allow 18-year-olds to proceed directly to the league.

College athletics is a treasured national institution. Professionalizing teams, treating athletes more as employees than as students and weakening the vital connection with the educational mission of their colleges will rob college athletics of its special character. Gradually it will be seen as merely a version of the professional minor leagues. More important, that approach will not serve the vast majority of young men and women who pursue a college degree and grow personally while they play the sport they love. We can support them and preserve the institution that serves them.

John I. Jenkins has been president of the University of Notre Dame since 2005. Jack B. Swarbrick is a vice president and the director of athletics at Notre Dame.

the fact is that it is a last ditch Hail Mary pass intended for Congress as a plea to help guide the NCAA because the member institutions can't do it themselves.

In my opinion, Congress should pass on it; the members are not to be trusted and simply cannot help themselves. Notre Dame's time to lead this charge was years ago, and they punted (these same authors of this piece, I might add).

Now, perhaps I am wrong and perhaps they can actually get this accomplished with the proper NIL enforcement, getting the NFL to add a minor league, etc. I honestly hope that is the case.

Let's say somewhere along the line you lead by example and say you're going to cut administrative bloat and coaching salaries. I think this is fundamentally a good thing (remember when Mack Brown making 5 mil a year was outrageous? ha!)

Then everyone else says "oooohh....yeah...um...we'll think about it" and you've basically committed coaching suicide. I'm not saying it's right, but if we unilaterally decide the ND men's basketball coach can now only make 150k/year, are we going to get anyone near competent if nobody else backs off too?

I'm not saying JS isn't a giant weasel, but there needs to be a way to get this to happen at a broad level, and the NCAA should have been the one to do this years ago. Instead, they liked the money and let it continue.

The conclusion is that college athletics is a treasured national institution subject to intense pressures from public opinion and the courts so it must be strengthened and preserved by Congressional regulation along with assistance from professional sports.

As nohow mentioned above, they mention the widespread belief that college athletics is simply a lucrative business disguised as a branch of educational institutions, but don't really say anything to disprove it.

It's especially ripe coming from Jack Swarbrick given his net worth is almost solely built on the labor of amateur athletes (and he has set up his kids in adjacent careers which profit off of ND's place in the current "treasured national institution").

I also think Rev. Jenkins is not a good spokesman given given how he walked back his initial response to the improper academic benefits scandal under Kelly. That is, why should the NCAA care what he says when he doesn't care what they say?

For all the talk about landscape monitoring from our director of athletics who has been in the amateur athletics industry for thirty plus years, I don't see a hint of leadership. Where was he in pushing for action on NIL prior to 2021? He's as feckless as the institution he wishes he could be running (the NCAA).

At this point, my thought is to make the players employees if for no other reason to prevent the Jacks of the world from continuing to profit off the backs of unpaid labor when his pointless statements and continual efforts to cover his own ass represent the worst of my profession (and the profession of a plurality of posters here).

...those who press for giving a higher percentage of revenue to football and men’s basketball players should understand that such a decision could endanger women’s athletics."

I think the above sentence can certainly be read as "if you don't let us keep all the money, you hate women's sports." But maybe I'm being ungenerous given the source.

it's part of the hail Mary pass they're throwing to Congress, and they tried to run it by the courts as well and were laughed at by the judges, who promptly brought up the discrepancy in the NCAA tournament accommodations a few years back that was publicized.

Tucked in amongst some feel-good stuff.

If you are unable to receive any communication from Jenkins/Swarbrick in assumed good faith. I'm not being a jerk- I understand why you and many others would enter this piece with a giant dose of cynicism.

imagine they would be taking this position if it weren't in their self-interest.

Only issue is it's pretty late in the game.

Professional athletics must play a role, too. Though baseball and hockey allow players to go pro right after high school, the N.B.A. age requirement for draft eligibility forces most of the highly talented players to attend one year of college. The N.F.L. offers no alternative to intercollegiate football until a player has been out of high school for at least three years. Both policies push talented young players to enroll in college regardless of whether they have any interest in the educational experience it offers.

To ensure that players arrive at college only after making an informed choice — and a real commitment to learning — we urge the N.F.L. to establish a minor league alternative for young players. Similarly, we hope that the N.B.A. and its Players’ Union, in accord with the 2018 Commission on College Basketball, use the upcoming contract negotiations to eliminate the “one and done” rule and allow 18-year-olds to proceed directly to the league.

Removing the three year rule would solve a lot of the NIL inducement and players are employee problems. It would also be a huge boon to ND football.

in order to get something like that, the schools would have to give something up of value. What could that possibly be?

Why does the NFL get a free minor league system? What is the value of a free education? Why do students need to be employees?

If you remove the three year rule, colleges can return to offering an education in return for playing a sport. If you want to get paid you can turn professional.

"Why does the NFL get a free minor league system?" isn't the right question.

"Why should the NFL spend a whole bunch of money to build its own system when colleges have fallen all over themselves for 100+ years to provide one for free?" is a better one, and it's certainly a more realistic one than wondering why the world isn't fair.

Especially when colleges--even ND--will happily continue delivering a free minor league system to make sure they get their cut of the revenue.

If the three year rule was removed it allows colleges to argue that you can play NCAA football in return for an education. If you want to play for money you can play professionally.

Vets are already being squeezed out by cheaper young players...they would not vote in favor of a rule that will make that worse.

NFL rules are collectively bargained, my man.

From the application of usual laws that prohibit such collusion in restraint of trade.

If Congress is to address this issue, this exemption absolutely needs to be a part of the discussion.