In reply to: if schools cannot afford sports and drop them as a result posted by jt
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".
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.
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.