Real Sports story implicates Auburn, other schools

That's what they also said about baseball's reserve clause. It took over 85 years, but that went away.

How many Tennessee jerseys with Peyton Manning's number were sold compared to Eric Ainge? How much money did they each get from that? Zero.

It'll take an athlete, or several athletes, with a lot of talent and a sense of social consciousness to change the system. Look at Michael Jordan's kid. He refused to wear his team's sneakers. He had people calling him greedy and selfish. The nerve of the kid, to want to wear sneakers of his choice, rather than the company that the school receives money from. Yet, the school ended up backing down.

Mike Krzyzewski gets sneaker money, and the team is forced to wear the brand that endorses him. Why can't they make their own deals?

 

I'm surprised the NCAA hasn't scheduled an emergency meeting, if only to appear to be taking the recent goings on seriously. These aren't just a few underfunded athletic departments screwing up paperwork or rogue players, coaches or boosters - this is an organization adrift with no concept of integrity. The "everybody does it" mindset is rotting the NCAA which seems to be very lax in accountability. Maybe all of the schools are complicit, they certainly are if they continue to allow the cheaters to go unscathed and undermine their own credibility. Forget scholarships, start taking away non-league home games in football - the hit those schools and the local communities take would be a wake-up call.

 

I was hoping someone would call me out on the protection money thing and point out laws aren't the same as rules.

Now I get to point out that trying to equate college athletes with laborers not getting fair compensation is just as big a stretch.

 

See, here's my question(s): When did it become "labor" instead of sports? When an athletic department first turned a profit? When coaching salaries reached a certain point? What point?

The Division III school here offers no athletics scholarships. Every athlete I've interviewed says he or she plays for the love of the sport, etc., but their primary focus is on their education. So, are they laborers too, or does that only apply to schools that bring in large amounts of money? And how large? Have college athletes always been laborers openly colluded against in the entire history of the NCAA, or only since a certain point? When would that point be, then?

And what about high school athletes? Same labor. Shouldn't they be paid? Or does it only apply to places that have big budgets? So, it's good exercise, good team building, good mind-body activity only when nobody's making too much money, but it's exploitation otherwise? If a high school program turns a profit, should the players get paid? How much profit? Where is the line?

Just curious.

 

1.) You've created a strawman. The one thing everyone in this thread agrees on is that players receive value for their service. What we disagree on is if it's the appropriate amount (and whether NCAA schools should get to openly agree in advance on that amount).

2.) I think that's a very unfair spin to put on what I said. Yes, I don't believe the media should expend resources helping to enforce laws that are unjust. The fact that I would hold the same position about other extraordinary unjust laws in no way suggests I'm equating their relative values of unjustness. Is your position that the media should actively enforce unjust laws unless they reach levels of Jim Crow unjustness?

3.) No, I suppose we can't guarantee someone receives fair value for their services. But we can also do our best to make sure one side isn't distorting the market by amassing an unfair bargaining position.

 

I'd say it slowly became "labor" for not only the reasons you mentioned, but also when scholarships came into play, which gave players a reason to stick with the sport, and also when the demands on their time became equally or more excessive than their time as a student.

100 years ago, college sports had the quaint notion of having students (well, to be accurate, male students) play sports for fun to blow off steam after classes. It became so much fun, they started challenging nearby schools. It became battles for bragging rights for fans and players to play other schools. Players (often called "tramp athletes"), even got paid back then. Supposedly, George Gipp was one of the first, and Pittsburgh coach Jock Sutherland was openly accused of paying players in the 1930s.

But still, athletes mostly practiced during the week (no weightlifting at the time) of their season, and didn't play as many games. Heck, the football schedule was 11 games plus a bowl until 15 years ago. Now, players must work out year round, whether the workouts are "voluntary" or not, you get teams playing 12 regular season games, a conference title game, and a bowl. The players aren't getting anything extra for it. Coaches are. Why is that fair?

With D-III athletes, they're already going to school for the education. Sports is just an extracurricular activity for them. For a D-I scholarship athlete, it's a business. If they don't perform, they lose their scholarship, and the amount of time that they're spending on their sport reduces their classroom time, which hurts their grades and their chances of getting academic scholarships.

 

JD, maybe this is a bit facetious, but couldn't your argument just as easily go the other way? What distinguishes athletes at major DI schools from professionals? Why is it labor and not "sport" for them? Would the owners be justified agreeing on a price for labor-with no players union-if they converted to non-profits dedicated toward spreading the culture of sport across the country while paying themselves and other managers big profits?

If the idea of paying college (or even high school) players seems a bit unseemly maybe that suggests educational institutions should get out of the major athletics business.

 

On the other hand, if, schools, without agreeing between themselves ahead of time on a price, can get players to volunteer to play sports, I wouldn't have a problem it.

 

Let me just throw this out there, out of a sense of honest curiosity. I've found the thread fascinating, certainly has given me a lot of new perspective on things. Having said that, how truly unfair / inequitable is the current system?

I certainly understand the inequity, as well as the silly student athlete charade, for the Derrick Roses of the world. Having said that, aren't the athletes in that situation (can step right into making a living at their sport) in the vast minority? Also, isn't this more of an issue for the pro league (or their union), rather than the schools?

I'll also confess, I probably have some natural bias. I was a lower middle class kid, who was fortunate enough to score a partial ride, for baseball, at a D1 school. It was WELL back in the day, when they could carve up the scholarships in all kinds of odd ways. It was a huge deal for my family.....as well as the families of a huge number of my teammates. Plus, as I've already stated, I have an extensive background in the financial aid field.

With that said, I look at the number of kids (it's what they really are), who benefit from the system (whether that be completing a degree, physically developing their immature sports skills, or simply getting the maturing benefit of spending a couple of years in a college environment), vs. the number of kids who aren't allowed to walk right into earning a living in their sport. All sports (but heck, you can just consider football & hoops, and it's still valid), all levels. FBS, FCS, D1, D2, NAIA, Juco, etc..

It's literally thousands vs. a small handful. Just hard for me to work up the level of indignation, that some folks seem have. The cheating has to stop. I'd love to see the pro leagues give a better shake to the handful. For those of you that are so angry, though....what am I missing? Sincere question.

 

Well, actually, I might in certain circumstances.

 

I agree that the pro leagues are partially responsible for this. I agree that making education more affordable is a noble goal. But, just because those things are true doesn't mean the NCAA and their members institutions shouldn't evaluate their own role.

Athletics directors and NCAA administrators make a lot of money. Coaches make a lot of money. Jim Nantz and executives make a lot of money. But rather than cutting into their own salaries to fund athletic departments, they have banded together to create rules that force a bunch of teenagers to shoulder the burden. Worse, some of them have audacity to climb hight atop Mt. Pious to castigate players for taking money for doing something that is not otherwise illegal (in fact, it's playing sports-something the schools are encouraging them to do). Further, the rules may be hurting players aside from just keeping them from earning money they deserve, because it creates this murky underworld of AAU coaches, agents, etc. Couldn't we better protect players if it was just out in the open?

Certainly, there are many problems we could choose to address. There are many factors that would go into deciding in what order we should address them. But one of the things that bothers me about this one is that there are many people--many of them earning great sums of money by keeping this system in place--that insist this isn't one when it really is.

 

Since you've spent the majority of your 50+ posts on Auburn-related threads, are you an alum, an Auburn beat writer, a die-hard fan or all of the above?