Spencer Hall's "Broke"

Yeah, I was affording a very, very generous leash those on the other side of the argument. Fact is, the relationship between athlete/college is a symbiotic one in most cases. Most of these players aren't worth a shit in a professional environment, but they get some serious capital -- actual and human -- for wearing the school's uniform and being on the team. A degree from Michigan coupled with a -- Yeah, I played football at Michigan -- is worth far more over a players lifetime than his current worth on an open market. Again, there are exceptions, but the market in every other sport suggests the max it will bear is 32 teams at 53 players each, leaving, at minimum, what, 75 percent of kids worth exactly what they are now, and quite possibly less.

 

No, but Fatty McGee ought to get something for having the swoosh put on his jersey, and shouldn't have to worry about a booster buying him some Big Macs.

 

I don't disagree.

I just don't know how Nike pays him and not the women's volleyball player.

 

Most of those players are recruited by multiple schools, who have already established a market value for them of a scholarship. If those schools were forced into a bidding war, the players' market value is increased.

Also, it's not about that they're not getting anything for their labor. It's about how they're not permitted to get their market value for their labor.

For most players at most of the schools, if they were truly to have a free market, their market value would be their scholarship, plus whatever the school's shoe company would be willing to pay them to wear their shoes and plaster their logo on their jersey, and cream cheese for their bagels. For the 5 percent or so with increased marketability, they would earn more than the value of the scholarship.

 

They pay them the same amount for their logo on the jersey. For Johnny Quarterback, he gets the jersey logo money, and more for doing commercials.

 

It's been around for decades, only at that time, there could still be the argument that schools couldn't afford it, and that there was still virtue in amateurism. With the way things have been with increased money, the affordability and amateurism arguments fall flat.

 

Sorry, but the system wasn't working well for student-athletes because they couldn't even have someone buy them a soda.

 

This is a really great point I don't believe I've ever seen or heard anyone raise publicly. In appointing themselves the voice for college football players, there's a connotation some of the more vehement pay-for-play advocates make that is really quite settling.

Were they to interview some of the players for whom they believe they speak, and this KIND OF KID specifically, I think a lot of them would have their eyes opened quite a bit.

That doesn't mean I favor the status quo, but the solution is a whole lot more complex than just borrowing an ideology from Goodfellas while tuning out all other conversation:

 

If they were playing solely for the love of the game, they'd be playing Division III.

 

Is this in response to me? If so, I think you may have misunderstood.

 

He tends to do that.

 

God, I'm so tired of variations of this silly-ass argument.

Sure, they get a free education, free housing and free food (including, of course, free soda). But the system isn't working, because a booster can't buy them a soda!