Should semipro/college players be paid, or allowed to sell their stuff? (NIL)

[ScriptOhio]

2. Under a "paid to play" system I have to wonder how long the Big 10 would last? My guess: within 2 years Northwestern and Indiana would be gone. By the end of five only Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Nebraska would remain. Would they then play a home and home series each year?

Ref: Payouts during the Big Ten Network?s first two years were $6.1 million and $6.4 million, respectively.

There is plenty of $$$ going to all the Big 10 schools to take care of a reasonable stiphend to the students on an athletic scholarship, etc. The Big 10 can just "earmark" some of the TV money for it.

:osu:

 

[cincibuck]

Ref: Payouts during the Big Ten Network?s first two years were $6.1 million and $6.4 million, respectively.

There is plenty of $$$ going to all the Big 10 schools to take care of a reasonable stiphend to the students on an athletic scholarship, etc. The Big 10 can just "earmark" some of the TV money for it.

:osu:

TV revenue is impressive, and you may be right that it will keep the conference above water, yet even with that injection it's my understanding that things are tight at the OSU Ath. Dept. Some of that is repaying for all the facilities built in recent years and some of it is the enormous expense of paying for all the other non-revenue sports. But if that's the situation at OSU, what's happening at other schools without the buckeye revenue levels?

I think the big question in the Big 10 will be parity. Are you suggesting a conference pay scale be established and that a halfback at any Big 10 school earns as much as a halfback at any other? Are you thinking that there won't be bidding wars for talent within the conference and between the conferences? Not trying to discount your argument, just seeking what your thoughts are.

At Northwestern -- with a 35K stadium that is seldom full -- that 6.4 may be the difference between having a football program and not having one. That and the income derived when playing on the road at OSU, PSU, Michigan and Nebraska. When do the other schools -- like the big 4 -- put pressure on NU to give up home dates on the very real argument that it's too great a loss of income to travel to their place? That's already happened in the case when Art Modell paid to have the game moved from Chicago to Cleveland Memorial.

But let's assume that the TV money keeps the Big 10 in football -- what happens to the MAC, Mountain West and those other conferences without big TV revenue? -- hell, how you gonna sell the Big East for that matter? I can see the ACC cutting way back on football to keep their basketball where it is. The next question being where do you get the games -- i.e. what are you going to do when you don't have Chattanoga/Kent State/NWSEC Louisiana/Michigan to kick around anymore?

 

[BUCKYLE]

TV revenue is impressive, and you may be right that it will keep the conference above water, yet even with that injection it's my understanding that things are tight at the OSU Ath. Dept. Some of that is repaying for all the facilities built in recent years and some of it is the enormous expense of paying for all the other non-revenue sports. But if that's the situation at OSU, what's happening at other schools without the buckeye revenue levels?

I think the big question in the Big 10 will be parity. Are you suggesting a conference pay scale be established and that a halfback at any Big 10 school earns as much as a halfback at any other? Are you thinking that there won't be bidding wars for talent within the conference and between the conferences? Not trying to discount your argument, just seeking what your thoughts are.

At Northwestern -- with a 35K stadium that is seldom full -- that 6.4 may be the difference between having a football program and not having one. That and the income derived when playing on the road at OSU, PSU, Michigan and Nebraska. When do the other schools -- like the big 4 -- put pressure on NU to give up home dates on the very real argument that it's too great a loss of income to travel to their place? That's already happened in the case when Art Modell paid to have the game moved from Chicago to Cleveland Memorial.

But let's assume that the TV money keeps the Big 10 in football -- what happens to the MAC, Mountain West and those other conferences without big TV revenue? -- hell, how you gonna sell the Big East for that matter? I can see the ACC cutting way back on football to keep their basketball where it is. The next question being where do you get the games -- i.e. what are you going to do when you don't have Chattanoga/Kent State/NWSEC Louisiana/Michigan to kick around anymore?

Crazy how the NFL turns a profit every year without the Patriots playing an Arena League team.

I'd imagine the dollars would be even greater if tOSU's schedule consisted of Texas, ND, USC, UF, LSU, 'Bama, Ok, Neb, Miami, FSU, PSU, UCLA, etc, etc, etc.

 

[MaxBuck]

Something that's getting lost in this whole business is that the last thing Northwestern, Indiana and Minnesota want is for Ohio State to get bowl bans. They rely on the revenue generated by the Buckeyes football team no less than the Buckeye track team does.

 

[ScriptOhio]

Ref: Payouts during the Big Ten Network?s first two years were $6.1 million and $6.4 million, respectively.

There is plenty of $$$ going to all the Big 10 schools to take care of a reasonable stiphend to the students on an athletic scholarship, etc. The Big 10 can just "earmark" some of the TV money for it.

:osu:

TV revenue is impressive, and you may be right that it will keep the conference above water, yet even with that injection it's my understanding that things are tight at the OSU Ath. Dept. Some of that is repaying for all the facilities built in recent years and some of it is the enormous expense of paying for all the other non-revenue sports. But if that's the situation at OSU, what's happening at other schools without the buckeye revenue levels?

I think the big question in the Big 10 will be parity. Are you suggesting a conference pay scale be established and that a halfback at any Big 10 school earns as much as a halfback at any other? Are you thinking that there won't be bidding wars for talent within the conference and between the conferences? Not trying to discount your argument, just seeking what your thoughts are.

At Northwestern -- with a 35K stadium that is seldom full -- that 6.4 may be the difference between having a football program and not having one. That and the income derived when playing on the road at OSU, PSU, Michigan and Nebraska. When do the other schools -- like the big 4 -- put pressure on NU to give up home dates on the very real argument that it's too great a loss of income to travel to their place? That's already happened in the case when Art Modell paid to have the game moved from Chicago to Cleveland Memorial.

But let's assume that the TV money keeps the Big 10 in football -- what happens to the MAC, Mountain West and those other conferences without big TV revenue? -- hell, how you gonna sell the Big East for that matter? I can see the ACC cutting way back on football to keep their basketball where it is. The next question being where do you get the games -- i.e. what are you going to do when you don't have Chattanoga/Kent State/NWSEC Louisiana/Michigan to kick around anymore?

I'm just suggesting that all student athletes on scholarship get the same modest amount each month to cover their basic living expenses. The specific amount would be set by the NCAA:

The student athletes on scholarship should be paid a stipend to help with the basic living expenses (i.e. clothes, barber, laundry, pizza, car payment, gas, girl friend expenses , etc.). Let's face it; with the games, practices, workouts, team meetings, classes, studying and some social life today's student athlete does not really have time for a job too.

The NCAA needs to address this issue. Currently not all NCAA college/university athletes get the same benefits; division 1 & 2 gets scholarships and division 3 dosen't.

Solution: (At least for football) just change the rules for division 1 FBS gets the stipend; and division 1 FCS doesn't get the stipend. To establish a level playing field for recruiting, any current school/conference that doesn't want to pay the stipend can opt out of the division 1 FBS and go into division 1 FCS. Basically you could do the same thing for the other sports (i.e. create a new division for those schools paying the stipend). What's the problem with one more division champion in each sport?

 

[buckeyeslim]

Jonathan Wells talks about Coach Tressel and if Ncaa should pay players

Jonathan Wells talks about Coach Tressel and if Ncaa should pay players. I think I agree with him.

http://youtu.be/VpQfibEKYi0

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

Click the above link at your own risk

 

[Zurp]

Something that's getting lost in this whole business is that the last thing Northwestern, Indiana and Minnesota want is for Ohio State to get bowl bans. They rely on the revenue generated by the Buckeyes football team no less than the Buckeye track team does.

I'm not arguing with you. But I don't understand. The winner of the Big Ten gets a BCS bowl game. Often times, a second team gets a BCS bowl game, as well. After that, the next 5 or 6 teams are tied to other bowls. If Ohio State has a ban, someone else steps into that spot.

Maybe with Ohio State out, the Big Ten has a less-likely chance at a second BCS bowl game? Or maybe the bowl game Ohio State would have been in doesn't make as much money for the conference?

 

[cincibuck]

Crazy how the NFL turns a profit every year without the Patriots playing an Arena League team.

I'd imagine the dollars would be even greater if tOSU's schedule consisted of Texas, ND, USC, UF, LSU, 'Bama, Ok, Neb, Miami, FSU, PSU, UCLA, etc, etc, etc.

So turn college football into a professional league of say thirty/forty teams, semi-autonimous from the college's they presume to represent?

Form a new governing body, one with very few rules and little regulatory powers, and let the NCAA handle the Indianas, Texas Techs, Northwesterns and Vandy's?

Home and home conference series followed by a set of three playoffs to determine NC?

I could see that.

But aren't students already given tuition, housing, food money, books, and a stipend? If that isn't enough to keep some satisfied now, if that still leads to cheating on benefits, how does paying them alter the situation?

 

[BB73]

This writer makes an important point - that the colleges need to have the rule against student-athletes selling stuff in order to retain their tax-exempt status.

CBS

Now that Ohio State is facing a mountain of NCAA scrutiny over players selling items, the only instance of college football players selling their jerseys and other memorabilia is now officially over. Oh wait, A.J. Green did it last year, but he served a not-at-all objectionable four-game suspension for that transgression. So those isolated incidents are in the books, and not indicative of any larger trend of such misdeeds. That's the actual reality of the situation and we're sticking to it.

Hypothetically speaking, however, players do this all the time. Here to drive that point home is former Florida linebacker Channing Crowder, who kicked off his new radio show in Miami today with a doozy of a hypothetical situation.

"I'll say hypothetically I don't have any more of my Florida jerseys," Crowder said Sunday. "There were some Jacksonville businessmen that really hypothetically liked my play."

Luckily, that's just hypothetical, so of course nobody actually did anything wrong. Nothing to see here, NCAA.

They gone? No? Fine, then I'll play the game too.

Hypothetically speaking, it's ludicrous that the NCAA is aggressively policing something like poor college kids bartering items and looking for the hook-up. Hypothetically, it's a fact of life that athletic scholarships pay for school but don't put cash in a young man's hand, and as long as these young men live in a world that requires money to do anything above and beyond eating, sleeping, going to class and playing football, they're going to hypothetically want money -- one way or another.

Hypothetically, it strikes me as downright un-American that the NCAA finds it necessary to police these young men's financial activity and disallow them the freedom to do somehting as hypothetically simple as selling anything for money. Hypothetically speaking, the NCAA isn't really protecting the student-athletes from anything with this rule; rather, the amateurism is enforced solely to protect the member institutions' tax-exempt status, and while I hypothetically can't begrudge a school from trying to keep from paying taxes, it would be hypothetically refreshing if one of them would come right out and say the rule's in place for their benefit and not the hypothetical athletes'.

Cont'd ...

 

[MaxBuck]

This writer makes an important point - that the colleges need to have the rule against student-athletes selling stuff in order to retain their tax-exempt status.

CBS

I was unaware Adam Jacobi was a tax attorney.

Allowing student-athletes to sell jerseys would revoke tax-exempt status of the college? WTF? Frankly, I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

 

[WolverineMike]

I was unaware Adam Jacobi was a tax attorney.

Allowing student-athletes to sell jerseys would revoke tax-exempt status of the college? WTF? Frankly, I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

I think he slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night

 

[NateG]

I think he slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night

 

[HailToMichigan]

This writer makes an important point - that the colleges need to have the rule against student-athletes selling stuff in order to retain their tax-exempt status.

CBS

I don't see the link. Being tax-exempt derives from being a nonprofit organization, not from not having people on the payroll, which obviously they do. Since they already pay professors, janitors, and a whole bunch of other people, what about paying athletes would tip the balance?

I'm NOT in favor of professionalizing the athletes, but I don't see the link to tax-exempt status.

 

[Mike80]

Should football players be paid: No. I believe this will open a can of worms that would be the eventual end to all of college athletics.

Should they be able to sell their stuff: Sure. It's THEIR stuff. Either don't give them anything of value for playing the game until after their eligibility is up or continue with the bags of crap that most of them couldn't afford anyway and rings/trophies/gifts/charms but acknowledge that once it's in their possession it's theirs to do with as they please.