Should we pay players?

[PBCatfan]

I think we got our wires crossed here KC. NOBODY is advocating for the schools to pay the players. You just allow the players to earn money in the free market. They are very different things but allowing the free market to take care of it makes your point about an individual program's revenue and profitability totally irrelevant.

Yes, Like when Greg Anthony owned his own shirt business prior to ever going to college and they made him get rid of it? Stupid!

Yep there are a bunch of examples. Rawle Alkins and Savage Life comes to mind

[PBCatfan]

Totally agree.  Sorry, it's such a loaded question because there are so many different ways for "amateurs" to make money.

The Anthony thing was ridiculous & I don't get how you push kids away from pursuing their own businesses, while attempting to educate them as business-people.  So silly.

Boom, exactly. It is mind boggling and obviously wrong.

[U.P.Zonafan]

Yup.  The "return after baseball" rule is a horrible contradiction to the NCAA's standards.  I agree that players should be able to run successful entrepreneurial businesses that are not related to college athletics.

PBC is absolutely right that the system has been broken for decades.  After football is investigated by the FBI (or whatever ridiculous group decides to take on the project), I assume that "some" of the side-money will disappear.  It's still crooked, and likely will be for a while.

I would love to see that players can make money in non athletics related fields.

If I were a college athlete I'd set up a used car business and sell rusty pintos to Nike execs for 90,000.
"Hey, I bought it for my daughter's boyfriend. It's a legitimate purchase"

[KansasCityCats]

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/27735933/california-defies-ncaa-gov-gavin-newsom-signs-law-fair-pay-play-act

That's great for olympic athletes that want to get endorsements while obtaining a degree that will help them later in life.

For the basketball players that are greedy & don't want to go pro immediately out of high school, this will cause a ton of confusion.

I'm sure Wazzu could afford to give millions of dollars to Klay Thompson for his likeness.  Oh wait...the below article states that Washington State hasn't been profitable in years...and their debt will continue to rise (especially if this law passes on a national platform).

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/jun/07/shawn-vestal-wsus-growing-athletics-debt-will-top-/

This is spectacular news for Texas, Florida, Ohio State, USC, etc.  The football programs can continue to recruit high-level athletes that will make money without getting paid under the table by donors.  In the meantime, nobody will attend mid-major schools (or football programs like Arizona, whose biggest sponsorships will be Jim Click).

I'll enjoy watching the fight between the NCAA and the State of California!

[Little George]

No, but stopping them from making money is wrong. Guys can play Pro Baseball and then retain their eligibility,  why can't they do other things with their name?

[TJ74]

I don't believe this is about paying players but allowing them to earn money while in school on scholarship.  Other students on scholarships are not prevented from pursuing money making ideas.  To prevent an athlete from doing the same is wrong and part of why the NCAA is so out of step with the world.  The NCAA wants to continue to hang their hat on they get a free education.  Quite frankly a great deal of these athlete's, especially the better ones, are in college because that is what they have to do to get to the Pros.  In basketball this would all basically go away if the NBA players association would agree with the Owners and do away with the one and done rule.  Then the top players would skip the scam of going to a school for one year with no intention of getting a degree and go play either in some sort of development leaque or in the NBA.  You are already seeing more players skipping the hassle and the rules of going to college which is fine.  I would welcome the end of one and done.  After all you are only probably talking about a handful of players each year that would be good enough to go straight to the NBA.  Football is a completely different story but have never been sure why the baseball model would not work for other sports.  The NCAA wants to maintain absolute control and benefit from the huge dollars that are made on the backs of these very young athletes.  It is not fair and I think the passing of the California law will only beget many more states to jump on the bandwagon and probably force the NCAA to change dramically or go out of business.  And it is a very big business.

[KansasCityCats]

Starting with the 2022 NBA Draft, the OND rule will be non-existent.  Adam Silver finally caved in.

Generally, I hate the NCAA's decision-making.  In this situation, I think players should go pro early if they want to make significant money for their name & likeness.  If they want a free degree, job hookups, tutoring, books, food, clothing/gear, housing and "spending money", they can become a student athlete.  Pretty simple decision.

[PBCatfan]

I hear ya KC I just don't see why it matters if a kid has a Youtube channel or wants to create a brand and get shirts made or star in a car dealership's shitty local tv commercial... why is that a big deal? Other than for the schools and NCAA due to the whole non -profit status and not having to treat kids as employees?

If a shoe company can make money on a college kid wearing their shoes on instagram posts, who does it hurt? If a women's softball player is super hot a la Jennie Finch and can make money doing the same things... who cares? Let her. Let them. Any college kid should be allowed to make as much money as they can as long as it doesn't come DIRECTLY from the school.

[KansasCityCats]

I just think it's too hard to regulate if certain athletes can accept certain money, but others can accept cash to attend a school.  Too many loopholes opens the floodgates for everybody.

The issue is that basketball programs are rarely profitable...and softball programs are never profitable.  Overall, the athletic departments are near a "break even", which would kill them (and likely force small sports to be cut) if schools were forced to share revenues with the most popular athletes.

If an athlete thinks that THEY are the reason a school is profiting...they should immediately go pro & not use the school as their platform for attention.  Jennie Finch made a career for herself because she had the U of A.  She is smart/beautiful enough that she would have been successful on her own, but she waited until graduating...then used her likeness to further her career.

If she can do it, then high-end basketball players with agents in their ears can figure out how to wait 3-4 years before collecting their millions of dollars.

[Little George]

Consider this.

What is a walk on player allowed?
Why is that player not allowed to make money from his work outside of sports? That limitation is on scholarship athletes, so why?
A kid like Tate is worth far more than the cost of his scholarship. Ayton is the same. So by taking the scholarship they are handicapped?
Just thinking that the cost would be cut a lot if athletes had options to earn either by their names or by their efforts. Hell, the NCAA was making millions from the names of the athletes.