THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I agree with the premise that the NCAA is basically at the point where baseball was with the reserve clause prior to free agency. So I (gasp) side with Bradbury here, to a point.

If you’ll indulge a bit of snark, though - when Bradbury suggests that you don’t have to pay all players, just ones with MRP>0 - I just had to chuckle. Isn’t that what we’ve been saying all this time about baseball?

I’m with Zimbalist as long as the players remain students at these universities.  Paying salaries crosses an inappropriate line within a university community.  Yes, scholarships amount to a defacto compensation, but the difference—even if somewhat cosmetic—is important.  But if you want to just make the players professionals, and essentially have universities own football teams, then the players should of course be paid. 

But would this work?  Would students and alumni have the same devotion to a team simply because their university owned it, or is the fact these players are students (to some degree, admittedly) still a critical element to making these teams and games so popular?  I suspect it is, but don’t really know.

And it’s an open question whether most players would actually be better off in this scenario. I doubt it.  Most probably gain much more from a virtually-free college education then they could earn in a short playing career.  A handfull of stars, I’m sure, would be much better off. So Phil B. should like this!

Right, the university is communist among the students (no matter how much you contribute, you get back virtually the same thing as the next guy… not totally communist because of scholarships, but as close as we can get).

The colleges are in bed with its other, and I’m sure the learned among you can give me the proper name for this… oligarchy?

Indeed, the NCAA would find itself at home in Russia.

I see college athletics as a win-win situation.  Playing for a college team allows the “student"-athlete to get exposure in front of professional coaches, which allows them the possibility of huge salaries down the line.  The university in turn makes money off of them (and, for the most part, puts that money towards the student body as a whole).

I don’t see it as any different from the very high fees that agents and promoters take from potential new music artists.  Ask N-Sync how much they made on their first few albums.  95%+ of their revenue went towards the marketers and agents.  But that gave them the opportunity to make albums down the road that they could take most of the profits on themselves.

And again… all the money that goes into the school is ultimately used on the students, isn’t it?  Colleges are not profit-oriented enterprises.

“Colleges are not profit-oriented enterprises.”

Then why do my books cost so much

(not completely serious)

I think a lot of private schools depend on alumni donations in order to make significant money

Mike: it does not look like you are disputing the communistic approach here.  You can make your argument on anything really, if you look at the “whole”.

The difference between a rock band struggling to make it big and college athletes is that college athletes provide the services for an industry that is worth billions.  The college rock bands are not a collective, just independent performers.  College athletes are a collection of bees, and it’s the queen bee that decides how things get done.  I’m sure the queen bee makes the best decision for the whole, but that doesn’t mean that the individual bees are treated fairly.

Moral issues aside, the athletes aren’t going to be paid as long as the universities have a monopoly over this level of competition (financially, there’s no reason for the schools to do so). And I think the reason that have a monopoly in the first place is actually based on economics.

99% of college athletes won’t play professional sports. Let’s say there was a semi-pro football league for 18-22 year olds. How much would they have to pay a decent linebacker from Oklahoma (who won’t play in the NFL) in order for him to leave college? Probably a lot. The potential degree is worth a great deal more in future earnings than any semi-pro league could pay in the present. If it were me in that position, I think it would be an easy choice.

Why would he have to leave college?

No one is forcing the athletes to participate.  Once they turn 18, they could certainly go to Europe and be paid professionals in charge of their own futures.  Anyone who can make it into the NBA out of college could certainly have gone to Europe instead of college, and make a much better salary than I’ll get.  Certainly, the competition won’t be as good as in the US, but they could still come out of there and make it into the NBA or NFL as a 20-year-old too, if that’s the path they chose.  Being in Europe for a couple years versus the NCAA might cost them some skill development and salary, but that’s kind of my point, right?  That skill development and future salary is the payoff.

I was a college athlete on the track team.  If Tyler Hansborough, or some other NBA-bound player, was playing basketball for my school as well at the same time as me… can you honestly tell me that I get back just as much he does out of collegiate athletics?

I dunno… I look at it like AAU summer basketball camp, where kids (OK, parents) pay for the opportunity for their kid to play at a high level, grow their skills, and get noticed by high school or college coaches.  Win-win.

This is easy to answer: have universities bid for their services.

I subscribe to the Working Families e-Activist Network (AFL-CIO newsletter) and received and email today with a request to join the National College Players Association’s petition to the NCAA and its top 3 sponsors (GM, AT&T, and Coke), The petition is calling on the NCAA to adopt rules that will provide the following basic protections to college athletes:

1. Prohibit universities from refusing to renew a scholarship of a player that suffers a permanent injury in his/her sport.
2. Require schools to pay for any medical expenses resulting from sports-related injuries that an athlete would otherwise have to pay.
3. Allow universities to put their multiple year scholarship offers in writing.
4. Allow universities to offer scholarships up to the cost of attendance.

Sounds like a reasonable request to me.  If you want to join the petition, here is the link.