A week or two ago a local college,the College of St.Rose,held its last graduation. The school went belly up,which is a big blow to Albany,a dying town.The school had a nationally ranked women's soccer program and credible programs in men's baseball and basketball. There was little if any paid attendance to support any of those programs. The local colleges SUNY Albany, RPI, Union Siena and Skidmore all have extensive intercollegiate programs that have little paid fan support.
College sports are now a mess. The cost of college is too high.
My recommendation is that the schools should have extensive intramural programs for the benefit of the students who are in college to study and like to play sports and get rid of the vast majority of intercollegiate sports that are a drain on the resources of the school.
How big schools like Michigan and Alabama are going to deal with the courts and athletes who use the portal to re- negotiate their education every year, I don't know. St.John's is welcoming a transfer from Utah who is going to his fourth program in 4 years.
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Maybe then some might attend classes
The wrong messages are being sent to our children.
I’m in the scholarship bucket - give it up to kids that need it if you are going to be an employee.
I don’t think there’s a right answer here, but the “get all the money you can” argument doesn’t sit well with me if you are also taking up a scholarship.
But the scholarship stance is weird. Should grad students and researchers lose their scholarship if they get paid a wage as well?
The other 75% comes from philanthropist donors research investors, and investments.
As soon as I read this, I was like yep that makes sense. It explains a lot. Universities are being supported primarily by people that have little interest in the education that students are receiving there.
NIL money comes from outside sources, typically donors both small and large organized into collectives that pay athletes or provide opportunities for them to earn money. For example, I donate a small amount each month to an FSU collective. It is from these collectives that athletes are being paid extra. What some schools have figured out is that if you have a strong enough collective, then the NCAA rule limiting your school to 85 scholarship players can just be circumvented by paying them through NIL.
As far as TV revenue money, that is typically kept by the athletic departments to pay coaches (a huge competitive advantqe for SEC and B1G schools), build facilities, and operate the programs. At most universities, the athletic budgets and the academic budgets are kept separate, so when you see a huge school making millions in TV revenue but cutting faculty, that explains why.
But the scholarship stance is weird. Should grad students and researchers lose their scholarship if they get paid a wage as well?
You can put various rules in place but no, I wouldn’t. I support the education more than the sport. We care way too much about sports IMO.
In the cases of the big D1 colleges, it's all about the money. Booster money, supporting business money, grant money, TV money. With the amount of cash pouring in, the Big schools are doing fine.
The big schools have massive endowments: Stanford (28 Billion) Texas (25 Billion), Michigan (12 Billion), etc. They can facilitate for their athletes not only the largest NIL packages/exposure (based on their local TV markets, fan base, etc) but they get a large chunk of TV money as well.
The big schools can afford to hire the best coaches and provide the best facilities to attract athletes. Look at the facilities at Oregon, financed by Nike Billionaire owner Philip Knight, for example.
The large schools were running pro sports at the college level for a long time. It's only now official with the NIL. This was inevitable with the massive influx of TV money, which has exploded in the last 10 years or so.
Bullshit. If you look at it that way, then it is training for the next level and perhaps those "students" should pay for that training. If you do not understand just how out of hand this has become then you are part of the problem. You do understand that football and maybe men's BB pay for every other sport that the colleges participate in - especially women's sports - that are a drain on the athletic department.
It is quite hard to have this kind of discussion using a keyboard. I apologize for the "tone" in advance.
If I was a president at one of these universities or colleges, I would shut down the intercollegiate sports and go to club teams. Just end it. End the "scholarships" except for academics. If a $250k education, room and board is not good enough compensation then too bad and go flip hamburgers, dig ditches, become a mechanic, electrician or plumber. That is not to say I also understand that it is huge money to the universities - but a lot of that money goes to other sports as I said and perhaps to facility maintenance for the athletics.
No, this is way out of hand. The avalanche has started and it is not ending. If these kids/guys/gals want to be paid like pros, then go try out for the NFL/MLB/NBA/WNBA.
I guess the point is that they were foolhardy if they thought they could finance that type of expansion using student enrollment. More than likely something else went dramatically wrong in term of finances, or they simply over leverage themselves.
I think every couple of years it's necessary to remind you that you can be a butt face.
Like I posted earlier, I don't believe educational institutions should operate as minor leagues for professional sports leagues. But they've positioned themselves to be that. The industry creates hundreds of million dollar salaries from ADs to assistant coaches each year. It's a recruiting tool for the schools and status symbol for the schools. The adults benefit greatly, while the young people get a fraction of a percent of the earnings.
As I noted above, lots of students are paid by universities in training vocations, while on scholarship and enjoying a free or reduced fee education. That's literally how medicine and science can function in the US.
Should a lab coordinator at UT Austin not get paid a salary because she's on scholarship?
As for trying out for a professional team instead of attending school. You do realize the professional leagues and the NCAA work together to organize a scheme where athletes can't go directly from high school to professional teams, right? I wonder who that benefits.
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Bullshit. If you look at it that way, then it is training for the next level and perhaps those "students" should pay for that training. If you do not understand just how out of hand this has become then you are part of the problem.
I think every couple of years it's necessary to remind you that you can be a butt face.
Like I posted earlier, I don't believe educational institutions should operate as minor leagues for professional sports leagues. But they've positioned themselves to be that. The industry creates hundreds of million dollar salaries from ADs to assistant coaches each year. It's a recruiting tool for the schools and status symbol for the schools. The adults benefit greatly, while the young people get a fraction of a percent of the earnings.
As I noted above, lots of students are paid by universities in training vocations, while on scholarship and enjoying a free or reduced fee education. That's literally how medicine and science can function in the US.
Should a lab coordinator at UT Austin not get paid a salary because she's on scholarship?
As for trying out for a professional team instead of attending school. You do realize the professional leagues and the NCAA work together to organize a scheme where athletes can't go directly from high school to professional teams, right? I wonder who that benefits.
That was totally uncalled for and maybe you should look in the mirror. You can be an arrogant SOB yourself and love to make these types of comments when people oppose your POV to try to ward them off.
Really, you are comparing a graduate assistant getting a few bucks per week to a football player getting millions? Or some kid getting a few bucks sitting at an info desk or getting a Pell grant to pay for school?
As for the NCAA and some leagues scheming together to prevent high schoolers going directly into that sport, which one does that now? Used to do it in BB but who is doing it now. Baseball never did it. Hockey never did. I think with football it may be a good idea as no high school kid is strong enough to play in the NFL, but are they prevented from declaring for the draft out of HS? IDK.
If they want to go full Olympics, then do it. End the scholarships and just make them employees of the school and not require classes.
Sorry it upsets you that I think what is happening now is asinine and in total disarray.
The schools and the NCAA violated the law, the courts have been quite clear on this.
Schools are under no obligation to operate as minor leagues for the professional sports leagues and collude with them to keep high school students from entering the work force immediately.
The schools can exit sports all together. It's really quite weird they are in this business. The reason is because it makes billions of dollars for them on the backs of young people.
The schools can exit sports all together. It's really quite weird they are in this business. The reason is because it makes billions of dollars for them on the backs of young people.
Obligation? No, the problem here isn't the NFL and other professional sports leagues. The Leagues are happy the Universities are providing the training for players (so they don't have to have their own minor leagues like Baseball).
You want to know why High School players can't enter the pros? The Courts have ruled that a player has to be at least three years from their High School graduation.
As far as the Schools operating minor leagues, they aren't stupid. Universities need money, and Football/Basketball are money generators...both from TV, Sponsors and Boosters. Look up how important people like Philip Knight (owner of Nike) are to Oregon, for example.
There is a sliding scale, of course (lesser D1 schools don't get as much money), but the major schools aren't going to give up that source of income and exposure. They aren't going to tick off major power brokers in Industry and Politics, either...and those guys not only love their alma maters, they love their sports teams too.
The courts didn't rule a player has to be three years from high school graduation. They ruled the policy the NFL instituted doesn't violate anti-trust laws. The NFL can lift that policy at any time.
Given the more sympathetic environment in the courts, I also wouldn't be surprised if that ruling is eventually overturned. It's a dubious ruling.
Today's college students in general, are beyond dumb. Many graduate with what was basically a high school education of the 1960s. I live in a college town and frequently meet students. I ask them 3 questions.
The 1st - Is all of the course work you do hard, and takes up a lot of your time?
The 2nd - How much does the college pay you for all of your hard work?
The 3rd - You do understand the concepts of working for pay, working for no pay (volunteering), and paying to work?
And, then the smart ones drop their jaws.
College is little more than babysitting with beer, for many students.
Very few degrees, like engineering, medicine, etc...are actually needed. No one needs an English lit degree, or a lesbian jazz dance theory degree for where they go, in their career.
Maybe then some might attend classes
The wrong messages are being sent to our children.
Couple posters chiming in have no clue about big time collegiate sports and the history.
They are looking at addressing the NIL and trying to make it more practical as it is getting a bit out of hand. We'll see where it goes.
1) Athletes who are leveraging their athletic talent to gain access to a no or low fee education
2) Athletes who are principally attending college because the current scheme between the professional leagues and the NCAA has created a de facto minor league system
Group 2 is blowing a hole in it for group 1.
The upside to NCAA v Alston and last week the settlement in House v NCAA is the pay-for-play scheme that's existed in major NCAA sports is at least now in the open. The booster and donor class have been paying college athletes to play for decades, at least now there is some transparency. And now there is at least some fair way to compensate players. Just as other students are compensated for the commercial activities they do on behalf of scools.
If the NCAA hadn't rubbed the major sports figures faces' in it, by trading their likeness for gain, this probably never reaches a fever pitch. But they did and now we're here. And the losers won't be the big time programs and sports, it'll be the smaller programs and sports.
Michael McCanna had a great observation:
Unless something dramatically changes, the end result of the current system will be consolidation in the power conferences in football, women/mens basketball and the elimination of teams and full athletic programs.
If you care about the intrinsic value of college sports for student athletes as part of character building and education, the worst thing possible for the majority of student athletes is the minor league structure for the few.
The fate of non-revenue sports (which at most schools means everything besides football and men's basketball) will hang in the balance as athletic administrators grapple with the financial ramifications of the settlement. In addition to potential measures such as staff cuts and delayed facilities upgrades, non-revenue sports could be on the chopping block. That's especially true for departments already struggling with financial solvency. With hits coming to their NCAA distributions and pressure rising to pay players in high-profile sports, don't be surprised to see lower-tier Division I departments axe some of their financially inefficient programs for the sake of making ends meet.
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