NCAA moves closer to allowing athletes to serve as Paid Sponsors.

[xu82]

Well, lets make sure we dont realize that a free education might be actually the BEST form of compensation you can provide the players.

A fraction will go pro in their respective sports. But ALL of them can take advantage of their education and notoriety.

Wait till we get to the point where these kids that aren't going pro will have to take a pay cut when they get their first REAL job. We will have done them a major disservice.

We are already there. The QB at Alabama made more than the Eagle’s QB last year.

I don’t know what the answer is. If the ‘Bama QB goes on to become a teacher or a fireman rather than spend decades in the NFL, that money will give him a nice start in life. I don’t begrudge him that, but I will say I lose a bit of interest when I see these recruits putting themselves out to the highest bidder, which appears to be the case in some instances.

[XUGRAD80]

Y'all can justify however you want. But at the end of the day, I sleep sound. College Basketball and Football is a multi billion dollar business where the main revenue drivers are poor black men. Fighting for them to be paid fairly versus the status quo where a few white coaches and administrators are paid millions isn't a hard decision for me.

Fixed it for you.


I always find statements about “fair pay” humorous in regards to paying college athletes. How many of those coaches and administrators were college athletes at one time? Probably 90% of them. Would they be in those positions if they hadn’t been evolved in college sports while students? Not likely. They have reached the top level of their profession and are paid like it. But they would t be there if they weren’t first given an opportunity to be a college athlete. They took advantage of that opportunity, and other opportunities that they earned along the way. Why hold that against them? I think it’s just jealousy.

[xudash]

Equity (in pay) is clearly an issue.

However, the one thing with all this that I am most focused on presently is locker room chemistry. You have a "student-athlete" standing at his locker, enjoying the fruits of a large 6 or small 7 digit N-I-L deal, and right next to him stands an otherwise productive athlete and key cog to a team that "only" has a scholarship and maybe some small "pocket money" deal that was cooked up for him. It won't be that severe across the board within an entire team, but it probably will be substantial enough to cause some new dynamics within a team.

Like everything else in a capitalistic society, the market will dictate value. The fact that that now applies to matters involving institutions having ivy covered walls is, in a way, rich. We're in for some unfortunate but peculiar and funny theatre with all this. It's setting up to be a real mess before it sorts itself out.

[D-West & PO-Z]

No one had to take those courses, though. Anyone who actually valued their education could and would have avoided them. Terrible look for UNC, but also a pretty bad look for the kids who actually took the classes.

Really? Think back to your college days. I would have signed up for a sham class that the school gave automatic A's in in a heartbeat. Doesn't mean I didn't care about my education. An easy (or nonexistent) class to off set all the work and difficulty of taking chem, bio, and physics in the same semester? Sign me up!

[D-West & PO-Z]

1…..college was always about “amateur” athletics in the past and many prefer that it stay that way

2…ever notice that there aren’t as Mom and Pop stores around today as there was in the past? How everything has moved toward large chains or Mega Warehouses like Amazon? It happened slowly at first, but has certainly picked up speed. The Mom and Pops found out that they couldn’t compete with the deep pockets that the big boys had. They couldn’t pay the same or give the same benefits, so their employees left, and they ended up closing the store.

That same exact scenario could happen to college sports. (In case people haven’t been watching, it’s already happened to many individual sports at schools all across the country. It’s certainly happened at X too. Sports have been dropped because the schools couldn’t “afford” to field a team.) Just how I the world will X be able to compete with the large state schools when it comes to paying student-athletes? They can’t. Xavier didn’t drop football because of no interest. They dropped football because it was a sound financial decsion for the school at large.

Understand first off that if they pay the men, the will also have to pay the women an equal amount. How long do you think that X could go on paying both the mens and womens team at the same rate that many of the schools in the BE can afford? Let alone schools like UC, OSU, Indiana, etc.?

If this becomes the situation…....why in the world would any college board want to be in that “business”? Many would soon go broke.

3….there is till the argument that the scholarship athletes are ALREADY getting compensation (pay) in the form of tuition, room, board, books, fees, tutoring, coaching, travel, medical care, equipment, practice facilities,,etc…and many also get a stipend on top of all that! If you think that hasn’t much value just look at what it costs a typical student to get through college these days and then add on what the value of being a varsity athlete is. Try paying for individual coaching in tennis, golf, gymnastics, etc. Go out and price a really nice pair of basketball shoes or football cleats. What does it cost to rent a hockey rink these days for a couple of hours? Let’s stop and consider how much it would cost a group of college students to charter their own plane over a holiday and go play some basketball in Hawaii over thanksgiving. I could go on, but I hope you get my point.

I feel like you keep missing the gigantic point that the schools themselves aren't paying the athletes any money. Feels like a big point to miss or you're being purposely obtuse.

Also Title IX does not mean all mens and womens sports get things equally. Do you think the women's basketball team takes gets all the same perks the men's team does? Including the way they travel?

But again, moot point because the schools arent paying the athletes.

Some of your concerns remain (deep pocketed alumni certainly will be an advantage) and we will need to see how this plays out.

I continue to contend college sports won't be ruined in 5 years. Some feel they are ruined now already. Will be interesting to see.

[XUGRAD80]

I feel like you keep missing the gigantic point that the schools themselves aren't paying the athletes any money. Feels like a big point to miss or you're being purposely obtuse.

Also Title IX does not mean all mens and womens sports get things equally. Do you think the women's basketball team takes gets all the same perks the men's team does? Including the way they travel?

But again, moot point because the schools arent paying the athletes.

Some of your concerns remain (deep pocketed alumni certainly will be an advantage) and we will need to see how this plays out.

I continue to contend college sports won't be ruined in 5 years. Some feel they are ruined now already. Will be interesting to see.

Fair enough….but I was replying to Drew’s question about why someone wouldn’t want to see the players paid. I took that (along with other prior statements) to mean why would anyone not want to see the schools paying the players. His comment about old white coaches and administrators making millions while their labor gets nothing, would also imply he was referring to schools paying the players. Many college officials have already speculated that it is only a matter of time until direct pay for play from the schools comes about. True professional players.

Irregardless of who is paying the players….boosters or the schools themselves….my points still remain valid, I believe. Xavier, and many other similar schools, just won’t be able to compete successfully against the bigger dollar schools. They don’t have the booster dollars nor the athletic department budget. If it becomes a war of dollars, Xavier loses either way.

Re:Title IX….have you followed the fight by the Women’s National Soccer Team for equal pay and benefits? There’s no way that any university is going to get away with paying the mens team and not pay the womens team as well. If it comes to a point where men are getting paid by a university to play a sport, they are going to forced by the courts to do the same for the women.

College sports won’t be ruined in 5 years. I agree with that. But they also won’t be better, because of such things as the NIL and the transfer rules. The ATHLETES will be better off. The sports themselves, will not be. Not in my opinion anyway.

[GoMuskies]

I'm already immensely less interested in college sports than I've ever been, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with Xavier being terrible the last few years than anything else. I find the "new world order" of college sports kind of annoying, but I'm pretty sure I'll snap out of it when Xavier starts playing basketball competently again.

[paulxu]

Really? Think back to your college days. I would have signed up for a sham class that the school gave automatic A's in in a heartbeat. Doesn't mean I didn't care about my education. An easy (or nonexistent) class to off set all the work and difficulty of taking chem, bio, and physics in the same semester? Sign me up!

That is no way to talk about Theology 101.

[A Fan]

Fair enough….but I was replying to Drew’s question about why someone wouldn’t want to see the players paid. I took that (along with other prior statements) to mean why would anyone not want to see the schools paying the players. His comment about old white coaches and administrators making millions while their labor gets nothing, would also imply he was referring to schools paying the players. Many college officials have already speculated that it is only a matter of time until direct pay for play from the schools comes about. True professional players.

Irregardless of who is paying the players….boosters or the schools themselves….my points still remain valid, I believe. Xavier, and many other similar schools, just won’t be able to compete successfully against the bigger dollar schools. They don’t have the booster dollars nor the athletic department budget. If it becomes a war of dollars, Xavier loses either way.

Re:Title IX….have you followed the fight by the Women’s National Soccer Team for equal pay and benefits? There’s no way that any university is going to get away with paying the mens team and not pay the womens team as well. If it comes to a point where men are getting paid by a university to play a sport, they are going to forced by the courts to do the same for the women.

College sports won’t be ruined in 5 years. I agree with that. But they also won’t be better, because of such things as the NIL and the transfer rules. The ATHLETES will be better off. The sports themselves, will not be. Not in my opinion anyway.

There are several aspects to this discussion that are getting conflated. First is the NIL’s and the Transfer Portal. The ramifications of that issue are these: Good Players get paid. Good Players can transfer for more pay. Roster’s are never stable. Booster money goes into collective’s not controlled by the coach. The coach is dependent on the collective’s to get high priced/ valued talent. A player without a NIL who improves to NIL worthiness will leave. It is the free market . I have no idea how this will impact college basketball. Will the fans go along? Will they feel that the loss of amateurism is a turn off? Revenues will not be impacted? Hard to predict.

The second issue is far more consequential. Schools being forced to pay their athletes participating in revenue producing sports. The current General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board has issued an opinion that these athletes should be considered employees under the NLRB Act .While this position has not been adopted by the Board, it , with recent proposed legislation seeking to codify the same outcome, suggests it is on the horizon.

Some poster’s have suggested that non NIL players will be indifferent to their best team players being compensated. We will see. It is not unreasonable to think that once the full effect of the NIL’s kick in, that all of the revenue producing athletes and their representatives will be seeking minimum wage or greater compensation . Time spent training, practicing, traveling, meeting, etc will denominate hours worked.

Will schools like Xavier be able to collectively bargain with the unions representing their members ( Xavier’s revenue participating sport’s participants) ?

That is where it will all end up.

[D-West & PO-Z]

That is no way to talk about Theology 101.

Ha, I have a Theology minor for some reason.....and Ethics in War was no joke of a class!