Maybe I’m just cynical, but bowl games have become a bit of a farce in the last 10 years anyway. I wonder if we’ll see this towards the end of the season or in conference tournaments with teams that just want the season to be over. Same goes for the NIT, which I guess for now is still on.
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The difference with college hoops is that you are still playing for something in conference tournaments.
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True, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some team that is having a rough season and has a Covid outbreak wants to shut it down early. Basically what everyone is accusing Michigan football of. It would be hard to blame a team that doesn’t want to just go through the motions, given the circumstances.
Football is Just so different. You aren’t sacrificing your body every game. You always theoretically have a chance at a championship of some sort which is not true at all in football.
I think those two factors stop anything like that from happening in basketball.
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I hope you’re right, but I have a feeling this could end up being a very demoralizing season for teams that catch a few unlucky breaks. Not to mention the stress the players have been under since the summer with all the Covid protocols.
Candidly the Christmas/NYE scheduling makes me as angry as any other example of NCAA player welfare injustice over the past several years. It’s so avoidable and thoughtless. Really gets me steamed. I am still holding out hope that the players can speak up and get them rescheduled by one or two days. 23rd and 30th if possible.
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I can tell you the schedule was probably made for (you guessed it ) TV$.
Dylan referenced “workers” above, and I saw that Bilas characterized players as “essential workers.” The thing is that they ARE workers, they are just unpaid. And schools scheduling their unpaid work to maximize TV revenue really underlines what an unjust system it is.
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Were you outraged when games were being played on January 2nd each of the past couple years or is it because it was a day past NYD it made it alright?? If that’s the case why were football games being played on NYD?? Yes the schedule sucks but there are worst things in life right now and moving forward than playing a bball game on CD or NYE or NYD. I understand if Livers is voicing his opinion but he’s just one voice, one player of 160 other basketball players in the conference. As of now he’s just a lone ranger.
Bowl games are fixed dates.
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Think some of y’all aren’t really hearing Livers. It’s not just the notion of playing on Christmas, it’s playing on Christmas in a year when:
You are prohibited from seeing your family throughout the year; no Thanksgiving, no weekends, no game days, no random wellness visit.
Your on campus but really ain’t. You take classes on a computer. If you are being responsible there is no semblance of life as you knew it.
You play games with no fans. You practice with masks somedays. Wearing a mask is a daily reminder of just how dangerous the world around you is. Texting everyday is a further reminder.
You hear stories everyday about how you can get sick just by being close to somebody…anybody and while the rest of the world talks about social distancing, wearing masks, avoid gatherings, everyday you do something that violates each of those “precautions.”
And you are ask to travel to Nebraska to play a game with no fans on the most celebrated holiday of the season. Except it ain’t a break from nothing for you.
Thinking it’s time for these guys to get paid.
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Good luck finding a way to pay basketball players without paying field hockey players the same amount
Referring to Title IX? NIL reform would probably be the best way to address that. Let athletes who actually make money via their image, well, make money via their image.
People who want straight up payments beyond the (for Michigan athletes probably around) $5000 monthly stipends are usually not very cognizant of what a massive challenge that would be to coordinate from a legal (Title IX) perspective and otherwise. Is there a limit to what schools can offer? What is it? Does it extend to the non-revenue athletes who are going through the same struggles currently? The argument towards basketball players being employees that this thread is based on certainly extends to them, but they don’t make money for the University. They also have to see all the social distancing warning and have relatives afflicted, etc. and have to (choose to) continue to play. How do athletic departments that barely break even address it? What about private universities that have no obligation to release financial information. Is it scaled based on how good a player is or how much money some 3rd party determines they are worth to the university? What about sports like hockey and baseball that are revenue sports for some schools, but certainly not even close to all of them?
All this stuff is why I chuckle at the phrase “just pay the players.” The word “just” has no business being placed there. NIL reform makes much more sense from a practicality standpoint and is a way more realistic thing to happen any time soon.
Yeah, obviously Title IX is going to make it cost prohibitive for colleges to pay players, even the big time schools.
NIL is fine. It won’t benefit nearly as many players as people think, but yeah it makes sense to do.
I agree that it is insensitive to schedule a game on X’mas day. These are student athletes but not professional players according to NCAA’s charters.
I think the players would understand it more if it wasn’t so blindingly obvious that it didn’t need to happen. If it was like “we need to squeeze in X amount of games and only have Y amount of time some teams are going to have to play on Christmas to avoid back to backs” then I think it would be understandable. And I have a feeling when outlets are reporting that the players were fine with it that that’s more along the lines of what they thought they were agreeing to.
Doing it after an inexplicable 2 week break in the season is just nonsensical, whatever your opinions on players as employees is. It’s ****ing christmas.
And why does the break even exist? I thought the point was to be able to make up games, why would that happen right at the beginning of conference play when they’ve only played a single conference game??? Has anyone even explained that?
Last thing tonight:
Whatever side you fall on and whoever you agree with, Isaiah Livers wanted to open up an honest discussion about something that’s important to him and I think he clearly accomplished that. And that’s super cool to see him he the platform that he has to start discussions about things that he cares about in a productive way.
This is a hot button issue and 99% of those here have been civil and not-flamy of those who disagree with them, which is very unusual for the internet. So shoutout to UMHoops.
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I 100% think the kids should get paid a stipend. They should also get all sports related injuries paid for for life.
However, I think there is something kinda phony about linking the issue of getting paid and carrying out the season during a pandemic. At this point being able to move forward in your life while also isolating is a privilege!! A privilege!! We have all been asked to not mix households. Everyone I know is taking that very seriously. The athletes are enabled to isolate and move forward in their life and prepare for their careers AND play basketball? It sounds like they have it better than almost everyone else in the world to me.
High school athletes were asked to make similar sacrifices and they wanted to do it and did do it because they wanted to play at a rate of something like 100% in my experience. I honestly don’t know one HS athlete that chose to not play due to fear of COVID or inconvenience of the agreed upon terms/ restrictions.
I think the fact that pretty much every BB team I have seen has chosen to do a horrible job of masking up pretty much deligitimizes any notion put forward that the athletes don’t want to take the risk of getting COVID.
Assuming the issue is being presented accurately in this thread it sounds to me like the kids mostly think the pandemic is unfair. Yeah, it feels like that to everyone. Join the club.
This is all to say that I think this is not the wedge issue to move forward toward getting paid a stipend. The colleges athletes have it better than just about everyone else in the world. To be honest, I feel like linking the pandemic with getting stipend will be a setback toward getting a stipend.
PS. Maybe they could argue they are not getting the full value for their scholarship because they are online? I don’t see it happening even if should.
Liking it isn’t enough, Dot is 100% right. Watching people get upset because Livets said - and only said - that playing in this situation is hard and challenging (a blindingly obvious statement) is disappointing. The fact is this virus is spread by people exhaling a vapor into the air - breathing hard, like one might in a basketball game, increases the risk of transmission. He IS taking a risk to show up on our TV, and he isn’t getting anything for it.
Getting pissy because he’s not outwardly enthusiastic is wildly entitled.
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In the spirit of re-framing the issue I would support an incentive program for teams that can successfully where masks at all times. Direct cash awards to players. I would also support a simultaneous auditing program where all teams that are incapable of adequately masking up automatically disqualify themselves from being able to participate at all.
My personal belief is that they should not be allowed to play if they continue to play the way they are choosing to play. HS soccer proved to me that athletes can play with masks on as long as the players are adequately in shape and not wearing an overly restrictive mask. Adidas masks seem awesome.
The Bowling Green coach proved to me that coaches do not need to pull their masks down to coach. I could even envision some sort of technology where the coaches voices could be amplified a bit so they did not feel the need to drop their masks 100 times per game…
It is just my opinion but the way they are doing it is not acceptable. Throwing a few dollars at the athletes, while simultaneously accepting the current in-game lack of precautions does not magically make what I am seeing acceptable. Throwing money at players would actually make it feel less acceptable to me.
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