I don’t think the “plus more” is correct. For one thing, some students contribute athletically without athletic scholarships. Luke Maye was a walk-on, CJ Lee and Dave Merritt were walk-ons, yet they contributed athletically. Brian Griese was a walk-on.
And unless an athlete is truly exceptional and make the NBA or NFL, which most even at a place like Michigan are not, they are likely to succeed out of sports exactly because of the education and alumni connections, etc.
Also, why is contributing athletically “more”? Athletes can become successful, provide exposure, donate money, etc., and so can students admitted on academic scholarship. Different students are more likely to do so in different ways. If Stephen Ross donates a hundred million dollars, is Jalen Rose really doing more? Maybe Lawrence Kasdan gets a scholarship because he’s good at math, but then writes the Big Chill and gets exposure for Michigan in the movies. There are various ways to contribute, and it’s not clear to me why doing so via athletics is somehow qualitatively different.
Perhaps you think athletics are more of a “sure thing.” For one, this may not be so. Athletic scholarships may represent more of a risk. A student with a high SAT score gives benefit simply through that score. An athlete who doesn’t start on the football team may simply “take up a scholarship.” But in any event, even if you think athletes aren’t getting a good deal or return, that doesn’t mean the scholarship is irrelevant to what they’re receiving.
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The athletes (certain ones) contribute more in the sense that they make the university more money. If you had a team full of walk ons, you’d probably have a bad team, sell less tickets/merch etc and your income would be less. Whether Luke Maye, Brian Griese are walk ons is irrelevant to if they should get paid. If they’re making money for the athletic department, pay them.
Like I said, any argument against paying players is disingenuous. NCAA profits big time. One of the biggest reasons for that is because they have a labor force that costs them nil. Pay the players.
Oh, if any argument besides the ones you like is irrelevant and disingenuous, then I guess you must be right.
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Do some of the NCAA athletes make their athletic departments/schools alot of money?
If the answer is yes, then there’s really no argument against paying the players that can be made in good faith IMO.
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I’m not necessarily against paying players, but (a) your question has no cut and dry answer and contains various complexities, assumptions, etc., and (b) your conclusion does not logically follow even if the answer is yes. But I’m going to bow out of this discussion.
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The answer is yes. However the balance of your sentence
Isn’t accurate. One can argue both sides of this with varying reasonable takes in good faith. I don’t know that I have a heavy opinion on this but I guess mine would have to be “there are many athletes that cost their athletic departments/schools a lot of money. In fact the great majority. So if the value you bring financially will dictate whether you’re paid or not then I feel for everyone except the superstars.”
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Just because it’s not cut and dry doesn’t mean we don’t try to figure it out. That’s a cop out.
The NCAA wouldn’t be making a billion dollars if they didn’t have a labor force that had virtually no cost. So the players should be paid. The money is obviously there and the players are obviously exploited
Brian Griese was a walk-on.
This is basically a myth. He was a recruited player but we happened to run out of scholarships before he committed, so he agreed to walk on, but we promised him a scholarship as soon as one came open.
Replace him in the comment with Jordan Kovacs, the point still stands.
Why? They’ll still get scholarships, at a minimum, unless they’re a walk on. In which case, nothing really changes for them unless they are one of the few that end up making money for the school.
Most players in the revenue sports will get paid, even if its a little bit. Some make the AD more money than others. How you figure it out? Idk, I’m not an economist or businessman. But they’ve figured out a way to pay coaches and ADs a shitload while they coach “amateur” players, so they can figure this out too.
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There’s a whole market system literally designed to figure out issues like this. It’s called capitalism. Give players access to their own NIL (the Olympic model) and the market will sort it out.
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When you only have to break the bank for one or two employees, that’s far different than paying every student athlete on scholarship.
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I’d also have to assume there’s far less people who can coach at an acceptable level than there are those who can play at an acceptable level, and the coaches aren’t getting educational benefits enticing them to associate with the NCAA.
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Also, I’ve lost track through this thread: Are we all pretending that Title IX doesn’t exist for the sake of argument?
It’s a non-issue with the Olympic model.
They already find money for scholarships and facilities for almost all the student athletes. You probably don’t even have to pay all of them. Saying it’s be difficult is not a legitimate argument, it’s an excuse.
As for Titke IX, we don’t even know if it would be a factor. Title IX is about equal access and opportunity.
Still doesn’t solve the issue of the NCAA making loads of money off a skilled, free labor force. Letting players make money through endorsements, merchandise etc is just part of the problem.
Just to state the obvious, not everyone sees the current system of players not receiving substantial legal cash compensation as a problem.
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Bringing this back around to topic - let’s say we use the model of drawing some arbitrary line where these players over here ------> are the ones that “make the university butt loads of $” and the rest of them (the other 98%) don’t. So we pay the good ones. How does that stop the corruption in any way?
Case in point, let’s go with Bowen since we know his situation was dirty - he’s going to make some university money so he’d be one of the paid players. What stops an agent from still giving him $100k to go to a specific school.
Or, and I think this is most likely here.
Let’s say Arizona agrees to give Ayton and Trier their only two (arbitrary number alert!) “paid slots”. Now other 5 star players have to choose to go to AZ and not be compensated by the university or go to another school to accept one of their “paid slots”. I suppose in some cases this might drive higher tier players to places they might not go normally and it might prevent a Kentucky/Bama from stockpiling 5 stars for their bench. But in reality it probably opens up the dirty recruiting pay the player opportunity even more to drive a Bowen to a school that already has kids in the “paid slots”.
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Forget it. I tried to state this concept days ago to no avail. But, you are correct, paying players will not stop the corruption. Now, if you think players should be paid because schools are making money off of them, fine. But that is a separate issue, not the one that this thread was intended for.
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