Different market entirely.
My boss certainly doesn’t pay me for my likeness, that’s for sure.
But does your boss profit off of your likeness without sharing those profits with you? And is there a clearly established value for your likeness? And does your boss prevent you from profiting off of your likeness?
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I’m assuming they don’t sell it either. But they do sell your work product, for which they pay you, no?
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This all comes back to the subject of everyone is acting like the student athlete is getting nothing out of going to College. They get an education which leads to a degree if they stay long enough and whatever other stipends they receive. Are the college’s really getting rich off of a players so called likeness. Then forego college and go pro or get paid for your likeness. I think i am with Tom on get the one and done rule out. Which is not the NCAA rule but the NBA’s. The biggest money grab for College’s is the sports gear contract, coaches pay and shoe contracts but do College’s really make lots of money at players expense when you take into consideration Title IX and having to support sports programs that can’t sustain themselves. Sorry for rambling but I like the idea of amateur sports. Let those who think they can go pro out of high school get to steppin and let those who want to go to College be amateurs. When they think their ready to be pros Bu by. There, that’s my selfish resolution.
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For most players, their likeness is never worth more than when they are on campus. Think about guys like Xavier, Charles Matthews (if he doesn’t recover from his injury), etc. Any really good college player that doesn’t make the NBA. Those guys were most likely legends on campus and in the surrounding city. For those 4 years they could have made a lot of money from basketball. That’s money they will never have a chance to make in any European league.
I don’t get flat out not wanting players to get money, all for a sham like amateurism. If you think there are too many issues, fine. Although imo it can be worked out. But not wanting people to make money just because it takes some joy out of the experience? Lame.
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I’m all for players earning money off of their likeness after they are in college (jersey sales, ad campaigns, autograph sessions, etc.). What makes me uneasy is the bidding war that will go on among boosters for top recruits (I know OSU offered you $500k to do a few commercials and Clemson offered $750k if you attend a professor’s son’s bar mitzvah, but if you come to Alabama, we will pay you $1 million to take a photo at my car wash). I guess that’s life though.
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If someone is willing to pay you $1 million to take a photo at a car wash then you deserve to be able to take that photo in my opinion.
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I agree that bidding war type situations would be not good, but there’s gotta be a way. I don’t think players would be getting as much money as your hypothetical, except for big outliers. Although I understand you just kinda tossed those numbers out.
Isn’t the $1M really for committing to the school and not for the photo shoot? The photo shoot, public and private appearances, etc. are just part of the package of services that is being bought, along with playing basketball for the booster’s school.
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Maybe, but what does parsing through it really matter?
I guess I fail to see why that matters.
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Call it what you want I don’t care one way or the other really but someone other than us talking heads will have to do something that most likely will piss off someone be it Student Athletes or College Administration. I do agree the most insane stance the NCAA has is that athletes can not have have outside interest that make them money. The question is who is supplying the money and for what legit reason.
The problem as I see it is that professional sports are organized very carefully to promote competitive balance. Most pro sports leagues have a salary cap. In every league, the worst teams get the highest draft picks. There are rules in place which, while they may restrict the rights of certain individual players (like, for example, “team control” in baseball for a certain number of years), promote competitive balance and everyone eventually gets rich.
In college, the playing field is already not level. Some schools, and their boosters, already give players tons of extra benefits. But at least there are rules, and the threat of sanctions, to make people behave here and there.
If you let players make money off their likeness, what you’re really saying is, whichever 4-5 schools have the richest, most passionate alumni base, those schools will get all the elite players. I don’t believe the NCAA is even capable of coming up with a system to foster competition in the same way the pro sports do. It’s already somewhat that way - Duke, Kansas and UK in basketball, Alabama and Clemson in football. I don’t think that’s been good for either sport, but it would only get worse.
In basketball, the pay for play argument is much weaker IMO because the players can leave after one year, and in the near future, skip college completely. Is it seriously a grave injustice that Zion Williamson had to play one season of college basketball? Football is a better case, because forcing a guy like Trevor Lawrence to play three years in college is crazy, and the risk of injury/shorter pro career is so much greater.
I’d personally favor getting rid of the one and done rule completely, I’d let kids come back to school if they go undrafted (and attend college if they go undrafted out of high school), and I’d give them a good $10k a semester. And I’d consider some type of profit sharing arrangement at the end of the year, with the higher revenue sports getting a greater share. But I don’t think the NCAA is competent enough to allow players to get paid without completely ruining the product.
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If “fostering competitive balance” is higher on the priority list than fairly compensating 19 year olds in a multi-billion dollar industry, sure.
I wouldn’t say that there’s any sort of competitive balance in college sports right now. Schools with more money, more donors, and better TV deals or better conferences have massive institutional advantages.
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I am having a hard time reconciling the system that allows payment from a school and/or boosters with existing NCAA policies (transfer policies, Title IX). Would players be under contract, or would they still have the option to transfer from one school to another. Could Michigan openly recruit players off of MSU’s bench when they are not getting enough playing time from Tom Izzo? Would a player’s value increase if they put in effort and exceed the initial expectation as a recruited high school athlete? Would they be able to renegotiate their deal with the university? If the deal is with the university, how does Title IX impact the payments?
As a fan of a particular school, seeing my school have success is more important to me than the abstract question of whether players playing without getting paid is somehow unfair. For the kids who will play in the NBA, at most it’s a year (and should be a great one) of their lives. For the kids who won’t become pros, I find it hard to believe that being a high level Division I athlete isn’t (with some exceptions) generally a great experience.
I agree the playing field is not even now. With that said, you still see teams like Wisconsin basketball make the title game, or Northwestern football playing for the Big Ten title. I think that disappears under a pay for play system.
Right, that’s Nike. Now imagine every hillbilly in Kentucky offering to pay whatever it takes to get every single kid UK wants. It’s a system the NCAA will never be able to control, and it will make 95% of schools completely non-competitive.
But I would agree with this - if the NCAA isn’t going to do anything meaningful to crack down on cheating in the wake of these trials, then we might as well just overhaul it all completely and pay the kids.
As a Michigan fan (which is, again, 95% of what I can about in this discussion), I’d rather have all schools be able to pay players than try to compete ethically when no one else is forced to follow the rules.
Was not posting it as a reply to anything you posted. Just as another article relating to the overall topic of the thread.
If you are just looking at this topic in relation to Michigan sports, I feel like you are kind of missing the bigger picture.
Gotcha.
I fully understand the bigger picture. It is somewhat disturbing to me that this has become such a lucrative industry for everyone but the players. On the other hand, I don’t see a way for the NCAA to make it work, other than what I outlined earlier. I think allowing guys to profit off their image and likeness is ripe for abuse and could destroy the sport.