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National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

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Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#11

The solution in my opinion is to do away with college athletic scholarships and preferred admission for athletes. Let school's field their sports teams from their normal student bodies and ensure that those teams are truly amateur and the participants really are "student-athletes". Let the NBA and the NFL field their own semi-professional minor leagues like baseball does. If these schools have to start paying their f…

This would end up killing a bunch of smaller sports, and hurting the larger ones.

NCAA covers a massive number of sports. The vast majority of those who go pro in any US sport, first go through an NCAA team.

Think about a scenario in the current world: You're a pretty good golf player in high school. You commit to Stanford for golf and a degree in some STEM field. The school already has a system in place to make sure both are possible. You give high level competitive college golf a shot and realize you can actually go pro. After college, you do. And even if it doesn't work out, you've got a degree from Stanford.

And then there's your world: You're a pretty good golf player in high school. You go to college instead of the separate LPGA feeder leagues because it's the safer bet and your school doesn't have a system in place to make sure you can compete in both. Why would they? You never get to experience and thrive in the high level competitions and end up not going pro.

So many professional sports would get maimed with your model. After a decade the US would heavily drop on the world stage when it comes to sports.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#12

The solution in my opinion is to do away with college athletic scholarships and preferred admission for athletes. Let school's field their sports teams from their normal student bodies and ensure that those teams are truly amateur and the participants really are "student-athletes". Let the NBA and the NFL field their own semi-professional minor leagues like baseball does. If these schools have to start paying their f…

> it will be the absolute death of virtually every other men's sport at the college level Why's that?

The 2-3 huge money-maker sports tend to fund all the rest. Paying athletes real money will cut into those profits (especially if a strong labor market for student athletes develops) with a plausible result being that other sports will be cut as budgets tighten. The only ones that would be for sure safe would be whatever women's sports are needed to achieve Title IX parity with the income-generating men's sports.

Of course, it's also possible that colleges will find other ways to pay for the "lesser" sports, and there would be no cuts.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#13
I think the NCAA should create an investment pool backed by individual students' contributions to revenue. So, you're a star at Alabama. Based on your play time, jersey sales, you get a share of Alabama's share of total revenue into the pool. It grows and after 5 years you are eligible to withdraw that share. It could be used as a buffer in case of career ending injuries or liquidated for profit with incentives to perhaps see out your college career.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#14

The solution in my opinion is to do away with college athletic scholarships and preferred admission for athletes. Let school's field their sports teams from their normal student bodies and ensure that those teams are truly amateur and the participants really are "student-athletes". Let the NBA and the NFL field their own semi-professional minor leagues like baseball does. If these schools have to start paying their f…

This would end up killing a bunch of smaller sports, and hurting the larger ones. NCAA covers a massive number of sports. The vast majority of those who go pro in any US sport, first go through an NCAA team. Think about a scenario in the current world: You're a pretty good golf player in high school. You commit to Stanford for golf and a degree in some STEM field. The school already has a system in place to make sure…

So maybe we don't need so many professional sports players.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#15

The solution in my opinion is to do away with college athletic scholarships and preferred admission for athletes. Let school's field their sports teams from their normal student bodies and ensure that those teams are truly amateur and the participants really are "student-athletes". Let the NBA and the NFL field their own semi-professional minor leagues like baseball does. If these schools have to start paying their f…

This would end up killing a bunch of smaller sports, and hurting the larger ones. NCAA covers a massive number of sports. The vast majority of those who go pro in any US sport, first go through an NCAA team. Think about a scenario in the current world: You're a pretty good golf player in high school. You commit to Stanford for golf and a degree in some STEM field. The school already has a system in place to make sure…

Sounds like that's a problem for the pro sports leagues to solve. They have the money to do it, so they'll be fine.

Baseball does an adequate job with its system of minor league teams. Pretty much every other country in the world manages to have professional sports leagues without having universities be their feeder teams.

Even in your scenario, there's nothing stopping the aspiring golfer from attending Stanford part-time while they try to make it in pro-golf. Or applying and deferring admission for a couple of years. Frankly, they'd do better academically if they didn't have golf distracting them.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#16

The solution in my opinion is to do away with college athletic scholarships and preferred admission for athletes. Let school's field their sports teams from their normal student bodies and ensure that those teams are truly amateur and the participants really are "student-athletes". Let the NBA and the NFL field their own semi-professional minor leagues like baseball does. If these schools have to start paying their f…

This would end up killing a bunch of smaller sports, and hurting the larger ones. NCAA covers a massive number of sports. The vast majority of those who go pro in any US sport, first go through an NCAA team. Think about a scenario in the current world: You're a pretty good golf player in high school. You commit to Stanford for golf and a degree in some STEM field. The school already has a system in place to make sure…

Given that college sports mostly loose money for schools[1], why do we think its OK to ask students and (for public colleges) taxpayers to subsidize professional sports' feeder system?

I went to a large state school (SUNY Buffalo) where the administration wanted to go division 1 when I was there in the early 90s. Transitioning to division 1 came along with a large (to us) mandatory athletic fee. The student body voted against this multiple times, and then the administration simply stopped asking and went division 1 anyway (and imposed the fee).

[1]:https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/do-college-sports-make-mon...

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#17

Kavanaugh hits the nail in the head in his concurring opinion. > In my view, that argument is circular and unpersuasive. The NCAA couches its arguments for not paying student athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The NCAA’s business model would be flatly il- legal in almost any other industry in America. All of the restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks’ wages on…

What's even worse with NCAA compensation is that it is limited to a scholarship and the value of that scholarship is tied to the cost of a given college or university. If an athlete is given a scholarship to an in-state public university their compensation might be $25,000 per year versus another student attending a higher cost private school who could be getting paid $75,000 per year effectively. You then have the v…

And this is sidetracking the point that college-athletes being recruited with aspirations for professional sports view the college as a means to the pro-level job; college courses and the degree are not viewed as benefits but necessary side-effects. Is this true for all sports and all athletes? No, not for fencing or handball, but for football, basketball, and other potential high-earners.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it will be the absolute death of virtually every other men's sport at the college level Why's that?

The 2-3 huge money-maker sports tend to fund all the rest. Paying athletes real money will cut into those profits (especially if a strong labor market for student athletes develops) with a plausible result being that other sports will be cut as budgets tighten. The only ones that would be for sure safe would be whatever women's sports are needed to achieve Title IX parity with the income-generating men's sports. Of c…

> tend to fund all the rest

How much 'funding' does an amateur university sport need? I don't think my fencing club at university had any 'funding' we just met and fenced. Occasionally we borrowed a van to go to a competition. We had a coach we paid from a few pounds of membership fees we collected from ourselves.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#19
post #6

"I deleted n pages of someone's rules today" Does this mean players can just do the straightforward thing and negotiate lucrative contracts with schools and we can forego all the backdoor, indirect compensation and self-inflicted corruption that goes on now? If so then these institutions can just be what they are in a straightforward way; football teams that also happen to fund a legacy educational branch.

The ruling today was quite narrow, so players cannot do the straightforward thing at the moment.

There were very strong hints that the NCAA needs to change its rules around compensation completely, so it seems likely that they eventually will be able to do that. But it isn't the case now.

Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston [pdf]

#20
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it will be the absolute death of virtually every other men's sport at the college level Why's that?

In the current system, schools need to have an equivalent number of sports teams (and slots) for men and women, with the same number of scholarships (the law governing this is called Title IX). Generally speaking, women's sports don't bring in money for schools, whereas football at a competitive school will bring in money in the form of TV deals and even donations from alumni. So essentially, the football and basketb…

Alternatively, universities would spin off their money-making teams into professional organizations in return for licensing fees.
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