Ugh. Dude made me change my avatar. As if the season wasn't disappointing enough.

I agree with the above comment about not needing non-revenue sports. Clubs are fine. I played club athletics and don't see any problem with it.

Well then how will all the golfers and wrestlers and swimmers go to college for free?

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

They dont.

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I pitch them and you hit them over the fence.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

You would think with the tens of millions coming in now from football, schools would decrease tuition rates for the regular students. There is going to a major crash at some point.

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No tuition won't come down until they stop letting kids borrow up their ass. Athletics money and endowments support a lot of other shit.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/co ... story.html

I think this will be more common than not in coming years. A lot of schools are taking in a ton of money, but also pissing it away.

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The upside of the death of non revenue sports is that perhaps baseball will march faster into oblivion.

The interesting thing seems to be that if they are classified as "employees" that all compensation becomes taxable. That includes tuition, housing, the stipend(which almost certainly will go up in the next 5 years), and possibly even the food, along with whatever minimum wage they have to pay out because they are now the same as a guy working in the cafeteria.

It also opens up the possibility that schools will no longer be bound by the 20 hour a week limits and offseason workout limits. It also opens up the possibility that players could be cut/fired midseason and makes it almost certain that 5 year scholarships will never be granted.

So yeah, this would be horrible and will go away quickly. Though, hopefully this pushes the NCAA to finally just let the Big Ten and the other power conferences expand the benefit packages like they want and the Sun Belt conference can just deal with it.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I can't understand why anyone would be against a man being paid fairly, i.e., getting what he can get on an open market, for his labor. I understand you like college football as it is. But getting angry about this is really irrational. Some of you sound exactly like Southern planters when abolitionists suggested an end to slavery. "That will never work!!!!!"

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Don't take it personally.

There is an open market for his labor. Just like most 18 year old kids, it isn't very good and playing college football or basketball is the best option. The NCAA pays fair market value across the board. However, some players are underpaid but that is true in every American pro league too. Lebron is underpaid. Others are overpaid.

The major problem now is that the current rules don't take into account the total cost of attendance. Every player should receive $2,000-$3,000 a month in living expenses above what they get now.
Just stop. Are you going to compare us to Hitler next?

It won't work because it will be bad for the players more than the schools.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think the guy was suggesting that the NCAA doesn't pay for his medical bills if he blows out his knee playing football. He also mentioned low graduation rates and said the education aspect should be better.

I've thought this for a long time that they need to have a union to bring the NCAA to its knees. Granted there is a very small percentage of players in college basketball who are going to the NBA and who will be successful in the NBA and a lot of college football players who will never make the pros. But don't kid yourself these football and basketball players are not getting a quality education. A lot of the best players are majoring in eligibility or are not even college material in terms of academics. Plus it's not like those kids are going to class when they are traveling around the country playing sports.

The term "student athlete" is a complete misnomer. These are athletes who play for schools, who may or may not get a quality education in exchange for their services.

The only way the college football and basketball players can have any success with a union is if they are willing to strike. Let's say the national championship game comes on and one team refuses to take the field or show up for the game. How are the networks and the NCAA going to deal with lost revenue from the players not playing?

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Any college athlete who doesn't get a quality education is choosing not to do so.

Yeah, the guys at Kentucky and Duke are majoring in basketball, but any of those players could just as easily choose to go to Vanderbilt or Butler and major in whatever they wanted and get the full support of the coaching staff and the school.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Certainly there are a lot of students who play sports who get a good education. But that doesn't change the fact that these players shouldn't be allowed to be paid whatever the schools want to pay or whatever the athletes can get for themselves.

This is a complete injustice that these kids are not being properly compensated when the NCAA is making a billion dollars on TV rights for the Final Four. The fundamental right of people in America is that unless you are a volunteer you have a legal right to be compensated for the services you provide.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

So are we going to start paying middle school football players too?

What you say is flat out wrong. We do things all the time without payment because we get a benefit from it. Sometimes, we even pay for the privilege of doing it.

Playing sports in college is something that people choose to do because they feel the benefits outweigh the negatives and it is the best option for them at the time. If a high school athlete could be making hundreds of thousands of dollars doing something else he would be.

It was in another thread, but it was basically pointed out that college football players are compensated on the level of your average Triple A baseball player.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It's an apt comparison, Rick. Every business owner- and make no mistake the NCAA and its members are business owners- would like a free labor force. And you just stop about the value of a scholarship. That isn't much different from saying we provide food and shelter for our indentured servants.

Why are you afraid of Johnny Manziel shopping his services? Texas will give me $10 million, does A&M want me to stay? You sure seem to respect the right of billionaires to "earn" their money, but you don't think a college lineman is worth a couple hundred thousand. Didn't you mentions something about who gets to decide how much is enough?

You must hate America.

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Don't take it personally.

Only if the coach and principal are using their labor to make money.

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Don't take it personally.

Wrong. Most big time college football players are discouraged from taking real college courses. They're there to play football. Nothing more. Don't talk stupid.

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Don't take it personally.

Are they forced to go to a big time football school? I can guarantee you any player on Alabama who wanted to major in Engineering would have been welcomed with open arms to Purdue or Illinois.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Larry King: Should college players get paid?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Yes, they should. I think they have to figure out some aspect of it. Everybody sees college sports as an extension of high school you know where the quarterback has a romance with the cheerleader and they celebrate the victory in the malt shop. That's dead. It's a six billion dollar a year industry the president of the NCAA makes 1.7 million dollars a year and all the people that are providing the entertainment they are by law forbidden from making any money from it. It's a real blatant form of exportation. I hope it changes.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

I think they should get paid too. They should get an extra $2,000 to $3,000 a month.

If you really want someone to make $4,000 a month and another makes $1,000 and basically have a salary cap structure I guess that is fine.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm not sure about that. I went to school a long time ago and it wasn't the business it has become. But I know two guys who played at SIU in the last ten years or so, one of them just a fucking punter, and they were guided into classes that wouldn't disrupt training. I'm not saying a guy couldn't insist on pre-med or whatever they offer down there, but he was damn sure going to be viewed as less than committed by the coaching staff. And that's a Division II school or whatever the fuck they call them now.

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Don't take it personally.

I say get someone with a whole lot of money who will agree to pay one of the teams that make the final game of the Final Four $1 million a player to strike.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Interesting. That's the same amount I think billionaires should be paid.

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Don't take it personally.

The ridiculous part of Title IX is basically the use of the profitable sports to pay for the non-profitable sports.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

If academics were really that important they would find a school that was understanding about it.

I understand that schools will tell players that some majors are difficult with the increased workload but that doesn't mean you have to choose the easiest major possible. Lots of business majors in college sports too. It's all about a choice.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Just for reference again:

$2,500 a month year round for football players would be significantly better than pretty much all minor league baseball players. There are a few that get big bonuses when drafted but that is a very tiny fraction of players.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

College football and NCAA basketball are unique from the other college sports. The NCAA makes more money from those sports than all the other sports. So what they get should be more than the other sports.

The players should be able to get whatever they can for their services and they should be able to profit from selling their own autographs and jerseys. The fact that the coach is getting $3 million a year and the players are getting no monetary compensation should be a major red flag. Last time I checked these events were not free and people are paying to see the players who are not being paid.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

The NCAA scholarship limit for football is 85. For basketball, it is 13. That is 98.

At $2,500 a month, that is $30,000 a year per player. Let's just add in another $20,000 a year for the other benefits(housing, food, tuition). That's $50,000 a year per player.

That's $4.9 million on football and basketball alone. Double that if Title IX requires it. At a minimum, you still need to pay the other scholarships at the $20,000 a year. So, we are up to $7-$10 million in this conservative system.

What do you think happens if there is a completely wide open system with no salary cap? There are probably 10 teams that matter. That's why even baseball has some degree of salary equalization and the rest of the sports have a salary cap.

Give them more money per month, and let them sign autographs and put that money in a trust fund for them after college. Done.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If they really thought the education was important they would let every player who got a scholarship come finish their degree for free at any time in the future.

Also when they factor in tuition are they saying what it actually costs the player to pay for tuition or what it costs the school to give them a free education? If someone owned a store and they gave you a gift card for $100. The value to you would be $100, but they bought the stuff at wholesale and your $100 isn't their net cost because they mark the stuff up.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”