I hate the NCAA so much. I can't believe they have the gall to say they need to maintain amateurism while so many people and so many huge corporations make billions of dollars off it. Why does paying the player hurt amateurism but paying the coach doesn't? Why would a player making $50 to sign his name on some hats ruin the game, but CBS paying the NCAA billions for the rights to broadcast the game be totally ok?
If they want to insist amateurism is so important, then fine. Be amateur. Have student volunteers do the broadcasting, don't show any ads during the game, and take all the money out of it. Otherwise don't tell me players are the only ones who can't make money off of this.
The owner of the convenience store near me played football for Stanford on a full ride. He's had to walk with a cane, or a walker on a bad day, since his 30s. It's an impediment to his job today, as he struggles to get around restocking throughout the day.
College football makes obscene amounts of money, while at the same time discarding a ton of young athletes with permanently broken bodies. The TBI stuff in particular is deeply disturbing. I heard a heartbreaking interview with a family where 3 generations are entering dementia simultaneously because the younger 2 both played college ball.
Coaches, schools, broadcasters... true fortunes being made by this industry every single day. But somehow giving the dang kids a slice of that ruins the authenticity of the league. What a pile of nonsense.
>Why does paying the player hurt amateurism but paying the coach doesn't? Why would a player making $50 to sign his name on some hats ruin the game, but CBS paying the NCAA billions for the rights to broadcast the game be totally ok?
Are the players underage? If the players are treated as employees of a business would the business have to jump through tons and tons of extra legal hoops?
I'm not saying that this is the case. But it's not too uncommon that messed up situations arise as a result of society's desire to protect a group.
I always wonder about the upbringing(read: brainwashing) that fans of the NCAA who are such rabid defenders of its "heritage" had to have gotten to believe such childish things. The NCAA is the ultimate unpaid internship; if you are such a big fan of those, I encourage you to quit your paying job(if you have one) and pursue one.
I remember in high school(~6-10 years ago for me) people would talk about situations with the NCAA like this, and people who had absolutely no stake whatsoever in the system would defend it, often with the kind of weak arguments many have mentioned in this thread. Disappointing that we can't simply agree that people working should be proportionately paid. Some mention scholarships and the like, and I don't think that this is a "terrible" system, but it's clearly incredibly weighed in favor of the NCAA and the schools themselves.
There is no equivalent to our college athletics in the whole world and anything that comes close to the scam that the NCAA is.
If you want to become an athlete in the rest of the world you skip schooling after high school and go straight into professional sports. The academic sports complex is a massive scam that is two-fold. It makes money off the (mainly blacks) “student” athletes either from the sports (and NCAA) or the alumni contributions in division 1 schools with men’s basketball or football. The students get nothing in return (not even an education in most cases - many examples of them being “graduated” whilst being illiterate and innumerate - see link at bottom). In the division 3 schools that are ranked competitively academically they are used as quota systems to let more whites into the school with esoteric or “elitist” sports like the aforementioned tennis or fencing or squash.
The rest of the world has the equivalent of our Minor League in Baseball for all competitive sports.Any sports in college is strictly intramural and for “fun”. Schools do not recruit athletes, as entrances are often based on exam results or some form of academic testing system.
First, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head. If the athletes don't like it, they don't have to go.
Second, the non-athletes pay a pretty penny for those classes that the athletes may ignore. It's common for students and their families to part with $150,000 to more than $300,000 for the same access to classes. Now, I agree that many athletes fail to get an education, but I think it's a stretch to say that this is all the fault of the college industrial complex. At some point, the students have to go to class.
Third, I realize that many coaches ask for long time commitments from athletes, but even then the value of the scholarship is still pretty sweet. For many, it may be the easiest money they make in their life. Even if they work out for 20 hours for the 25 weeks in a season, that's just 500 hours, about 1/4 of a normal full-time job. If the scholarship is worth $75,000 (as some are), then you're pulling down the equivalent of $300,000/year on an hourly basis. But it gets better because that scholarship is TAX-FREE.
Your general attitude about college sports has much merit, but the athletes are compensated.
I am firmly against the NCAA. I get a lot of flack for this typically, but the NCAA as a system relies on basically slave labor. Universities are for education. If there are university sports they should be actual amateur institutions, more like our intramural sports and clubs, which some do travel. There should be no sports scholarships, coaches shouldn't be paid large sums, and there should not be millions of merchandise sold or tv rights. The idea of scholarship in exchange for being an athlete should be banned. Universities should be on academic merit, and then afterward people should play what they want. Tuition should also be affordable enough (or free) for any who are able to attend should be able to.
The original idea was a good one: a healthy mind in a healthy body. With higher education for the former and sports for the latter. The point wasn't to make people fit for a particular job, it was just to make well educated and fit people for the elites of that time.
But things have become twisted along the way. Higher education is still there, and it has become a bit more practical, which is not bad. However the "sports" part became completely broken. Instead of giving students a good body (a noble goal), it shifted to competition, taking subpar students with great athletic skills just to beat the other college team, and overworking and ultimately breaking them. The complete opposite of the original idea.
I wouldn't say that the "whole concept" of college sports has been detrimental to education. As a college athlete, sports allowed me to go to a school I otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford. It also taught me valuable lessons and it had no impediment on my education there.
With that said, the current system sucks. Many athletes have lost their scholarships due to injury and were then on the hook for the costs of school, requiring some to transfer or drop out. There are some sports and programs that expect most of your time to be dedicated to the sport rather than your academics. The culture around some programs is toxic.
But none of it is inherent to the idea of "college sports". Would you argue that other extracurricular activities like clubs, student government, etc., are detrimental to education? Or would you say that they provide education in other areas of life compared to pure academia?
Yes, let's rip out the one major contributor to school spirit. As a non-athlete, sporting events contributed greatly to my college experience and love for my alma mater. I am lucky to have that experience rather than say in Europe where the schools are basically stale, glorified paper mills.
The NCAA is an illegal monopoly if I ever saw one.
The northwestern group was as close as I’ve seen to a real challenge, but nobody has had the guts to go the distance in a lawsuit. I wish someone would - the result would be enlightening.
There were other factors but what totally turned me against the NCAA is that the athletic scholarships are renewable every year. If you're hurt or are spending too much time in the classroom then your scholarship might not be renewed.
Sure, that's not going to affect healthy star players. But if you have something that really would be suited to rest or you want to take a tough course load, well, maybe they'll let you "red shirt" and maybe they won't. You still count against the scholarship limit.
If we could go back in time, maybe every town would have its football team and those teams could be promoted and relegated like many soccer teams. Players would be paid to play. Instead the college and university teams fill the need for people to have a local team.
Another disappointing story about the NCAA. I don’t know how to fix it, but since the NCAA represents the schools maybe there should be a parallel body to represent the athletes.
Stop doing anything that gives them money for any reason and let them know why. If enough people do it, the problem solves itself one way or the other.
Leaving aside the ethics of exploiting labor, my question is why are athletics a matter of our education system? Why does our government get involved in it at all? Why not decompose our university system into its individual parts instead - and let college age adults choose which areas they what to gain development in - whether that’s a particular sport or subject or whatever.
why are athletics a matter of our education system?
Why part of universities? Because in the 18th and 19th centuries a sound body was thought to be as important to a sound mind as a thorough knowledge of the great Western philosophers.
Why did it end up in the spectacle we know today as college football and NCAA and so on?
Because Princeton being Princeton, cheated at rugby.
Ultimately everything is a system. If the NCAA is incredibly militant about enforcing these rules, the schools will be incredibly paranoid about giving athletes any financial incentive. If the NCAA is more lax, schools will put less effort and attention to detail into enforcement. I’m not saying these policies are good or ethical, but this type of militant enforcement absolutely changes how careful schools are.
It's a bad system - at least for athletes. It's inherently exploitative. I'd liken it to nearly-free labor. The athletes had no idea they were infringing. The NCAA and the schools make money off these athletes. The schools self-reported. There was no recourse for the affected individuals.
The incredible power imbalance between banning these athletes from making money, and then turning around and doing it yourself while being judge, jury, and executioner, makes a mockery of the talent.
These are barely "amateurs" in any real sense, the system exploits that fact and the seal of approval "amateur" status brings to rake in money.
I mean, a school could just disaffiliate from the NCAA. They could run independent sports programs and play other independent schools, or join the NAIA or some other association, or start a new association. They won't though, because ultimately it's all about the money.
Also to your point about enforcement, you'll see that the money-making programs (i.e. Football and Basketball) at the big D1 schools get away with a lot more operating in the gray area than small schools and non-revenue sports. The NCAA isn't going to shit in their gravy train. They save the virtue-signal enforcement for schools and sports that don't make any money anyway.
They only this strict out of self-preservation. They know they're ~5 years or one high-profile screw-up away from having to actually pay football and basketball players, so they're delaying it as long as they can.
It’s not just about enforcing the rules, it’s about the appearance of enforcing the rules.
The NCAA need to seem important, which means they need people to break the rules regularly and be punished for it. That’s just one of many ways their fucking over students for the NCAA’s benefit.
The appropriate response is for students to boycott the NCAA, but socially and financially that is a huge hit. Normally the way around this is a union, but good luck getting one started.
I think this organization has trouble. I think the landline thing is just ... wrong. It should be reversed. I think there should be a reckoning.
As to the author's stand on Name Image and Likeness, I don't know much about being a college athlete, but I don't think that should be allowed. At all.
The NIL question is basically answered at this point - the student athletes do. There's a lot of state legislation making its way through that are allowing its student athletes to profit off their name and likeliness. Legislatures basically steamrolled the NCAA and said, "you have no power over this." When California started, it basically caused more states to fall quite quickly because other legislatures didn't want to give the California powerhouses an advantage in recruiting.
The NCAA is trying to rein things in and at least provide guidance right now, but their power is crumbling on this and many other issues.
Maybe that level of athleticism should be separated from education and run as actual business with people paid as actual athletes for whatever their market value is.
As someone not from the US, the whole role of sports in college/universities seems so... weird.
Mixing institutions with an education and research purpose with sport tribalism seems like a terrible idea to begin with, adding tons of money to the mix surely can't result in anything that has anything to do with education...
This is precisely what should be done. The scholarship model should die. The athletes should be employees of the University and paid a salary for their work. If they want to go to college on top of that, they can pay for that separately or negotiate reduced tuition as a benefit or in lieu of salary.
I agree, but football and basketball are part of college culture, and it would take away a built-in fanbase. I'm not sure if people would be as interested in NFL-lite games with 100+ teams where the players and teams aren't at least nominally associated with colleges. I think it might be too late to actually split them up.
The NCAA is a similarly corrupt club like the olympics. Preaching “amateurism” while making tons of money for the insiders. I wouldn’t mind if both got closed.
This athlete got a scholarship, elite coaching, a college degree and is now playing her sport professionally. She's a beneficiary of the system, not a casualty of it.
The only harm that has been done is that the NCAA has written her out of its internal records (it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur).
The NCAA does things that seem exploitative and wrong to me. But it also helps a lot of people. This young lady's outrage is not a good argument for the former.
That's one of the worst ad hominems I've ever seen. Sure, the author herself might have done OK, but she's pretty explicit that the incident affected others and that there are many more who haven't been so fortunate. She even names several and tells their stories. She uses her own case only as an example, not as the basis for her entire argument. Dismissing it because "she's a beneficiary" is absurd.
> it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur
NCAA's claims of "amateurism" are blatantly dishonest in the first place. They control what are pro minor leagues in every way except for the denial of straightforward compensation to the players.
[+] [-] cortesoft|4 years ago|reply
If they want to insist amateurism is so important, then fine. Be amateur. Have student volunteers do the broadcasting, don't show any ads during the game, and take all the money out of it. Otherwise don't tell me players are the only ones who can't make money off of this.
[+] [-] jasonwatkinspdx|4 years ago|reply
College football makes obscene amounts of money, while at the same time discarding a ton of young athletes with permanently broken bodies. The TBI stuff in particular is deeply disturbing. I heard a heartbreaking interview with a family where 3 generations are entering dementia simultaneously because the younger 2 both played college ball.
Coaches, schools, broadcasters... true fortunes being made by this industry every single day. But somehow giving the dang kids a slice of that ruins the authenticity of the league. What a pile of nonsense.
[+] [-] antonzabirko|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mirioron|4 years ago|reply
Are the players underage? If the players are treated as employees of a business would the business have to jump through tons and tons of extra legal hoops?
I'm not saying that this is the case. But it's not too uncommon that messed up situations arise as a result of society's desire to protect a group.
[+] [-] turndown|4 years ago|reply
I remember in high school(~6-10 years ago for me) people would talk about situations with the NCAA like this, and people who had absolutely no stake whatsoever in the system would defend it, often with the kind of weak arguments many have mentioned in this thread. Disappointing that we can't simply agree that people working should be proportionately paid. Some mention scholarships and the like, and I don't think that this is a "terrible" system, but it's clearly incredibly weighed in favor of the NCAA and the schools themselves.
[+] [-] underwater|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1cvmask|4 years ago|reply
If you want to become an athlete in the rest of the world you skip schooling after high school and go straight into professional sports. The academic sports complex is a massive scam that is two-fold. It makes money off the (mainly blacks) “student” athletes either from the sports (and NCAA) or the alumni contributions in division 1 schools with men’s basketball or football. The students get nothing in return (not even an education in most cases - many examples of them being “graduated” whilst being illiterate and innumerate - see link at bottom). In the division 3 schools that are ranked competitively academically they are used as quota systems to let more whites into the school with esoteric or “elitist” sports like the aforementioned tennis or fencing or squash.
The rest of the world has the equivalent of our Minor League in Baseball for all competitive sports.Any sports in college is strictly intramural and for “fun”. Schools do not recruit athletes, as entrances are often based on exam results or some form of academic testing system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_Unite...
My favorite story on our academic athletic complex is the bond issuance of over 60 million dollars to build a high school football stadium in Texas:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2639092-texas-town-appro...
———-
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-...
[+] [-] xhkkffbf|4 years ago|reply
Second, the non-athletes pay a pretty penny for those classes that the athletes may ignore. It's common for students and their families to part with $150,000 to more than $300,000 for the same access to classes. Now, I agree that many athletes fail to get an education, but I think it's a stretch to say that this is all the fault of the college industrial complex. At some point, the students have to go to class.
Third, I realize that many coaches ask for long time commitments from athletes, but even then the value of the scholarship is still pretty sweet. For many, it may be the easiest money they make in their life. Even if they work out for 20 hours for the 25 weeks in a season, that's just 500 hours, about 1/4 of a normal full-time job. If the scholarship is worth $75,000 (as some are), then you're pulling down the equivalent of $300,000/year on an hourly basis. But it gets better because that scholarship is TAX-FREE.
Your general attitude about college sports has much merit, but the athletes are compensated.
[+] [-] ecshafer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richwater|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GuB-42|4 years ago|reply
But things have become twisted along the way. Higher education is still there, and it has become a bit more practical, which is not bad. However the "sports" part became completely broken. Instead of giving students a good body (a noble goal), it shifted to competition, taking subpar students with great athletic skills just to beat the other college team, and overworking and ultimately breaking them. The complete opposite of the original idea.
[+] [-] nvrspyx|4 years ago|reply
With that said, the current system sucks. Many athletes have lost their scholarships due to injury and were then on the hook for the costs of school, requiring some to transfer or drop out. There are some sports and programs that expect most of your time to be dedicated to the sport rather than your academics. The culture around some programs is toxic.
But none of it is inherent to the idea of "college sports". Would you argue that other extracurricular activities like clubs, student government, etc., are detrimental to education? Or would you say that they provide education in other areas of life compared to pure academia?
[+] [-] snapetom|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trentnix|4 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZB0qsJuRDo
[+] [-] MR4D|4 years ago|reply
The northwestern group was as close as I’ve seen to a real challenge, but nobody has had the guts to go the distance in a lawsuit. I wish someone would - the result would be enlightening.
[+] [-] jdeibele|4 years ago|reply
Sure, that's not going to affect healthy star players. But if you have something that really would be suited to rest or you want to take a tough course load, well, maybe they'll let you "red shirt" and maybe they won't. You still count against the scholarship limit.
If we could go back in time, maybe every town would have its football team and those teams could be promoted and relegated like many soccer teams. Players would be paid to play. Instead the college and university teams fill the need for people to have a local team.
[+] [-] tims33|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LegitShady|4 years ago|reply
Stop doing anything that gives them money for any reason and let them know why. If enough people do it, the problem solves itself one way or the other.
[+] [-] throwawaysea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bilbo0s|4 years ago|reply
Why part of universities? Because in the 18th and 19th centuries a sound body was thought to be as important to a sound mind as a thorough knowledge of the great Western philosophers.
Why did it end up in the spectacle we know today as college football and NCAA and so on?
Because Princeton being Princeton, cheated at rugby.
[+] [-] dehrmann|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zackbloom|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexeldeib|4 years ago|reply
The incredible power imbalance between banning these athletes from making money, and then turning around and doing it yourself while being judge, jury, and executioner, makes a mockery of the talent.
These are barely "amateurs" in any real sense, the system exploits that fact and the seal of approval "amateur" status brings to rake in money.
[+] [-] Sebguer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawayboise|4 years ago|reply
Also to your point about enforcement, you'll see that the money-making programs (i.e. Football and Basketball) at the big D1 schools get away with a lot more operating in the gray area than small schools and non-revenue sports. The NCAA isn't going to shit in their gravy train. They save the virtue-signal enforcement for schools and sports that don't make any money anyway.
[+] [-] dehrmann|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Retric|4 years ago|reply
The NCAA need to seem important, which means they need people to break the rules regularly and be punished for it. That’s just one of many ways their fucking over students for the NCAA’s benefit.
The appropriate response is for students to boycott the NCAA, but socially and financially that is a huge hit. Normally the way around this is a union, but good luck getting one started.
[+] [-] m-ee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|4 years ago|reply
As to the author's stand on Name Image and Likeness, I don't know much about being a college athlete, but I don't think that should be allowed. At all.
[+] [-] thethought|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snapetom|4 years ago|reply
The NCAA is trying to rein things in and at least provide guidance right now, but their power is crumbling on this and many other issues.
[+] [-] sunstone|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ARandomerDude|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ekaros|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shacklz|4 years ago|reply
Mixing institutions with an education and research purpose with sport tribalism seems like a terrible idea to begin with, adding tons of money to the mix surely can't result in anything that has anything to do with education...
[+] [-] OminousWeapons|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sebguer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kdmdmdmmdmd|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] spaetzleesser|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmurray|4 years ago|reply
The only harm that has been done is that the NCAA has written her out of its internal records (it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur).
The NCAA does things that seem exploitative and wrong to me. But it also helps a lot of people. This young lady's outrage is not a good argument for the former.
[+] [-] notacoward|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crooked-v|4 years ago|reply
NCAA's claims of "amateurism" are blatantly dishonest in the first place. They control what are pro minor leagues in every way except for the denial of straightforward compensation to the players.