I lived in poverty before and during my UNC years, but I don't now-- which is the point of going to college.

I spent 10 years paying back my loans and served in the military to defer a couple of them for a few years. I bought used books and had hardly been out of North and South Carolina, GA, and TN. I didn't eat at a training table, spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii, have tutors (and I could have used a few), trainers and physical therapists at my ready.... so whats the point?

My point is because I went to class, studied hard and graduated, I am retired at age 59, live on 4 acres with a great view outside of San Diego, have visited 39 countries and 46 States-- all because of the blessings that my hard work at UNC provided. And the best part, because of those years of poverty, I appreciate every bit of it.

And most of the chosen few leave with little to no loans. Very fortunate.
---------------------------------------------
--- ev700 wrote:

I lived in poverty before and during my UNC years, but I don't now-- which is the point of going to college.

I spent 10 years paying back my loans and served in the military to defer a couple of them for a few years. I bought used books and had hardly been out of North and South Carolina, GA, and TN. I didn't eat at a training table, spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii, have tutors (and I could have used a few), trainers and physical therapists at my ready.... so whats the point?

My point is because I went to class, studied hard and graduated, I am retired at age 59, live on 4 acres with a great view outside of San Diego, have visited 39 countries and 46 States-- all because of the blessings that my hard work at UNC provided. And the best part, because of those years of poverty, I appreciate every bit of it.

---------------------------------------------

good for you .....

but your status as a STUDENT simply has no relevance whatsoever in the tiniest, slightest possible way to the commercial business of major college sports and what portion of the billions of dollars of income from that business should rightfully or arguably be paid to the players .......

the fact that you were a student at UNC and Gio Barnard and Tyler Hansbrough were also students is not what this is about at all - not in the slightest .........

the economic fallacy -- and that was your statement below is -- just a basic economic fallacy -- is that your statement completely ignores the value ($$$$$) that these players provide to the athletic department / university through their participation on their highly profitable sport teams ..... the value they create for the university has nothing at all to do with their coincident role as students .....

when you were a student there was nothing you did as a STUDENT to produce tens of millions in income for UNC ...... that is obviously not the case with Gio Barnard .. Ty Hansbrough .. Bryn Renner, etc. ..........

---------------------------------------------
--- ev700 wrote:

I lived in poverty before and during my UNC years, but I don't now-- which is the point of going to college.

I spent 10 years paying back my loans and served in the military to defer a couple of them for a few years. I bought used books and had hardly been out of North and South Carolina, GA, and TN. I didn't eat at a training table, spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii, have tutors (and I could have used a few), trainers and physical therapists at my ready.... so whats the point?

My point is because I went to class, studied hard and graduated, I am retired at age 59, live on 4 acres with a great view outside of San Diego, have visited 39 countries and 46 States-- all because of the blessings that my hard work at UNC provided. And the best part, because of those years of poverty, I appreciate every bit of it.

---------------------------------------------

So how big of a check do you suggest we write and how far down does it go? Which sports and there better be women sports included.
---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

good for you .....

but your status as a STUDENT simply has no relevance whatsoever in the tiniest, slightest possible way to the commercial business of major college sports and what portion of the billions of dollars of income from that business should rightfully or arguably be paid to the players .......

the fact that you were a student at UNC and Gio Barnard and Tyler Hansbrough were also students is not what this is about at all - not in the slightest .........

the economic fallacy -- and that was your statement below is -- just a basic economic fallacy -- is that your statement completely ignores the value ($$$$$) that these players provide to the athletic department / university through their participation on their highly profitable sport teams ..... the value they create for the university has nothing at all to do with their coincident role as students .....

when you were a student there was nothing you did as a STUDENT to produce tens of millions in income for UNC ...... that is obviously not the case with Gio Barnard .. Ty Hansbrough .. Bryn Renner, etc. ..........

---------------------------------------------
--- ev700 wrote:

I lived in poverty before and during my UNC years, but I don't now-- which is the point of going to college.

I spent 10 years paying back my loans and served in the military to defer a couple of them for a few years. I bought used books and had hardly been out of North and South Carolina, GA, and TN. I didn't eat at a training table, spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii, have tutors (and I could have used a few), trainers and physical therapists at my ready.... so whats the point?

My point is because I went to class, studied hard and graduated, I am retired at age 59, live on 4 acres with a great view outside of San Diego, have visited 39 countries and 46 States-- all because of the blessings that my hard work at UNC provided. And the best part, because of those years of poverty, I appreciate every bit of it.

---------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------

+ in the real world in which we live ---

just know that even the NCAA has some maximum capacity for embarrassment and so the current President of the NCAA has proposed a stipend of several thousand dollars which I believe would cover all scholarship student athletes -- the so called 'full cost' scholarship ...... this has not been approved by the NCAA membership ........


+ in a more righteous world (probably?) ---

the major revenue sports -- football and bball - maybe women's bball -- should be separated corporately from the rest of the university and operated and taxed as the commercial businesses they have in fact become ...... then the players could be compensated like any other minor league professional athlete - which is in fact what they are in basically every other respect - other than payday ......

if the universities want to have an athletic department as an extra curricula component of their educational mission --- nothing wrong with that -- virtually every school sponsors sport teams at some level ........

if the universities want to operate a multi-billion $$$$ sports-entertainment business as a virtual reality TV show series for ESPN and pay multi-million $$$$ salaries and have all the other accoutrements that go along with professional sports teams ...... that's fine too ..... but they should operate it under the same legal, employment and tax structure as any other commercial business .......

as it now - they are simply riding on tradition and popularity to maintain an antiquated system that might have made sense in a more modest past --- but today simply smacks of taking advantage of the fact that the athletes are unorganized ... only participate in college for a brief time (have little incentive to get organized) ..... and frankly, often come from the least powerful segments of society ...... the adults in college sports have taken advantage of all this to enrich themselves as the money in college sports from TV and other sources has grown exponentially -- the players are conspicuous in being excluded from this financial windfall ...... ..... and that starts at the Nick Sabans of college sports and goes on right on down to everyone involved in what is now the college sports industry - at least at the big schools ...... there are a lot of mouths in the trough .........


---------------------------------------------
--- tarheelforever79 wrote:


So how big of a check do you suggest we write and how far down does it go? Which sports and there better be women sports included.

Why don't we treat athletes like the old semi pro softball teams sponsored by companies in the 70's and 80's. Act like they go to school, pay them and call it a day. Then a few years down the road stop pretending they go to class and just pay them. All this education is overated.

I am sorry, I respect your right to have an opinion, however, I cannot and do not respect your opinion. It is so outrageous to suggest that football, and men's/women's basketball be separated from the rest of the university. The money they bring in pays for their scholarships as well as the scholarships of every other athlete. They are here to get an education first and foremost. What you suggest is the total demolition of what we call the "student-athlete." You speak of athletes rather having money in their pocket than nice facilities. The fact of the matter is teenage kids are teenagers and shouldn't get to decide whether they do or not. Athletes are fortunate to get what all they do receive. I say this as a former collegiate athlete who benefited not from what I did as an athlete but from what the guys before me did. Teams successes provide for the guys who follow them. Look at Vince Carter who gave 2.5 million to the basketball program recently. Yes, he made a lot of money for the university, but he also made a lot for himself because of what the university did for him as an athlete here. He in turn decided to give back to the team and university. Yes, coaches get paid a lot of money, but they were once athletes and students who had to work their way up as well. The system you speak of is professional sports, and I feel that the true meaning of being a "student-athlete" will be lost if it were to be implemented.
---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

+ in the real world in which we live ---

just know that even the NCAA has some maximum capacity for embarrassment and so the current President of the NCAA has proposed a stipend of several thousand dollars which I believe would cover all scholarship student athletes -- the so called 'full cost' scholarship ...... this has not been approved by the NCAA membership ........


+ in a more righteous world (probably?) ---

the major revenue sports -- football and bball - maybe women's bball -- should be separated corporately from the rest of the university and operated and taxed as the commercial businesses they have in fact become ...... then the players could be compensated like any other minor league professional athlete - which is in fact what they are in basically every other respect - other than payday ......

if the universities want to have an athletic department as an extra curricula component of their educational mission --- nothing wrong with that -- virtually every school sponsors sport teams at some level ........

if the universities want to operate a multi-billion $$$$ sports-entertainment business as a virtual reality TV show series for ESPN and pay multi-million $$$$ salaries and have all the other accoutrements that go along with professional sports teams ...... that's fine too ..... but they should operate it under the same legal, employment and tax structure as any other commercial business .......

as it now - they are simply riding on tradition and popularity to maintain an antiquated system that might have made sense in a more modest past --- but today simply smacks of taking advantage of the fact that the athletes are unorganized ... only participate in college for a brief time (have little incentive to get organized) ..... and frankly, often come from the least powerful segments of society ...... the adults in college sports have taken advantage of all this to enrich themselves as the money in college sports from TV and other sources has grown exponentially -- the players are conspicuous in being excluded from this financial windfall ...... ..... and that starts at the Nick Sabans of college sports and goes on right on down to everyone involved in what is now the college sports industry - at least at the big schools ...... there are a lot of mouths in the trough .........


--------------------------------------

It's clear you belive someone who hits home runs or scores touch dowwns is worth more to society than someone who can educate kids, etc. Is it easier to hit 30 home runs than it is to teach a kid to read? Of coures not. Stong athletes are special and some are remarkable. But they are entertainers. What's more important? Clearly you and I have different opinons.

I understnand how the game is played. Entertainers are going to make more $ than most people that "make an honest living". But in college, I think it's worth making opportunities for as many as possible.

Again you and I disagree. But I think most "reasonable" people will agree with me. Of course I could be mistaken. It wouldn't be the 1s time (lol!).

---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

Josh Hamilton makes the money he makes because he is at the apex of the sports entertainment business ..... he is an MVP caliber player in major league baseball ........ there are lots and lots and lots of people in the entertainment business who barely scratch out a living - they will be playing at your local bar Saturday night ..... and there are lots and lots of people who are paid relatively little to play professional baseball - you can come see them at the NewBridge Ballpark in Greensboro most any night in the Summer ........

there are slews and slews and bunches and gobs of people who can teach school -- UNC ... UNC-G ... EZU ... UNC-W, etc. graduate several thousand people every May who are hired as school teachers ........ it's not a rare skill ...... high demand - there is great need for school teachers - the State of NC employees 10,000s .... but large supply -- there are 10,000s of trained and licensed teachers out there ..... all of this means - teachers make a sort of average income for Americans .......

whereas, hitting 40+ homers a year off major league pitching is a rare skill ..... high demand - major league baseball fans all over the country - 162 games a year ........ very, very, very, very, very, very low supply --- you can count the Josh Hamiltons out there at any given point in time on the fingers of one hand ........ high demand --- very very very very low supply == very very very high price .... ............

1/2 carat diamonds - fairly common - ~ $1,000 ...... 6 carat diamonds - very, very, very rare - maybe $1.5 million .....


they are never going to pay college athletes like pro athletes .... at least I would assume so in my lifetime ...... I understand that ....... doesn't mean they shouldn't in a more righteous world ....... and it doesn't mean given all the money circulating around college sports that the NCAA/colleges can't make some modest steps to more fairly compensate the players ...... and it doesn't mean you have come remotely close to offering a credible (non fallacious) defense of the NCAA 'amateurism' system - you haven't -- sorry ..........

you are right - it's not a big deal .... just killing time on IC ...... should be watching, instead of listening to the Falcons ....

---------------------------------------------
--- GOHEELS86 wrote:

Josh Hamilton makes the money he makes because he can do what most people can't? Can he teach kids geometry or how to read?

He makes the money he makes because he's in the ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS! He's an entertainer; no different than Brad Pitt or Steven Tyler. It has nothing to do with supply/demand economics and it is of little value to society, comparatively speaking.

Obviously we disagree on the value of a college education and how these guys should be compensated. No big deal.

---------------------------------------------

No ... no .... no ....... again you're missing the point .....

1) the point is that simply how valuable what it is you do for someone is not all there is to determining the price (wage/salary) that someone gets paid ..........

so we can agree that teaching someone to read is very valuable and thus there is high 'demand' for that service and set of skills .......... but getting to the 'price' doesn't stop there .....

the other side of the equation is 'supply' ..... the facts are there are lots and lots of people who can be/have been trained and are qualified to teach reading (or be school teachers generally) ......

so we may have a high demand for teaching - but there is also a high supply of teachers out there ....... so when 'demand' and 'supply' come together you end up at a "price" roughly equal to the average income for Americans, generally .......

so it's not that teaching is not important and doesn't have a great value ---- what makes the salary for teachers kind of average is simply that there are also a lot of people who are willing and capable of performing this job ........ 'importance' (demand?) by itself does not get you - 'price' ...... it's demand and supply together = price .....


and you are simply wrong that being in the entertainment business by itself is a license to print money ..... most people in the entertainment business barely scratch out a living ...... there are a heck of lot more guys in the minors and banging drums at your local bar than making millions $$$$$ in the "Show" .........

there are a relatively small number of people - Josh Hamilton ... Lady Gaga ... Tom Cruise ....... who somehow manage to make it to the pinnacle of the sports and entertainment fields and thus earn a fabulous living ....... but these people have an national or even international audience (high demand) ..... and some rare talent (hitting 40+ HRs ..... whatever talent Tom Cruise has) ......the minor leagues are filled with guys who can hit an occasional home run off a 80 mph fastball down the middle - there are very, very, very few J Hamiltons who can hit 90 mph major league sliders into the stands 40+ times a year at the MLB level .........

thus it's the combination of enormous demand with rare supply => stratospheric price ...........

Price = demand ('value'/'importance') AND supply together ......... not just demand - ie, value or importance - by itself ..........



2) the other factor that gets into play here is for lack of a better word - sort of a productivity factor ....... a teacher only has an 'audience' of say 25 students ....... at some point greater than that he/she becomes a whole lot less effective as a teacher ...... and the taxpayers/parents may pay $2,000 apiece for a year's worth of the teacher's time for each student .... or $50,000 a year to the teacher ........... (we'll ignore all the overhead behind the teacher for now) .........

for Josh Hamilton or Tom Cruise ...... any one of us may only have demand for what it is they do to the tune of one ticket per year - say $20 to pick a number ........... but Josh Hamilton can get this $20 from 10,000s of seats in ball parks 162 games a year - (not to mention a TV audience as well) ........ and Tom Cruise could sell millions and millions of movie theater seats all over the world (plus later TV rights, etc.) ........

so while we can agree that on the frankly trite observation that what athletes/enterntainers do for any one of us is considerably less 'valuable' than being taught to read (for example) ..... and as a consequence the price of a sports or movie ticket is only $20 compared to say $2,0000 for a seat in a classroom for a year ........ but the athletes/entertainers have the capacity to sell an infinitely greater number of tickets to their events than one school teacher can "sell" (or serve) classroom seats in a year ........ hence, the athletes/entertainers "make up it in volume" and are thus more 'productive' in an economic sense of the term .......

point being --- don't confuse 'aggregate demand' or 'aggregate supply' with unit demand or unit supply ...........


---------------------------------------------
--- GOHEELS86 wrote:

It's clear you belive someone who hits home runs or scores touch dowwns is worth more to society than someone who can educate kids, etc. Is it easier to hit 30 home runs than it is to teach a kid to read? Of coures not. Stong athletes are special and some are remarkable. But they are entertainers. What's more important? Clearly you and I have different opinons.

I understnand how the game is played. Entertainers are going to make more $ than most people that "make an honest living". But in college, I think it's worth making opportunities for as many as possible.

Again you and I disagree. But I think most "reasonable" people will agree with me. Of course I could be mistaken. It wouldn't be the 1s time (lol!).

---------------------------------------------
--- jsf5259 wrote:

I am sorry, I respect your right to have an opinion, however, I cannot and do not respect your opinion. It is so outrageous to suggest that football, and men's/women's basketball be separated from the rest of the university. The money they bring in pays for their scholarships as well as the scholarships of every other athlete.

--------------------------------

while having golf and tennis scholarships may be a good thing for the world to have ....... if we accept that as true, then what is not clear to me is why Gio Barnard and Reggie Bullock should be the only ones compelled to pay that cost .........

the economics present here are as follows: ..... the NCAA monopoly cartel does what cartels do and makes monopoly profits - "excess" profits or higher profits than they could make without their collusion to rig the market -- they make these 'excess' profits at the expense of someone else - in this case by underpaying the athletes ...... they take a portion of their monopoly profits and use them to subsidize other teams ...... so the underpayment of the football/bball players is the source of this money to fund these other sports ....... (as I believe you acknowledge) .......

so if we agree that the golf team or the tennis team is a good thing to have - then why shouldn't everyone chip it to pay for them ? ..... why shouldn't general university funds pay for these teams ? ........ why should Reggie Bullock and Gio be 'ripped off' (underpaid via monopoly price rigging) and solely bear the burden of paying for these teams ? .........

the NCAA/colleges do it this way, simply because Reggie/Gio have no bargaining power ...... in other words - they're easy and convenient group to exploit in this fashion ......... but 'easy and convenient' doesn't necessarily make it right .........



jsf5259 wrote:

They are here to get an education first and foremost.

----------------------

some of them are ......... I'm not sure I would put the UK basketball team in that category though ..........

and it should go without saying that the universities' reasons for recruiting these players to the sports teams has little to do with educating these young men ...... the educational aspect of their presence on campus seems to be mostly an inconvenience to be worked around ........ State didn't fire Tom O'Brien so they could bring in a new coach who could have greater success in "recruiting more scholars like Harvard", now did they ? ........

and finally, I don't understand why simply paying these men would interfere with their education ...... I don't think anyone is proposing to change what they do on campus - simply that they get paid more fairly given all the money made off them by the teams ..........



jsf5259 wrote:

What you suggest is the total demolition of what we call the "student-athlete." You speak of athletes rather having money in their pocket than nice facilities. The fact of the matter is teenage kids are teenagers and shouldn't get to decide whether they do or not.
______________________

the fact that these are young people - many of whom come from lower income family backgrounds - is all the more reason someone should be looking out for their interests ........ instead, being young and often poor makes these kids more vulnerable to exploitation by the NCAA system ...... all the fans like you think the NCAA setup was mandated in the desert to Moses or something ..... and so we end up with these bizarre notions that paying people would somehow be harmful to them and thus we're doing them a favor by not paying them ..........

these people are legally adults .... they could be in Iraq in a few months if they chose ...... they have parents also to look out for them ........ if they somehow think getting paid would be harmful, they can choose to turn the money down or give it away ..... but it should be their choice -- not something mandated on the ridiculous pretense of doing them a favor somehow ........




jsf5259 wrote:

Athletes are fortunate to get what all they do receive. I say this as a former collegiate athlete who benefited not from what I did as an athlete but from what the guys before me did. Teams successes provide for the guys who follow them.
_________________________________

again, this is the fallacy of only recognizing the value of what the players receive - the scholarship, etc. ........ while ignoring the value of what the athletes provide the athletic dept./university ...... no need to go over that again ..........



jsf5259 wrote:

Look at Vince Carter who gave 2.5 million to the basketball program recently. Yes, he made a lot of money for the university, but he also made a lot for himself because of what the university did for him as an athlete here. He in turn decided to give back to the team and university.
______________________________

good for Vince Carter .......



jsf5259 wrote:

Yes, coaches get paid a lot of money, but they were once athletes and students who had to work their way up as well. The system you speak of is professional sports, and I feel that the true meaning of being a "student-athlete" will be lost if it were to be implemented.
____________________________

in the words of Taylor Branch:

"There is no virtue in forcing someone else to be an amateur."




now all that is well and good but somewhat theoretical in nature ...... (but at least it does get the theory right - which is refreshing compared to this - "look at the great education they're getting or I didn't paid when I was a student" nonsense) ....... and in the more modest days of the distant past - when no one was really getting rich off college sports, it really wouldn't be that a big a deal - even if Ch. Justice did get 'ripped off' to some small degree .........

what has changed with the advent of cable sports programming is a tremendous influx of money into college sports ......... plus there seems to be a transformation within the universities themselves that is focused much more intently on simply making money off sports - all this conference reorganization - BCS playoff business - the complete ceding of the control of the games themselves to TV - are all evidence of how the money chase has taken over major college sports ........

so today there are numerous people who are really getting filthy rich off college sports, while the basic 'athletic scholarship' has remained the same ........ so it makes it particularly obnoxious to many observers that all the adults in the athletic departments are getting in on the action - while the NCAA/colleges hide behind a crumbling, phony facade of 'student-athlete' to deny the athletes a more reasonable and fair share of what has become a tremendous amount of money ........ and that's simply the purpose of the article linked in the OP ..........

---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

---------------------------------------------
--- jsf5259 wrote:

I am sorry, I respect your right to have an opinion, however, I cannot and do not respect your opinion. It is so outrageous to suggest that football, and men's/women's basketball be separated from the rest of the university. The money they bring in pays for their scholarships as well as the scholarships of every other athlete.

--------------------------------

while having golf and tennis scholarships may be a good thing for the world to have ....... if we accept that as true, then what is not clear to me is why Gio Barnard and Reggie Bullock should be the only ones compelled to pay that cost .........

the economics present here are as follows: ..... the NCAA monopoly cartel does what cartels do and makes monopoly profits - "excess" profits or higher profits than they could make without their collusion to rig the market -- they make these 'excess' profits at the expense of someone else - in this case by underpaying the athletes ...... they take a portion of their monopoly profits and use them to subsidize other teams ...... so the underpayment of the football/bball players is the source of this money to fund these other sports ....... (as I believe you acknowledge) .......

so if we agree that the golf team or the tennis team is a good thing to have - then why shouldn't everyone chip it to pay for them ? ..... why shouldn't general university funds pay for these teams ? ........ why should Reggie Bullock and Gio be 'ripped off' (underpaid via monopoly price rigging) and solely bear the burden of paying for these teams ? .........

the NCAA/colleges do it this way, simply because Reggie/Gio have no bargaining power ...... in other words - they're easy and convenient group to exploit in this fashion ......... but 'easy and convenient' doesn't necessarily make it right .........



jsf5259 wrote:

They are here to get an education first and foremost.

----------------------

some of them are ......... I'm not sure I would put the UK basketball team in that category though ..........

and it should go without saying that the universities' reasons for recruiting these players to the sports teams has little to do with educating these young men ...... the educational aspect of their presence on campus seems to be mostly an inconvenience to be worked around ........ State didn't fire Tom O'Brien so they could bring in a new coach who could have greater success in "recruiting more scholars like Harvard", now did they ? ........

and finally, I don't understand why simply paying these men would interfere with their education ...... I don't think anyone is proposing to change what they do on campus - simply that they get paid more fairly given all the money made off them by the teams ..........



jsf5259 wrote:

What you suggest is the total demolition of what we call the "student-athlete." You speak of athletes rather having money in their pocket than nice facilities. The fact of the matter is teenage kids are teenagers and shouldn't get to decide whether they do or not.
______________________

the fact that these are young people - many of whom come from lower income family backgrounds - is all the more reason someone should be looking out for their interests ........ instead, being young and often poor makes these kids more vulnerable to exploitation by the NCAA system ...... all the fans like you think the NCAA setup was mandated in the desert to Moses or something ..... and so we end up with these bizarre notions that paying people would somehow be harmful to them and thus we're doing them a favor by not paying them ..........

these people are legally adults .... they could be in Iraq in a few months if they chose ...... they have parents also to look out for them ........ if they somehow think getting paid would be harmful, they can choose to turn the money down or give it away ..... but it should be their choice -- not something mandated on the ridiculous pretense of doing them a favor somehow ........




jsf5259 wrote:

Athletes are fortunate to get what all they do receive. I say this as a former collegiate athlete who benefited not from what I did as an athlete but from what the guys before me did. Teams successes provide for the guys who follow them.
_________________________________

again, this is the fallacy of only recognizing the value of what the players receive - the scholarship, etc. ........ while ignoring the value of what the athletes provide the athletic dept./university ...... no need to go over that again ..........



jsf5259 wrote:

Look at Vince Carter who gave 2.5 million to the basketball program recently. Yes, he made a lot of money for the university, but he also made a lot for himself because of what the university did for him as an athlete here. He in turn decided to give back to the team and university.
______________________________

good for Vince Carter .......



jsf5259 wrote:

Yes, coaches get paid a lot of money, but they were once athletes and students who had to work their way up as well. The system you speak of is professional sports, and I feel that the true meaning of being a "student-athlete" will be lost if it were to be implemented.
____________________________

in the words of Taylor Branch:

"There is no virtue in forcing someone else to be an amateur."




now all that is well and good but somewhat theoretical in nature ...... (but at least it does get the theory right - which is refreshing compared to this - "look at the great education they're getting or I didn't paid when I was a student" nonsense) ....... and in the more modest days of the distant past - where no one was really getting rich off college sports, it really wouldn't be that a big a deal - even if Ch. Justice did get 'ripped off' to some small degree .........

what has changed with the advent of cable sports programming is a tremendous influx of money into college sports ......... plus there seems to be a transformation within the universities themselves that is focused much more intently on simply making money off sports - all this conference reorganization - BCS playoff business - the complete ceding of the control of the games themselves to TV - are all evidence of how the money chase has taken over major college sports ........

so today there are numerous people who are really getting filthy rich off college sports, while the basic 'athletic scholarship' has remained the same ........ so it makes it particularly obnoxious to many observers that all the adults in the athletic departments are getting in on the action - while the NCAA/colleges hide behind a crumbling, phony facade of 'student-athlete' to deny the athletes a more reasonable and fair share of what has become a tremendous amount of money ........ and that's simply the purpose of the article linked in the OP ..........

---------------------------------------------

;-)

Bethel, who never met a dead horse he didn't like.

BTW, there were lots of dead horses in the Civil War.

I feel like the sower and the seeds in shallow soil .......

At least you didn't mention the pearls before swine thing.

Hope the seeds are dead before they hit the soil.

---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

I feel like the sower and the seeds in shallow soil .......

---------------------------------------------

While we're at it, can we start paying the grad-students that work on and help obtain multi-million dollar research grants? They make/save the university so much money, why not them too? Hell, all those kids paying tuition, and room and board fees, etc., generate money too, lets give them a stipend as well. Albeit comparable on a revenue based percentage to what the big-time student athletes bring in...damn, let's just hand out money everywhere. We're not fully socialist yet anyways...

from a post on Page 1:

and when did it become 'socialist' to pay people ? ... we still live in a mostly capitalist economy last time I checked .... are there all these people out there working in the private economy for free that I don't know about ?

---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

grad students - many/most? of them do get paid .... my step-daughter is a PhD student in NeuroScience .... she gets a stipend along with tuition coverage .......

unlike the athletes there is no research world equivalent of the NCAA which enforces a monopoly 'price' on the compensation of grad students ....... therefore, unless you can show me otherwise, whatever they are paid presumably = the 'market' rate for someone with their credentials, experience, productivity, etc. ...... the research world may be like many other sectors of the economy where there is a huge difference in compensation to the 'rainmakers' (professors) vs. the 'worker-bees' (grad students and post docs) .........

whether that is 'fair' or 'right' or whatever - whonose ? ..... but if you have evidence that it is the consequence of some monopolistic collusion between different universities - like the NCAA is for the market for athletes - show us what ya' got ........ or better yet - anti-trust = triple damages - show the Justice Dept. what ya' got and collect a whistle-blower award - KA-CHING !!!! .......



---------------------------------------------
--- lazystateworker wrote:

Disclaimer: I believe revenue sport athletes should be compensated in some form.

But be careful there. It's not just athletes who bring in revenue. What about the countless grad students who do most of the actual research under million dollar grants? And they're not on scholorship and in many cases not paid. The University keeps a big chunk and the professor gets the rest to run his research and line his pockets.

With this influx of athletes swelling the population, expect Poverty to add another congressman or two in the near future.

I'm not the most intelligent person, nor the most educated on this topic. It just seems that the intangible benefits of being a scholarship athlete get shrugged off. While I don't fully disagree with Bethel's point, it just seems that everyone is looking for a handout nowadays. It's not that they don't deserve some sort of compensation, it's that they seem to overlook those intangible benefits.

speaking for myself, I appreciate what you're saying about the 'intangible benefits' of playing college football ..... college scholarship / preparation for the NFL or some other career in sports / public exposure --> go down the list -- all that stuff is valuable to the players ...... there can be no doubt that even if they're not paid a cash salary, it is a great experience for these young men ....... the problem is that it is still worth far less than the players' real value to the athletic department / university ........

just use a little common sense .... if the existing set up - the 'athletic scholarship' (plus all the intangible benefits of being a major college athlete) truly equaled the value that these players produced for the athletic department, than no school would be willing to pay them anything on top of their scholarship ...... you wouldn't need the NCAA Enforcement staff and all its 'extra benefits' rules -- why do you have to enforce rules about something that will simply happen naturally ? ...... the whole NCAA rules business exists, because without it the schools would be perfectly willing to pay the athletes a lot more than simply their scholarship (and everything that goes along with being a college athlete) (ie, Cam Newton's $180,000) ..........

so to justify not paying the players you have to pretend that college football/bball merit some special treatment from any other type of commercial business ....... maybe that was true in the distant past when the money in college sports wasn't so great and the adults involved didn't use whatever was made off the teams to unduly enrich themselves ....... it is really hard to make that case today ...... more and more college sports seem to be just one more aspect of the sports-entertainment industry and if the coaches and executives involved in college sports are making seven figure incomes, it's hard to craft a case for not treating the players as if they were also simply employees in what is frankly a commercial business enterprise ...........

and to call this a 'handout' is really an insult ........ if there were no NCAA 'amateurism' rules, somebody like Gio Barnard would be worth every penny they might pay him .........



addendum --

perhaps some of the things you calling 'intangible benefits' of participating on the team --- improved skills from coaching and weight training -- publicity, etc. ..... an economist would call a 'byproduct' of producing the games on the field ...... and certainly the players benefit from this 'byproduct' and it's not clear how the athletic department/university gets credit ('monetizes'?) this byproduct ......... so you have a valid observation there - just not one that justifies the current system of underpayment to the players .........

however, to a degree the athletic department also benefits from having better skilled players and also from publicity ..... (I can't recall the other things you noted) ........ by winning more games or selling more tickets .........

and presumably there are also byproducts that accrue to the university from the presence of a winning football team that don't accrue ..... one of the key reasons universities sponsor football programs is for the publicity that then may attract a higher number of applicants to the school ..... football also may help build loyalty to the university that helps to attract donations to support the overall mission of the university ........ so 'intangible benefits' or 'byproducts' may flow both ways ..........

---------------------------------------------
--- HeelsFTW28 wrote:

I'm not the most intelligent person, nor the most educated on this topic. It just seems that the intangible benefits of being a scholarship athlete get shrugged off. While I don't fully disagree with Bethel's point, it just seems that everyone is looking for a handout nowadays. It's not that they don't deserve some sort of compensation, it's that they seem to overlook those intangible benefits.


---------------------------------------------

WWCD, what would Calipari do, if we paid all football and basketball players $50,000 a year? He would give his top recruits $500,000 a year. There would still be cheating and there would still be athletes that went to Duke and UNC to get an education too. I just seems incongruous for Alabama, UF and ND to make such huge money off "amateur" athletes in football .Are there any sports leagues that make so much money off of "amateur" athletes

---------------------------------------------
--- therabidrev wrote:

With this influx of athletes swelling the population, expect Poverty to add another congressman or two in the near future.

---------------------------------------------

Poverty is a blue state, and is expected to be critical in the 2016 election of the POTUS.

While UNC may not earn a lot of money from students on Saturdays the way they do from student-ATHLETES, it is idiocy to claim they don't gain revenue from said students. What ever happened to "paying your dues"? THAT is all that student athletes are doing. They are putting in the grunt work so they can learn the lessons that will lead them to a successful future.

Do you not think a UNC educated teacher who serves as a vibrant role model to hundreds if not thousands of students might influence several of them to apply to and attend UNC themselves? Does the University not benefit from the tuition paid by those who the teacher inspired? Did the University not benefit from the tuition paid by the TEACHER?

Take a close look at the amount of revenue UNC derives on the ACADEMIC side of the ledger every year. I'll give you a hint, it averages 12 to 14 times MORE than the athletic department is able to extract.

Do you not think the many UNC alums now working as Faculty or Staff at UNC haven't been the reason grants were received or R&D dollars invested?

Holden Thorp himself (love him or hate him) has likely generated at least eight figures since being promoted to Chancellor while raising funds for UNC. That doesn't even count the monies he generated for the University while a Faculty member in the Chemistry Department. Where'd he go to school again!?

That puts him roughly on par with monies generated by Michael Jordan!

If you had the opportunity to earn a million dollars today or twelve to fourteen million in six years, which would you take? You'd have to be a pretty shrewd business man/investor to multiply that first mill to an equal or greater total before the latter amount showed up. Or have some really great insider trading info. Or run a heck of a ponzi scheme!

I currently have two kids in college (and a 12 year old "draggin' the wagon"). I live for this May when my daughter graduates so I can stop paying Winthrop University and her landlord, and the utility company, and the cell phone company, and on and on and on. And she doesn't even have CABLE!

If you think the only thing student athletes get from UNC is the price of admission you are simply out of touch with reality.

They also receive a stipend for books.

They receive free room and board. OR a check to cover off campus housing (often a significantly larger check than their actual rent when sharing a house with several teammates)

They receive a free pass at the team training table which I promise you serves a LOT better food than the meal plan I had in college!

They receive the help of an entire staff of tutors. Try hiring just ONE tutor for your kid and see how quickly your checkbook balance falls (and your temperature rises!).

They receive a staff of nutritionists to guide them through their meal selections and to help them maximize their potential by feeding their bodies with the proper nutrients, at the proper levels.

They receive open access to top notch weight training facilities and a staff of people dedicated to help them reach their physical potential as long as they are willing to "put in the work". Take a look at how much a membership will cost your kid at the local health club. Then start asking around about a personal trainer, let alone a STAFF of personal trainers.

They receive access to top notch medical care not only to recover from any injuries sustained, but also to monitor their care in rehabilitation and to plan how to best avoid a repeat of those injuries. And they also gain access to some pretty cutting edge technology implemented into their equipment and used to monitor their condition. Though granted that may not be available at every college or University, it certainly is available at UNC.

And if their injuries are significant enough to prevent them from returning to their chosen sport at the competitive level required for a D-1 athlete, they can receive a medical hardship scholarship that ensures they will be able to continue to graduation without having the threat of financial ruin hanging over their head.

They receive a mountain of clothing, shoes and equipment that many times they don't even have to launder! I'm sure no college athlete has EVER sold any of that for a few bucks! ;)

They gain access to some of the best events in and around Chapel Hill that the "normal" student would never be privy to. They manage to find entry into clubs and restaurants that "students" are simply never able to enter (unless you are a gorgeous coed, of course). And often times, they have perfect strangers do things like pay their check before they can even offer to pay it themselves. SHOCKING I know!

They are even given access to some of the best talent available on the Hill with the ease that freshmen Chemistry majors (or band members) can only dream! Some "girlfriends" have even been known to fork over large sums of money to pay an athlete's parking tickets!

They receive tickets to games. While this may not seem like a real income generator here in Chapel Hill, (for football at least) rest assured, these have been known to be used as an additional revenue stream at OTHER schools.

If they manage to string together a successful season, they likely get a pretty nice vacation in any of a number of destinations at the end of the season. And believe me, they are treated like royalty at these games. Lower level royalty for sure, but royalty just the same!

All this while being given the opportunity to earn a world class education that can benefit them and their family (both ancestors and descendants) for the rest of their lives. Note I said they are given the "opportunity", not the "education". They have to actually take advantage of the former to earn the latter. Many don't and truly, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Don't get me wrong. These kids bust their tails to make something of themselves. They are present at Blue Dawn workouts that would make most on this board run and hide. They endure heat treatments, ice wraps, holidays away from their families, early mornings, late nights, coaching changes, and the all too familiar ADVERSITY! But if they show the maturity and dedication the reward for those four to five short years can be incredibly life changing. Whether they actually make it to "the league" or whether they are given an opportunity to take a hand extended to pull them up from a former teammate, alum, or fraternity brother who knows that the competitive spirit they exhibited at Carolina will drive them to be successful at his/her company.

And all that hard work can help them forge life long relationships with both the "brothers" who endured them and with the much needed (in many cases) "father figures" who put them through it. I am 48 years old and still maintain regular contact with the guys who endured dreaded practices in the August heat of Fayettenam! I have been regaled by tales of woe suffered by men who like myself swore we would kill the very coach we came to love, if we ever got the chance!


Just don't tell me they do all that work for the price of tuition.

Sorry so long.

I remember being in the Navy and going to visit my cousin in college at Fayetteville State and he asked for some money. I gave him the money and then him and his roommate went to grocery store and bought 20 cases of oddles-n-noodles. We ate oddles-n-noodles and played Techno Bowl all weekend long.

They could be discribed as being in poverty but it was the best of times.

I think everyone, including me has gotten kind of bored with this .....

but having read your long post again .... I was struck by the fact that you manage to incorporate almost every economic fallacy that pops up in this discussion all in your one post ...... congratulations !!! .....

so while I wait for my sesame chicken guy to show up will go over them briefly .........



---------------------------------------------
--- jimmydaheel wrote:

While UNC may not earn a lot of money from students on Saturdays the way they do from student-ATHLETES, it is idiocy to claim they don't gain revenue from said students. What ever happened to "paying your dues"? THAT is all that student athletes are doing. They are putting in the grunt work so they can learn the lessons that will lead them to a successful future.
_____________________________________

very briefly - this heads in the directions of the fallacy of failing to recognize that major college sports are a completely separate business from the NFL/NBA ...... some of the college players may have subsequent careers in the NFL (eg) , but they are making a valuable contribution to the highly lucrative business of college football in the here and now as college football players and deserve to be compensated fairly for what they contribute to this business ............



--- jimmydaheel wrote:

Do you not think a UNC educated teacher who serves as a vibrant role model to hundreds if not thousands of students might influence several of them to apply to and attend UNC themselves? Does the University not benefit from the tuition paid by those who the teacher inspired? Did the University not benefit from the tuition paid by the TEACHER?

Take a close look at the amount of revenue UNC derives on the ACADEMIC side of the ledger every year. I'll give you a hint, it averages 12 to 14 times MORE than the athletic department is able to extract.

Do you not think the many UNC alums now working as Faculty or Staff at UNC haven't been the reason grants were received or R&D dollars invested?
--------------------------

I can't begin to decipher what your point is here.



--- jimmydaheel wrote:

Holden Thorp himself (love him or hate him) has likely generated at least eight figures since being promoted to Chancellor while raising funds for UNC. That doesn't even count the monies he generated for the University while a Faculty member in the Chemistry Department. Where'd he go to school again!?

That puts him roughly on par with monies generated by Michael Jordan!
_____________________________________________

and presumably, Ch. Thorp was/is paid whatever the going rate has been for university executives ..... I don't know of any reason why that would not be the case ....... the market rate for university executives in combination of the skills, talents, experience, etc. it takes to this job and how many people are out there in the world meet those criteria ......... that gets you to a value in $500,000 range .....

Michael Jordan had a totally unique set of bball skills and personality that were really unmatched in the sports world ..... there was a tremendous TV audience for him and NBA bball and he would sell out NBA arenas all over the country when he played ...... plus all the marketing endorsements .......

bottom line there is only one MJ ...... and while it may require a lot of experience and savvy and talent to lead a major university, but it is not a totally unique set of skills with a world-wide audience like MJ ......

so it's not simply what you produce or what your responsibilities may be ....... it's how rare is your talent ....... how many other people can do what you do ? ....... so that's how MJ cleans up ......... unique = scarce ........... lots of diamonds out there --- but 10 karat diamonds ? - not so many ........... MJ is like a 20 karat diamond .........




--- jimmydaheel wrote:

If you had the opportunity to earn a million dollars today or twelve to fourteen million in six years, which would you take? You'd have to be a pretty shrewd business man/investor to multiply that first mill to an equal or greater total before the latter amount showed up. Or have some really great insider trading info. Or run a heck of a ponzi scheme!
--------------------------------------

I'm not really sure what you're getting out here unless it is another restatement of the fallacy of not recognizing the separate nature of college sports as a business and professional sports .... 2 separate things - each one of them makes a bunch of money and takes talented players to do it ............





--- jimmydaheel wrote:

I currently have two kids in college (and a 12 year old "draggin' the wagon"). I live for this May when my daughter graduates so I can stop paying Winthrop University and her landlord, and the utility company, and the cell phone company, and on and on and on. And she doesn't even have CABLE!
_______________________________

this is the 'average student' fallacy ..... I'm sure your daughter is a fine young lady ....... when she can return a punt 75 yds. with 10 seconds left in the game, then we'll talk about paying her too ...... until then there is nothing she can do to earn money for the University and no reason to compare her to the football or bball players who do ............




--- jimmydaheel wrote:

If you think the only thing student athletes get from UNC is the price of admission you are simply out of touch with reality.
_______________________________

I've not argued that .... haven't seen that argued here by others.




--- jimmydaheel wrote:

They also receive a stipend for books.

They receive free room and board. OR a check to cover off campus housing (often a significantly larger check than their actual rent when sharing a house with several teammates)

They receive a free pass at the team training table which I promise you serves a LOT better food than the meal plan I had in college!

They receive the help of an entire staff of tutors. Try hiring just ONE tutor for your kid and see how quickly your checkbook balance falls (and your temperature rises!).

They receive a staff of nutritionists to guide them through their meal selections and to help them maximize their potential by feeding their bodies with the proper nutrients, at the proper levels.

They receive open access to top notch weight training facilities and a staff of people dedicated to help them reach their physical potential as long as they are willing to "put in the work". Take a look at how much a membership will cost your kid at the local health club. Then start asking around about a personal trainer, let alone a STAFF of personal trainers.

They receive access to top notch medical care not only to recover from any injuries sustained, but also to monitor their care in rehabilitation and to plan how to best avoid a repeat of those injuries. And they also gain access to some pretty cutting edge technology implemented into their equipment and used to monitor their condition. Though granted that may not be available at every college or University, it certainly is available at UNC.

And if their injuries are significant enough to prevent them from returning to their chosen sport at the competitive level required for a D-1 athlete, they can receive a medical hardship scholarship that ensures they will be able to continue to graduation without having the threat of financial ruin hanging over their head.

They receive a mountain of clothing, shoes and equipment that many times they don't even have to launder! I'm sure no college athlete has EVER sold any of that for a few bucks! ;)

They gain access to some of the best events in and around Chapel Hill that the "normal" student would never be privy to. They manage to find entry into clubs and restaurants that "students" are simply never able to enter (unless you are a gorgeous coed, of course). And often times, they have perfect strangers do things like pay their check before they can even offer to pay it themselves. SHOCKING I know!

They are even given access to some of the best talent available on the Hill with the ease that freshmen Chemistry majors (or band members) can only dream! Some "girlfriends" have even been known to fork over large sums of money to pay an athlete's parking tickets!

They receive tickets to games. While this may not seem like a real income generator here in Chapel Hill, (for football at least) rest assured, these have been known to be used as an additional revenue stream at OTHER schools.

If they manage to string together a successful season, they likely get a pretty nice vacation in any of a number of destinations at the end of the season. And believe me, they are treated like royalty at these games. Lower level royalty for sure, but royalty just the same!

All this while being given the opportunity to earn a world class education that can benefit them and their family (both ancestors and descendants) for the rest of their lives. Note I said they are given the "opportunity", not the "education". They have to actually take advantage of the former to earn the latter. Many don't and truly, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Don't get me wrong. These kids bust their tails to make something of themselves. They are present at Blue Dawn workouts that would make most on this board run and hide. They endure heat treatments, ice wraps, holidays away from their families, early mornings, late nights, coaching changes, and the all too familiar ADVERSITY! But if they show the maturity and dedication the reward for those four to five short years can be incredibly life changing. Whether they actually make it to "the league" or whether they are given an opportunity to take a hand extended to pull them up from a former teammate, alum, or fraternity brother who knows that the competitive spirit they exhibited at Carolina will drive them to be successful at his/her company.

And all that hard work can help them forge life long relationships with both the "brothers" who endured them and with the much needed (in many cases) "father figures" who put them through it. I am 48 years old and still maintain regular contact with the guys who endured dreaded practices in the August heat of Fayettenam! I have been regaled by tales of woe suffered by men who like myself swore we would kill the very coach we came to love, if we ever got the chance!

-----------------------------


again this is the fallacy of only counting what the players receive and ignoring the tremendous income they generate for the athletic department / University ........... you need to count both sides of the ledger .........

if the players were really being compensated now in an amount consistent with their real value to the football/bball team, you wouldn't need all the NCAA rules and enforcement regime to keep them from getting 'extra benefits' ........ the whole purpose of the NCAA rulebook/enforcement staff is to keep the players' compensation from rising to it's 'normal' level (what the schools would be perfectly willing to pay if there were no rules) .......




--- jimmydaheel wrote:

Just don't tell me they do all that work for the price of tuition.

Sorry so long.

---------------------

it had to be long to incorporate so many economic fallacies in one post ....... most people just can hit one ...... you hit like 5 .......

you missed the 'intern' fallacy - though fallacy #1 above is close - NFL/NBA fallacy ........... and you missed the 'NCAA is not a monopoly because they are not 'forced' to play college sports' fallacy (or they can always go play in Europe) - I would say nobody is stupid enough to buy that - but you'll see it on here from time to time .....

I read the other day the Braves have hired a second Upton brother to join Jason Heyward in the outfield. If I recall correctly Justin Upton's deal is $75 million for 5 years -- $15 million a year. Wow.

Now we both could write a long, long post about all the perks of being a major league baseball player - free medical care .. great coaches/instructors .. bond with your teammates .. celebrity treatment .. on and on and on. Plus if they paid him a $1 million dollar salary on top of that - ain't life grand - who could ask for anything more.

In other words - in abstract you could certainly and quite reasonably make all this look like a wonderful deal that would seem to suffice anybody. The problem with all that though is that you would be about $14 million off in terms of what the Braves (ie, the market) are actually willing to pay him.


The point being - your personal opinion about how great it is to be a college football player or MLB baseball player doesn't tell us a whole lot. What is missing is some context that would indicate what their real market value might be to the university athletic department or MLB team. As I stated above you're ignoring the income - the value - that these players earn for their team/organization.

Since we have always had such a contrived market for college athletes there really isn't any direct evidence of 'market prices' like there would be for Justin Upton and his agent and the Braves as they come to salary terms. It doesn't take much common sense though to figure out that a true 'market clearing price' has to be a whole lot more than the current NCAA mandated 'athletic scholarship' or otherwise why all the NCAA rules/enforcement system in the first place ?

In an earlier post I noted that in the major professional leagues the players get roughly 50% of the top line revenue of the teams. If you do this math for UNC football and men's bball - that comes out to something on the order of $300,000+ per player - and this you could compare to say a $25,000 scholarship to get some order of magnitude of the difference. (This doesn't value all the intangible benefits you cited in your long post; but those similar benefits aren't counted in the pro athlete figures either.) Regardless of the precise numbers, I don't think there is really any doubt that absent the NCAA rules, the colleges would readily compensate these athletes considerably more than simply the scholarship they are getting now.

So, your abstract, personal opinion - no matter how lengthy and detailed it may be - about how valuable all the tangible and intangible benefits of being a D-1 scholarship athlete appear only tells us about one side of the ledger and as a consequence, is simply not a useful guide to really understanding the real 'market (fair?) value' of college football/bball athletes.

Good Night.






---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

I read the other day the Braves have hired a second Upton brother to join Jason Heyward in the outfield. If I recall correctly Justin Upton's deal is $75 million for 5 years -- $15 million a year. Wow.

Now we both could write a long, long post about all the perks of being a major league baseball player - free medical care .. great coaches/instructors .. bond with your teammates .. celebrity treatment .. on and on and on. Plus if they paid him a $1 million dollar salary on top of that - ain't life grand - who could ask for anything more.

In other words - in abstract you could certainly and quite reasonably make all this look like a wonderful deal that would seem to suffice anybody. The problem with all that though is that you would be about $14 million off in terms of what the Braves (ie, the market) are actually willing to pay him.


The point being - your personal opinion about how great it is to be a college football player or MLB baseball player doesn't tell us a whole lot. What is missing is some context that would indicate what their real market value might be to the university athletic department or MLB team. As I stated above you're ignoring the income - the value - that these players earn for their team/organization.

Since we have always had such a contrived market for college athletes there really isn't any direct evidence of 'market prices' like there would be for Justin Upton and his agent and the Braves as they come to salary terms. It doesn't take much common sense though to figure out that a true 'market clearing price' has to be a whole lot more than the current NCAA mandated 'athletic scholarship' or otherwise why all the NCAA rules/enforcement system in the first place ?

In an earlier post I noted that in the major professional leagues the players get roughly 50% of the top line revenue of the teams. If you do this math for UNC football and men's bball - that comes out to something on the order of $300,000+ per player - and this you could compare to say a $25,000 scholarship to get some order of magnitude of the difference. (This doesn't value all the intangible benefits you cited in your long post; but those similar benefits aren't counted in the pro athlete figures either.) Regardless of the precise numbers, I don't think there is really any doubt that absent the NCAA rules, the colleges would readily compensate these athletes considerably more than simply the scholarship they are getting now.

So, your abstract, personal opinion - no matter how lengthy and detailed it may be - about how valuable all the tangible and intangible benefits of being a D-1 scholarship athlete appear only tells us about one side of the ledger and as a consequence, is simply not a useful guide to really understanding the real 'market (fair?) value' of college football/bball athletes.

---------------------------------------------

So my points are just "opinions" but yours are somehow "facts".

I thought you were an intellectual, but your post makes you seem more like a pompous blowhard. Guess I was wrong.

A professional sports franchise is designed to turn a profit.

UNC's athletic department is designed to break even.

Therefore, a professional athlete may well be fairly compensated by dividing half of the team's profit amongst them. Unequally of course based on either a players past performance, future potential or agent's acumen. Keep in mind as well there are plenty of minor league ball players traveling from town to town, living out of seedy motels and scraping by on minimal per diems in the hopes of one day earning a shot at the "big time". And all with less than half the support system provided to the Student Athletes at UNC. They are considered professionals, yet the often earn less than minimum wage!

When an athletic department merely breaks even (mostly due to a significant number of non-revenue sports foisted on them by our government), what are they supposed to divide up amongst the players?

Keeping in mind that they will have to divide up the earnings among ALL of the athletes representing the University in the name of fairness, or Title IX, whichever you prefer.

A balanced budget divided by even as few as two student athletes = no money.

1. As for your replies, you seem to think that the only way a college athlete can have the "successful future" I spoke of is by becoming a professional athlete. I can't count the number of student athletes who became successful businessmen/women, well paid coaches or even highly competitive (and well compensate) employees without ever managing to "play for pay". The lessons learned as a student athlete are in no means limited to the student athlete's chosen sport. Also, history is replete with examples of athletes who DIDN'T take advantage of their educational opportunities and have ended up destitute despite earning multiple millions of dollars over their athletic careers. Of course, also plentiful are examples of kids who DID and have become incredibly successful in some field other than the sport that earned them a college education. Those aren't just my opinions by the way, those are living breathing FACTS!

2. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you can't decipher by point above. Doing so would unravel your argument. There are several UNC alums on the current faculty and staff of UNC who have brought in as much money in the last for years as the entirety of the UNC Athletic Department. The University collects 12 to 14 times the revenue on the academic side of the ledger than they do on the athletic side. And there are a BUNCH of interns, graduate assistants and exchange students contributing to the research and development that drives that income for nothing more than their academic scholarship. Should the University be paying them "market value" as well? And if so, my won't the Universities Endowment start shrinking then!

3. MJ was indeed the equivalent of a 20 carat diamond. When all was said and done. But certainly not on the first day he showed up in Chapel Hill! Michael himself attributes his success to his development under Dean Smith and the "priceless" experience he enjoyed at Carolina. No doubt David Stern, Nike and numerous slick marketing executives had a great deal to do with what MJ became, but when the man himself can't place a value on the education he received in Chapel Hill and wants nothing more than to give back to the school, I don't see how you can say student athletes shouldn't be thankful for the opportunity they are given.

4. The twelve to one ratio was simply pointing out the disparity the University earns on the academic side of the ledger compared to revenue garnered from the Athletic Department. I don't see anyone clamoring for the graduate assistants, interns, or exchange students to start receiving an income in addition to their educational opportunities. These folks teach classes assigned to professors so those professors can focus on their projects, they do the grunt work in research and development and they often provide the much higher regarded professors with the seeds of their breakthrough ideas without so much as a thank you. In other words, they are starting at the bottom in hopes of working their way to the top. JUST like student athletes.

5. You don't even KNOW my daughter. Yet you assume she can provide nothing of value to her University. What a pompous statement, indeed. She has an internship with her University. Her pay? Three semester hours of credit (which I pay for in tuition!). The University's return on investment, infinite. Where in business does a company convince an employee to not only work for free, but to actually get the employee to pay THEM for working!? And who knows, she may one day inspire others to apply to and attend Winthrop University. Will the University not benefit from THEIR tuition as well? And what will she receive for sending "recruits" to her alma mater? A sense of satisfaction. That's all. Say she inspires fifty kids (at 16K per annum in today's money) to attend her school. That would be $3.2MM in revenue derived from one student. Who paid to attend the school! That too is a pretty healthy ROI!

6. The purpose of the NCAA rulebook is NOT to keep student athletes income from rising to the market value as you propose. It is to spell out the rules for AMATEUR ATHLETES to maintain their AMATEUR STATUS and therefore their eligibility to continue to participate in AMATEUR SPORTS! Using your "logic" high school and junior high school players will be in line for payments next. And as far as considering both sides of the ledger, you have ignored the incredible costs the University (and Rams Club) bears to "sponsor" a wide range of athletic events. Most of which are correctly labeled "non revenue". Those stadiums don't build themselves. Even the non revenue facilities require constant maintenance and upkeep and a staff who I assure you aren't exorbitantly paid!

7. You sir have the head full of economic fallacies. How else can you explain the Athletic Department operating on a balanced budget instead of an annual profit margin? Because the alleged profit margin is spent on equipment, supplies and facilities utilized by the student athletes. Many EXCLUSIVELY by the student athletes. And at Carolina, they are pretty SWEET. And that is with the Rams Club putting up the money for the scholarships, much of the construction costs, and a significant portion of the coaches salaries, not the Athletic Department.

There are studies that have shown schools often spend well over 100K per student. Posted right here on this board. Guess those too were just "opinions".

---------------------------------------------
--- jimmydaheel wrote:

So my points are just "opinions" but yours are somehow "facts".

------------------------------

no - I don't know or claim that my points were "facts" per se .... but I was attempting to point out how your points were really based on fallacious arguments or 'economic fallacies' ...... 'fallacies' are arguments or opinions that can be easily refuted by showing how they are based on some error in logic ........

so for example - claiming the players are fairly compensated by simply compiling a detailed list of all the benefits they receive as college athletes is an economic fallacy because it presumes that by merely cataloging all their benefits, you have fully defended or explained the fairness of their compensation as athletes ...... however, this is a really incomplete and unsatisfactory explanation because it fails to place these benefits in any context of all the income the athletes earn for the athletic department/university or what they might be paid absent the NCAA 'amateurism' system ......

hence, my example of how you could likewise describe the terrific benefits of being a major league baseball player ...... but again, in abstract, this catalog of benefits by itself would give you no clue whether Justin Upton's new contract was for $150,000 a year .. $1.5 million .. $15 million .. or $150 million ....... to understand how MLB players are compensated you need to understand the context of the total income of a MLB team ... what the total payroll of an MLB team might be ... and what similar MLB players to Upton are paid .......





--- jimmydaheel wrote:

I thought you were an intellectual, but your post makes you seem more like a pompous blowhard. Guess I was wrong.

A professional sports franchise is designed to turn a profit.

UNC's athletic department is designed to break even.

Therefore, a professional athlete may well be fairly compensated by dividing half of the team's profit amongst them. Unequally of course based on either a players past performance, future potential or agent's acumen. Keep in mind as well there are plenty of minor league ball players traveling from town to town, living out of seedy motels and scraping by on minimal per diems in the hopes of one day earning a shot at the "big time". And all with less than half the support system provided to the Student Athletes at UNC. They are considered professionals, yet the often earn less than minimum wage!

When an athletic department merely breaks even (mostly due to a significant number of non-revenue sports foisted on them by our government), what are they supposed to divide up amongst the players?

Keeping in mind that they will have to divide up the earnings among ALL of the athletes representing the University in the name of fairness, or Title IX, whichever you prefer.


A balanced budget divided by even as few as two student athletes = no money.

------------------------------


my bad for assuming other posters are familiar with common accounting or business terms ......... to back it up a notch --> 'Revenues' are the total amount of all the sales or receipts or gross income of the organization (ie, the total $$$ value of all the ticket sales .... total payments from TV networks, etc) ....... then you have all the 'Expenses' of operating the team - salaries .. stadium costs ... travel expenses, etc. ........ and finally, --> 'Profit' = 'Revenue' minus 'Expenses' ......

so as a very broad, simplified statement - if you have followed the various professional league labor negotiations over the past several years - as a general statement the total compensation to the athletes amounts to roughly 50% of the Revenue (not the Profit -> the Revenue) of the teams ......

so UNC's Revenue from football and men's bball is about $60 million .... 1/2 of that divided among 100 football and bball players is how you get to $300,000 per player ........

now there is a scale of operation difference between say the Green Bay Packers and UNC that may make the 1/2 assumption high ...... so I wouldn't take any of this too precisely, but it is a beginning point for assessing the magnitude of difference between how college athletes are compensated vs. professional league athletes ....... hence, $25,000 'scholarship' vs. $300,000 .......



--- jimmydaheel wrote:

1. As for your replies, you seem to think that the only way a college athlete can have the "successful future" I spoke of is by becoming a professional athlete. I can't count the number of student athletes who became successful businessmen/women, well paid coaches or even highly competitive (and well compensate) employees without ever managing to "play for pay". The lessons learned as a student athlete are in no means limited to the student athlete's chosen sport. Also, history is replete with examples of athletes who DIDN'T take advantage of their educational opportunities and have ended up destitute despite earning multiple millions of dollars over their athletic careers. Of course, also plentiful are examples of kids who DID and have become incredibly successful in some field other than the sport that earned them a college education. Those aren't just my opinions by the way, those are living breathing FACTS!
__________________________________

I understand that participating college sports can lay a foundation that may be helpful to the athletes throughout their life ....... the question at hand though - is how they should be fairly compensated for all the income they earn for the university athletic department in the here and now ..........





--- jimmydaheel wrote:

2. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you can't decipher by point above. Doing so would unravel your argument. There are several UNC alums on the current faculty and staff of UNC who have brought in as much money in the last for years as the entirety of the UNC Athletic Department. The University collects 12 to 14 times the revenue on the academic side of the ledger than they do on the athletic side. And there are a BUNCH of interns, graduate assistants and exchange students contributing to the research and development that drives that income for nothing more than their academic scholarship. Should the University be paying them "market value" as well? And if so, my won't the Universities Endowment start shrinking then!

---------------------------------------

but the faculty and others you cite presumably are paid salaries that are commiserate with what the market will bear for people in their respective occupations ........ again, (see MJ above) one's salary is not simply a function of how much income you bring in - say as a fundraiser or researcher --- it's also a function of how rare your talents are -- how many other people out there can do what you do ....... demand and supply ....... the more rare your talent is - ceteris paribas - the higher salary you will command .......

if you have evidence that the University is somehow colluding to rig the market to pay any of these people an artificially low salary -- you should run - not walk - to the nearest Dept. of Justice office and file a whistleblower claim on behalf of these people .... anti-trust pays triple damages and whisteblowers can claim part of the award ...........

so the point here is not simply that different people in different occupations are paid different amounts ..... but more how does that result occur ? ....... is it a consequence of the normal operation of the market (supply and demand) ? ....... or is it the consequence of some contrived, manipulated market distortion like the NCAA sports cartel ? ......... and if it's the latter - what justification might there be (or not be) for distorting market in this way ?




--- jimmydaheel wrote:

3. MJ was indeed the equivalent of a 20 carat diamond. When all was said and done. But certainly not on the first day he showed up in Chapel Hill! Michael himself attributes his success to his development under Dean Smith and the "priceless" experience he enjoyed at Carolina. No doubt David Stern, Nike and numerous slick marketing executives had a great deal to do with what MJ became, but when the man himself can't place a value on the education he received in Chapel Hill and wants nothing more than to give back to the school, I don't see how you can say student athletes shouldn't be thankful for the opportunity they are given.

-----------------------------------

aha ! - the 'intern' fallacy at last ! .... I knew you wouldn't forget one ........

again, I would not claim MJ should get paid an NBA level salary for playing college basketball ....... but unlike medical interns who are still training to become full-fledged, independently practicing physicians ----- while he was at UNC MJ was NOT an 'intern' or trainee when it came to the business of college bball (notice I didn't say NBA - I said college bball) ..... MJ was totally qualified to be a highly valuable participant in the lucrative business of college basketball - if I recall correctly, he was a starter as a freshman and eventually became an All American college bball player --so not some limited skills, 'intern' or 'trainee' in the realm of playing college bball but a full-fledged starter even as a freshman ....... hence - he and other college bball players should be paid a fair shake of the income from their college bball teams ....... and college basketball is a highly lucrative business - billions of $$$$ in income and it is a totally separate business from the NBA ........




--- jimmydaheel wrote:

4. The twelve to one ratio was simply pointing out the disparity the University earns on the academic side of the ledger compared to revenue garnered from the Athletic Department. I don't see anyone clamoring for the graduate assistants, interns, or exchange students to start receiving an income in addition to their educational opportunities. These folks teach classes assigned to professors so those professors can focus on their projects, they do the grunt work in research and development and they often provide the much higher regarded professors with the seeds of their breakthrough ideas without so much as a thank you. In other words, they are starting at the bottom in hopes of working their way to the top. JUST like student athletes.
____________________________

12-1 confuses aggregate income earned by thousands of professors and teaching assistants and research assistants versus the aggregate income earned by about 100 football and bball players .........

we've discussed the market price factors for professors and others earliers ..... see comments above (and below) ......





--- jimmydaheel wrote:

5. You don't even KNOW my daughter. Yet you assume she can provide nothing of value to her University. What a pompous statement, indeed. She has an internship with her University. Her pay? Three semester hours of credit (which I pay for in tuition!). The University's return on investment, infinite. Where in business does a company convince an employee to not only work for free, but to actually get the employee to pay THEM for working!? And who knows, she may one day inspire others to apply to and attend Winthrop University. Will the University not benefit from THEIR tuition as well? And what will she receive for sending "recruits" to her alma mater? A sense of satisfaction. That's all. Say she inspires fifty kids (at 16K per annum in today's money) to attend her school. That would be $3.2MM in revenue derived from one student. Who paid to attend the school! That too is a pretty healthy ROI!
________________________________

just as a side note - we can no longer have unpaid interns in our office due a court case involving the Charlie Rose TV show of all things ........ not really relevant to what we're discussing here - just thought it was an interesting turn of events ......

different jobs command different levels of compensation depending a variety of factors that end up amounting to demand and supply ....... so interns and professors and university presidents all get different salaries based on these factors ........... and clerks and fry cooks at McDonald's get paid less than store managers who get paid less than the CEO of McDonald's Corporation ........ so the mere fact that people in different occupations are paid more or less than each other is a sign that markets are functioning, not the converse .......

the point of all this discussion here and the article linked in the OP -- is that unlike how virtually every other area of the labor markets -- the NCAA system amounts to a monopolistic cartel that artificially rigs the market for college athletes and systematically underpays them ....... none of that is true for interns - professors - or TAs - or university presidents ....... and unless you have some real evidence to the contrary we will assume that generally these people are compensated consistent with what the market will bear for people in their occupation and equivalent experience, skill, etc. .........





--- jimmydaheel wrote:

6. The purpose of the NCAA rulebook is NOT to keep student athletes income from rising to the market value as you propose. It is to spell out the rules for AMATEUR ATHLETES to maintain their AMATEUR STATUS and therefore their eligibility to continue to participate in AMATEUR SPORTS! Using your "logic" high school and junior high school players will be in line for payments next. And as far as considering both sides of the ledger, you have ignored the incredible costs the University (and Rams Club) bears to "sponsor" a wide range of athletic events. Most of which are correctly labeled "non revenue". Those stadiums don't build themselves. Even the non revenue facilities require constant maintenance and upkeep and a staff who I assure you aren't exorbitantly paid!
____________________________

I like the unabashed tautology here --> the purpose of the NCAA rules is to keep AMATEUR athletes from getting paid ....... no sh&^ Sherlock .........

probably in the distant past maintaining a 'amateur' system for college athletes was better justified given the revenues available from college athletics ..... what we've seen in the past 20 or so years is an incredible increase in the income to major college sports programs ....... this has been a windfall to the coaches and executives involved in college sports - many of whom now make seven figure salaries ...... in most respects in hard to distinguish major college sports from any other commercial entertainment business ...... meanwhile, the athletes continue to receive the same scholarship that their predecessors got 40 years ago ....... even the NCAA is so embarassed over the situation, the President of the NCAA has proposed expanding the definition of an 'athletic scholarship' to include some amount of monthly cash stipend to the athletes .............



--- jimmydaheel wrote:

7. You sir have the head full of economic fallacies. How else can you explain the Athletic Department operating on a balanced budget instead of an annual profit margin? Because the alleged profit margin is spent on equipment, supplies and facilities utilized by the student athletes. Many EXCLUSIVELY by the student athletes. And at Carolina, they are pretty SWEET. And that is with the Rams Club putting up the money for the scholarships, much of the construction costs, and a significant portion of the coaches salaries, not the Athletic Department.

There are studies that have shown schools often spend well over 100K per student. Posted right here on this board. Guess those too were just "opinions".
__________________________________________


they operate on a break-even basis for the very reason that they don't have to return a profit to any owners or shareholders -- so naturally they spend every dime they can get their hands on ........ who's to stop them ? ........ and if they had to spend some of this money paying the athletes - they would spend less on other things - the coaches might be paid less ... less fancy facilities .. no more mahogany lockers ... no more helicopter recruiting trips, etc. etc. ...... same total amount of money to spend - it would just be spent in different ways ......... businesses change the way they operate all the time - no reason college athletic departments can't change the way they operate too ...........


I'm not under any illusion that college sports are going to turn into the NFL next week ....... nonetheless, it is obnoxious and highly unfair for the coaches and others involved in truly big-time college sports to be pocketing multi-million $$$ salaries while the players are still getting free coupons to class and the training table ...... surely give all the money swirling around in college sports today, the colleges can acknowledge reality and come up with some more equitable way to compensate the athletes who contribute so much to their athletic departments ........ and it wouldn't hurt for you to have some insight into the real economics at play here, rather than simply repeating a lot of easily refuted fallacies in a failing attempt to justify an antiquated system that time and lots of money have simply passed by .........

It really bothers me that professional athletes rolling in cash and self-indulgent lifestyles sit idly by while this exploitation continues. College "athletes" are enslaved to their institutions for a tiny fraction of what they contribute to the school for their "outside classtime" efforts. There are so many justifications for compensating them and so many possible ways that they could receive recognition for their efforts. But instead, we are saddled with a corrupt exploitative "NCAA" that ostensibly maintains some sort of idealized form of sport - but actually just rakes in the cash. Meanwhile, all around us we see the free market creating huge fortunes for professionals. Time some of these guys took some responsiblity (and I don't mean as "baby-daddys"!) to swing some influence.

Kids who spend the kind of time "outside class" that our athletes do should emerge from school with not just a degree, but some funds to start life off with. If you worked a job as hard as they do, you'd pay for school and have a bit of savings also. And don't start with the "well I had to work for minimum wage and..". College athletes are at the top of their high school classes in terms of skill and training to do what they do. If you worked so hard in high school to develop salable skills, you would command much more than minimum while attending college. Oh, and what about all those "grants" and special "loans" (that never get repaid!)?

Still feeling all self-righteous?!

in perusing some of rumors (ie, made up lies) regarding M North's recruitment I came across this from Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated:

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/coll...eurism-changes/

Nice article! What we are faced with is the belief that somehow there are special people out there who have all of the answers to life. Whose knowlege somehow will let us sit back and watch as they make the world into that perfect utopia. That's utter rubbish on its face and you all know it. Competition is what works and has proven to do so over and over. But we just can't deal with the "untidiness" of people competing. So what we get are the self-righteous fools whose "theories" we are told will lead to that promised land. The NCAA is well known to be a farce, but we still try to gloss over the human failings it represents. Let the free market run and see whether sports separates from educational institutions or not. I have my own beliefs and my "theory" is that everyone would be much happier. Even those who can't compete would fulfill themselves by complaining about the unfairness of it all. As long as we don't pay attention to such nonsense, we'd be fine.

OK, back to reality: Some clown will come up with yet another "I know what's best for you" idea and off we go......

The problem is the NCAA is NOT well known to be a farce. Almost all the other posters on here think the NCAA 'amateur' system was handed to Knute Rockne on Mt. Sinai and that college sports are some unique field of human endeavor to which none of the economic rules that govern the rest of the world apply.

Now people may not like the NCAA when their school becomes the target of an investigation, but the rest of the time the NCAA is simply doing the bidding of the college athletic departments, including UNC, to preserve the college athletic business the way it is.


“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in some conspiracy to rip off these young athletes.”

- Adam Smith ... 1776.



---------------------------------------------
--- GN659 wrote:

Nice article! What we are faced with is the belief that somehow there are special people out there who have all of the answers to life. Whose knowlege somehow will let us sit back and watch as they make the world into that perfect utopia. That's utter rubbish on its face and you all know it. Competition is what works and has proven to do so over and over. But we just can't deal with the "untidiness" of people competing. So what we get are the self-righteous fools whose "theories" we are told will lead to that promised land. The NCAA is well known to be a farce, but we still try to gloss over the human failings it represents. Let the free market run and see whether sports separates from educational institutions or not. I have my own beliefs and my "theory" is that everyone would be much happier. Even those who can't compete would fulfill themselves by complaining about the unfairness of it all. As long as we don't pay attention to such nonsense, we'd be fine.

OK, back to reality: Some clown will come up with yet another "I know what's best for you" idea and off we go......

---------------------------------------------

Free education, room and board and all you can eat. Plus throw in a Pell Grant.

It's a tough life.

from Jason Whitlock ... Foxsports.com ......

Dec 11, 2010......

"For those of you who believe in the myth of “amateur” athletics, I have a solution for you:

Support NCAA legislation that pays the coaches and executives in education, too.

Yeah, let’s give Nick Saban and Dan Mullen books, room and board to law school or medical school or whatever higher degree of education they aspire to. Let’s level the playing field and give all the NCAA employees a shot at more education instead of more money.

Why not make the coaches special, too?"

There must be two families such as this in the US. And your point is?

---------------------------------------------
--- NCtaxguy wrote:

Poverty is a statistical measure of household income based upon family size, as set by the government. When a student-athlete moves to college their family size becomes 1 and the only income used to calculate the figure is their own. Scholarships, grants, etc are not included in the calculation. So, yes, I would expect that a D1 student-athlete would technically have a family income (his income for his household of 1)that would be below the Federal poverty line.

Let me give you an example of someone else who would meet this criteria. Meet Bob and Ann. Bob is a highly successful entrepreneur and Ann is the head of a private foundation for at risk youths. Bob has built and sold many private businesses for many millions of dollars. Ann's foundation is a non-profit charity and she takes a salary of $500 per month basically to reimburse her for costs associated with her travel and speaking duties. They own a $2 million golf estate and a $2 million beach home, both without mortgages. They have 3 new cars, a motorhome, a boat and a motorcycle. Bob is a very conservative "investor" and keeps all of his liquid assets in money markets and savings accounts because he feels the stock market is too "frothy" right now, so his liquid assets are generating $0 in current income.

So Bob and Ann have a net worth of $5 million, two beautiful homes and lots of "toys". They are fulfilled, eat out every night, travel extensively and want for nothing.

They are, according to the Federal government, living in "poverty". Their household size is 2 and they have a combined annual income of $6000 (Ann's salary from the non-profit). They could qualify for food stamps if they applied under these rules.

This, like most "studies" of poverty in the US, is total bull shoi!!

---------------------------------------------

More left wing bull crap.

---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

from Jason Whitlock ... Foxsports.com ......

Dec 11, 2010......

"For those of you who believe in the myth of “amateur” athletics, I have a solution for you:

Support NCAA legislation that pays the coaches and executives in education, too.

Yeah, let’s give Nick Saban and Dan Mullen books, room and board to law school or medical school or whatever higher degree of education they aspire to. Let’s level the playing field and give all the NCAA employees a shot at more education instead of more money.

Why not make the coaches special, too?"

---------------------------------------------

Of all the economic illiteracy spouted on here not knowing your 'left wing' from your 'right wing' any better than this is one of the worst.

1) The argument for more fairly compensating the players is grounded in the free market principle that markets are generally the best arbiter of prices (ie, wages or compensation). What we have now is a government tolerated monopoly (NCAA) that arbitrarily dictates the compensation to the athletes. Government sanctioned 'franchises' that give license to the politically connected to prey on the weaker elements of society are the antithesis of conservative, free market oriented policies.

Hence the slightly doctored quote from Adam Smith noted above:

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in some conspiracy to rip off these young athletes.”

- Adam Smith ... 1776.

Let us know the next time you see our current President wearing an Adam Smith tie.



2) As far as I am concerned the intellectual spark behind the idea of paying the players in some fashion can be found in the following brief article from Robert Barro of the Harvard Economics Department. Robert Barro is as much a 'left wing' economist as Hank Aaron was a left-handed batter.

www.businessweek.com/stories/2...poly-in-america



---------------------------------------------
--- tarheelforever79 wrote:

More left wing bull crap.

---------------------------------------------
--- BethelRegiment wrote:

from Jason Whitlock ... Foxsports.com ......

Dec 11, 2010......

"For those of you who believe in the myth of “amateur” athletics, I have a solution for you:

Support NCAA legislation that pays the coaches and executives in education, too.

Yeah, let’s give Nick Saban and Dan Mullen books, room and board to law school or medical school or whatever higher degree of education they aspire to. Let’s level the playing field and give all the NCAA employees a shot at more education instead of more money.

Why not make the coaches special, too?"

---------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------

Lets treat everyone exactly the same. Can't think of the word but I'm sure there is an appropriate one.

Your earlier post had the advantage of clarity - your point was just completely wrong.

This post is too impossibly vague to illicit a response. In your case I'm fearful that 'clarity' and 'wrong' too often go hand-in-hand, so why don't we just leave it at vague and indecipherable.

---------------------------------------------
--- tarheelforever79 wrote:

Lets treat everyone exactly the same. Can't think of the word but I'm sure there is an appropriate one.

---------------------------------------------