NCAA Athletes able to get TV money?

[JD]

Not sure if it's Sultan, Brew, or CBB who is always preaching for student athletes to get a chunk of the pie, but it looks like it could happen.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8895337/judge-rules-ncaa-athletes-legally-pursue-television-money

[ChicosBailBonds]

All the ruling says is it will be considered in the case.  Merely a motion.


I am 100% against it and have stated why for many reasons

[JD]

I think it's going to happen.  Everything else is going down the tubes, i wouldn't be surprised at all if a court ruled in favor of athletes getting paid.  Do i agree with it, no.

[Benny B]

As a former viewer of Court TV, I can unequivocally say that whatever the ruling in this case turns out to be, it will be appealed indefinitely.



It's all moot any way.... by the time the NCAA gives up, football will be dead, and there won't be any money left to pay the athletes.  But hey, maybe they can go after some of that internet money.

[Bocephys]

As a former viewer of Court TV, I can unequivocally say that whatever the ruling in this case turns out to be, it will be appealed indefinitely.



It's all moot any way.... by the time the NCAA gives up, football will be dead, and there won't be any money left to pay the athletes.  But hey, maybe they can go after some of that internet money.

It worked out great for the TV writers!

[ChicosBailBonds]

There is an interesting article this week in the Sports Business Journal about the state of Tennessee Athletics.  The department has $200 million in debt currently and a reserve of only $1.95million.  The article gets into how razor thin profit margins are for these athletic departments and how many lose.

All it takes is a few bad seasons, attendance drops, you fire a few coaches and make bad hires that you end up paying not to coach and all of a sudden you are in dire straits.

I don't know where people think this money is going to come from for student athletes.  If it comes from television, it just means less for the school which has a major ripple effect.  Sports are cut, coaches salaries are not a market value and they leave, donor requirements go up, ticket prices go up.  There are consequences to these actions, severe financial consequences.

[honkytonk]

How is it that some private universities can afford to field a football team (and title 9 sports and facilities and everything else) and still remain above water? They have to operate their department knowing that there isnt a tax payer bailout for them. Why cant the publics adopt their model? Stanford has great success. USC cheats and has occasional success. ND has success. Miami has success. Even Syracuse and Boston College have some success.

[Hamostradamus]

All it takes is a few bad seasons, attendance drops, you fire a few coaches and make bad hires that you end up paying not to coach and all of a sudden you are in dire straits.

This. And if you begin a 10-year $200 mil facilities upgrade, and then the team tanks and promised donations don't materialize (I am looking at you Maryland), then you are screwed.

[Windyplayer]

All the ruling says is it will be considered in the case.  Merely a motion.


I am 100% against it and have stated why for many reasons

That headline, though technically accurate, is deceptive. I thought it was borderline unethical. ESPN knew exactly how it would read to the public. And more clicks, more ad revenue in the scheme of things.

[TJ]

There is an interesting article this week in the Sports Business Journal about the state of Tennessee Athletics.  The department has $200 million in debt currently and a reserve of only $1.95million.  The article gets into how razor thin profit margins are for these athletic departments and how many lose.

All it takes is a few bad seasons, attendance drops, you fire a few coaches and make bad hires that you end up paying not to coach and all of a sudden you are in dire straits.

I don't know where people think this money is going to come from for student athletes.  If it comes from television, it just means less for the school which has a major ripple effect.  Sports are cut, coaches salaries are not a market value and they leave, donor requirements go up, ticket prices go up.  There are consequences to these actions, severe financial consequences.

We all know there's some creative accounting going on with many athletic department budgets.  Tennessee Athletics is not going bankrupt any time soon.

The fact that these schools pay millions to coaches is an argument FOR sharing more of the revenue with players, not against.  It's the players' fault now that the AD's use their money unwisely?  Some of these departments have roughly half the revenue of the average NFL team (~$225M), and a "payroll" at best a quarter the size, if you are generous (250 scholarships @ $100k per - a high estimate - vs $100M).  What are they blowing all this money on if they are barely breaking even?

[ChicosBailBonds]

We all know there's some creative accounting going on with many athletic department budgets.  Tennessee Athletics is not going bankrupt any time soon.

The fact that these schools pay millions to coaches is an argument FOR sharing more of the revenue with players, not against.  It's the players' fault now that the AD's use their money unwisely?  Some of these departments have roughly half the revenue of the average NFL team (~$225M), and a "payroll" at best a quarter the size, if you are generous (250 scholarships @ $100k per - a high estimate - vs $100M).  What are they blowing all this money on if they are barely breaking even?

Don't think anyone said they are going bankrupt, but they have a mountain of debt.  The AD's are hiring coaches to win games, when they don't win games they get fired.  If you have several programs that are struggling, you can end up in a world of hurt.  Unlike pro sports, college sports revolves around the coach first.  He \ she is the constant, the players are there a maximum of four years.  Thus, the coach is going to get paid as such.  Not sure why a coach's salary has anything to do with why the players should get some.  If the team sucks, should the players be forced to give back their pay?

That NFL example doesn't quite cut it.  An athletic department the size of Tennessee or Ohio State or USC might have 25 to 30 teams.  That's 25 to 30 head coaches, lots of a assistant coaches, travel for all those teams, etc.  It's not just one NFL team, one NFL coaching staff and 8 away games.

Also, if the NFL team tanks, they are guaranteed revenues from league television deals.  Though many colleges are guaranteed dollars from television, also, attendance is a huge driver even more so than the NFL because the sharing relationship of revenues is so much different (you share much less in the NCAA).

[forgetful]

That headline, though technically accurate, is deceptive. I thought it was borderline unethical. ESPN knew exactly how it would read to the public. And more clicks, more ad revenue in the scheme of things.

This is what drives me nuts about journalism today.  It is no longer about integrity and the story. 

[TJ]

Don't think anyone said they are going bankrupt, but they have a mountain of debt.  The AD's are hiring coaches to win games, when they don't win games they get fired.  If you have several programs that are struggling, you can end up in a world of hurt.  Unlike pro sports, college sports revolves around the coach first.  He \ she is the constant, the players are there a maximum of four years.  Thus, the coach is going to get paid as such.  Not sure why a coach's salary has anything to do with why the players should get some.  If the team sucks, should the players be forced to give back their pay?

That NFL example doesn't quite cut it.  An athletic department the size of Tennessee or Ohio State or USC might have 25 to 30 teams.  That's 25 to 30 head coaches, lots of a assistant coaches, travel for all those teams, etc.  It's not just one NFL team, one NFL coaching staff and 8 away games.

Also, if the NFL team tanks, they are guaranteed revenues from league television deals.  Though many colleges are guaranteed dollars from television, also, attendance is a huge driver even more so than the NFL because the sharing relationship of revenues is so much different (you share much less in the NCAA).

The coach's salary being ridiculously high doesn't make me feel sympathy for the institution that they shouldn't have to compensate players because they have such high coaching salaries to pay.  If anything it does the opposite - if they have all that money for the coach surely they could find a way to compensate players better.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, though I think you play to the worst case scenario most of the time.  Change won't necessarily be easy or beneficial.  But if the conferences/institutions/media outlets keep driving up revenue to such extremes (especially if the VAST majority of it stays with a relatively small number of institutions) at some point there will be such an imbalance that change will be inevitable.

[GGGG]

This is what drives me nuts about journalism today.  It is no longer about integrity and the story. 

You are yearning for days that never really existed.

[GGGG]

We all know there's some creative accounting going on with many athletic department budgets.  Tennessee Athletics is not going bankrupt any time soon.

The fact that these schools pay millions to coaches is an argument FOR sharing more of the revenue with players, not against.  It's the players' fault now that the AD's use their money unwisely?  Some of these departments have roughly half the revenue of the average NFL team (~$225M), and a "payroll" at best a quarter the size, if you are generous (250 scholarships @ $100k per - a high estimate - vs $100M).  What are they blowing all this money on if they are barely breaking even?

Generally it is debt services on new and renovated facilities.  Read this article for instance...

http://host.madison.com/sports/columnists/andy_baggot/uw-athletic-budget-proposal-million-higher-than-current-budget/article_436f6238-3942-11e0-be6d-001cc4c002e0.html

Notice how many times they mention "debt service" and something similar?  This stuff happens at a lot of schools.  You build new build new facilities to be competitive in hiring coaches and recruiting players.  If you don't, you lose money from decreased attendance and donations.  So you invest in new facilities.

Well, if the winning doesn't follow...and attendance and donations don't increase...you are left with a lot of bills to pay.  And in most states, taxpayer money cannot be used to fund capital projects that are purely for athletics.  And even in cases where there is an academic element to the building, the taxpayer support is proportional.

[TJ]

Generally it is debt services on new and renovated facilities.  Read this article for instance...

http://host.madison.com/sports/columnists/andy_baggot/uw-athletic-budget-proposal-million-higher-than-current-budget/article_436f6238-3942-11e0-be6d-001cc4c002e0.html

Notice how many times they mention "debt service" and something similar?  This stuff happens at a lot of schools.  You build new build new facilities to be competitive in hiring coaches and recruiting players.  If you don't, you lose money from decreased attendance and donations.  So you invest in new facilities.

Well, if the winning doesn't follow...and attendance and donations don't increase...you are left with a lot of bills to pay.  And in most states, taxpayer money cannot be used to fund capital projects that are purely for athletics.  And even in cases where there is an academic element to the building, the taxpayer support is proportional.

Thanks, that explains where some of the money goes, but it doesn't explain why athletes shouldn't be fairly compensated.  (I know it's highly debatable whether they are or not.)  If the universities can pay for all of this then they can find a way to cover fair compensation. 

As a side note, I think that universities in general need to stop spending so much freaking money and then crying poor and/or raising tuition.  Does UW really need a new arena right next door to their current arena that's only 14 years old?

[GGGG]

As a side note, I think that universities in general need to stop spending so much freaking money and then crying poor and/or raising tuition.  Does UW really need a new arena right next door to their current arena that's only 14 years old?

This isn't the case for all athletic departments, more on that below, but the UW athletic department is pretty much a stand-alone.  Less than 10% of its operations come from subsidies from the university, most in the form of salary and scholarship.  And I don't know how much of that is tax or tuition.

It also doesn't take student fee money.  And *that* is the big item that is being used to fund athletics at "mid-level" programs around the country.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/2010-09-21-student-fees-boost-college-sports_N.htm

[GGGG]

BTW, if you look at the database attached to this article, they have a breakdown of what schools spend on athletics.  If you look at UW, you will see that of their $95 million in expenses, $9.6 million is in the form of scholarships.  So right away the students are receiving over 10% of the expense.

Is that "fair?" 

(My argument is that they should be able to receive a scholarship up to the "total cost of attendance" value....this includes indirect items like transportation, spending money, etc.  And the school has to provide that figure to the Feds for student aid purposes.)

[CAGASS24]

While I don't think that we should giving much more to a student athlete while they are in school, it may be reasonable to create some sort of trust/annuity for college athletes that is funded by a percentage of media revenue.  Via the school, media rights dollars could be contributed to your account based on either a percentage system that could be determined by whatever measure is agreed upon (# of games, level of competition (div 1, 2, etc), sport, if graduation was earned, etc, etc) OR a flat rate amongst all athletes (more unlikely probably).  

The reason these lawsuits are being filed is because former college stars who either didn't see the money they thought they would in the pros or blew whatever money they had are now realizing they missed the boat (for not all, but alot) to improve their/their family's prospects for the future.  Giving a student athlete money during school will not really assist with that.  But creating some sort of real equity account that pays out in the future  might.  It would also satiate some of the arguments out there to preserve the amateurism status of our college players (not paid for players) since they won't be seeing the money until later in life

[TJ]

BTW, if you look at the database attached to this article, they have a breakdown of what schools spend on athletics.  If you look at UW, you will see that of their $95 million in expenses, $9.6 million is in the form of scholarships.  So right away the students are receiving over 10% of the expense.

Is that "fair?" 

(My argument is that they should be able to receive a scholarship up to the "total cost of attendance" value....this includes indirect items like transportation, spending money, etc.  And the school has to provide that figure to the Feds for student aid purposes.)

Understanding that the students get more benefit than just the scholarship, I would say that no, 10% is not fair.  But that's obviously just one person's opinion.

http://thesportseconomist.com/2011/03/03/fair-shares-in-the-nfl/

Obviously the NFL and NCAA are not equal and should not be treated as such, but they ARE similar in nature.  There is a vast discrepancy between the 60% of revenue going to players in the NFL (from my article) and 10% going to players in the NCAA (from your post).

[TJ]

While I don't think that we should giving much more to a student athlete while they are in school, it may be reasonable to create some sort of trust/annuity for college athletes that is funded by a percentage of media revenue.  Via the school, media rights dollars could be contributed to your account based on either a percentage system that could be determined by whatever measure is agreed upon (# of games, level of competition (div 1, II, etc), sport, if graduation was earned, etc, etc) OR a flat rate amongst all athletes (more unlikely probably).  

The reason these lawsuits are being filed is because former college stars who either didn't see the money they thought they would in the pros or blew whatever money they had are now realizing they missed the boat (for not all, but alot) to improve their/their family's prospects for the future.  Giving a student athlete money during school will not really assist with that.  But creating some sort of real equity account that pays out in the future  might.  It would also satiate some of the arguments out there to preserve the amateurism status of our college players ( not paid for players)

I think this is a great idea.