Northwestern Football Players attempting to become a union
 

Kain Colter starts union movement
Tom Farrey [ARCHIVE]

ESPN.com | January 28, 2014
For the first time in the history of college sports, athletes are asking to be represented by a labor union, taking formal steps on Tuesday to begin the process of being recognized as employees, ESPN's "Outside The Lines" has learned.

Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association, filed a petition in Chicago on behalf of football players at Northwestern University, submitting the form at the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.

Backed by the United Steelworkers union, Huma also filed union cards signed by an undisclosed number of Northwestern players with the NLRB -- the federal statutory body that recognizes groups that seek collective bargaining rights.


Jerry Lai/USA TODAY Sports
Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter reached out to the National College Players Association last spring to ask for help in giving athletes representation in their effort to improve the conditions under which they play NCAA sports.
"This is about finally giving college athletes a seat at the table," said Huma, a former UCLA linebacker, who created the NCPA as an advocacy group in 2001. "Athletes deserve an equal voice when it comes to their physical, academic and financial protections."

Huma told "Outside The Lines" that the move to unionize players at Northwestern started with quarterback Kain Colter, who reached out to him last spring and asked for help in giving athletes representation in their effort to improve the conditions under which they play NCAA sports. Colter became a leading voice in regular NCPA-organized conference calls among players from around the country.

In a Sept. 21 game against Maine, Colter wore a black wristband with the hashtag "#APU" -- All Players United -- prominently scrawled in white marker as part of a quiet protest gesture. He was joined that day by about 10 teammates as well as players from Georgia and Georgia Tech. In all, players on seven teams in the five largest conferences displayed the #APU symbol, according to the NCPA.

Huma said he met with Northwestern players over the weekend on campus in Evanston, Ill., and took the next step in creating a collective voice for players. He said Colter introduced him to groups of players that Colter had talked with over the past couple of months about their interest in taking the unprecedented step of asking for union representation.

To have the NLRB consider a petition to be unionized, at least 30 percent of the members of a group serving an employer must sign union cards.

Huma declined to say how many Northwestern players signed cards other than the number was "overwhelming majority." To get to 30 percent, at least 26 of the 85 scholarship players had to sign.

The formal entity that would represent the players, if certified by the NLRB, is called the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA). It was created by Huma, Colter and Luke Bonner, a former U-Mass basketball player and brother of NBA player Matt Bonner, with technical support from the United Steelworkers, who will not receive union dues from players, said Huma, who is registered as president of the organization.

"When Ramogi first reached out to us years ago, we were like an overwhelming part of the population in that we figured athletes were lucky because they're getting an education," United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard said Tuesday. "But then we looked into it and realized it's a myth. Many don't get a true education and their scholarships aren't guaranteed."

The group has called a news conference at 11:30 a.m. CST on Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago where Kolter, Huma, Gerard and the union's national political director Tim Waters, the NCPA's liaison within the union, will speak.

"The NCAA is a train wreck waiting to happen," Waters said. "What brought them to this moment is they couldn't control their greed. They put all this money in the system."

Spokesmen for Northwestern, the Big Ten Conference and NCAA were not immediately available for comment.

Huma said the goals of the CAPA is the same as the NCPA. The group has pressed for better concussion and other medical protections, and for scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance.

Having already successfully advocated for the creation of multi-year scholarships, it now would like those scholarships to be guaranteed even if a player is no longer able to continue for injury or medical reasons. The group has also called for a trust fund that players could tap into after their NCAA eligibility expires to finish schooling or be rewarded for finishing schooling.

The NCPA has lobbied state legislatures, Congress and the NCAA on these issues over the years, and earlier this month hired airplanes to fly protest banners at the BCS Championship Game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., and at the NCAA Convention in San Diego.

"It's become clear that relying on NCAA policymakers won't work, that they are never going to protect college athletes, and you can see that with their actions over the past decade," Huma said. "Look at their position on concussions. They say they have no legal obligation to protect players."

The initial goals of the CAPA do not include a call for schools to pay salaries, Huma said. However, he declined to rule out the possibility that CAPA would seek that type of compensation in the future and said he knows the public will begin speculating about scenarios in which players would receive a cut of the $5.15 billion in revenues currently generated by athletic departments in the five power conferences.

Those universities will be flush with new cash in the coming years due to the advent of the College Football Playoff which starts next year, and the signing of lucrative, long-term media contracts that will more than double in value by 2020, according to the SportsBusiness Journal.

At the outset, only Division I FBS football players and men's basketball players -- the athletes at the center of the commercial enterprise -- will be eligible to join CAPA because they are best situated to make a case to be treated as employees, Huma said. Over time, the CAPA may expand its scope to include other sports.

He said only scholarship players are eligible for inclusion, as they have are already being compensated by schools in the form of a "grant-in-aid" that is capped at the level of tuition, room and board, books and fees.

By filing the union cards with the NLRB, CAPA triggers a process that could take years to resolve. The first group that will consider the request will be the regional board of the NLRB, whose decision can be appealed to the national board.

Northwestern is expected to oppose the action on the grounds athletes are not employees, and the NCAA, the trade association representing the athletic interests of universities, will likely enter the fray as well.

Gerard said he would "not be surprised" if it ends up in the federal court system.

Athletes playing for university-based teams are not currently considered employees by any legal body. They haven't been since 1953, when the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a determination by the state Industrial Commission that a football player at the University of Denver was an "employee" within the context of the Colorado workers' compensation statute.

As a result, the university was responsible to provide workers' comp for his football injuries. The NCAA responded by coining the term "student-athlete" and mandating its use by universities. Use of that term, and other efforts to draw a enforce the idea that athletes cannot also be employees, ramped up as the NCAA a few years later introduced athletic scholarships, a form of compensation for services provided.

The distinction has held, though since then the courts have come to recognize other students who provide services to universities as employees. Graduate students who teach, for instance, are recognized as employees of universities under laws in many states. Academics such as Richard and Amy McCormick of Michigan State have argued that athletes are employees under the common law definition of the National Labor Relations Act.

The NLRA governs only private enterprises and does apply to public universities. As a private university, Northwestern University falls under its jurisdiction. Gerard said that based on labor law, any decision in favor of the players against Northwestern would apply to all private universities across the country in the FBS division. It would not apply to public universities, which are governed by state laws.

Sounds like a good step for college athletes.

Sounds like the end of college athletics ... and I hope this absurd b.s. is bitchslapped all the way back to the pits of hell from whence it came.

It'll definitely create a dialogue which is important. When there's essentially a black market where athletes are getting paid six figure sums by boosters obviously there's something wrong with the system.

The system is definitely flawed, and everyone knows it--but the billions generated support thousands of student-athletes and school programs besides football and basketball players.

I think something should be done to fix the issues with the system, but I am with JIMG that this sort of thing will be the death of college athletics.

College sports is a billion dollar industry. The most important component of that industry, the players, of course should be attempting various ways to improve their lot within that business. Though I don't think this particular attempt will amount to anything. Nor do I understand how players trying to stick up for themselves could cause the death of a billion dollar industry.

Yeah, +2 here to the Jon/Chief thought. Despite the flawed system that sucks, it enables thousands of athletic programs that otherwise couldn't be afforded continue to exist. Track and field, baseball, softball, volleyball, swimming, water polo, etc - none of these would continue to exist without the money that the big sports produce.

Agreed. Along with talk that the 5 major conferences will split off from the NCAA, I believe change is coming.

I'm not remotely sure that's the case at all, tbh.

Pull the top 1,000 athletes out of D1 college football tomorrow, move 1,000 up for each level ... I believe you've got roughly the same popularity.

They're the most easily replaceable part of the entire product.

Of course they could. High schools and small colleges have athletic programs with team sports.

I'm all for some of the stuff they advocate, such as multi year scholarships, but overall I think its nonsense.

No one is forcing them to take a scholarship and play sports at school. They are welcome to take out loans and pay for school like the rest of us if they don't like it. Also, if they are "employees" I guess they should be taxed on their compensation like the rest of us are. The room, board, education, books, etc...

I agree there are issues with the NCAA and "amatures" but this isn't the fix.

But why are we even talking about the impact of the end of college athletics. I don't get that hypothetical in the first place. Can someone explain how that would play out? Players can try to get more, whether that be money, insurance coverage, freedom to transfer and play immediately, whatever. The schools and TV networks can try to give less, to maximize their own benefits. Like every other negotiation. If the players request say, $50 million per player, and the schools agreed to it, than ya, it might make more financial sense to close down sports at that point, but obviously schools and networks aren't going to agree to terms that take away their entire cash cow. It's not like players have a ton of leverage.

How does it follow from that that players should never be allowed to even ask for different conditions of their pseudo-employment? Should you also not be allowed to ever ask for a raise or time off, or for a new stapler? Nobody's forcing you to take the job in the first place.

No one is forcing schools to have football teams either.

And nobody's forcing them to pay $5 million for someone to coach their amateur student-athletes.

I think it's fair that the players want a piece of the pie. Coaches get millions of dollars to stand on a sideline while the players risk actual physical injury that could impact them for the rest of their lives get room and board and a few seem to get an actual education.

Not to mention the millions from endorsements and shoe contracts.

I guess a $30-40,000 a year scholarship to go to a university to study for a career isn't enough of a payday?

What's enough for a head football coach? What's enough for a TV contract? What's enough for a video game licensing deal? Who decides these things? Isn't it usually negotiations between the parties?

I hope no one paid $30-40,000 a year for the fake classes at UNC.

No, it's market forces for all of those things.

The value of a scholarship is much more complicated. Apples and oranges.

Well, that's the debate, whether that status quo should remain. If you can shut down a market by offering a "complicated" scholarship, maybe that's all head coaches should get, and maybe TV contracts should just be paid for in scholarships. Hell, maybe an entire industry could collectively replace salary and labor laws with scholarships, and then you have something almost equivalent to the NCAA.

Edit: And this isn't solely about player compensation, a debate that has happened here a million times. Players have a limited voice and nobody to advocate for them in non-monetary issues as well. Regular students have more leverage, they can just attend a different school with different policies, and even participate in student government organizations that may have some ability to influence procedures and policy. An athlete is governed by the NCAA wherever they go.

True. I find it pretty abhorrent that most states in the country have a collegiate sports coach as the highest paid state employee.

The paying players issue is obviously more complicated, hence why they aren't even talking about it yet, but to me muti-year scholarships guaranteed in case of injury seems like a no brainer and its sad those aren't the norm already.

But market forces could apply to players too (and we know they do, illegally). How much would Deshawn Hand, Jabril Peppers, Fournette, etc go for this year? Peppers' scholarship to Michigan is probably more valuable than Hand's scholarship to Alabama for their post-football lives. We don't see many players grab that much more valuable Duke scholarship over one to LSU.

Why? If that $3MM coach has a program successful enough where the AD is pulling in $50MM in revenues, who cares?

Is it all because of the fantasy that college football isn't an actual business?

Would all this go away if we didn't treat these programs as non-profits?

I love anything that comes from the pits of hell, so I'm all for this.

This is a fake stat, as though they are technically state employees, they are paid most often through privately funded foundations.

Going to need some of the big dogs (Alabama, Texas, Florida State, Notre Dame) to join forces with them to accomplish anything I am afraid.

It wouldn't be the end of college sports if players started getting paid. What will happen though is even more lawsuits, this time from nonrevenue and women's sports, demanding the same treatment.

Also, the gulf between the wealthy programs and everyone else in terms of on-field product will continue to grow. Look for even more tuition hikes to boot, because universities aren't going to want to cut even deeper into academics than they already have, so they'll pass the buck on to the students.

Except in revenue sports' players case, the value is actually diminished due to the amount of control their programs have their academics, right down to their majors and class selection (Read: Keep them eligible and as focused as the sport as much as possible).

I would love to see this, Title IX and forcing the same or equal $ value that the football players will get. To me that should force a lot of backoff, because a lot of teams are pulling in a $ payday but it is the football $ that is covering a lot of the non rev sports.

It is the Title IX and non-revenue sports equality issues which will kill college athletics.

How? If it violates Title IX to compensate certain athletes more than others (which I doubt), then maybe schools will just not pay athletes, or maneuver around it, instead of shutting down an entire billion dollar industry. The players aren't going to be able to negotiate for something illegal.

There's so much money in this. It's not just going to all implode for all the involved entities if athletes try to have more of a say on monetary and non-monetary issues. That just makes no sense.

Dola, but if Title IX requires schools receiving federal funding to treat all athletes the same, those suits should already be happening, because schools do directly and indirectly pay top athletes and provide them enhanced benefits. If those indirect payments from boosters don't count under a Title IX analysis, then just pull that whole process out of the darkness and let athletes receive those payments out in the open (and pay taxes on them). Problem solved, and now the schools don't have to dismantle a $5 billion industry (not that they would ever do that anyway), or even pay players themselves.

Not if you're skills are worth more.

Except the part where D2 and D3 schools have been able to field teams in sports like this without huge money.

First of all, the whole point of this thread is that there is an attempt to set up an organization which would allow players to negotiate for pay. So by definition this means pay in some form. If "schools just aren't going to pay players", that is a hypothetical we're not discussing here and is not relevant. The prevailing assumption to "this will kill college athletics" is that players will be paid. If you posit to remove one, I posit to remove my assertion because one does not exist without the other.

Second, as to there being so much money... there are a LOT of student athletes in this country. The money won't go as far as you think.

Keep in mind, even with the current system not paying players, the vast majority of athletic departments need to be subsidized with school funds, and of the hundreds/thousands of universities currently under the NCAA umbrella, something like under 100 actually make a profit currently.

By A) offering less scholarships, as per NCAA rules defining those levels, and B) massive subsidies from the general school funding.

So your argument assumes that universities will agree to pay players even if it's illegal, and even if they can't possibly afford to do it? Why would the universities agree to do this, under your hypothetical?

Setting up an organization to have some kind of voice in the process doesn't guarantee that schools have to pay every player thousands of dollars overnight. They'll only agree to something that makes some sense for them, they're not going to agree to something that ends a billion dollar industry. Edit: That's one of the odder pro-management arguments I've heard. "We can't let the employees have a voice in the process because then we'll have no choice but to give them everything they want and we'll bankrupt ourselves and this entire industry."

They also don't have giant TV and licensing deals. Point is that this doesn't end sports at all, it's just a scare tactic. There would still be all those other sports just like there are in lower levels where money is much more scarce. Schools would simply have to budget differently.

Let players seek endorsement deals. End of the issue.

And booster money, and licensing deals, and the ability to have jobs. This is just the kind of thing an organization like this could advocate for. And it might not even cause the end of college sports.

There are a few funny things about this, but perhaps the best is the reason why players are "forced" to go to college is because of other unions' collective bargaining agreements.

No, my argument is that this unionization attempt will result in an attempt to pay players, and if that happens and the courts rule that that must happen, big boy college athletics as we know it will end. Universities will be unable to field anything but the barest bones of teams as we currently know them.

In my opinion, that is figuratively the death of college sports, if not literally.

How would they have time for jobs on top of school and sports? It would seem like being a full-time athlete and student would be enough.

And eventually, it becomes baseball, with the Yankees of the NCAA winning it all every year, and smaller schools have no chance to compete.

How is that different from the current state of affairs, though?

In theory Texas would be better. :D

Is there more parity in college football than there is in baseball? (Alabama has won more championships than the Yankees in recent years).

But anyway, I don't think a desire for parity is a good reason to deprive someone the opportunity to earn money from an outside source. And I don't think that's even the NCAA's stated or real opposition to it. They just don't want to share licensing money.

Yet D2 and D3 can somehow avoid this problem that you feel D1 schools won't be able to figure out.

Also, these schools are still bringing in a shitload of money from TV, licensing, and ticket revenue. You're acting like all these schools are dirt poor and barely scraping by and you're adding a huge expense. And paying players doesn't have to be mandatory, some schools can, some schools can offer scholarships only, some can offer none. Not a big deal.

Yeah because college sports as we know it is all about parity. School with $150 million budget plays school with $1 million budget.

If a coach thinks he can earn more money elsewhere, he can play the field, and nobody bats an eyelash. Oh, there's radio backlash over what it means for "the kids," but the coach is able to do his own thing. If he thinks he's underpaid, he can flirt with Texas (or whomever) or actually go there.

If a player thinks he isn't getting enough playing time, he can transfer...if his school will let him. Then he gets to sit out a year, in most cases, before he can actually play for the new school, which puts him behind the 8 ball in competing for playing time - unless, of course, he's a star player.

But if he were a star player, he'd have been starting in the first place.

It's easy to say "Oh, they get a scholarship, that should be enough for them," but the reality of the situation is that "big time" college athletics are essentially indentured servitude. If you sign the LOI, you're signing an employment contract that the school is under no obligation to abide by, but inside of which you have very little wiggle room to improve your situation.

Those like Jon who want to see the players advocating for change go to the "pits of hell where they belong" are, IMO, little better than the poor white Southern farmers in the 19th century who went to war because they might, someday, be able to afford to have slaves of their own.

That's all this is. It's a defense of oligarchy derived from sympathy with the oligarchs' goals. Either pay the players, or give them the same freedom the coaches already enjoy.

That's not really any of our business.

And if college sports die, either figuratively or literally, the major professional leagues will establish something like baseball's minor league system, wherein players can be paid as they pursue playing at the highest level.

The sturm und drang from those not directly involved over the death of college athletics boils down to I'M ENTITLED TO SEE MY FAVORITE COLLEGE FIELD A TEAM IN THE SPORT OF MY CHOICE AND THESE WHINY KIDS ARE RUINING IT

It has nothing to do with what's actually good for either the schools or the athletes.

That could be up to each player, coach, and each individual school, but we've seen that players have enough time to get in trouble off-campus on occasion, so they have enough time to say, make paid appearances for local car dealerships in the off season.

They could even make club appearances and get paid while getting in trouble. Seriously, imagine Leinart if this had been allowed. Im actually all for this because we've hit the point where its just silly they can't do this.

And the thing is, I'm sure Leinart DID get money and stuff paid for all over L.A. I'm sure that's part of the draw of a big program in L.A. We just don't want to hear about it, I guess.

No one seems to throw a fit when an actor is filming movies and attending events while attending classes at a University. No one gives a shit if a student is working 2-3 jobs on the side to pay for rent.

Currently, even with the SEC's dominance of late, there is still a good chance that any number of teams from the FBS level can win trhe national championships. I am going to guess some 25 teams, at least, have a legitimate shot at winning the national championship with the right coach and schedule, and that's probably being conservative, and not even considering the impact of the playoff.

In a system where it's pay as pay goes, a la baseball, there will probably 5-6 teams (USC, Texas, Notre Dame, a handful of SEC teams, maybe Michigan or Ohio State, that's it).

I believe there is. Alabama is on a historic run of success under perhaps the best college coach in history (or at least the best for the system as it is in place today).

I'm not arguing for the purity of the NCAA's motives. I am just noting, unless we're calling for a massive upheaval of what we know today as college sports, this is not a deisred outcome.

I think it is rather proven that Oregon would be on that list.

Again, D2 and D3 get by with very limited scholarships and are massively subsuidized by their school funds. What they make in merchandising and tickets ales and what not is a pittance of what is generated on the FBS level. And most schools at the FBS level are not generating a profit with their AD (much less lower than that).

If players demand pay at one school, what makes you think other schools will be able to get away with less, and that's even if the courts don't make it mandatory.

In what sport and how often does that happen? If you're going to throw out an example, I would love to see how often such a disparity in a game between two similarly leveled schools happens.

Likewise, no one throws a fit when the research assistant on a work study grant assigns all of his work product to the univeristy.

I agree, the pro sports will do that, because they have to. Not sure what point you're trying to make there with that. We're not talking about paid minor leagues, we're talking about the current system of college athletics.

Is it okay if I disagree with you, because I get the sense from your posts that I am evil and an oppressive person if I do?

Considering that the big money college athletics brings in supports thousands of student athletes who don't generate a penny for their schools, net total, I think the current system does tremendous good for those student athletes and those schools. And that's on top of the advertising/promotion they receive as schools which directly leads to a huge application levels at these schools from potential non-athlete students around the country.

And you and I will, I suppose, just not see eye to eye when I state I believe that sizable scholarships, room and board, and food stipends are plenty to pay for those athletes to represent their teams on the field. I certainly would have traded spots with any one of them, rather than having to work nearly a fulltime job to get myself through college.

Touché. (And throw on Okie State, I suppose, too)

In all sports. Most of the schools below play at the same level.

USA Today | Sports | COLLEGE

How can you pretend to care about parity when schools with $100+ million budgets are playing schools with a $10 million budget? Is the SEC playing in the title game just total luck? Do the schools in the Sun Belt have a chance at that level too? Come on.

FWIW, I do see these issues with the current system, and I would love to see them solved (the boosters, players getting a bigger cut of the money they generate, disparities from school to school and sport to sport, etc.). But I just don't believe out and out paying the players is doable unless you simply want to scrap the whole system entirely.

I'm not for forcing schools to play players. If a school wants to, they can. If a school can't afford it, they won't. Not much different than how it is now. Some schools can afford to pay a coach $5 million, most can't. Some schools can afford a $50 million training facility, some can't.

Each school can determine where they want their money to go and what level they want to play at. Schools pay students for jobs on campus all the time. This isn't some unheard of concept.

First of all, you offered $150 M to $1 M, not $10 M. And even at $10 M, you go down all the way to #192 in this revenue list before you get to a school that is below $10 M in revenue (Austin Peay). AP is not even in the FBS. These schools are not on the same level of any sort, and every fall, we excoriate SEC teams (and others) for playing schools on a level of Austin Peay.

It's an easy strawman to throw out $10 M as your bottom end on a scale of schools if you don't acknowledge schools at that level don't even play on the same level as the big schools, eh?

Just eyeballing this list, I am going to guess most FBS schools are within $50 M of each other in total revenue at worst. There is certainly a disparity between big schools and smaller schools, even at the FBS level, but it's not on the level of baseball, where the Astros are supposed to be passed off as entirely the same "level" as the Yankees.

And, BTW, thanks for providing a list that also shows how most of these schools, even some of the biggest revenue schools, need to be subsidized by their school funds.

Hold the phone. Did I read that college athletes on a sports scholarship will get their scholarships revoked if they can no longer play due to injuries?

So you don't want the school to pay players because you believe the schools will overextend themselves to the extent that college sports will cease to exist. And you don't want outside forces to pay players because you're worried about parity. Is that a fair summary? Is there any other reasons that connect those two things, like, you just don't think athletes should get paid because they get enough anyway? It feels like that's an underlying issue for a lot of the public's opposition.

Edit: And what about the non-monetary stuff that is also driving these calls for organization and obtaining a voice for the players? Like the injury issue? It sounds like you're saying that they shouldn't even be allowed to organize and advocate for stuff like that, because it's too risky, because the next thing you'll know they're asking for money.

Yes. There was apparently a concern that Kevin Ware could be kicked out of school AND stuck with the medical bills when he destroyed his leg playing for Louisville.

Kevin Ware injury could put scholarship at risk - CBS News

I think that's the disconnect there. You see a choice. I don't. I don't see schools having a choice when it comes to this issue because I don't think players will go to schools that don't pay more than scholarships unless they don't have the ability/talent to do so. And that's even if the courts allow schools to not pay, which they may not, if the matter is brought before a judge.

The schools that pay will have to massively cut down their ADs and the sports they offer and the number of student athletes they can support or hike up student tuitions to a ridiculous level to compensate. The other schools (the ones which can't pay) will be forced to drop back to D2 or D3 level, and that's assuming scholarships will be allowed then (and pay is not required). If pay is required, smaller schools will pretty much drop athletics altogether.

The courts aren't going to require a small school to spend money on player compensation just because Texas does. There's just no interpretation of Title IX that would require that. Title IX is about gender discrimination, and its not confined only to athletics.

That rule alone is atrocious. So, basically the NCAA is saying this:

"Come play for our school! Risk your life every time you come onto the field, and we'll make millions of dollars on your name! If you get hurt, you'll live in pain for the rest of your life, we won't pay your medical bills, and you'll get kicked out of school!"

Nice.

They almost all play on the same in the other 20 or so sports that are competed in at the college level. Austin Peay is Division 1 and plays for the same championship Ohio State plays for in those other sports. There is a reason the schools at the top of that list are winning much more than the one's at the bottom.

If you or anyone else who cries about parity actually cared about parity, you'd be demanding more revenue sharing among schools when it comes to TV contracts. You'd be demanding limits to how much a school can spend on their athletic department, or at least basing the divisions on it. You'd be against huge gaps in training facilities and coaches salaries. You'd be screaming about big schools never playing road games against small schools.

College sports has never had parity. It's always had it's powerhouse and it's weaklings. And no one seems to give a shit about it accept when it's used as some kind of scare tactic to not pay players. I get it if you don't want them being paid, but lets keep the parity bullshit out of it because college fans don't give a shit about parity.

You'll notice the northwestern players aren't actually talking about getting paid, they're talking about things like this.

I actually state above that I believe athletes receive enough for what they do through the scholarship system, along with room, board and food, for that to be an acceptable payment for being allowed to play on the college sports squad.

But, yes, your first two points accurately represent my point, as it relates to those specific issues.

I'm not against player advocacy or organizations arguing for them, as a general rule. It's just that I am not naive enough to believe that the point of those organizations is simply to handle inequities among players or smaller issues than pay. I believe that this is being set up primarily to result in pay for play and that that is its only logical conclusion.

I would love to see adjustments to the system that don't involve pay which would settle matters such as injury issues or giving a voice to players. I have yet to see any such attempt, though, that isn't just a veil for pay for play.

Red Herring. AD and Boosters pay the coaches NOT the state.



There are already "abort mission" plans at every major D1 program in the works.

For example, Football and Men's basketball make money. Men's BBall head count is offset with Women's BBall and the facilities are the same.

Add 100 females to sports with low overhead (Tennis, Golf and rowing come to mind locally) and dissolve EVERY OTHER MEN's and WOMEN's Sport immediately. The AD is still profitable, only now about 200 students per school don't get scholarships.


Do we even want to peel the onion back to Pell grants?
Atletic Scholarships dont get counted towards Pell Grant eligibility. Thats $5k/year to MOST student athletes. Plus the NCAA SAOF which gets abused EVERYWHERE.

Student athletes dont have it as good as most think with mandatory practices, class structures etc. They also have it much better than many realize.

The NCAA allows a $200/year clothing allowance. A Nike hoodie costs .89 to manufacture according to Nike documents. So an athlete could for example get ~200 of these hoodies with a $50 MSRP....now cut that in half for a quick sale to the local sports apparel shop and you have $5,000 extra right there. Strangely enough these athlete direct clothing articles come with tags on them and every college campus in America has more than 1 clothing shop near by. Its all about how the transaction is managed.

The far more common practice is for coaches to cut some chaff by moving players to medical scholarships that don't count against the team's scholarship limit. They honor the kid's scholarship, but he can't play intercollegiate sports anymore.

Players go to schools that don't offer scholarships and play there. And schools choose not to offer scholarships and still have a bevy of sports.

Schools may have to cut areas. They may not be able to spend $50 million on a football training facility. They may not be able to spend $7 million on a head coach. But this won't require them to drop all their sports. They still have an insane amount of revenue coming in and schools at the D2 and D3 level have been doing it just fine without those revenues.

And pay is not going to be required. There is nothing in the legal decisions that would force every school to pay their players. Those who choose to will and those who won't won't. No different from any of the other expenses an athletic department has to choose to make every year.

I am going to guess that the budgets for those other sports are a lot more comparable than they are in football. Just because an athletic department generates a large amount of money doesn't mean it gives a similar percentage increase to other sports. Especially considering that the big boy sports engender costs which you don't see in other sports, such as the coaches salaries, the more expensive facilities and stadiums, the recruiting and increased travel, etc.

You think Johnny Manziel received fair market value for his services? That his value in a free market is whatever a year at Texas A&M costs?

Are you really trying to argue that there is parity in college sports?

I cant speak for every school on this, but I can tell you I personally am an exception to this anecdote. And I was a non depth chart OL...my multiple knee surgeries (5 in total) were picked up in full and my scholarship was picked up by the booster organization. I did not count against the numbers and was not on an athletic 'ship but I was a special student scholar exemption...at any point there were 8-10 of these guys . The nicer coaches even use this "program" for evaluation misses or busts.

Now if you dont do your part and remain academically eligible or violate the good faith clauses then you got walked off.

And what is the value of the free publicity and exposure he received BECAUSE of aTm national prominence and existing media deals.

His bank account would say $0 at the moment. He doesn't get paid for any of that.

Now try saying that in April.

Again, non-scholarship sports (which is all sports below most of the top end schools) is ALL paid by a school's general fund and the student body in general. There isn't some magical revenue somewhere for D2 or D3 schools. So not only do the athletes themselves pay their own way there, but the rest of the school, which doesn't even participate in those sports, also pays for those athletes to play.

Can it be done? Of course. But only if you want big time college sports as we know it to say goodbye. No more March Madness. No more BCS. No College World Series. Nothing that requires extensive travel or year round support.

So, if you're advocating for the elimination, of all that, then I guess I understand where you're coming from. I personally don't want to see that happen, so I am not for this.

Define parity. Of course the playing field is not equal. But I would argue it is more equal than baseball or international club soccer (and not as equal as the sal cap pro leagues).

I'll be able to say it if he blows his leg out or gets in a serious car accident. He's already provided A&M extraordinary value for which he still may never receive compensation other than glory.

This makes zero sense. If you allow schools to have the choice to pay players, they will all decide to eliminate events that generate billions of dollars? That sounds like the dumbest strategy ever.

I didn't say players should receive fair market value.

Did you actually look at the link of revenues you posted? How many schools do you see there showing a profit, even with these events generating billions of dollars?

Actually he has already been paid in advance by his agent...(well he hasn't because he doesn't need it, his dad is a millionaire..but every other declared to be drafted player has.)

But aside from that what is his marketability to Nike/Adidas/Reebok the day he leaves aTm compared to the day he arrived?

If he went straight to the NFL (for example) in 3 years he would not get the PT and subsequent recognition he did in college. That is the fallacy in the argument IMHO, its not the stars that lose out. On the contrary the benefit nicely in the increased early media exposure and endorsement opportunities. Its the run of the mill guys who get ground up spit out and never make a dime.

Athletic departments aren't designed to generate profits. They don't have shareholders.

Neither do private companies..

The fallacy is this idea that future earnings should allow for price fixing.

It's saying that Kristen Stewart shouldn't be paid for her role in the Twilight movies because it's good publicity and she'll get money down the line as the series makes her popular.

We all would laugh at that concept in every other industry. But when it comes to college sports you have to do a bunch of mental gymnastics to justify it.