Will Paying Players Pay Off For Byu?

[ERayR]

They only talked about football in the article. It would only seem fair that athletes in the other sports will also get paid?

Other sports have the amateur/Professional and Olympic competition thing that football doesn't.  

[Yirgacheffe]

This is unfair. They get room and board and get to go to class. Their class choices are limited by the need to train. If they are in the big sports that means training roughly 3 times a day. Most do not get into the pro leagues. Most do not have enough time to study STEM degrees or the big moneymaking degrees. Throw in that a bad injury might cost them their scholarship and that they are stuck with the costs of medical insurance and there is no equivalent of worker's comp. God help them if the injury is debilitating in the long-term. I don't think they need to be making millions or six figures but when young people are putting their health and future livelihood on the line for the entertainment of others and those in charge (coaches) are raking in million dollar salaries some basic compensation is deserved for those actually taking the real risks.

 

Don't even get me started about the long term dangers of American football. I am not sure if players are brave or just don't care.

The honorable thing for a college to do in the case of an athlete injured so seriously that he can no longer play, would be to continue his scholarship.

[The Nehor]

The honorable thing for a college to do in the case of an athlete injured so seriously that he can no longer play, would be to continue his scholarship.

 

To be fair most of the time (though not all the time) they do. The student is stuck with the medical problem though and the long-term costs for it.

[JAHS]

Other sports have the amateur/Professional and Olympic competition thing that football doesn't.  

I know athletes in other sports might worry about that but I think an argument can be made that the small stipends the college player gets to help with living expenses is not the same as the multimillion dollar salaries the professionals get. Rules could be adjusted to allow for the stipends and still maintain amature status. 

[3DOP]

Only if they generate the kind of revenue that football does.

 

It seems to me for a variety of reasons like it would result in a minor league for the NFL. Would you intend to prevent the players to organize a union? Would you place limits on how much a school could offer? What of those schools who do not generate money though football? It seems difficult to envision 120 schools competing for professional talent. It will easily result in many schools not making money because they can't afford the talent.

 

What of schools that generate revenue through other sports? Is there a reason that the Univ. of Connecticut women's basketball players shouldn't be paid? Obviously, most women's sports lose money. But at UConn they already win year after year after year without being allowed to pay their players. Just think how great they would be if because they generate money, they can pay the players. Why would a talented young man or woman go to a program that loses money and that doesn't pay him or her to play?

 

I guess I see a lot of problems with contending that an academic scholarship, full medical benefits, and full room and board is inadequate wages in exchange for playing college football or other sports. You could never allow a free market. A free market would destroy college football except in maybe 20 or 30 top programs. If that is what you want...then presumably, you would allow the rest, who don't make money, to maintain amateur programs for the enjoyment of alumnus and students who simply have the old school spirit? But if it is a question of "the laborer is worthy of his hire", and these companies...er colleges, can't afford to pay....then presumably they should be outlawed merely offering a free education, health insurance, food, and lodging?

 

I wonder if the Little League World Series generates revenue? It doesn't? If it ever does, then do we have to pay the children?

[ERayR]

It seems to me for a variety of reasons like it would result in a minor league for the NFL. Would you intend to prevent the players to organize a union? Would you place limits on how much a school could offer? What of those schools who do not generate money though football? It seems difficult to envision 120 schools competing for professional talent. It will easily result in many schools not making money because they can't afford the talent.

 

What of schools that generate revenue through other sports? Is there a reason that the Univ. of Connecticut women's basketball players shouldn't be paid? Obviously, most women's sports lose money. But at UConn they already win year after year after year without being allowed to pay their players. Just think how great they would be if because they generate money, they can pay the players. Why would a talented young man or woman go to a program that loses money and that doesn't pay him or her to play?

 

I guess I see a lot of problems with contending that an academic scholarship, full medical benefits, and full room and board is inadequate wages in exchange for playing college football or other sports. You could never allow a free market. A free market would destroy college football except in maybe 20 or 30 top programs. If that is what you want...then presumably, you would allow the rest, who don't make money, to maintain amateur programs for the enjoyment of alumnus and students who simply have the old school spirit? But if it is a question of "the laborer is worthy of his hire", and these companies...er colleges, can't afford to pay....then presumably they should be outlawed merely offering a free education, health insurance, food, and lodging?

 

I wonder if the Little League World Series generates revenue? It doesn't? If it ever does, then do we have to pay the children?

 

Very good points, all of which needs addressed before paying college players more.  Also it must be decided what is the goal of college sports programs.

[3DOP]

Very good points, all of which needs addressed before paying college players more. Also it must be decided what is the goal of college sports programs.

Thanks ERay. I didn't like to disagree with you. We see things the same ways much of the time and I respect your opinion.

You ask, "What is the goal?" If the players don't have time to go to class we must pay them money? No. The regulating body, the NCAA, needs to decrease the time given to sports so that the "student athletes" can also be students. If everyone has the same amount of limited practice time it would still be a popular spectator event and as competitive as ever. If the schools start paying players, the current idea of "student athletes" will be lost. It will just be colleges hiring minor leaguers hoping to make the NFL eventually, to somehow represent their schools. If we pay them knowing they can't study, why bother with the facade of considering them as freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors? They wouldn't be students at all anymore. Just football players. I see value to the student athlete vision and I would go a different direction that would allow studies as well as possible monetary reward.

The NCAA gets in the way of players making money...not the schools. Reggie Bush is about finished with a respectable NFL career...7 or 8 years maybe? At USC, boosters were always trying to give him some kinds of benefit, under the table, not criminally, but against NCAA regulations. Bush graduated, was drafted in the first round by the NFL, and the NCAA punished USC (mainly through limitations on scholarships) after he left for all these years until now because the coach allowed him to have "jobs" that were really just gifts. Oh...the coach left the school at same time as the "guilty" player and won a Super Bowl. Way to punish the "bad guys", NCAA. I see nothing wrong with letting boosters provide for the needs or wants of the players, and even to give special stuff to the extra good ones.

But to think of it as an ordinary employee/employer relationship? No. The laborer is indeed worthy of his hire as the Scriptures assure us. In my tradition, to defraud the laborer of his wages is one of only four sins that "cry to heaven for vengeance". It is a wicked sin comparable to oppressing orphans and widows. Maybe that is why I reacted so negatively to the notion that colleges have been defrauding laborers of their wages for these many many decades at least. If we are going to begin to pay players because of that precept, on what grounds would we refuse to consider individual or class action suits brought by former college athletes claiming their just due "as laborers"? Before we use the biblical precept as our argument, we need to be prepared to go all they way with it. I am not. I think the student athlete willingly agrees to a pretty fair deal and has no moral grounds to claim that the schools owe him or her beyond what the student and often his family, very happily agree to accept.

I would rather pursue a solution that would take account of a case to be made that the NCAA obstructs the legitimate rights of student athletes to receive gifts from alumni and others who might wish to give them. At this time, I do not see why the amateur student athlete should be prohibited from making money for making commercials or appearing at the local mall, or signing autographs, jersey sales, or any other activity that becomes lucrative on account of sports popularity.

Regards,

Rory

[The Nehor]

You ask, "What is the goal?" If the players don't have time to go to class we must pay them money? No. The regulating body, the NCAA, needs to decrease the time given to sports so that the "student athletes" can also be students. If everyone has the same amount of limited practice time it would still be a popular spectator event and as competitive as ever. If the schools start paying players, the current idea of "student athletes" will be lost. It will just be colleges hiring minor leaguers hoping to make the NFL eventually, to somehow represent their schools. If we pay them knowing they can't study, why bother with the facade of considering them as freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors? They wouldn't be students at all anymore. Just football players. I see value to the student athlete vision and I would go a different direction that would allow studies as well as possible monetary reward.

 

The idea of limited practice time is impractical. Getting around such a limitation would be child's play and once some do it the others have to follow suit to stay competitive.