Should college atheletes get paid? Options

[impala454]

This subject came up at work and we fiercely debated it for a while. We all kinda came to the general conclusion that paying atheletes a salary is a bad idea.

The general argument ended up being whether or not the players deserved anything extra. My thoughts were that it seems pretty crappy to me that a star player can go out and literally make millions of dollars for the school and not be compensated any more than some 4th string tackling dummy who never sees a down in a real game. Do you cut them a check? No... but can you increase their monthly stipend or give them some extra perks? I dunno maybe. Some were saying having a free education & all the services/training the athletics coaching/facilities provides is payment enough. Or that the chance of making millions in the NFL is good enough. Well in a lot of star player's cases, I'd be willing to bet that their contribution to the team made far more money for the school than the cost of an education.

Also on the reverse side of that, do we really need to give a full ride to some guy who goes and plays golf? Or jumps hurdles?

Anyhow I thought it was a pretty interesting topic and figured it'd fire up the college sports forum here

[woody]

well i wouldn't think how they spend it really matters. all i'm saying is if vince young helped bring in 50 million to the university, he needs some type of kick back. i really like the idea of cutting them a check when they graduate, it addresses several problems:
1) encourages them to actually graduate and not leave early for the NFL
2) say they do really well fresh-soph year then have a career ending injury. they still have graduating and also getting something out of those couple of years to look forward to.
3) gives every single player on the team more drive to excel

a chance to pay in the NFL and make millions is a reason to excel

What about students who do research for the university & bring money into the university, do they get a check cut to them too?

what about the minority students who go to college & make the university look better & more diverse, do they get a check too since all those minority groups praise the college for it's rich diversity?

[impala454]

a chance to pay in the NFL and make millions is a reason to excel

right but they're bringing in millions to the university now. what happens to a player who does that, then gets hurt before going to the NFL? They made the university millions but never see a dime.

What about students who do research for the university & bring money into the university, do they get a check cut to them too?

the difference here though is regular students are allowed and even encouraged to make money in their field before graduating. the NCAA doesn't allow any player to make money via football, yet it allows the university to profit off of them. I remember a senior project in computer science that had the potential to actually be sold to other universities, and we were told that if it did, we'd recieve royalties. NCAA atheletes have no such option.

what about the minority students who go to college & make the university look better & more diverse, do they get a check too since all those minority groups praise the college for it's rich diversity?

this isn't really related to the discussion as there's no massive amount of money being made by the university simply because they have minority students.

[theIncredibleEdi...]

right but they're bringing in millions to the university now. what happens to a player who does that, then gets hurt before going to the NFL? They made the university millions but never see a dime.
the difference here though is regular students are allowed and even encouraged to make money in their field before graduating. the NCAA doesn't allow any player to make money via football, yet it allows the university to profit off of them. I remember a senior project in computer science that had the potential to actually be sold to other universities, and we were told that if it did, we'd recieve royalties. NCAA atheletes have no such option.
this isn't really related to the discussion as there's no massive amount of money being made by the university simply because they have minority students.

Actually, the idea that collegiate athletic programs make a profit is a falsehood. There are, i believe, 3 or 4 Division IA Universities that actually turn a profit from their athletic programs. The rest of the Universities actually end up having to cover the deficit for what the athletic program spends. Think of Tech...do you really think they're making any profit when on home football games they house the entire team and support staff in hotels and feed them and take them to movies and bus them around? How about Men's basketball which gets to take Lear jets to away games? Yeah...no....so, there's really no profit to pay the players.