College athletes and compensation - NIL, Alston v NCAA, etc 💰

At the higher profile schools I think that is often the case. Here? Our basketball players aren’t of that level. The money and exposure our teams generate isn’t that high and even our biggest success story in football started as a walk-on.

I know what CA passed and what NY is looking at isn’t straight pay for play - but it is the first step towards that.

“Why should we have to go to class if we come here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”

I’m sure Sanchez doesn’t throw around Klay Thompson’s name when he is sitting in a families home.

I’m sure he does and it’s every kids dream to make it to a big league. The lives of a 3 star kid are different than a 5 star. One expects the league, the other hopes for it.

College should be a place where 3 star kids go to improve their game as much as possible & if that leads to the next level then that’s just a bonus. They should realize their chances of making it are slim so they should take advantage of the opportunity for an education. Parents should be emphasizing this regardless of what coaches tell the kids. 5 and some 4 stars are probably the only players who will be able to benefit from being paid for their likeness because they are usually already known names before they set foot on a college campus. This is a slippery slope in my opinion because the NCAA already can’t or doesn’t police the existing rules. Boosters will find ways to bend these rules & it will lead to the rich getting richer. If it leads to schools directly paying players, everyone except for the P5 should just shut down their athletic departments or be forced to form their own league. In my opinion it will absolutely end athletics as we know them at schools like ours.

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All I’m hearing from most of you is that these athletes need to just be happy with what they get and shut the hell up. Yet not a single one of you approach your own lives in this way. If you make more for someone else, you should be able to earn more. That’s what this is all about. It’s not about are they getting something out of it already, it’s what is a fair shake given all the money made.

All this is before you even consider the kids who leave school after an injury cost them their scholarship. They literally gave for the betterment of the program, financially and in other ways, and then get nothing in the end.

It’s just so confusing when I hear those who are otherwise proponents of a capitalist society expect college athletes to suck it up. I think at the core it’s just a selfishness for what you value and hold dear in your own lives, and you don’t want that jeopardized.

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Keep in mind that an athletes college experience is much different than most of us. Class, study hall, practice (with and without the team), and travel pretty much occupy their time. I am not ready to start paying these kids, because most athletic budgets are under water as it is. However, there are a few schools that make out big time because of these kids.

The top schools are making a lot of money from their athletic departments so it’s easy to say that those schools should share some of that with the athletes who help them earn that money. I totally understand that. But there a way more schools who are not taking in millions every year from television contracts & thousands of wealthy donors. Yes it is selfish for me to want Charlotte to play on as fair of a playing field as possible even though we are already at a huge disadvantage. I see that slipping further & further away & missing out during conference realignment has left us on the outside looking in. It is me being selfish & wanting us to have a chance, even if it is a slim chance, of climbing our way back into relevance. I don’t have a huge problem with kids getting paid for their likeness for shoe contracts, video games or from other sources outside of the university. I just don’t see how universities directly paying athletes can lead to anything other than the P5’s & possibly the AAC becoming the new NCAA division I & us and the other G5’s being relegated to some lower division where the separation is so great we can never climb back into relevance. So yes you’re correct. I am selfish when it comes to this topic.

I think we can all agree on there being a difference in colleges paying players and players being able to benefit from their likeness, yes? Perhaps this debate should forever disconnect those two topics from the same conversation since they are very different things.

Let’s say for argument’s sake we all accept that players can make money through endorsements, personal service contracts, their likeness, etc. Beyond that, I think schools could do many things short of paying players in order to create a system that is more fair to those players. As I said above, my biggest problem are kids who get hurt and therefor lose their scholarship. Imagine getting hurt at work and just being shown the door??? F*** no.

Schools need to have more options for students who get hurt, so I think at a bare minimum universities need to guarantee the scholarship for those who are hurt. And beyond that, I’d love to see some sort of “vesting” option, for instance, where multiple seasons on scholarship gains you up to a full post-graduate scholarship. That would be rewarding players with education the way it was supposed to work in the beginning. If the players have a big enough name, let’em go make the money, but the school commits to the student once they sign their recruitment letter.

As I stated my issue is I don’t donate to businesses. I give money in return for a product. Thus far I donate to the school to support the academic mission of the school and assist student athletes.

I also would like as level a playing field as possible. I can understand the concept of making money off likeness and such but even that just helps the top level. A third string guy at chapel hill probably makes more money off likeness than a starter here. Alex highsnith could transfer to Clemson after two yrs here just to sign a deal for a Clemson car dealer.

Really if we are paying players why make them students at all? Just make them employees of the school.

If college sports become pro sports I’ll likely become casual Niner fan just like I am a panther fan.

In my opinion this is where government regulation should step in to tether capitalism to something healthier for society overall. California in doing what they’re doing does nothing to address the root issue, and that is college athletics generating massive sums of cash on the backs of student athletes and paying it to everyone except college athletes. Then add to that the student fees for everyone else who attends a school whether they care about sports or not. Coaches get paid millions, administrators as a whole make millions, and neither would be possible without the student and student athlete. That in itself is wrong.

I think they should be funded purely by donations alone, and then salary caps placed at staff levels. Like in motorsports, the best way to level the playing field is through cost controls. A cap on total payroll per sport and facilities could do that.

For the big schools with tons left over, force a percentage (sort of like a luxury tax) into being placed into endowments and to fund post-grad scholarships for athletes.

There is no good answer that doesn’t curb the disparity between coaches at big programs vs the rest as well as programs rich in history and thousands of donors vs the rest. The big and rich would never, ever go for it, which is why it will take regulation if anything worthy is ever done.

I definitely agree that athletes who get injured & can’t return to play should be able to complete their degree under scholarship. Will never happen but would love to see a situation where all television revenue is split more evenly between all NCAA schools. If all NCAA teams are expected to follow the same rules & compete against each other something needs to be in place to level the playing field. The power houses would still kill the G5 in revenue from donors but at least they wouldn’t start out way ahead of us just by being a member of a conference. Anyway that will never happen but would be one way that all NCAA athletes could benefit from the huge profits made from college athletics. I realize this sounds a little like socialism but even professional sports have salary caps & other measures in place to at least try to level the playing field.

It is important to mention that the money generated by the revenue sports helps pay for the coaches and facilities for all the other sports. There is a reason all the schools that generate big money have no or virtually no student athletic fee.

If we pay players that introduces an entirely new issue. Money currently helping sponsor nonrev sports - a ton of women’s sports, then gets diverted to paying players in the revenue generating sports. Schools will then have to increase the athletic fees. In the event that Title IX kicks in and says ALL athletes have to be paid, I could easily see schools dropping sports all together. This would impact a ton of kids who currently get a college opportunity because of sports.

I would love to see the NCAA share some of the money generated with players - maybe a big clearing house where all TV money is passed out amongst all the schools. With that being said no one forces these kids to choose the college path. In every sport besides football they can turn pro out of HS, they can play overseas or in domestic leagues. I have a problem with kids complaining when they choose to enter the system.

With football it is a bit different, but even then if the kids don’t like it they don’t have to play in college.

I think that football should have some sort of miner league system as well. This would bring more parity to the college game when no 5* athletes go to college. Sure some will gather up the next best, but I think the difference is not as much. It would really push coaches to teach the game and make a difference versus talent.

Now law with governor’s signature.

Now let’s see if the NCAA can find the ballz it lost after Death Penaltying SMU in the '80’s and expel all the California schools. Then this story will get super-juicy!

Important to the conversation here is that the law doesn’t allow colleges and universities to pay athletes, just allows athletes to benefit from their NIL. As stated earlier, this is 2 very different issues. I guess I don’t see a problem with JT Daniels getting paid to tell everyone that he recommends you go to Sunrise Ford for all your automotive needs, or whatever.

That gives kids a chance to at least help themselves and their families out. They can’t get a job anywhere with the schedules they keep. How are they going to get even a job at a fast food restaurant with such limited availability?

The only issue I see here is signing with a larger program opens up more of these opportunities. With that said it could help us being in a large market vs colleges in a tiny college town with limited opportunities like that.

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I think the real issue is that the kids that could make money off their talent at football, and thus their marketability to gaming, autographs, shoe contracts, whatever, most likely would choose to do so over going to college in the first place, if there was a path to do so. I also think in the long run it would be better for colleges to get out of the semi-pro football format by letting go of the current 5 and 4 star players that could potentially populate an NFL version of the D-League.