U Regent writes Deadspin Op-ed: Here's A Fair Way To Pay College Athletes

per Hsu in Deadspin:

One of the NCAA’s major arguments against allowing college athletes to be paid is that it would create an uneven playing field. Alabama would be able to devote more money to players than Boise State, which in turn could outspend Akron, and so on. The best talent would flow to the highest bidders. A handful of schools would dominate. If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is how college sports already works—the richest programs consistently attract the top high school recruits and win more games. Amateurism doesn’t foster parity; it simply diverts money away from athletes and toward coaches, administrators, and luxury facilities.

Wherever you stand on this debate, one thing is inarguable: under current NCAA compensation rules, some athletes are getting a much better deal than others. How so? Well, schools are permitted to pay athletes with grant-in-aid scholarships, which are good for tuition and fees, room, board, and books, as well as small cost-of-attendance stipends. College athletes are compensated, as amateurism proponents like to point out, in the form of the full cost of attendance for their respective schools. But the total yearly value of those packages varies wildly from school to school.

That’s not fair. And it needs to change.

Take Minnesota, where I’m a regent. At my school, a full ride for an out-of-state athlete in 2017–18 was worth $37,455 per year. By contrast, a full ride at the most expensive school in the Big Ten, Northwestern, was worth $70,385.

For an out-of-state Minnesota athlete, that’s a difference of $32,930. For an in-state athlete, whose full ride has a lower listed value, it’s an even larger $45,116. That’s not fair for anyone—not for the athletes receiving less, and not for the schools forbidden from making up the difference.

As such, I believe that if the NCAA wants to continue mandating amateurism while asserting that competitive equity is at stake, then it should allow the total compensation received by athletes at any school within a conference to be equal to the highest-value full ride within the same conference. Better still, the NCAA could permit total allowable compensation for every athlete in the nation to equal that of whichever school is the most expensive in a given year. (Northwestern’s full ride was the most expensive among all Division I schools in 2017-2018.) Either way, it sets a benchmark that reflects the current economic realities of college and short-circuits both the overt bidding wars that the NCAA professes to fear and the secret ones that it pretends not to know about.

I’ve traveled with Minnesota’s football team and experienced their rigid, rigorous schedule firsthand. I’ve learned about the athletes during this time: where they come from, their families, and the sacrifices they make to play their sport. They put in athletic workweeks that easily go beyond 40 hours during the season; they put their bodies and brains at risk and assume any and all long-term health costs for the injuries they sustain; they too often compromise getting the very best education they can because of their obligation to their teams. And they do all of this for our enjoyment—and, incidentally, to further a college sports entertainment industry that generates billions of dollars in revenue. That money makes everyone from athletic directors to strength coaches rich, but somehow always runs out before getting to the players that make it all happen.

They’re owed more than that. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t limit college athlete compensation at all. But in my experience, change within higher education is both hard and slow—the status quo tends to rule the day, at least until lawsuits or lawmakers intervene. Until then, though, change will have to come within the preexisting structure of NCAA amateurism. Equalizing the full value of school attendance is a good place to start.

https://deadspin.com/heres-a-fair-way-to-pay-college-athletes-for-their-labo-1830703869

Go Gophers!!

This plan essentially ensures that high cost schools (NW, Stanford, etc.) miss out on the best recruits, because not only is it tougher to get in, but now there is an incentive to go to schools that cost less, as they'll be able to be paid the difference in cash. How would this work for non-rev sports? Is he proposing the same type of compensation (if not, he risks discrimination claims)?

If they are going to allow athletes to be paid, it should be on per player basis, regardless of tuition costs.

Considering the current playing field I have trouble with any "uneven playing field" arguments.

Sounds like a way to decimate major athletics programs at schools with higher tuition to me, but that's just my initial reaction.

Would an 18-year-old coming from less-than-ideal monetary background choose:

1) A scholarship to play at Northwestern, inclusive of the full cost of attendance ($70,385)
2) A scholarship to play at Minnesota, inclusive of the full cost of attendance ($37,455) plus $32,930 cash.

Of course, Northwestern could choose to lower their tuition and therefore the full cost of attendance, but they're not going to do that just to get a few dozen athletes. Also, you could argue that the value of a four-year Northwestern degree over a lifetime is going to be greater than a four-year Minnesota degree plus $131,720 in up front cash (assuming four year attendance), but not sure many families and students are going to do the math, and even then I'm not sure you'd make up the difference assuming a 6% annual return on that $131k.

Gopher07 said:

Sounds like a way to decimate major athletics programs at schools with higher tuition to me, but that's just my initial reaction.

Would an 18-year-old coming from less-than-ideal monetary background choose:

1) A scholarship to play at Northwestern, inclusive of the full cost of attendance ($70,385)
2) A scholarship to play at Minnesota, inclusive of the full cost of attendance ($37,455) plus $32,930 cash.

Of course, Northwestern could choose to lower their tuition and therefore the full cost of attendance, but they're not going to do that just to get a few dozen athletes. Also, you could argue that the value of a four-year Northwestern degree over a lifetime is going to be greater than a four-year Minnesota degree plus $131,720 in up front cash (assuming four year attendance), but not sure many families and students are going to do the math, and even then I'm not sure you'd make up the difference assuming a 6% return on that $131k.

Click to expand...

Regular, non-athletes are faced with this choice every day and for some hard-to-understand reason they often choose option 1. Mostly because it's presented as loans or someone else paying and not as a ton of lost cash, but it is. Yay for the $$ value of flagship public universities with great national reputations.

Agreed with all the points that this proposal would be fair but would pwn the private schools. There would also be more incentive for players to stay in-state.

He lost me when he insisted on calling scholarships "rides".

To be honest, I can't believe Deadspin published that.

Reading through that my takeaway is how overpriced Northwestern is. No wonder graduates like -insert name - are forced to compromise journalistic ethics to generate clicks.

When considering societal woes I’m more concerned about desperate Northwestern grads than college athletes.

BleedGopher said:

per Hsu in Deadspin:

Take Minnesota, where I’m a regent. At my school, a full ride for an out-of-state athlete in 2017–18 was worth $37,455 per year. By contrast, a full ride at the most expensive school in the Big Ten, Northwestern, was worth $70,385.

For an out-of-state Minnesota athlete, that’s a difference of $32,930. For an in-state athlete, whose full ride has a lower listed value, it’s an even larger $45,116. That’s not fair for anyone—not for the athletes receiving less, and not for the schools forbidden from making up the difference.

Click to expand...

This is just a poor metric to quantify the value of these scholarships. There is a lot that goes into determining the cost of tuition, and it has little to do with college athletics. I also don't think that Minnesota is worried that their student athletes are receiving less value than Northwesterns. This is very much an apples to oranges comparison. A student athlete isn't choosing Harvard over Minnesota because their scholarship is worth more in real dollars at Harvard. They are going to Harvard because it offers a better academic experience. Neither is a 5 star recruit with pro potential "short changing" himself when he chooses Alabama over an Ivy League school, just because the cost of attendance at Alabama is significantly less.

Reform should start with increased stipends and certain image rights allowances for the student athletes, and probably some form of health care plan to address the long term health effects of playing college athletics.

Embarrassing

The schools ought to be embarrassed they don’t provide long term health and disability for their students. It would be expensive but also the right thing to do. That, along with an athletic department salary cap with excess revenue funneled into academic scholarships for deserving students are the only changes I’d like to see in terms of compensation. The salaries and facilities have grown to be absurd and gross. MC doesn’t deserve 1M+ per year in compensation. Nether does PJ. Spread the wealth.

There isn't really any money to give out. Most college athletic departments either lose money or make very little money. The Gophers made about $2 million in revenue last year. Split that up equally and that's less than $3000 per student athlete. Even if you only consider scholarships, that's only $6000 per scholarship. If Minnesota paid the athlete the difference between a scholarship here and at Northwestern, even only to athletes already getting scholarships, the athletic department would have lost $9 million last year. If the topic came to serious discussion, I'm sure the president, athletic director, most of the regents, and likely members of the state government would oppose it. And, as people have already mentioned, schools who wouldn't get to pay their athletes because cost of attendance is so high would almost universally oppose it.

If schools were able to use revenue by sport to award scholarships and create rather than having to keep them equal between genders, they could lose money by either cutting scholarship from unprofitable team or cutting unprofitable and unpopular female teams. Football gives away so many scholarships that they have to have a ton of female teams. If that method of scholarship distribution was allowed, football and basketball would have a ton of money to work with since they bring in roughly 68% and 17% of the revenue attributable to a particular sport. But I highly doubt they'll allow that.

Another alternative would be focusing on the major sports or the sports the school excels at. Not that many people watch swimming and diving, track and field, cross country, golf, gymnastics, tennis, and rowing of either gender. Cutting those would cut expenses enough to give more to athletes. But that would completely change what college athletics are about and take opportunities away from hundreds of students. That's probably what would have to happen if athletic departments needed money to pay football and basketball players but I doubt any athletic director would want to do that and I'm sure many people would be upset, even if they don't watch any of those sports.

Another option would be to end the arms race for the nicest practice facilities, dining halls, athlete dorms, and most expensive coaching staffs and give that money directly to the athletes. But paying students get the choice of saving money by going to a school without all of those features and rarely do so I don't see that happening in athletics. Not to mention that once you've spent the money, you can't really undo it.

The most reasonable way of "paying" athletes would be to give them insurance beyond graduation to make up for the lifelong damage college athletics does to their bodies. But that would still require money that isn't there and would be hard to create.

I think the thing that all of the "pay the players" crowd is missing is that many of the people watching "college" football would stop watching if it became "semi-pro" football. Amateurism attracts people because it breeds a spirit of collegiality. "This guy went to my alma mater just like me!" "We drank at the same bars and took the same classes!" It's the Rudy effect. If you start paying the players, that magic goes away. 100k people aren't showing up to watch AAA baseball. Right now, the players are benefiting from a level of exposure that wouldn't exist if they were getting paid commiserate to their talent level.

The only conference that would survive that change is the SEC because all of their schools are in the middle of nowhere.
Minnesota certainly would not compete in that environment. Minus the University, nobody would watch this team.
The people still showing up at the games are there because of the tradition, not the product on the field.

GoGophersUMN said:

There isn't really any money to give out. Most college athletic departments either lose money or make very little money. The Gophers made about $2 million in revenue last year. Split that up equally and that's less than $3000 per student athlete. Even if you only consider scholarships, that's only $6000 per scholarship. If Minnesota paid the athlete the difference between a scholarship here and at Northwestern, even only to athletes already getting scholarships, the athletic department would have lost $9 million last year. If the topic came to serious discussion, I'm sure the president, athletic director, most of the regents, and likely members of the state government would oppose it. And, as people have already mentioned, schools who wouldn't get to pay their athletes because cost of attendance is so high would almost universally oppose it.

If schools were able to use revenue by sport to award scholarships and create rather than having to keep them equal between genders, they could lose money by either cutting scholarship from unprofitable team or cutting unprofitable and unpopular female teams. Football gives away so many scholarships that they have to have a ton of female teams. If that method of scholarship distribution was allowed, football and basketball would have a ton of money to work with since they bring in roughly 68% and 17% of the revenue attributable to a particular sport. But I highly doubt they'll allow that.

Another alternative would be focusing on the major sports or the sports the school excels at. Not that many people watch swimming and diving, track and field, cross country, golf, gymnastics, tennis, and rowing of either gender. Cutting those would cut expenses enough to give more to athletes. But that would completely change what college athletics are about and take opportunities away from hundreds of students. That's probably what would have to happen if athletic departments needed money to pay football and basketball players but I doubt any athletic director would want to do that and I'm sure many people would be upset, even if they don't watch any of those sports.

Another option would be to end the arms race for the nicest practice facilities, dining halls, athlete dorms, and most expensive coaching staffs and give that money directly to the athletes. But paying students get the choice of saving money by going to a school without all of those features and rarely do so I don't see that happening in athletics. Not to mention that once you've spent the money, you can't really undo it.

The most reasonable way of "paying" athletes would be to give them insurance beyond graduation to make up for the lifelong damage college athletics does to their bodies. But that would still require money that isn't there and would be hard to create.

Click to expand...

The athletic department revenue has mushroomed the last 10-15 years as the tv money has ramped up but the spending on staff salaries, facilities, etc has kept pace. The money to pay for long term disability coverage for injured athletes is certainly there but is currently being wildly misappropriated due to out of control spending throughout the sport. I don’t believe there is (currently) strong enough leadership either at the conference level or national/NCAA level to reign it in. Perhaps rather than trying to frame Urban Meyer our intrepid media corps can corner our leaders on why their athletes are turned loose to fend for themselves after a few years out from school while said leaders shower themselves in money. Let’s see some social and spiritual leadership.

Pompous Elitist said:

The athletic department revenue has mushroomed the last 10-15 years as the tv money has ramped up but the spending on staff salaries, facilities, etc has kept pace. The money to pay for long term disability coverage for injured athletes is certainly there but is currently being wildly misappropriated due to out of control spending throughout the sport. I don’t believe there is (currently) strong enough leadership either at the conference level or national/NCAA level to reign it in. Perhaps rather than trying to frame Urban Meyer our intrepid media corps can corner our leaders on why their athletes are turned loose to fend for themselves after a few years out from school while said leaders shower themselves in money. Let’s see some social and spiritual leadership.

Click to expand...

It's a catch 22. Colleges won't cut spending on salaries, facilities, etc. because it's the only way for them to spend it on the athletes that the NCAA allows and they need to do so to recruit well. But at the same time, they won't approve additional benefits because there is no money to do so. Without outside influence schools won't stop wasting money.

If the NCAA really wanted to change something, I'm sure they could set a cap on spending on things that are primarily or exclusively for student athletes such as sports facilities, coaches, athlete-only dorms, dining halls, leadership development centers, etc. That way schools couldn't get a recruiting advantage by spending the most money on coaches and facilities and would start to control their expenses which would allow for the potential to use that money more productively. It would have to be the NCAA though because teams or conferences wouldn't do it voluntarily. And, unless lawsuits force them to, I don't think the NCAA will do that because it doesn't benefit them and there isn't strong enough leadership to make it happen just because it's the right thing.

GoGophersUMN said:

It's a catch 22. Colleges won't cut spending on salaries, facilities, etc. because it's the only way for them to spend it on the athletes that the NCAA allows and they need to do so to recruit well. But at the same time, they won't approve additional benefits because there is no money to do so. Without outside influence schools won't stop wasting money.

If the NCAA really wanted to change something, I'm sure they could set a cap on spending on things that are primarily or exclusively for student athletes such as sports facilities, coaches, athlete-only dorms, dining halls, leadership development centers, etc. That way schools couldn't get a recruiting advantage by spending the most money on coaches and facilities and would start to control their expenses which would allow for the potential to use that money more productively. It would have to be the NCAA though because teams or conferences wouldn't do it voluntarily. And, unless lawsuits force them to, I don't think the NCAA will do that because it doesn't benefit them and there isn't strong enough leadership to make it happen just because it's the right thing.

Click to expand...

Agree with all that.