NCAA head warns that 95% of student athletes face extinction if colleges actually have to pay them

[AlterEgo]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

The issue: there are over 1,000 NCAA schools. Less than 25 have profitable athletic departments.

[jojoju1998]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

The issue: there are over 1,000 NCAA schools. Less than 25 have profitable athletic departments.

https://www.ncaa.com/schools-index/2

Just looking up one random university, there's a school called Cameron University. A public university in Oklahoma. It has a 21 percent graduation rate.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

The issue: there are over 1,000 NCAA schools. Less than 25 have profitable athletic departments.

that doesn't really change what I said. Universities should broadly focus on academics, not athletics. If it's not profitable without exploiting student athletes, the program shouldn't exist. I wouldn't give a damn if my university lost its sports teams tomorrow. I've literally not gone to a single game and it's been more of an annoyance than anything else because they have to close roads. Not to mention the funding aspect, our department barely has enough staff to function. I've heard similar issues among classmates in other majors.

[AlterEgo]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

The issue: there are over 1,000 NCAA schools. Less than 25 have profitable athletic departments.

that doesn't really change what I said. Universities should broadly focus on academics, not athletics. If it's not profitable without exploiting student athletes, the program shouldn't exist. I wouldn't give a damn if my university lost its sports teams tomorrow. I've literally not gone to a single game and it's been more of an annoyance than anything else because they have to close roads. Not to mention the funding aspect, our department barely has enough staff to function. I've heard similar issues among classmates in other majors.

Here's the thing, though: that "exploitation" is only happening in situations where a university is making piles of cash off the efforts of the athletes that are not then compensated any of that revenue. Even at "sports factories" like Alabama, Ohio St., etc., I doubt you'll find many cross-country runners who think they're being "exploited."

But I'm sure the ladies golf team at Florida Gulf Coast, the men's soccer team at Marshall, and cross country team at Old Dominion will all be thrilled their programs cease to exist.

[HisGrace]

Regardless of the legal merits I'm not sure why people are "excited" about this possibility or think it's helping anyone. I'm sure Olympic sport athletes (and almost all womens athletes) would find getting an athletic scholarship with no additional pay preferable to not getting a scholarship at all which is what would happen.

[OSR stands with Israel]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

The issue: there are over 1,000 NCAA schools. Less than 25 have profitable athletic departments.

that doesn't really change what I said. Universities should broadly focus on academics, not athletics. If it's not profitable without exploiting student athletes, the program shouldn't exist. I wouldn't give a damn if my university lost its sports teams tomorrow. I've literally not gone to a single game and it's been more of an annoyance than anything else because they have to close roads. Not to mention the funding aspect, our department barely has enough staff to function. I've heard similar issues among classmates in other majors.

Most of these athletes get full ride scholarships so it’s not like they aren’t getting any compensation. If they are out of state students, then it’s pretty big compensation

[Open Source Intelligence]

Professionalizing college sports is a good way to kill most of college sports. Take football which is far and away the moneymaker and is all Fox and ESPN care about (see the treatment of Cal and Stanford this past year). If college football's purpose is to be the NFL's minor league, you only need at most, what, 24 teams? Serious journalists that covers this think the end game is a 20-team Big 10 and a 20-team SEC. That's 80 to 100 current FBS members that either fold or relegate through no other choice than to become the new FCS.

I can see a future where the typical major athletics departments devolve down to become football, men's and women's basketball, and then 3 or so women's only sports just to fulfill Title IX requirements. Any other sport to exist will require booster funding to operate. I can see the distinction between varsity sport and club sport disappearing eventually.

[Angel of Death]

Obligatory

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Obligatory

Also obligatory.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

They are getting the cost of a college education, plus room and board.  When you're talking about football and basketball athletes, you are talking about the place where they learn to be pro athletes, for those that have the chance.  As for the guys that don't have a chance to be a pro, the guys that DO have a point need to play against someone, and they're getting a college education, room and board, and the sort of training that can lead to a career in their sport that may not be on the playing field, but will be as beneficial as a slew of careers people go to college for.

That's the ideal.  The reality is (A) oodles of under-the-table payments for recruits, college athletes who are often nowhere near prepared to actually be a college student (and, in some cases, are barely literate), and broken promises in terms of playing time, which is something that can affect not just a chance to be a pro, but a chance for coaching gigs.  There are guys that walk away with injuries and nothing really to show.  

All of this is a consequence of the "big time" aspect of sports.  It's a consequence of "amateur" college sports becoming big business.  I expect the whole structure to collapse of its own weight in my lifetime.  The colleges, the NCAA, and (to some degree) the greediest college jocks will only have themselves to blame.

The above is the theory of the model of college sports, and especially college REVENUE sports (football, basketball and, to a lesser extent, baseball).  

[AlterEgo]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

The issue: there are over 1,000 NCAA schools. Less than 25 have profitable athletic departments.

that doesn't really change what I said. Universities should broadly focus on academics, not athletics. If it's not profitable without exploiting student athletes, the program shouldn't exist. I wouldn't give a damn if my university lost its sports teams tomorrow. I've literally not gone to a single game and it's been more of an annoyance than anything else because they have to close roads. Not to mention the funding aspect, our department barely has enough staff to function. I've heard similar issues among classmates in other majors.

Most of these athletes get full ride scholarships so it’s not like they aren’t getting any compensation. If they are out of state students, then it’s pretty big compensation

Actually, only about 1% of college athletes receive full-ride scholarships.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertfarrington/2023/05/22/athletic-scholarships-arent-enough-to-pay-for-college/?sh=77576fa42b76

[kwabbit]

While it’s easy to dunk on the NCAA, they aren’t lying. Non-revenue sports do not generate enough income to justify their existence and they rely on football and basketball to support the athletic department. Getting NIL income seems like a good middle ground where the college still has the cash cow and the players can still receive some income.

The above posters are right that the US should probably switch to a European development facility type setup since the US really isn’t that great per capita in many Olympic sports, but until then the NCAA system does a fine job.

[Frodo]

Can we reword the thread title?  As it stands, it sounds like the NCAA head is threatening genocide on student athletes if colleges have to pay them. 

[Open Source Intelligence]

While it’s easy to dunk on the NCAA, they aren’t lying. Non-revenue sports do not generate enough income to justify their existence and they rely on football and basketball to support the athletic department. Getting NIL income seems like a good middle ground where the college still has the cash cow and the players can still receive some income.

The above posters are right that the US should probably switch to a European development facility type setup since the US really isn’t that great per capita in many Olympic sports, but until then the NCAA system does a fine job.

I'm pretty strongly for the U.S. government has zero business funding Olympic athletes. As far as a European development model, I'm involved in USA Rugby and the people that run our union has always had a Commonwealth country background and their idea of how to develop the sport in this country has always been controversial to say the least. It always goes back to leadership want to use all the money we have from community game players to fund the national teams, which has bankrupted the national union twice this century and led to the formal divorce of the national teams from the community game (i.e. national teams are required to fund themselves with nothing monetarily coming from the community game). People playing volleyball locally are going to be very strongly against their dues money going to fund the national volleyball team, because they're paying for something that does not benefit them in the slightest.

Cal and Stanford being considered waste detritus from the Pac-12 blowing up should've been a loud warning signal to the USOC. They are Olympic athlete juggernauts at the college level. They end up in the ACC just so they have somewhere to go. (I'm an N.C. State alum, the ACC is done inside 10 years.) Florida State who were already mad for different reasons in their lawsuit to leave the ACC brought up in it Cal and Stanford and said in it "they fail for the only performance metric that matters", i.e. producing 10 Olympians doesn't mean anything, which for ESPN and Fox who control college sports financially at this point, based on what they pay for (overwhelmingly football), it doesn't.

[GP270watch]

Based on the NCAA’s own figures, at the predominantly white institutions (PWIs) that comprise the Power Five, as of the 2019-2020 season, Black students comprise only 5.7% of the population. Yet, in the Power Five, Black athletes make up 55.9% of men’s basketball players, 55.7% of men’s football, and 48.1% of women’s basketball. At some schools, the numbers are particularly startling. Texas A&M, the second-highest athletic revenue earning institution in US college sports, has only 3.1% Black students in the general student body. Yet, its college football team is 75% Black, and its women’s basketball team 92.9%. It is hard to deny from these numbers that Black athletes are admitted into institutions that usually ignore them specifically to have their labor exploited for the universities’ gain.

 This is a system that's built on obvious exploitation. It's a wealth transfer from mostly Black athletes providing the work and being uncompensated to predominantly white institutions, under the guise of education and amateurism. It's a system that should have never been allowed to exist for so long.

[Continential]

if your business model relies entirely on not paying the people who actually are out there as the face of it and are risking bodily injury while putting in the work, then your business shouldn't exist.

The issue: there are over 1,000 NCAA schools. Less than 25 have profitable athletic departments.

that doesn't really change what I said. Universities should broadly focus on academics, not athletics. If it's not profitable without exploiting student athletes, the program shouldn't exist.

Have you ever talked to any student athlete before? I am sure they would be happy if the sports which they spent years and many invested a lot of time and dreamed of playing the sport in college (along with their parents money and time in) in were forced out of existence.

[Continential]

This is a system that's built on obvious exploitation. It's a wealth transfer from mostly Black athletes providing the work and being uncompensated to predominantly white institutions, under the guise of education and amateurism. It's a system that should have never been allowed to exist for so long.

lol

[Open Source Intelligence]

Based on the NCAA’s own figures, at the predominantly white institutions (PWIs) that comprise the Power Five, as of the 2019-2020 season, Black students comprise only 5.7% of the population. Yet, in the Power Five, Black athletes make up 55.9% of men’s basketball players, 55.7% of men’s football, and 48.1% of women’s basketball. At some schools, the numbers are particularly startling. Texas A&M, the second-highest athletic revenue earning institution in US college sports, has only 3.1% Black students in the general student body. Yet, its college football team is 75% Black, and its women’s basketball team 92.9%. It is hard to deny from these numbers that Black athletes are admitted into institutions that usually ignore them specifically to have their labor exploited for the universities’ gain.

 This is a system that's built on obvious exploitation. It's a wealth transfer from mostly Black athletes providing the work and being uncompensated to predominantly white institutions, under the guise of education and amateurism. It's a system that should have never been allowed to exist for so long.

Well fine then, we can just eliminate the sports programs. Then no exploitation occurs.

It's what is going to happen on a large scale anyway as the pool of "haves" in college sports continues to get smaller.

[GP270watch]

Based on the NCAA’s own figures, at the predominantly white institutions (PWIs) that comprise the Power Five, as of the 2019-2020 season, Black students comprise only 5.7% of the population. Yet, in the Power Five, Black athletes make up 55.9% of men’s basketball players, 55.7% of men’s football, and 48.1% of women’s basketball. At some schools, the numbers are particularly startling. Texas A&M, the second-highest athletic revenue earning institution in US college sports, has only 3.1% Black students in the general student body. Yet, its college football team is 75% Black, and its women’s basketball team 92.9%. It is hard to deny from these numbers that Black athletes are admitted into institutions that usually ignore them specifically to have their labor exploited for the universities’ gain.

 This is a system that's built on obvious exploitation. It's a wealth transfer from mostly Black athletes providing the work and being uncompensated to predominantly white institutions, under the guise of education and amateurism. It's a system that should have never been allowed to exist for so long.

Well fine then, we can just eliminate the sports programs. Then no exploitation occurs.

It's what is going to happen on a large scale anyway as the pool of "haves" in college sports continues to get smaller.

Or you could just pay the players that merit payment because the revenue they create merits it, somehow there is always money to pay the football coaches millions of dollars, the athletic directors are well paid. If the students were allowed to form a union and organize their labor like everyone else this money would be split more equitably.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Based on the NCAA’s own figures, at the predominantly white institutions (PWIs) that comprise the Power Five, as of the 2019-2020 season, Black students comprise only 5.7% of the population. Yet, in the Power Five, Black athletes make up 55.9% of men’s basketball players, 55.7% of men’s football, and 48.1% of women’s basketball. At some schools, the numbers are particularly startling. Texas A&M, the second-highest athletic revenue earning institution in US college sports, has only 3.1% Black students in the general student body. Yet, its college football team is 75% Black, and its women’s basketball team 92.9%. It is hard to deny from these numbers that Black athletes are admitted into institutions that usually ignore them specifically to have their labor exploited for the universities’ gain.

 This is a system that's built on obvious exploitation. It's a wealth transfer from mostly Black athletes providing the work and being uncompensated to predominantly white institutions, under the guise of education and amateurism. It's a system that should have never been allowed to exist for so long.

Well fine then, we can just eliminate the sports programs. Then no exploitation occurs.

It's what is going to happen on a large scale anyway as the pool of "haves" in college sports continues to get smaller.

Or you could just pay the players that merit payment because the revenue they create merits it, somehow there is always money to pay the football coaches millions of dollars, the athletic directors are well paid. If the students were allowed to form a union and organize their labor like everyone else this money would be split more equitably.

No it wouldn't. It's a completely open system where guys can leave freely, so how can you have a contract that's worth anything more than what's on paper. And footballers are going to retain all the money they generate in only the football team. (Anything diverted would hurt recruiting and it's a results-first business.) Ditto basketball.

The ones worth getting paid are getting more money now than the university could ever provide them via NIL. All NIL has done is legalized booster payments to athletes that were happening anyway and made them taxable instead of money laundering, which also opened it up to respectable companies getting in on the fray. To go outside the top money maker sports, you think the University of Iowa would in your dream scenario give Cailin Clark anything like what State Farm is now giving her? She's all over State Farm commercials on the Big Ten Network. I've not had ESPN for a few years so I don't know if they're on there.

I love my alma mater and cheer for them in sports, but I'm perfectly fine not watching them play sports. (I haven't mostly in fact since I moved out of the home region.) My value of it is in the education it provided me, not watching a bunch of teenagers chase a ball. If they want to be a minor league sports team, fine, just divorce the university from the athletics department and have it be a standalone business enterprise. See how many people show up to watch then.

[dead0man]

Or you could just pay the players that merit payment because the revenue they create merits it, somehow there is always money to pay the football coaches millions of dollars, the athletic directors are well paid. If the students were allowed to form a union and organize their labor like everyone else this money would be split more equitably.

80-95% of college athletes do not merit any payment.  In a system tied to "merit", the top 10% of male basketball players will do very well.  The next 20% of basketball players will do alright, as will the top football players.  There will be a lot of "specific sets of circumstances" where other sports will play their players in certain, money making sports (lady volleyball is HUGE in Nebraska for some reason, I'm sure there are 300+ other such examples), but most of them won't get paid unless the pie is divided unfairly, and why would the ballers agree to that?

[GP270watch]

Or you could just pay the players that merit payment because the revenue they create merits it, somehow there is always money to pay the football coaches millions of dollars, the athletic directors are well paid. If the students were allowed to form a union and organize their labor like everyone else this money would be split more equitably.

80-95% of college athletes do not merit any payment.  In a system tied to "merit", the top 10% of male basketball players will do very well.  The next 20% of basketball players will do alright, as will the top football players.  There will be a lot of "specific sets of circumstances" where other sports will play their players in certain, money making sports (lady volleyball is HUGE in Nebraska for some reason, I'm sure there are 300+ other such examples), but most of them won't get paid unless the pie is divided unfairly, and why would the ballers agree to that?

 This is called the free market and people who supposedly support free markets get very weird about the NCAA. The players are making many people money, remove the bogus system that doesn't let them share in these revenues and something will be figured out that is a lot better than denying hard working young people billions of dollars and making everybody else rich. Football and Basketball coaches are paid in the millions of dollars a year at the major schools, the money is there.

 As far as women's sports there will be stars in women's sports. Livvy Dunne($3.5 million) and Angel Reese($2 million) are top 10 NIL deals. Before the "name, image, and likeness" ruling how many great athletes or popular athletes lost the opportunity to earn life changing money from their fame. The NCAA has been robbing these kids and young adults for decades!

[AlterEgo]

 This is called the free market and people who supposedly support free markets get very weird about the NCAA. The players are making many people money, remove the bogus system that doesn't let them share in these revenues and something will be figured out that is a lot better than denying hard working young people billions of dollars and making everybody else rich. Football and Basketball coaches are paid in the millions of dollars a year at the major schools, the money is there.

 As far as women's sports there will be stars in women's sports. Livvy Dunne($3.5 million) and Angel Reese($2 million) are top 10 NIL deals. Before the "name, image, and likeness" ruling how many great athletes or popular athletes lost the opportunity to earn life changing money from their fame. The NCAA has been robbing these kids and young adults for decades!

Again, there are over 1000 NCAA member schools. 23 of them have profitable athletic departments.

[jojoju1998]

 This is called the free market and people who supposedly support free markets get very weird about the NCAA. The players are making many people money, remove the bogus system that doesn't let them share in these revenues and something will be figured out that is a lot better than denying hard working young people billions of dollars and making everybody else rich. Football and Basketball coaches are paid in the millions of dollars a year at the major schools, the money is there.

 As far as women's sports there will be stars in women's sports. Livvy Dunne($3.5 million) and Angel Reese($2 million) are top 10 NIL deals. Before the "name, image, and likeness" ruling how many great athletes or popular athletes lost the opportunity to earn life changing money from their fame. The NCAA has been robbing these kids and young adults for decades!

Again, there are over 1000 NCAA member schools. 23 of them have profitable athletic departments.

Yep. The vast majority of atheletic departments are in regional schools, small liberal arts colleges,

However, this makes me wonder if we should just ELIMINATE the whole idea of college sports altogether. I can't imagine a University in Spain or South Korea having this much emphasis on sports.

[dead0man]

This is called the free market and people who supposedly support free markets get very weird about the NCAA. The players are making many people money, remove the bogus system that doesn't let them share in these revenues and something will be figured out that is a lot better than denying hard working young people billions of dollars and making everybody else rich. Football and Basketball coaches are paid in the millions of dollars a year at the major schools, the money is there.

 As far as women's sports there will be stars in women's sports. Livvy Dunne($3.5 million) and Angel Reese($2 million) are top 10 NIL deals. Before the "name, image, and likeness" ruling how many great athletes or popular athletes lost the opportunity to earn life changing money from their fame. The NCAA has been robbing these kids and young adults for decades!

1.none of that goes against what I said
2.I have no hard opinions here, and am in no way suggesting my way (I never even suggested a way) is the way it all should go (I think the NBA and NFL should be responsible for their own minor leagues and don't really give a sh**t about college athletics)
3.re:women's sports, I didn't suggest no women would get paid on merit, I even listed an example of some who would