Should college athletes be paid... people outside the US I have a ? for you also

[ilitig8]

I streamed the 30 for 30 piece Pony Excess (about SMU football in the 1980's) last night and that along with all the recent discussions inside the college athletics community got me thinking about it.

So should college players be paid?

For people outside the US is this an issue or discussion in your countries? While I know a decent amount about a lot of professional sports outside the US I don't know anything about college/university sports past our borders.

[RayMac]

In Canada college sports are purely amateur hour. There are very limited athletic scholarships so a student athlete plays for the fun of it basically. The level of competition is lower than the US - probably ivy League caliber stuff. The elite athletes like Andrew Wiggins or Anthony Bennett head south and get US scholarships. So do many good hockey players.

[bolaberlim]

Amateur here in Portugal too. Nobody gets paid if you're not in a club. That said you can join a club when in college. You can join at 6 years old in fact.

[Raza]

I don't think so. Participating in school athletics is a choice, and if it's a condition of a scholarship, then the athlete is already being paid in a way by getting the scholarship.

[Jeannie]

I'm ambivalent about this. I love college basketball so I follow the arguments to some extent. Raza's point above is well taken. But I've also heard college athletes complain that the demands of their sport preclude them from seeking any type of outside income source and a lot of them suffer real cash flow issues.

I think a simple answer might be to include stipends as part of their scholarships. But then, it's probably not a simple question so that might not work either.

Jeannie

[Upstate]

I don't think so. Participating in school athletics is a choice, and if it's a condition of a scholarship, then the athlete is already being paid in a way by getting the scholarship.

I agree. If they're getting a full ride that should be enough. Yes other people are making money off of their image (NCAA, Bowl Sponsors, TV stations, ect.), but if/when they go pro they're making bank. Allot of the top prospects in basketball are 'one and done' anyway and I don't think paying them would keep them in school longer. The signing bonuses are just to big now.

[oak1971]

You can argue that they are already compensated, but I would at least let them cash in on some sponsorship deals.

[Upstate]

Hmmm...sponsorship deals could be interesting. But maybe some schools wouldn't want one of their student athletes to be associated with certain companies? Plus with the 'no agent' rule it would be a tough negotiation.

[ilitig8]

Let me expand a little for people outside the US. College sports here is BIG business, particularly football and to an extent basketball. The ACC conference alone gets $240 million dollars a year just for the TV rights to its games. In the past (and probably now) there is a large amount of corruption and players and their families are often paid or given things to entice the players to commit to a particular school. Some of the kids come from very poor backgrounds and their families don't have the means to even cover the daily incidental expenses of college life. Given that players must be out of high school before being drafted by the National Football League AND their is no minor league football in the US their only real choice is to play college football if they want to eventually become pro.

I did not play college football for a big school (actually a very small Division II team) I was initially offered a football scholarship but took an academic one instead since I was FAR more likely to get cut from the team than fall below the GPA required to keep the academic one. My point here is despite being extremely well prepared for the academics of college and not needing much time outside of class to do well, with the time commitment to football it would still have been nearly impossible to have a part time job in order to have a little "spending money". Now had I taken the football scholarship I would have been paid (at today's tuition rates at my alma mater) about $200,000 for four years playing, that would have been great for me since I needed the degree to go on to law school and would have had to pay for undergrad some way. The truth is many of the big time football players at big football schools aren't there for an education and many of them aren't even prepared to take advantage of it even if they wanted to, they are just "forced" to go to college since they can't go pro yet and there is no minor league football for them to pursue for the three years. My point being for a lot of the elite players the college degree (and education) is secondary. The colleges make millions upon millions of dollars off their football teams while they only give back education for a few years and for a significant portion of the players this isn't even compensation they want.

I personally am not sure how I feel about paying players and certainly don't know how a system should be set up nor the amounts that should be involved. For example I still think the Olympics should be 100% amateur but the Olympics aren't a required stopover on the road to professional sports, if you want to go pro in cycling, track, skiing, ice skating or the like you aren't forced to spend a period of time on the amateur side.

Just curious how other people feel about it.

[Broker]

No. They get a scholarship and free food. They can always choose to work in the summer and save their money. They just choose not to. I sacrificed in college and they should also. They will get their payday but college isn't the day.