What companies? The money is coming through booster groups . It is simply pay to play That is not NIL
New NIL commission coming?
- Thread starter WestCoastWildcat
- Start date
Who forces them to play college sports?
Yeah, I was commenting on HtP's arguing from both sides as it suited his convenience of the moment.
For the folks who are angry/offended that players are finally getting a small portion of profits from this multi-billion dollar business that is highly dependent on, not just their labor, but their newness and annual disposability, I have little patience.
I think the circumstances are much different today than when you played. Table stakes have gone up with the massive TV contracts resulting in substantial revenue generated from Football and basketball. Seems to me that pie should be shared with the actual revenue makers.
The value of the scholarship is only as good as the athlete efforts and/or ability to actually learn. It was fantastic for me in a non-revenue sport. It changed my life. I would likely have been an electrician or some other blue collar occupation. Nothing at all wrong with that, but my education led me to a more financially rewarding career. Unfortunately, I was around several athletes that didn’t take advantage of that opportunity.
Most of the points have already been covered, but in light of your arrogance, I am compelled to point out that there are many, many NU fans (and alums) I know (some of whom post here) who have little patience with your shopworn "oppressors/oppressed" justification for the current NIL/pay-for-play/"college" football mess.
As for the other poster telling anyone critical of the current "system" (and its impacts on NU football) to stay away and play golf, I suspect that if the "system" remains, there will be more and more current fans hitting the links.
We live in a society of such extremes today. How about everyone is right and wrong here. I imagine if we can put aside our emotional investment in winning the argument, we could probably come to some level of agreement on a couple basic things that just seem out of whack:
First, we probably all mostly agree that a system that generates hundreds of millions of dollars should be able to provide a little something to those athletes who are the product on the field/court. Heck, even regular students in some disciplines get a stipend in addition to that full ride scholarship. My grad students get about $40K a year plus a full scholarship because they provide a valuable service to the university that helps to generate revenue in the form of grants. I think it's safe to say college football and basketball players provide a valuable service and deserve some form of payment in addition to the education. It just seemed out of whack the way it was before.
At the same time, I bet most of us could probably agree that the way things have played out to this point also feels out of whack. It is the wild west where players move around each year to the highest bidder and it is not clear who is paying the bill, creating a ridiculously uneven playing field. I also suspect that, despite the short term financial gain, this current system is not in the best interest of the long term development of these kids.
Both things can be true at the same time. I don't know what the solution is, but it seems a more regulated system of providing stipends to players, particularly in the revenue generating sports should have been the way to go. It may be too late for that now. As for non-revenue athletes, I really don't think they should receive the same payouts. In the academic world, kids in the hard sciences can command a stipend whereas those in the liberal arts, for example, can't. It comes down to their ability to generate revenue for the university. So, athletes shouldn't be any different.
My apologies for triggering you on a sensitive topic like the changes in compensation for historically exploited labor. I'm certainly not trying to "justify" the current "mess". I don't think it will last very long. Some institutional measures will be put into place and soon enough we'll get back to the big money moving under the table with the 'winners' buying victories as they always have.
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Maybe you don't see it. /shrug
No, I don't see a problem at all. Both statements are true and do not conflict with each other.
The fact that a student is a consumer, or a customer, of a university does not make it a business.
Colleges and universities exist to educate people. That is their raison d'être.
Reasonable, fair observations for the most part (as is, generally, Eager Fan's reply). Of course, our coaching staff (as well as fans/posters here, especially those with the "it is what it is, live with it or take a hike" attitude) will try to navigate and make the system in place work the best they can. Excitement will build over which graduate rental portal QB we got, etc. While I am not a "when I strapped it on, we wore leather helmets and we liked it" type of fan, being a Cats fan was much more enjoyable for me when the connections among players, my school, and my "fandom" were greater, as when watching players like JJTBC, Basanez, and Thorson improve in purple over years at NU, rather than wondering which NU studs will be at other schools the next year. I get it that the "old days" are mostly over (save for a Porter here and there), and adjustments to the old ways were likely justified. I just "trigger" when others paint a picture of The Man profiting while his employees slaved away risking life and limb and getting nothing else in return, and then use that picture to justify the mess we have now.
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Here is an article from an anthropologist who has studied the subject as a profession.
COMMENTARY: Colleges and Universities are Not Businesses - Future U
The Neoliberal mindset converts higher education from a forum of ideas to a forum of goods and services.
futureu.education
I think our brain prefers things to be either, or. It is simpler to comprehend that way. But in reality, many things have a duality or multi-ality (is that a word?) to them. Like light is a wave and a particle, a university is not either, or. It is an institution that is supposed to educate and inspire thoughtfulness. But, it is also a business that charges a fee for a service, pays employees and generally competes in a marketplace. It is not just a business though, and it's customers are not like customers at McDonald's (using the author's analogy). It is more complex than that and strives to attain a higher goal than just making money. But to pretend that it doesn't exist in the real world of dollars and cents is also not accurate. It is all things at the same time. It is the multi-ality of world. If we all acknowledged that more, we would probably not be so divided about every little thing.Here is an article from an anthropologist who has studied the subject as a profession.
COMMENTARY: Colleges and Universities are Not Businesses - Future U
The Neoliberal mindset converts higher education from a forum of ideas to a forum of goods and services.futureu.education
I don’t see anyone justifying this “mess”. Almost to a person on this board, posters acknowledge that the current system ( if you can call it that) is unsustainable. Conversely, I get triggered with some claim the players don’t need to play and they are compensated fairly with a scholarship and minor stipend. In the meantime, Universities are collecting millions in revenue from selling the rights to broadcast their games all over the country. I also believe most posters agree to this in some form.
Each week we get a thread about how terrible college football has become. Fans losing interest. Fans not renewing tickets, fans bemoaning increased ticket prices. Basically fans complaining about everything that is not what it was like 30 years ago. Fine, that’s their opinion. However, as a STH, last season, I was surrounded by Indiana fans or Wisconsin fans, acting like buffoons.
I am sorry to admit, all the threats of our fans turning in their fan cards ring hollow to me. NU has already lost the butts in seat battle and it won’t change unless the program starts winning Big Ten games. Tailgate lots a full of opposition fans and god forbid you cheer to loud for the home team or you might need to scrap with a couple drunk farmers wearing candy striped overalls. Sorry to lack empathy, but being a NU fan at home football games is a tough gig and has been for many years.
I have been a season ticket holder for more than 30 years. Whether I attend only 2, or more, games per year, I understand what it is like to be a Cats fan. I enjoyed it more when most players were truly connected to my school.
We can agree on the general belief that the system needed changing to assure that collegiate athletes are not financially abused. We can agree to disagree on the idea that the millions reaped in by schools, coaches etc., should be tied to (conceptually) the rewards given to football players.
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It's not just sports that are problem. the whole structure of the college experience has drastically changed. Colleges have become country clubs and the students have become pampered. This has caused the great inflation in the cost of attending college.
There are so many terrible, horrible things being flatly stated as truths in this thread that I hardly know where to begin.
I will simply add that if you think that the pre-NIL system, in which all the power, wealth, and influence of a multi-billion dollar industry was concentrated in the hands of a few dozen athletic directors and mega donors was better, there isn’t much point to a debate. If you feel they “earned” that right and “deserved” that money and that their interest somehow constituted a legitimate business enterprise benefiting society, but athletes on a college team being paid represents a systemic societal failure as they have not “earned” anything but are taking an “entitlement,” we have no common ground to stand on. We have completely different definitions of corruption and morality.
I will simply add that if you think that the pre-NIL system, in which all the power, wealth, and influence of a multi-billion dollar industry was concentrated in the hands of a few dozen athletic directors and mega donors was better, there isn’t much point to a debate. If you feel they “earned” that right and “deserved” that money and that their interest somehow constituted a legitimate business enterprise benefiting society, but athletes on a college team being paid represents a systemic societal failure as they have not “earned” anything but are taking an “entitlement,” we have no common ground to stand on. We have completely different definitions of corruption and morality.
If you feel that paying millions of dollars to an 18-year old just because he is very good at throwing a football is justified, then we have completely different definitions of corruption and morality.
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But nothing in that statement touches on corruption or morality. You seem to be a capitalist on some level, but evidently you don’t view “being good at throwing a football” as a skill valued in the market. The issue is that American consumers in fact place a very high premium on this skill, so much so that the possessors of the skill can earn multi-million dollar salaries, as early as 18 years old in the U.S.
I can only assume that you abhor professional leagues throughout the rest of the world where athletes as young as 15 or 16 are paid to throw, kick, or catch balls in exchange for handsome sums of money, since these activities add no value to society and the recipients of those salaries have not earned the compensation.
And if that 18-year-old wants to get a job with a pro or semi-pro football team that will hire him and pay him millions of dollars a year I have absolutely no problem with it. I wish him well.
But becoming a university student is an entirely different thing and a different world. His first obligation is to the university in return for the scholarship that he is given. Taking advantage of that to separately receive millions of dollars simply by lending his name to some commercial product is in my view morally corrupt. He has done nothing to earn that money.
Universities are also employers. Their faculty, staff, and students are freely able to pursue employment or financial gain inside or outside the halls of the institution, regardless of age or status with one obvious historical exception: the scholarship athlete.
The existence of universities creates markets both physical and virtual in the surrounding areas, including this very message board. They are huge generators of direct economic opportunity and through research are also indirect opportunity creators. You’re right that they exist to educate people, but since at least the start of the twentieth century they’ve existed for much more than that. So while a noble talking point, I don’t think it holds much water in this discussion.
This. It is the "argument" you are responding to that, in the context of NIL, does not "hold water", but your response sums it up nicely for me.
You continue to mistakenly equate pro athletes to college scholarship athletes. They are not in the same category, so your argument that they should be treated and compensated the same is virtually meaningless.
I have previously stated on these pages that I competed at WRA in the Southern Comfort Great Shooters Neft Hoop competition.
I was also a member of the 1988 Res Hall championship intramural football team and threw the only TD pass given up by the Kellogg team the entire season which turned what might have otherwise been a mere playoff loss by several touchdowns to those evil bastards into a wild celebration that rages to this day when my deep pass arced over the outstretched fingers of a seven-footer who had been chasing me around the backfield all day but somehow on this final play was trying to keep up with our fleet reciever who gathered the ball into his arms and got us on the board at the buzzer in a fashion that was repeated years later by Sam Simmons in Minnesota except our score was even more unlikely and stupendous and rendered entirely meaningless the fact we lost the game by five or six touchdowns.
So, yeah, I was a college athlete.
You are going too easy on the university. It is the entity which is initiating the relationship with the player. The player is responding to an opportunity made available by the university.
The issue is the university is providing this opportunity which is converting the student into an employee. The university can make the decision, as UChicago did in leaving the Big Ten, that the opportunity being provided does not align with its vision for its students.
The focus of this discussion should be on the university, not the student.
A university can employee a student for tasks not associated with his role as student. Some examples are cafeteria help, library tasks, etc. These are roles that anyone can fill, student or non-student, because they are independent of any student activity.
However, in his role as a student, particularly as a varsity athlete, the university cannot change that role from student to employee. You can be one or the other, but you can't be both at the same time.
This is only true if you continue to irrationally (in my view) cling to an arbitrary and outdated notion of “amateurism,” a concept the NCAA invented in the 1950s that has almost no bearing on the sports or professional worlds of today.
Then yes, you are right, if amateurism as defined by a government-created NGO in the first decade of the 1900s is the North Star of this discussion then you are totally correct and the rest of us should simply sit down.
I am struggling to understand how being an athlete is part of their role as a student, but working in the cafeteria is not. On what grounds is this distinction made?
It's pretty straightforward. A professional organization, such as an NFL football team, who is in the business to make money hires professional athletes. By the very use of the term, it is quite clear that this is part of an enterprise that is a business.
However, college football teams are not formed and do not exist to make money for the school. That is not their purpose. They serve to provide the student body with a representative in the inter-collegiate athletic world.
The fact that they may bring in significant revenue to the school, primarily by TV and Internet coverage, does not change their relationship to the school. It's a very nice bonus. Extra money always is. But it does not change the fact that they are amateur athletes competing in an amateur world.
Because the cafeteria jobs do not depend on the worker being a student. Most likely the majority of those jobs are held by people who are not students. Typically, students can fulfill some of those jobs as well to pick up some extra money. Or they could just as well get a job at the local McDonalds. It's all the same. Students are not recruited or awarded scholarships to work in the cafeteria. It is an entirely optional activity for them.
Athletic scholarships are a completely different thing. They are an agreement between the school and the athlete that says if you come here as a student, and participate in a specific school sports team, we will waive your tuition fee, and in some cases even provide you with a reasonable living expense. And that effectively eliminates any need for the student athlete to have to spend time at a job in order to cover his expenses.
This assumption is your chief error. College football teams are altogether intended to make money for the school. They evolved to having that chief purpose over past years but this is undeniably their current raison d’etre.
In this context, NU is using its football team as a lever to establish an entertainment pavilion that will open up another way to make money for the school. NRF will be barely a football stadium in purpose as one would never build a new stadium for 6-8 games a year. It is a concert arena that will MAKE MONEY.
One only needs to observe what is happening with federal research funding to understand that the primary concern for universities is making money. This may sound cynical. I assert it is plainly obvious based on the facts.
NU just hired a $400,000 position to lead the payment of its athletes. Such role would be rejected as ridiculous if NU’s goal for sports is merely to give its students an extracurricular option.
Addendum: see this article for the story of how Wrigley Field became a concert venue. The revenue generation motivation of the Cubs is identical to that of NU.
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