To Pay or not to Pay

Recently, there's been a lot of discussion about college football and whether college football players should be paid.  Its actually an incredibly relevant issue to the future of the game.  A large part of why I like writing this blog is to make sports more accessible to those who aren't as interested, but enjoy listening to my points of view.  Its also of course to share my superior knowledge and opinion with you other sports fans...who also think their knowledge is superior, I'm sure.  But I digress.

So in the world of paying college football players there are essentially 3 thoughts:

1)  They have full scholarships to an expensive University as a result of their skills on the gridiron.  They should be happy with that.  They are STUDENT athletes after all.

2)  Lets up scholarships to full cost of tuition.  (Essentially all of the normal costs associated with attending school...room, board, books, classes, and fees)  This group will also advocate a stipend as well.

3)  Lets pay the players.  They are after all making the school a lot of money.

So those are the viewpoints.  All good points.  And all highly flawed unfortunately.  I will now argue (sarcastically) for and against each one.  Get your popcorn ready:

Scene:  Three average college students sit in the student union drinking energy drinks (which are awful by the way)

Full Cost of Tuition Guy (FCTG):  So what do you guys think about this whole paying student athletes thing?

Scholarship Guy (SG):  Athletes get tuition paid for.  That should be enough.

Pay Them Guy (PTG):  These guys go out and sacrifice their time and energy and put their health on the line!!  And they make the school a ton of cash!  They should get paid for that, man!  (PTG has had 4 or 5 energy drinks, hence all the !!!!)

SG:  That's ridiculous.  While athletic departments bring in a ton of money, most don't even break even!!

PTG:  Where did you hear that?  

SG:  USA Today did a big report.

PTG:  Well even if they don't make money, the players are still putting their careers at risk playing football.

SG:  Only if they don't take advantage of the scholarship.  If they study, then they've got something to fall back on if they are part of the 99% that don't make it to the NFL.  The players get all kinds of fame and popularity while they're on campus.  That seems to have its own reward.  Have you seen all the awesome stuff Johnny Football gets to do!?!

PTG:  Only cause his parents are rich....If players got paid, they all could do that!!

FCTG:  Wow, you guys are really into this....too bad you're both wrong.

PTG and SG turn slowly and crush their energy drink cans....: How do you figure??

FCTG:  Well you can't pay players.  Alabama or Texas would essentially out pay all the smaller schools and get all the best players.  They would win more, and then get more money.  The gap would widen between the have's and the have nots.  Its unsustainable.

PTG:  Well you set a limit, so all FBS schools pay the same amount.

FCTG:  Wouldn't work.  Check out the data.  Texas, the highest earning athletic department netted almost 27 million, and took no money from the school.  Louisiana Tech, the lowest earning FBS school, netted $11,000 and took a $9,000 subsidy from the school. How are they supposed to pay students anything, even if its a standard fee. They would be able to give less scholarships and fall behind.  As I said...unsustainable.  (Anyone starting to think FCTG is an engineer?)

PTG:  Nerd...

SG:  Ha!  Told you!  Scholarships as they are, are clearly the way to go.

FCTG:  Not so fast my friend!  Have you thought about the time constraints on a football player?  They are in classes all day, and practicing and working out when they aren't.  If they don't workout and practice enough, they get cut and lose their scholarships.  Or they lose games and get ridiculed for being soft.  The incentive is for them to workout in their free time.  So guess what...no jobs for players.  And no jobs means they may lack money for going out with their friends.  Dinner, movies, bars etc.

SG:  They should be focusing on school and football, not going out and partying.

FCTG:  How many times you go out last week.

SG:....5

FCTG amd PTG stare...

SG: ....what???  It was a really stressful week, I had to blow off steam.

FCTG:  Uh huh...but you think football players who are under as much if not more stress don't deserve to go out?  They just don't have time to get a job to pay for it.  Maybe a full cost of tuition scholarship with a small stipend (say 500$ a semester) isn't sounding too bad.

SG:  What about Title IX?  Doesn't that prohibit it?

FCTG:  Maybe, Maybe not.  It all depends on what judge is ruling.  If equal money were given to female atheletes, it may resolve it.

PTG:  Whoa Whoa Whoa...didn't you just show me how the smallest school only has 11000 extra dollars.  Thats not gonna go very far when you divide it up that many ways.

FCTG:  Did I say I have all the answers?!?

SG:  Know it all!

FCTG: Idiot!

PTG: Jerk!

They all start fighting, then go to the bar for a beer to get over it.  All are friends by the end of the night.

So those are some of the major issues with paying college athletes.  Of course I couldn't resolve the issue in a one page dialogue!! Do you think I'm a genius or something!?!?

What do you think the right answer is?  Vote on the main page!!!!

 (That's a lot of !....maybe I should lay off the caffeine)

For your enjoyment:  Muppets meet ESPN...Fantastic!

-A Sports Fanatic