Well it’s out there again.
It seems every time one turns around someone is clamoring that college athletes, mostly in football, produce huge sums of money for their institutions and consequently should receive financial compensation in addition to a scholarship.
I’ve talked about this possibility in this corner before, but the issue has taken on additional relevance since the debacle involving quarterback Terrelle Pryor at Ohio State University.
But just where does the money for such a move come from? Who receives what? And is football at all institutions such a cash cow that there’s ample financial resources to even consider such a move?
The lynchpin is this – institutions can’t just pay football players because everyone, including so-called non-revenue participants, has to be treated equally.
And with Title IX, there also can be no distinction, nor should there be, between male and female athletes.
I believe few people understand, especially when they see packed stadiums on SportsCenter, that the majority of football programs, some of which are at the top level of the Football Bowl Subdivision, actually operate in the red. And that some of the money from programs that are profitable is used to finance the remainder of the athletic budget.
University of South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier, who knows a bit about running a successful entity since he also spent a dozen years at the University of Florida, proposed recently that football players receive $300 a game.
Half of the SEC coaches reportedly signed the proposal. The idea didn’t fare well at the group’s annual get-together, although the league commissioner said the idea of compensation had merit.
I can see it now – blue-chip football players making their decision on which conference, let alone which team, they are going to play for on the basis of which one pays the most money for their services.
Talk about a recruiting advantage and a can of worms.
There’s little doubt that with the burden of off-season activities make it virtually impossible for a college athlete to hold down a summer job.
Record-setting Griz running back Chase Reynolds, for example, had no choice between his junior and senior season. He had a family to support, a wife, one child and another on the way, and had to work construction during the summer. But in so doing he missed out on some summer workouts that were attended by many of his teammates. You can debate whether it affected his season’s performance – I tend to think not – but he had no choice and made the right decision.
And scholarship money does not pay personal expenses, which makes it tempting for an athlete when a booster comes knocking with a paid job that you either don’t have to show up for or pays way more than it is worth.
And if a family, like many, has limited resources and is unable to help financially, just how does an athlete survive? Perhaps by eating Top Ramen like a lot of us did. But the temptation is there to ignore what you have been advised is legal and participate in shady activity because teammates are doing it and, after all, who does it hurt?
Rather then per-game compensation, I’d be more in favor of earning participation work credit set aside to be claimed by an athlete after graduation. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of every-day living expenses.
However, there is a cash cow that few talk about that has salted institutions’ general funds.
The percentage of the money that programs receive from Collegiate Licensing – the sale of trademarked merchandise – should go directly into the athletic budget, not an institution’s general fund. And the financial windfall should be used to establish new criteria for a program benefiting the athletes.
Now, granted, the distribution of that money is different at different schools.
But the problem is that money that athletics does not receive, just like any football profit filtered to the general athletic budget, is used to operate the institution’s other programs.
Again therein is the question. Where does the money come from?