Topic #2, Group #1: Should College/University Athletes Be Paid

[CH David]

You'll have to explain how paying players part of the profits they earn would be a violation of Title IX. I could understand if certain athletes were "denied the benefits of" a sports program that they were a part of, but profits shouldn't be considered a benefit of sports programs that makes no money.

Tdigs I know you are smarter than that. If you can't pay players equally, from men's athletics to women's, that is a violation of Title IX. You pay football and basketball teams more than hockey, baseball, tennis or golf? Violation.

Also, I'd consider college athletes in football and basketball amateurs in name only. Their main purpose is to make money for the college that they play for. They're only amateurs because they don't get to see the fruits of their labor in the form of greenbacks.

Their main purpose is to play a sport that they love for the school they (usually) want to play for. The sport(s) just happens to be huge in the country and worthy of a lot of sponsorships.

Economically speaking, this doesn't make sense. By going to college, a basketball or football player potentially forgoes four years of money that he could earn as a professional. As a rookie, he'd come out of the NFL after four years having earned $1,875,000 or out of the NBA after four years having earned a little over $3,000,000. At most, a student athlete gets $50,000 in-kind every year in the form of a scholarship and maybe $5,000 spending money ($2,500 per semester); that's $220,000 when all is said and done.

Sure economically speaking. But are you really going to sit here and tell me that a high school football player is ready both mentally and physically for the NFL? Hell no they aren't. Most basketball players coming out of high school are busts, not everyone is like Kobe, KG, or LeBron have been. Basketball players would fail most of the time, so they go to college and show how much they can make an impact, thus earning their scholarships and free rides. That still doesn't mean that they should get paid. One of my friends is a med student and she doesn't get paid for her training, should she get paid as well?

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

Concluding Post​

I'll conclude this post by restating my original argument: If a student athlete's program is profitable (i.e., their varsity sport), then he/she should be paid. I have given two very compelling reason for why this should be. One, by giving them monetary compensation for their athletic services, a student athlete's college/university gives them an incentive to stay and finish their education. Two, the amount of profit some university programs make per player is insulting and downright exploitative. At Texas last season, each football player with a scholarship earned its institution at least 16 times what they were given "in-kind" in the form of a scholarship. Keep the "in-kind" qualification in mind; these players couldn't redeem or trade their scholarships for money. They're essentially just like the homeless people you see on the street with "Will work for food" signs, the only difference being that they don't get the opportunity to decide what they will work for.

Rebuttals have come my way in two forms, and I have overcome them both. The first rebuttal questions the feasibility of my proposal. Under current NCAA regulations, yes, you would not be able to pay student athletes for their services. However, this is a debate about whether or not student athletes should be paid, not if they can be paid. I've given reasons for why they should, and it's not sufficient to argue that they shouldn't be paid because of existing rules. If enough people thought student athletes merited pay, the rules would be changed, simple as that.

The second rebuttal concerns the disparity that paying student athletes in profitable Division IA football programs would cause. I have thoroughly shown that, among Division IA football programs, it would cause no more disparity than that which currently exists. I don't have any doubts that student athletes would be more proactive in getting recruited by the schools that have the biggest coffers, but that's about all that would change. Limitations on scholarships would still exist and the best of the best would still be recruited by the most prestigious and profitable of programs. Ultimately then, if we had the ability to go back in time and institute a pay-for-play policy for this past football season, I have no doubt in my mind that recruits would still matriculate to those schools that they have actually matriculated to (the only difference being that they'd potentially have their pockets stuffed with cash at season's end).

That's all. Best of luck to everyone else.

 

[Big Sexy]

So, essentially what you're saying here is that college athletes from profitable varsity sports shouldn't be paid because it'd be too much of a bitch to change the rules? This is probably one of the biggest cop-outs to a compelling argument that I've ever seen.

Goddamn you love putting words in people's mouths. It is hard to change the rules but that's not the point I'm getting at. The rules shouldn't be changed because going to college for most athletes isn't about going to the next level in the pros and making a bunch of money. It's about getting a great education while competing at the highest level possible in whatever sport you play in. Why should that be taken away from a bunch of athletes just so football players can make money? There are no full ride scholarships given out to club sports. By making these changes you are ending the sporting careers of thousands of athletes prematurely. Of course I wouldn't expect you to look at the big picture.

Again, you refuse to argue the question at hand: Should college athletes be paid? You keep on arguing the following question: Can college athletes be paid under current NCAA guidelines?

The guidelines are part of it though because like I said above paying college athletes for football would be ending the sporting careers of a ton of athletes. And if I'm failing to answer the question then you are doing the same because the question isn't "Should College Athletes be paid under hypothetical fantasy guidelines."

Back up all of your sources for all the factual statements you've claimed to have made in this debate, especially the one concerning what would happen should players be allowed to play. You said I hadn't refuted it (I definitely refuted your argument for parity not being a consequence of a pay-for-play system), so I assume you have a source to back this claim.

I never claimed those statement to be absolute facts. I claimed that common sense was on my side when making the statements about recruiting because it is. There is no way to provide 100% factual evidence either way on whether recruiting would be affected by paying players but my stance at least has logic behind it and some sort of example behind it which I will get to later.

We're arguing college football now, not athletic programs as a whole, so the first article is totally irrelevant to the debate at hand.

If you actually read the whole article then you'd see the part where it said only 57% of FOOTBALL PROGRAMS make a profit.

All of this is to say the following: profitability has been on an upward trend for college football programs. The only relevant season to look at would be last year's season (until the statistics for this year come out, of course).

It may be an upward trend but still not enough for most schools to be able to pay there players.

Read what I wrote to your first passage. Also, if arguing about this is such a moot point, then why was it chosen as a debate topic? Furthermore, why has it sparked so much academic debate?

All I said was that we are taking two completely different routes to how we are debating the topic. However, I believe the route I chose to be the more relevant one.

So, you're essentially agreeing with me here that the best schools already get the best players? Why would paying them make a difference then? They're just going to get a bunch of people they don't want knocking at their door.

Because money gives those schools even more of an advantage.

I don't understand this because it's completely false.

How so? There are nearly 20 schools that have made around 20 million dollars profit recently. That is sure as fuck more then one or two.

For the millionth time, there are more than 500 players available each year, and you already agreed with me that they are already recruited by the most profitable schools. How would paying them be any different?

I never said there weren't more. I stated that once you get past 500 players the talent is obviously going to drop off somewhat. There aren't a thousand players out there that are all equal in talent. Top talent is already hard to recruit to the non big name schools. Adding money makes it even tougher. It isn't a hard concept to grasp.

Erm, you might to think of better example; all eight of these schools finished in the top 50 for profits in the 2009-2010 season. They won't have any problem whatsoever recruiting players in a pay-for-play system.

That was just random in state schools off the top of my head. The point remains the same. Texas A&M may have had a nice profit but it was still just 1/3 of what Texas had. Miami and Florida State would both struggle recruiting against Florida. Pitt would be in trouble against Penn State.

Tell me how this is relevant to the debate. This is a forgone conclusion, man; of course they're going to go to the school with the most profit. Does their going to the school with the most profit automatically mean that the school(s) they rejected won't be able to get an equally talented player? We've already agreed that the recruitment pool every year is deep; I fail to see how someone can be so much more significantly talented than another player that they'll create a huge disparity between teams. For every USC middle linebacker recruit, there are a 100 more out there waiting to be picked up by a school.

And most of those hundred more are not nearly as talented and may not make more of an impact then the one. Especially since the next ten middle linebackers in line will be more likely then ever to go to other big profit schools.

A pay-for-play scheme would do nothing to create disparity between FBS football programs. Recruitment pools are too deep and almost all of these schools would be able to offer their players some form of monetary compensation (they'd all be able to offer monetary compensation should they join a conference with an automatic BCS bid).

Here's an example to show why you are wrong. Let's look at a school like SMU from the early 80's. They were a decent program in the late 70's but nothing special. Then their boosters started illegally paying players (it was happening in other schools in the conference to but SMU was offering more). All of the sudden SMU rose to the top of the conference and at one point to the top of college football until their program got under fire for recruiting violations. Obviously SMU illegally offering more money and incentives then the other schools around them helped them to be better then the other schools so why would making it part of college football not do the same thing? The other schools were still getting talent too but not as much and not the same caliber thus they weren't as good.

I'm not going to repeat myself anymore. I've already overcome this objection at least 5 times.

You keep telling yourself that.

 

[Big Sexy]

Closing Statement​

College athletes should not be paid. It may be unfair to some big name football programs but a few programs in one sport does not make up college athletics. There are tons of sports and tons of athletes and there is not any realistic way to pay the players from profitable programs without getting rid of tons of other sports.

College is about preparing for your future and finding your career path, and many college athletes get the chance to do that while still playing a sport that they love and often times is the reason that they have gotten to college. There may be some hypothetical situations where football players from profitable programs could make some money but to do that it would be at the expense of many other sports and also at the expense of many other athletes. There aren't any scholarships given out for intramural or club sports. Paying football players would mean potentially ending the sporting lives AND harming the future of thousands of other student athletes. Not all athletes have the grades or finances to get into a decent school without scholarships for the sport they play in.

Potentially getting rid of other sports and making them all club sports just to pay some football players is not only something that realistically could never happen, it is something that morally should never happen. If all collegiate sports were profitable then by all means I'd say pay the athletes, but you can't pay a select few athletes at the expense of many others.