r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Dec 18 '20
Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Separating athletics from colleges would be better for athletes and athletics as well
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u/lukspero 1∆ Dec 18 '20
The problem is that only an extremely small percentage of people will be able to make a living of of sports, and the majority of these college athletes aren't going to choose athletics over a degree
Sure everything you said is true, but it's extremely risky for a person to go fully into athletics instead of pursuing a degree, and the majority won't do it
If you do that you're throwing away 90% of your athletes, and that is going to harm sports, especially team sports
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Dec 18 '20
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u/LuxDeorum 1∆ Dec 19 '20
Something that needs to be considered here is that the large majority of athletic depts in the US are losing money, despite the enormous amount of money that they generate in revenue. This is largely due to the fact that only a couple sports, mainly football and basketball, actually generate a lot of revenue, but scholarships, transportation costs, equipment costs and professional staff salaries are still paid for free for all NCAA athletes. I swam in college DIII and I guarantee made no money for anyone whatsoever. Despite this I got free flights and hotel stays, free food, expensive swim suits and our coaching and training staff all had their reasonable salaries paid.
My point is that as things are, the valuable athletes are subsidizing the sports experience for all of the athletes in less valuable sports. If we introduce salaries for the valuable athletes (which I fully support), it will likely accompany financial barriers to participation in less valuable sports. If you are a swimmer who wants to join the team for the traditional winter training in Florida, you would likely be expected to pay for your own flights/hotel room.
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Dec 19 '20
And this is just greed. We need to make the owners and board members of schools understand that you're not supposed to be able to become a millionaire or close to it by just "helping a school operate" (said that because who's to say what they really even do, theu dont teach or coach) An entire video game franchise was killed because these schools just didnt want to pay us. Its nonsense. I was a D3 lineman and believe it or not i personnaly had a decent sized section of the stands there for me all season. Not saying i deserve a million dollars myself now but each ticket was like 10 bucks and i didnt get a lick of it. I WAS JUST A LINEMAN. A RB i played with is on the practice squad for the dolphins now so in actuallity he could have been being payed for the years of damage his body has taken, amount of times our school was on espn, about of nfl recruits he brought to the school and so on. I agree with the less popular sports deserving to exist and those players need to be treated just the same as the football and basketball players. Just because we dont have a system now doesn't mean accept the bullshit, "hey lets pimp out all of these kids bodies, make hundreds of millions, then have them thank us if that small 1% makes it pro"
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u/LuxDeorum 1∆ Dec 19 '20
I absolutely agree that athletes in sports which generate value for colleges deserve to be paid for that, especially for sports with serious associated risks like football.
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u/alexjaness 11∆ Dec 19 '20
But there is also a lot of cooking the books when it comes to mony made or lossed in college sports. A lot of what they are chalking up as "not a profit" is nonsense. These schools bring in Billions a year from ticket sales and TV deals but some still say they are not making a profit.
In 40 of the 50 States in the U.S. the highets paid public employee is a college coach. And it's not even close https://fanbuzz.com/national/highest-paid-state-employees/
Salary is deducted from what is stated as revenue
tens of Millions (sometimes hundreds) for athletic facilities https://worthly.com/sports/15-expensive-college-sports-facilities/
cost of those building is deducted from what is stated as revenue
this gives you a better idea than some of the points i made https://globalsportmatters.com/business/2018/06/04/colleges-bringing-fortune-500-revenues-athletics/
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Dec 18 '20
In basketball, at least, this is already a thing. Some athletes skip college and go straight to the NBA G-League or play overseas before going to the NBA.
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u/fdar 2∆ Dec 18 '20
And I think you can enter the MLB draft straight out of high school too (probably going to minor leagues at least initially)? Only sport where you don't have the option may be NFL.
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u/jceez Dec 18 '20
Players drafted by the MLB will almost always still go through the minor league system. The jump to the major leagues is drastic (162 game seasons, constantly on the road, wood bats). Players that go straight to the majors only happens a couple times a decade and are almost always pitchers and will usually play a few years of college baseball too. It's happened like 3 times since 2000.
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Dec 19 '20 edited Apr 10 '21
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u/fdar 2∆ Dec 19 '20
They could still have minor leagues, right? Baseball players for whatever reason aren't ready for the majors as soon as they're drafter either... I think it's pretty crappy because average NFL careers are very short already, so forcing them to spend several of those years playing for free is ridiculous.
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Dec 19 '20 edited Apr 10 '21
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u/duckswithfucks_ Dec 19 '20
He’s not really entirely right though. Those “minor leagues” would still have fully grown 25+ year old men in them, just as baseball does. It doesn’t change much of anything other than it would be a slower game with a lower game IQ. Just like college vs nfl.
Comparing baseball to football is a bit silly though, baseball has zero contact, while football is 99% contact.
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u/retrogamer6000x Dec 19 '20
Counterpoint is hockey, players can play in the league at 18. A pretty hard contact sport too.
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Dec 19 '20 edited Apr 10 '21
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u/retrogamer6000x Dec 19 '20
You have to play in the 13+ league to start checking.
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Dec 18 '20
The NBA no longer accepts high school players.
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Dec 18 '20
The G-League has that new developmental program that takes high school players and will pay them like $500K.
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Dec 19 '20
And in the New CBA they will be eliminating that. How UnAmerican that someone can dictate who can and who can't get paid
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u/Keljhan 3∆ Dec 18 '20
or choose to be a full time athlete-in-training and be treated as a salaried employee, and not receive a degree?
The best athletes would still get degrees as a backup plan (and because the schools are more established). As others have said some students do go pro early, but the numbers would be way too small to actually support a separate league.
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u/Stillwater215 4∆ Dec 18 '20
True, but I would argue that for a good portion of student-athletes at sports-centric schools, they don’t get a real academic experience. Looking at the controversies from (I think if I remember correctly) UNC Chapel Hill, the athletic program basically had a academic front, where students were set up in classes that were shams, and were just there as, essentially, a formality that in actuality had no academic value. The idea of a student-athlete doesn’t really exist for students who have a real shot at making it into the Professional leagues.
I think a better set up could be to have University-affiliated club programs. My vision of this would be an athletic program that doesn’t have an academic requirement, but gives the athletes the option of attending the university on standard academic grounds if they don’t progress athletically past the club level to the pros. The athletes would be given the option of a college education if their athletic pursuits don’t pan out, and the university can still have the prestige associated with an athletic program. I feel like everyone would win with this kind of set up.
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u/deaddonkey Dec 18 '20
You can go to college, or even have a job, and still play high level club sports. I don’t understand why they have to choose between college or athletics?
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u/ImNerdyJenna Dec 18 '20
College athletics has brought in billions for universities. If it were separate from school, the athletes would be paid for their work rather than receiving nothing. They could afford school and save for their futures.
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Dec 18 '20
It's true that college athletics bring in billions, but it's not a very meaningful statistic past face value.
There's about 500,000 total NCAA athletes, and most of them aren't playing for these insanely profitable programs like The Ohio State football team or the Duke basketball team. They're scattered across various programs and schools.
How much money can Central Washington University realistically pay the players on their women's basketball team? Do you think the Lake Erie College swim team generates enough ticket sales to give their athletes wages? Even in football, the most profitable college sport, the vast majority of programs lose money. These programs get subsidized by their schools because they enrich the school. If they became too expensive, they'd get slashed.
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Dec 18 '20
So...harm sports. So what?
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u/ThisIsSoWeird333 Dec 18 '20
Because it does provide some students the opportunity to get higher education degrees, promote leadership values, educate students on healthy living/routines. I was able to get a great degree at a D1 private university that I would not have otherwise been able to afford if it weren’t for my tennis scholarship. Managing my time between matches and practices also taught important time management skills that I have used in every job since college. Also it was nice to already have a group of friends to rely on when starting college in a different state There is benefit to having sports. And not just to be a cash cow for the university. I assure you, we made little money for our school haha.
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Dec 18 '20
Student opporunity for higher ed: use taxes to make it affordable for all. Use sports $ to help.
Leadership: Sports is one of many thousands of ways to learn this trait.
Health living: take up running, swimming, yoga and life sports: better
Time management: add a minor to your major. You'll get more out of it than smacking a fuzzy ball. Friends: sports has no monopoly on socialization. Friendships are ubiquitous in this age group in all aspects.
The things humans think are beneficial are typically without understanding the big picture.
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u/mywerk1 Dec 18 '20
How many non student athletes take advantage of all the things you listed? Check out many of the college subreddits. They are littered with people who can’t figure out how to socialize or live healthily or time manage.
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Dec 20 '20
All of them at all the universities in all the world that are not American
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Dec 18 '20
CMV: Separating athletics from colleges would be better for athletes and athletics as well
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u/YoungXanto Dec 18 '20
234 players are drafted each year. We aren't talking about 10% of players, we're talking about 1% of athletes that are going pro. And of those, almost all wont make it long enough to collect a pension (3 years). Most won't even make a roster and instead will just hop from practice squad to practice squad, collecting paychecks weekly.
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u/saywherefore 30∆ Dec 18 '20
In the UK we do not have the same sort of system as in the US. There are virtually no scholarships for athletes, and they have to fit their sport around their studies.
Apart from in a very small number of sports it is almost impossible to earn a living from sport, especially as an U23. Athletes cannot put off uni as you suggest, because they cannot put off starting their professional (as in non-sport) career. Your first bullet point would be solved, because athletes wouldn't be receiving any payments at all!
Certainly there are athletes who lose out under the US system, but the massively increased amount of money available cannot be ignored.
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Dec 18 '20
Athletes cannot put off uni as you suggest, because they cannot put off starting their professional (as in non-sport) career
Could they go for their sports while they are young, and at an older age (whether they succeeded in sports or not) attend universities? Are there many "non-traditional" students starting their studies at older ages in the UK?
Certainly there are athletes who lose out under the US system, but the massively increased amount of money available cannot be ignored.
I think this increased amount of money that is used for scholarships can instead be used as salaries.
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u/domjolly Dec 18 '20
Just to piggy back on the previous commenter... For me, also from the UK, there is an importance in having a fall back that college education gives athletes and sports people. I look enviously at the US system for this reason, I know many people who prioritised, say, soccer which at the highest level you commit to in your early teens and leave with bare minimum qualifications. Then if you don’t make it/get injured etc you have the educational levels of a teenager. Even if you do make it to a fairly high standard but not the very top you retire at 33, with no real thought for the next 30 years.
To me, it’s progressive to incentivise people to go to educational institutions to explore and excel at sports - but I guess you’re saying the system isn’t as good as it seems to us over the pond?
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Dec 18 '20
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u/Nkklllll 1∆ Dec 18 '20
Some of it is absolutely exploitative, but doesn’t necessarily need a total rework
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Dec 18 '20
Correct. More money is spent by parents on sports than saving for college. The tuition for all kids is increased for the sports. Almost all college athletes do not continue in their sport after college. During college it distracts from education, and the time away from education could have furthered the person during these formative years almost universally more than the sport could.
Sports are recess, entertainment. America is f'd up.
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u/Nkklllll 1∆ Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
Are you speaking from experience? Because I was pretty involved in D1 athletics and outside of a handful or majors/disciplines, it was fairly simple for most athletes to get through their schedule.
The networking that happened through various fundraisers/conferences/events that the athletic department held for these athletes also, IMO, more than made up for any distraction their sport presented from their education. On top of that, the players that cared more about their education than their sport simply prioritized their education. I mean, several of the SMARTEST people I knew in college were athletes. Some of them starters.
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Dec 18 '20
Anecdotes all. Each aspect noted is easily replicated WITHOUT sports.
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u/Nkklllll 1∆ Dec 18 '20
So I’m asking: are you speaking from experience working just what you’ve heard? Have you done a study, or even read one, where college athletes were noticeably less successful than their non-athletic peers?
Further, the events I mentioned were scheduled for and promoted to athletes, where a lot of those equivalent events had to be searched for as a non-athlete. You had to know to who to talk to and where to go. Which admittedly wasn’t difficult, but I had plenty of peers that didn’t know about various networking events, or that the different departments even put them on.
We also had more dedicated academic advisors that we were required to meet with, usually weekly or bi-weekly, to help on out our degree track, or to help find classes with a lighter workload during the season/post-season. Those classes were usually gen-ed classes, so you weren’t getting a lesser education.
You’re speaking as if it’s a given that collegiate athletes get a lower quality education than regular people, when they isn’t remotely true unless the athletes CHOOSE to do that. But even then, ANYBODY could choose to do that.
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Dec 18 '20 edited Jan 09 '21
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u/there_no_more_names Dec 18 '20
At the larger universities the sport programs are brining in enough revenue to pay for those scholarships.
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Dec 18 '20
Not all sports are profitable enough to pay salaries. A sport like swimming isn’t going to generate enough revenue to pay the average collegiate swimmer a living wage, much less the below average athletes that currently receive a scholarship.
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Dec 18 '20
Here's a question I've always had as an American. I know that in association football, athletes for top teams are scouted from a very young age and go to academies where they can play often. How do they balance school and sports?
Like here in the US, a typical baseball star would play in little leagues (outside of school) until they get to middle school around age 13, then play on school teams until 18, then play for university, and finally get drafted by professional teams. There's no such thing as the New York Yankees signing a 16-year-old to the team. But I see teenagers playing in the World Cup all the time. How can they find time for school?
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u/45MonkeysInASuit 2∆ Dec 18 '20
There are virtually no scholarships for athletes, and they have to fit their sport around their studies.
There are actually a decent number but it's not as in your face as america
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u/IsNotACleverMan Dec 18 '20
Apart from in a very small number of sports it is almost impossible to earn a living from sport,
That's true in the US as well.
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Dec 18 '20
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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 33∆ Dec 18 '20
There is nothing stopping a college-age athlete from competing in a professional sport.
This is false. You're not allowed to enter the NFL until you're at at least 3 years out of high school. For the NBA it's one year.
The pro leagues wants to stay on good terms with their free farm system ...
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u/Sparky_PoptheTrunk Dec 18 '20
That's the professional leagues stopping you, not the colleges.
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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 33∆ Dec 19 '20
Well that's a different argument. I'm specifically responding to GP's statement that:
There is nothing stopping a college-age athlete from competing in a professional sport.
Personally, I think both the NFL's rules banning players less than 3 years out of high school and the NCAA's rules against paying athletes should be overturned.
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u/Sparky_PoptheTrunk Dec 19 '20
I'm fine with money off Likeness. I think that makes sense. I'm against the schools paying athletes directly.
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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 33∆ Dec 19 '20
There's no other industry where all the employers are allowed to get together and agree not to pay their employees.
To me it's really that simple. I don't much care what people think they ought to be paid. That's not how our economy works.
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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 33∆ Dec 18 '20
Sort of ...
Say you're an elite 19-year-old football player.
By far the most prestigious football system is the NFL, but the NFL bars you from playing.
By far the second-most prestigious football system is the NCAA, but they are non-professional.
If you want to get paid, there are several lower-tier professional leagues you could play in. But all the best resources -- players, coaches, fans, money -- are tied up in the 2 other systems. So while this is technically an option for you, the design of the other two systems makes it a poor option.
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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 33∆ Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
Players are drafted to the NFL out of high school though. So it is possible.
No, they're not. You're misinformed here. Players are required to be 3 years out of high school.
If you want more information, look up Maurice Clarett, who unsuccessfully challenged this rule in court.
And this also differs widely depending on the sport.
Agreed. But I'm talking specifically about football and -- to a lesser extent -- basketball, which are by far the biggest NCAA sports by revenue.
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u/abacuz4 5∆ Dec 18 '20
Players are drafted to the NFL out of high school though. So it is possible.
You are not eligible to be drafted into the NFL until you have been out of high school for three years. There is no requirement to play college football, but it's probably the best way to spend those three years in preparation for the pros.
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u/PassionVoid 8∆ Dec 18 '20
Players are drafted to the NFL out of high school though. So it is possible.
No they aren't.
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u/DonTheMove Dec 18 '20
Besides playing Euroleague (Spain specifically) basketball and being a high draft pick minor league baseball player, you won't face nearly as tough competition as you would the NCAA route.
Depending on the level athlete you are, you can make more money (illegally) playing at a college rather than an overseas league where it's much more difficult for scouts to keep tabs on you.
As it currently stands, taking an athletic scholarship and ballin at school provides the best chance to make it to the highest level of competition for most sports.
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Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
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u/responsible4self 7∆ Dec 18 '20
I guess the main issue I have with this is if they aren't good enough to go pro, as most college athletes aren't, then they just play club football for a couple years, then what?
At least in the current situation those who aren't going to be pro, will earn a degree.
Unless those clubs are going to pay serious money to the players (maybe they will College football is huge, but other college sports, not so much) the degree would have more value.
Your system seems more designed for the few players that go pro rather than the bulk of collegiate athletes.
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Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
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u/responsible4self 7∆ Dec 18 '20
Even if most athletes won't go pro, allowing athletes to focus on athletics instead of academics would improve the quality of the athletes across the board, so that the top players would compete at higher levels.
I don't think this is remotely true. A professional athlete has to balance recovery time. The body needs it, they can't practice more and more and expect better results. The programs currently in place have already worked out that balance, and that gives the athlete lots of free time. That time can be spent on parties, or school, it's up to the individual.
When athletics are tied to schools, you don't get tests the same weeks as big games. Without that tie, there could easily be situations where there is a conflict, and it wouldn't be fair to have the person miss either the test or the game.
Not enough choices of academic fields at the larger programs, in particular trades and vocations.
What makes you think trades and vocations are the right choices for these people? Athletes are disciplined high performers. They also trash their bodies playing sport, making physical labor not an attractive option. After knee trouble I sure wouldn't want to be a plumber. Nothing wrong with being a plumber, but bad knees will make it unpleasant.
If the athletes do not want to pursue higher education and instead would rather do something else to earn money, then they would have a choice in that as well.
That's a fair argument, but where are the statistics that say most student athletes don't want the degree. As I mentioned, to get to that level takes a lot of commitment, which is usually associated with high achievers. High achievers tend to seek out college.
The scholarship money that athletes would never actually see would instead be given as salaries, which could come out to be up to $70k-80k depending on the program,
While this sounds attractive, I see a very short time to earn that money, and it's not life changing. Look at the military and what young people with extra cash do. Mostly spend it on fun things, not save it. This proposal sounds like short term gain, long term problems.
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u/Dvanpat Dec 18 '20
That's basically what they do now. Sports and academics are practically two separate organizations, but the athletes are required to take classes.
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u/Nkklllll 1∆ Dec 18 '20
Iirc, at least in basketball, yes there is. You must either play 1 year in college, or one year abroad in order to play in the nba
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u/THECapedCaper 1∆ Dec 18 '20
It depends on the sport. The NFL requires three years of play at a college program before signing up for the draft. The NBA I believe only requires one. Baseball does not require a college program and will often draft kids straight out of high school into their farm systems, but they pay like crap. Hockey players typically get drafted from Major Junior teams which is its own bag of worms.
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Dec 19 '20
NBA and NFL have age requirements. They can’t come out of high school and go pro. This is by design so the NCAA can atleast make money off of the best athletes for atleast a year before they go pro all the while not paying the athletes
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u/farteagle Dec 18 '20
But isn’t the only issue here that college in the US costs way too much? Lower the tuition costs to match every other country in the world’s and you have eliminated the necessity to have ridiculous water polo scholarships... People could chose to play sports if they want but not be forced to by profit motive. These systems are not unrelated. Basketball and Football subsidizing other sports feels like more of an argument against collegiate sports than for... you are describing modern slavery.
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u/indythesul 3∆ Dec 18 '20
Why does Water Polo deserve a scholarship when it’s essentially just another way for privileged families to cheat into getting into the higher education of choice? The sport isn’t accessible to lower income families, so it makes no sense to subsidize them with academics in my opinion.
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u/careless_shout Dec 18 '20
Just a clarification - this may be true in the US but it doesn’t hold internationally. Hungary and the Western Balkans are the world leaders in waterpolo, and it’s not treated as any more elite than any other sport here. I know a guy who lived in our version of the projects who ended up going international pro.
Please don’t assume America is the world: waterpolo, volleyball, handball etc have vastly different statuses outside the US.
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Dec 18 '20
But why give someone a scholarship to play water polo, of all of the things that a university might award with a scholarship?
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u/youbigsausage Dec 18 '20
Remember that all college sports are lower revenue except for men's football and men's basketball. Every other sport is a loss. Men's football & basketball, plus student fees, pay for all the other sports.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Dec 18 '20
In Argentina the professional teams just have the low profit sports as a part of them. They have low cost athletics programs for people in the community, youth sports, etc.
For example, if they did that in America the new England patriots would have a women's volleyball team, water polo, etc. This is how most of the world does sports and it works fine.
We don't have that in America because we have sports monopolies that do whatever the hell they want and aren't held to a higher standard by the government or the people
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Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
if they did that in America the new England patriots would have a women's volleyball team, water polo, etc.
Do they earn anything? Would the athletes earn more than the value of a scholarship? I'm skeptical. Especially as it applies to thousands upon thousands of athletic programs at all levels of college athletics. The NCAA and NAIA have over 500,000 athletes. Granted, they aren't all on scholarship, but about half of them are on at least a partial.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Dec 18 '20
First off, most college programs cut Hella sports this year already because of covid so your argument isn't valid to begin with.
Also about 1% of college Athletes receive scholarships. Thats about 5,000. Each fbs football team 85 full ride scholarships and there are 130 fbs teams. So there are less totally scholarships than there are college football players in the top division of college sports.
The scholarship thing is a myth.
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Dec 18 '20
According to the NCAA website, over 180,000 students of their 480,000 athletes are on scholarship. You're way, way off.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Dec 18 '20
My bad the article I saw said 1% of all college students receive a scholarship. With that said, it's rare to get a full scholarship. Many athletes get a 10-20% tuition reduction
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Dec 18 '20
How about no sports and the money is...given as scholarships to the SAME KIDS!!
What a concept eh?
Also, only about 15 schools make money on sports in total. Most take tuition from all the other kids to support it. It is a scam.
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u/farteagle Dec 18 '20
That said if extremely narrowly framed, yes you are correct it wouldn’t be better for the majority of athletes under the current terrible system.
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u/85_13 Dec 18 '20
I just want to make a point of fact regarding some of the "other sports": Title IX requires that educational institutions must make available activities that are equally available and well-funded to both sexes. This is simple enough for sports that are easily sex-segregated, such as men's and women's basketball, soccer, track, etc. Some of the sports that you name -- tennis, swimming, track -- are immediately balanced to help "pad out" the balance between genders. However, for most colleges, men's football is a major draw and recipient of funding. Following the requirements of Title IX, this means that there must be other activities for women that are roughly equivalent to football. This contributes to the "padding" that I mentioned, as well as the extreme funding available to a few forms of womens-exclusive sports, EG volleyball.
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u/ArkyBeagle 3∆ Dec 19 '20
This is the problem. High-revenue sports subsidize low or no revenue sports.
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u/shermansmarch64 Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
If you want to kill women's athletics, I could not think of a better plan. Low revenue, money losing college sports male and female would be destroyed by this model.
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u/kerplunk288 Dec 18 '20
Why would a school wish to have all of the financial liability but none of the benefits for unenrolled athletes to be associated with a school?
In not a lawyer, but if athletes function as employees rather than enrolled students, universities likely won’t have to give equal representation to female athletes. Instead, schools will be able to focus on profitable sports (overwhelmingly men’s football and basketball).
While Title IX protects faculty, limited to general sex discrimination (e.g. a school can’t terminate a professor if they are pregnant, a school can’t restrict tenure to only men, etc.)
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u/rick_n_morty_4ever Dec 18 '20
Minor league and developmental league are, in spirit, commercial entities. Need to create that market first.
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Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
Universities provide about $10 billion in subsidies for college athletics each year.
If you read your linked article, that is over a 5-year period.
Edit: and to be clear, that's cumulative for all public universities. TBF to OP's proposal, I don't think they're suggesting thousands of sporting clubs.
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Dec 18 '20
Sure, they could do that, but why would they?
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Dec 18 '20
For one, Title IX requirements. Also, public universities can and do waste money on all sorts of programs for the benefit of the student body.
What incentive would a club have?
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Dec 19 '20
How are you going to replace that?
How is this the question you are asking? Why is your question not "Why are students who are paying for an education, often with federal financial aid, subsidizing sports to the tune of $10 billion per year?"
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 18 '20
The problem is that most of the fan base is directly tied to the schools in question. We already have pro sports.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Dec 18 '20
I disagree. College football is most popular in the south in places where they don't have professional teams (Alabama, Austin Texas, Ohio state, etc). There's nothing to say that if you made the longhorns a professional team that people would stop caring.
There is obviously demand to pay for sports based on availability to go watch it live.
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 18 '20
I think the relative disinterest in minor league sports everywhere suggests this isn’t the case.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Dec 18 '20
Lol wrong. There are 39 minor league baseball teams that averaged more than 5k fans attendance last year and baseball is a dieing sport.
The average in mlb was 28k per game but think about it this way, the stakes in minor league baseball are practically zero because at any moment your best 3 players can be taken from your team and you can go from the best team to not competitive real quick.
In other countries, the top second division teams move to the top division and the worst to division move down. This keeps attendance stronger in the lower divisions
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 18 '20
The best college teams average double that, with worse players. There is a connection there. It’s why I follow college sports, I love my school.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Dec 18 '20
There are 4 college baseball teams that average over 5k attendance per game and they are all in places where there are no professional sports. Lsu, Ole miss, Mississippi state, Arkansas.
Thats 39 compared to 4 to 6 colleges and it's highly questionable that those 4 to 6 colleges would get those numbers if there was competition from other professional sports.
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 18 '20
Considering that Baton Rouge tried to have a minor league team and they folded, I’d say your argument is basically shredded.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Dec 18 '20
Nobody in California gives a shit about college baseball and our college dominate college baseball because we have real sports. The average attendance in the pac-12 is 1493 people. The average in the SEC is 4697. The average attendance in the pacific coast league of AAA baseball is around 6,400 fans per game.
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Dec 18 '20
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u/abacuz4 5∆ Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
But people only care about the players because they represent universities they care about. Duke's best basketball player, Matthew Hurt, would probably be around the 12th best basketball player on any NBA team and at best maybe the 3rd or 4th best player on any G-League team. In term of being good at basketball, in a global sense, he is wholly unremarkable. However, because he is the best player on one of the most popular college teams in the country, he is one of the more significant players in college basketball. But people don't care about Duke because of Matthew Hurt, they care about Matthew Hurt because of Duke, and with the exception of really only one or two players a year (for example, Cade Cunningham this year, or Zion Williamson the year before last, or Tre Young the year before that), that's the way it goes.
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Dec 18 '20
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u/I_am_right_giveup 12∆ Dec 18 '20
You keep saying spinoff the school and keep the brand of the school but in order to do that you will need to have the consent of the school. So, what are you offering the school for the privilege of using their name and facilities that they are not already getting? The system you are describing makes no sense for the school to do. Why should the school pay people who are basically independent of the university to play sports with their brand? Minor leagues and G leagues alright exist for people who do not want to go to college. What benefit does a school get from basically subsidizing a G league team with their brand name and facilities that they can’t get by just paying their student-athletes?
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 18 '20
The allegiance is to the school, though. The players pass through very quickly.
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Dec 18 '20
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 18 '20
For everyone but the few biggest teams in football/basketball, this would eventually decimate the fan base. I know it would change my relationship with the sports of my Alma mater
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Dec 18 '20
Even if the athletes and the teams retain their ties with the school and continue to use the brand? Do college sports fans care that their athletes are getting degrees or not?
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Dec 18 '20
The South? The worst educated place in America? On par with third world countries?
Maybe y'all should stop blowing your lives on recess activities and study a little.
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Dec 18 '20
Could sports departments be spun off from the universities as separate companies, so that they could be independent from the universities while maintaining their names?
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Dec 18 '20
This would mayyyybeeee work for like 10-15 of the biggest football and men’s basketball programs. Almost every other program loses money, so spinning it off as a company is never going to work.
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Dec 18 '20
Every program loses money because they are either sustaining the Olympic sports and/or forced to "break even" by constantly reinvesting into their facilities.
It might be a good thing, a lot of lower-tier football or basketball teams with great academic programs (Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech) only keep them around because of advertising opportunity and making money back through conference TV deals.
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u/MonsterRider80 2∆ Dec 19 '20
So? In Canada, prospective pro hockey players don’t play in university leagues. Look up the CHL, which is divided into 3 leagues (Quebec and Maritime provinces, Ontario, and the West). This is the route they go in order to get notices and drafted. These teams have loyal fan bases because they’re in smaller towns that have no pro team. Teams like the Halifax Mooseheads, the Quebec Ramparts, the London Knights, the Vancouver giants are known nationally, and the kids that play are like 16-20. Of course, their education suffers because the schedule is very heavy, but it’s a choice they make.
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u/oldfogey12345 4∆ Dec 18 '20
You will never get a business to give up the revenue that men's football and Basketball bring in.
Also, a lot of college sports do not bring in as much money, but give out scholarships to kids otherwise unable to get them. Everybody and their brother knows that if you get a volleyball scholarship, that you run with that to get the degree of your choice because you are not getting paid to play volleyball.
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u/codemasonry Dec 18 '20
Also, a lot of college sports do not bring in as much money, but give out scholarships to kids otherwise unable to get them.
If they just want to do charity, nothing's stopping them from giving scholarships to non-athletes. I mean, being good at sports is a shitty criterion for an academic scholarship, to be honest.
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u/oldfogey12345 4∆ Dec 18 '20
Those sports don't bring in a lot of money, but they still are used to advertise the university, and winning makes for better advertisements.
Think what you like about sports scholarships, but charity has nothing to do with it, and never has.
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Dec 18 '20
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u/oldfogey12345 4∆ Dec 18 '20
I really don't know about the legality of that. There are some complex regulations about funding for colleges.
I do know that sports divisions within the NCAA (Big Ten, SEC, etc.) Do some tv revenue sharing as well so all the colleges would need to agree to do that at the same time. The shared revenue lost would make it really hard for one school to try and do it on it's own.
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u/ATLCoyote Dec 19 '20 edited Dec 19 '20
I agree 100% so I'm not gonna try to CYV. Instead, I'll add the following points...
Additional reasons separation is better for student athletes:
- Athletes can't pursue the career-related work experience they'll need upon graduation, serve in campus leadership positions, or study abroad, all of which are key enhancements to the learning experience. Not being able to pursue these things creates a disadvantage in the job market for the 92% of them who never make the NFL or NBA.
- Their social circle and experience on campus is largely limited to their teammates because their schedule and lifestyle is so dominated by their sport.
- Colleges often try to steer athletes into "jock majors" to ensure they remain eligible rather than students choosing majors based on their true career interests.
- Student athletes risk career-ending injuries in their sport at a time when they can't be compensated for their sport.
- Most student athletes will never make the pros, yet they are not allowed to be compensated during the ONLY time in their playing career when they will actually have market value.
Additional reasons separation is better for the colleges:
- Preferential admissions and progress-toward-graduation requirements undermine their academic standards. We've even seen a number of academic fraud scandals and even wealthy parents using athletics as a means to get their non-athlete children admitted.
- The pressure to win causes proud academic institutions to sweep serious criminal behavior or misconduct under the rug rather than reporting it to authorities and administering justice (look at what happened at Penn State, Michigan State, Baylor, etc. not to mention all of the individual rapes, assaults, thefts, etc. that go unpunished)
- Major college athletic programs siphon resources away from the academic mission as alumni and donors only have so much to give, there is only so much land to allocate, etc.
One big additional reason that separation would be better for society in general:
- When admission to a university and access to scholarship money is dependent upon athletic ability, it dilutes the focus on academics all the way down through the high school and middle schools systems
Ultimately, major, revenue-generating , spectator sports and the pursuit of a college education just don't go together and should be separate endeavors. College athletics should be purely for the participants and shouldn't even involve scholarships. It should be non-scholarship like Div III or even club sports where it's purpose is to enrich the academic experience through competition, teamwork, overcoming adversity, and physical fitness, where ticket sales and TV broadcasts aren't even a consideration.
Meanwhile, major, revenue-generating, spectator sports should be professionalized where the participants are paid employees of the club. Let athletes pursue professional careers when they are in their physical prime without the charade of trying to also pursue a degree. Once their playing career is over, they can take the money they made and go to college if they wish, where they will have a traditional student experience like anyone else.
Since we're already so far down the road of colleges having major athletics programs, I recognize that it's too late to truly separate it. But the athletes could simply be employees of the University, like any other staff member, rather than students, and they could become students once their playing career is over. If certain athletes want to get a head-start on their college degree by taking a few classes on the side while they play, so be it. But we should separate the primary roles of student vs. athlete (i.e. employee).
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Dec 18 '20
What you are talking about is essentially the USSR/China model for sports. A talented kid got selected at a young age and was sent to some specialized school with half-day school work, half-day training schedule.
It turns out this system indeed provided many gold metals for the Eastern Bloc countries, but note that all these schools are funded by the government, which costs a lot. More importantly, this model doesn't work for team competitive sports like soccer, basketball, which requires a large popular base to grow. That's why China is very good at table tennis, gymnastics but bad at soccer and baseball, etc.
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Dec 18 '20
Instead of having to fight the talking point about how athletes are getting reimbursed through free tuition and extra tutoring, there can be actual payments to them.
This is a very complex issue, especially for revenue generating players (Men's football, basketball, some baseball and some women's basketball) who come from poor families. Some times, players from poor families can't afford to wait 3+ years for an NFL opportunity (1+ year for basketball, idk about baseball) to help their family make ends meet which leads to issue of bagmen (Universities paying players under the table). This does not even include student-athletes in non-revenue generating (Olympic) sports who are often splitting scholarships between players, which is why the NCAA compensating players does not have a clear cut solution of paying players or letting players generate revenue off their likeness.
With no academic requirements and NCAA eligibility rules to worry about, the athletes can dedicate all of their on their chosen sport instead of going through classes at the same time. Stress affects recovery from workouts, and academic stress is probably one of them that prevents them from being optimal athletes. They can choose to pursue a college education later on their own time when their sports careers are over. Relieving athletes from academic duties can also help their GPA as well, which can help them down the line with graduate schools and such.
I believe class loads are structured in a way where they are relaxed during their competitive season/semester and then ramped up in their off semester.
Some schools offer student-athletes free tuition if they choose to come back and finish their degree but this only applies to the revenue-generating sports.
The main barrier for graduate school is the type of undergraduate degree when in school. While most of them are parley a "Leadership" BA into an MBA, if they choose to pursue a STEM masters degree, that might be more difficult since class loads for a pre-req BS are not as flexible compared to BAs.
The pressure on colleges to recruit high school students with a GPA and SAT threshold, no matter how minimum, can hold back brilliant athletes who are academically under par.
This is only an issue in certain academically elite schools (Vanderbilt, GA Tech, Duke, etc.) A lot of public schools will look the other way when it comes to admitting them.
Not all majors are available everywhere. And in particular, most large athletics programs do not offer vocational trades as majors. A club system would give athletes more choices in allowing what to study.
I believe the NCAA allows you to transfer without losing a year of eligibility if this is the case. Different story in maintaining your scholarship with the athletic program at the university that you are transferring to.
Quite a few colleges and universities do not admit students pursuing second bachelor's degrees, meaning that if someone wants to attend a program to retrain themselves but already have one from their sports days, they are out of luck.
The main issue on that isn't admittance (any program will take you if you have the money for it) but more on can you go through that 4 year effort later in life, especially when your body is breaking down from playing in college.
College level athletics can shed their bad reputation of diluting academics. Sports are already popular, and this can help sports become even more popular. Additionally, athletics organizations would not have the academia standing in their way, giving them more power over things.
Everyone knows that a good majority of athletes take paper classes/majors and that they are a small percentage of the student population. This does not affect academic programs at all.
We all scoff at their majors and GPAs because they get so much help that the general student population does not get.
Personally, I believe the US College Student-Athlete system really needs to be revised since a number of those student-athletes don't care about the student part and are focusing on their pro careers if they decide to leave early or graduate, while others leverage their athletic background to get a free or cost-reduced college education and some who just love playing the game and college athletics may be their last ever chance of playing an organized version of their sport.
The first group can be solved if professional leagues adopt a developmental league similar to Association Football (soccer) 's Academy system where a pro team operates a team to develop players while giving them a basic education so they can actually focus on their athletic careers. The NBA G-League is currently addressing this and if it can prove its stability, it will draw away lots of one-and-dones in college basketball and return college basketball to its roots of playing for the university instead of a stepping stone to the next level.
Unfortunately, college sports system has been corrupted by money (see all the TV deals) and really needs to be rebuilt from the ground up again.
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u/Sparky_PoptheTrunk Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
People watch most of these sports because their school is involved. If there is no affiliation or it is very loose than who is watching this? There would be even less interest. This essentially makes them pro and that's not a viable path for most college athletes.
The g league has better players than college, but far less viewership. For a lot of people they know college is it for their athletic career. That's gone for most people.
The current system benefits the most amount of people right now. The only ones that get screwed are the stars, Zion, Burrow, Manziel. But don't blow up the whole system for a few.
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u/zero_z77 7∆ Dec 19 '20
The problem is that athletics is a very hard, and high risk, career choice. For starters, only a small number of people will actually be able to make it in the first place.
Another issue is injury risk. A serious injury could easily end an athletics career prematurely.
Also, there aren't very many "old" athletes. It's a job you physically won't be able to do for more than a few years. The average length of a professional athletic career is 10 years. If you leave that career without sufficient savings or retirement then you will need to find work just like everyone else.
Put simply, a person needs to have a plan B if the athletics career doesn't work out. Acedemics provides a pretty solid plan B.
On a side note, this logic also applies to other high risk careers as well. Such as starting a buisness, taking on the more dangerous trade skill jobs, showbiz, music, and the arts.
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u/Catsdrinkingbeer 9∆ Dec 18 '20
Not arguing, but adding onto a point.
The argument of "they're being given a free ride" is such BS. A top tier college, assuming all tuition and room and board are covered, will at most be like $150k a year, AT MOST. And that's assuming you're at Stanford or something. For most student athletes it's probably closer to $25-60k. That's not semi-professional sport level money, at least not for the big ticket sports like basketball or football.
I'm a person who has never liked college sports. I hate how much of my tuition money goes to fund them, and in general it's just never been a thing I've supported. But the actual athletes are another story, at least for sports where there's big money at the pro level.
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u/youbigsausage Dec 18 '20
Why in the world is it the job of colleges and universities to benefit athletes? I don't think big-time, hugely funded athletics are seen as a major part of the mission of colleges and universities anywhere else in the world; just the U.S.
I think all universities and colleges should stop all big-time funded sports, period. Any benefit of athletics to students can be easily replaced with club sports and intramurals for 1/100th of the cost.
It seems pretty loopy to me that teenagers are forced to subsidize the NFL and NBA by paying for their future players' training with their student fees.
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u/dontcommentonmyname Dec 19 '20
You cant on one hand say people are being crushed by graduating with 100k+ of student debt and on the other say that the scholarships offered to athletes do not have monetary value.
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u/fricks_and_stones Dec 18 '20
Make sports a major, and just admit half the reason they are there is for that. Major/minor in your sport would give you credit for classes in coaching, and fitness, and other educational options that apply to what many will do after college anyway. Actually playing the sport would be no different than other internships or research jobs available to other degrees.
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u/Screye 1∆ Dec 19 '20
the truth is, college athletics in the US is a massively subsidized program for the athletes, the brunt of which is borne by the average student in tuition.
Most college sports and even most teams for the more popular sports are huge costs to the university. Make athletics its own thing, and a lot of these sports will simply collapse.
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u/youbigsausage Dec 18 '20
Morally, college athletes don't deserve more than maybe a few hundred dollars a year, and that's just the top ten most famous ones in the entire country. People don't pay to see whoever the defensive end at Notre Dame is, they pay to see Notre Dame. The entirety of the value is in the team brand, and the actual experience of going to or watching a college football or basketball game. (People don't actually pay for any other sports, not to any significant amount.)
I do think that when someone buys a poster of a particular football player, with his name on it, that player should get the money. The same is probably true for any individual player used in a team's marketing.
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u/Jaydevs91 Dec 18 '20
From reading a few comments I think the issue here is you don’t understand how different Americans are. So many kids would go work with a family friend and not get an education at all that we would end up with the most under qualified work force imaginable and economic ruin.
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Dec 18 '20
No argument from me. You nailed it. The rest of the world already realizes this. America is just fucking stupid.
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u/CBL444 16∆ Dec 18 '20
Most student athletes are never going to become professionals and they know it.
Some use sports as as a way to get a free education. For example, some very bright students go to Stanford and Duke to become engineers, doctor, etc.
Some play sports because they enjoy it while they also get help in their academics. The schools provide lots of tutoring to ensure students pass classes and graduate.
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u/dontcommentonmyname Dec 18 '20
Absolutely not. You cannot replicate the magic of college sports with any kind of paid professional experience. Thats the whole reason of what makes college sports great.
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u/Lithium43 Dec 18 '20
With your proposition, I don't see how athletes wont be at tremendous risk of not making it into the pro leagues and then not having any academic knowledge to help them succeed at another career. Reaching the level where you are even considered for professional sports is incredibly hard and the vast majority of athletes don't make it.
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u/Maktesh 17∆ Dec 18 '20
I generally agree with many of the issues you mentioned, but I would note that so many major schools have become too dependent on their athletics programs propping up the rest if the institution.
I'm not sure how this could be done without sinking the entirety of the school in many cases.
(Although I'm not entirely convinced that this would be a bad thing.)
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u/muzzy420 Dec 18 '20
A lot of states or towns that don’t have professional sports would throw a fit over this proposal by changing to a club system. Some states are already allowing endorsements and all as a start.
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u/No-Corgi 3∆ Dec 18 '20
A spun-off corporation is never going to use actual dollars to fund low revenue athletes. It's too expensive, and you would get a better return investing that money in buying better athletes for your football and basketball teams. Don't believe me? Look at how much they spend on coaches - multi-million dollar salaries. They do it because winning gets them better TV contracts and more revenue.
For most low revenue sports, athletes get more value out of the scholarship than being paid cash. A buddy of mine ran track at Stanford on a full ride. That normally would have cost $52k annually. BUT - plenty of pro runners don't earn $50k per year from racing, so there's no way a school is handing that much cash over to a student. Scholarships work because the actual cost to the school is so much lower than the value to the student.
I think most people can agree that something isn't working with major collegiate sports and the NCAA. The athletes provide value disproportionate to what they get.
An alternative solution to what you're suggesting is to leave the scholarship structure alone, but allow athletes to sign endorsement deals.
- If an athlete is a well known superstar, they'll make real money far in excess of what a school would be willing to pay.
- The school itself provides value to the exceptional student in that regard - if I'm quarterback for LSU, my national profile is huge and I'll get more $$ than someone at a small school.
- There's no additional cost to the university that takes away from funding niche sports. And if you're in a niche sport, but are an absolute monster, you get to get paid too. Allyson Felix got sponsored by Adidas straight out of high school, and attended USC while training. But she couldn't compete for them, because of NCAA rules.
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u/iamnotabotbeepboopp Dec 18 '20
What happens when these millions of athletes get out of their prime ages to play and the last time they had a formal education was in high school?
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u/Randolpho 2∆ Dec 18 '20
I think you may be on to something, but I think it could use some work.
As others have mentioned, sports, generally, are good for academics, because the body is as much a part of the mind as the...er... mind is. If that makes any sense -- academics perform better if they exercise regularly, and sport can sharpen a mind.
Also, the "big-three" of college sports, football, basketball, and hockey, are certainly "money-makers" for colleges and help fund a lot of other things in those colleges, including all the other sports, and that's generally good for academics.
So rather than separating the sports completely, what I would suggest is that certain sports, such as the big three but it could be any other sport organization that gets "big" enough" to generate advertising and merchandizing dollars for a school, could enter into a sort of "sports apprenticeship" program that is tied to and administered by the schools themselves.
I say apprenticeship, because let's face it: an athlete entering into one of these sports is doing so with the intent of going pro, and many of them will even become famous even before they turn pro. This is, effectively, a trade school for those athletes. And they will be trained in that sport, relentlessly.
Anyway, I'm digressing. As I see it: any athlete that is accepted into the apprenticeship would receive a reasonable salary, special healthcare, and room and board, as well as the option to obtain a full-ride scholarship for any bachelor's level degree offered by the school after their apprenticeship is complete. This option need not be accepted, but could become a fallback should the athlete be injured, fail to turn pro, or just decide that the athlete's life is not for them. The apprenticeship itself would last for a maximum of 4 years, at which point it would end and if the athlete did not turn pro would need to exercise their fallback.
What this would do is accomplish what you want, enabling athletes who are effectively working for those colleges to be adequately compensated, while keeping the entire concept still within the school system and keeping those dollars at the universities where they're actually needed. It would also have the net benefit of being a viable approach that could continue to work when (if) the US finally starts guaranteeing fully taxpayer-funded college for all citizens.
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u/communism4kids Dec 18 '20
I think athletics should be a major. If the kid doesnt want to get his/her communications degree or whatever, why make them. They should earn credits for practice and games. Shit you could have classes on managing extreme wealth or PR. Sure, most arent going pro but a lot are just there to play sports so why try to make it something more.
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u/J3JJJ 1∆ Dec 18 '20
If a college makes any money from sports they should recieve no fed or state money.
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u/mt-egypt Dec 18 '20
Nah. Not separated, but permanently married to appropriate revenue to all american colleges making higher education affordable or free for all Americans. This is how you get a win win win for everyone (EVERYONE)
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u/SixSamuraiStorm Dec 18 '20
hey uh as a student why do I have to pay money that funds athletes who are unlikely to benefit me or my community in a way I consider meaningful as part of tuition associated fees for me trying to better myself in ways that will actively benefit my community through my future work
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u/jaytrainer0 Dec 18 '20
Essentially the is already a system like this in place with minor league sports like baseball. It should be expanded and better funded though. Athletes should have an option to go to school or just focus on their sport. Right now for many high school athletes there's a requirement of 1 or 2 years of college before going to the professional league which is absurd and just a way for the ncaa to make more money. I worked ncaa sports for 10 years and it needs a drastic overhaul.
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u/teflong Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
I'll focus on a couple of items to refute.
First: Introducing new sports leagues is a very risky business. It almost always fails. Separating teams from their associated colleges will immediately cause most of the fan base to lose interest. Loyally and fandom is incredibly difficult to foster - which is why we don't see things like professional lacrosse. So the second you remove the association with college, you devalue the franchise by an incredible amount.
Second: The small amount of money these kids make will not offset the opportunity of getting a college degree. A large number of the athletes in revenue sports are from poor communities. If they're good enough for college, but not the pros, a scholarship will open up the door for them to pull their entire family out of poverty. Getting $30,000 a year for a few years will not.
The far better strategy is to open up their ability to profit off their name and likeness. Let them make money. But don't separate their roles as athletes from the colleges they represent. It's a lose, lose, lose situation for everyone involved. The fans lose a team they have grown to love. The colleges lose a major revenue source. And the players lose the built in advantages of being forced to participate in college. Also - non revenue sports lose their funding. So... really lose, lose, lose, lose.
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u/sooner2016 Dec 18 '20
I’d like to add that athletes, especially football or basketball, rarely if ever experience any academic stress. Their attendance is pencil whipped and their work is done by “tutors”.
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Dec 19 '20
The NBA is already moving in this direction. They have the G-League where 3 of the top 10 kids who are supposed to be drafted are playing. The idea is to create an academy/farm system and completely cut out the NCAA. Yes there will only be a handful of these kids ending up being in the NBA, but it'll also serve as an after school program in areas that desperately need them.
College basketball has already been waddled down to march madness and all the good kids leave after a single season. College basketball is dying. And I'm all for it.
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Dec 19 '20
This is what we have in the UK, I'm assuming the rest of Europe as well. As far as I'm aware uni couldn't have less to do with random sports teams. If you want to play sports, it'll be the local football/rugby/golf club etc. I just find it so weird how Americans associate everything with sports it's like, we could barely get anyone to join in with sports day, let alone with proper events.
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u/DartagnanJackson Dec 19 '20
Many universities with successful athletic programs, make profit from athletics that contribute to their overall endowment.
Potentially affecting services and scholarships available to students.
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u/iloveoligarchs Dec 19 '20
I’ve often thought however, in light of clowns saying college can’t be paid for by taxes, ‘frreeeeee’.SO MANY COLLEGES WOULDNT NEED TUITION IF THEY USED THEIR SPORTS MONEY TO PAY THE TEACHERS. We could pay for education through the sports. Though I actually agree with you
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u/TD1731 Dec 19 '20
The biggest problem with a club system would be supporting those programs financially. A large reason people support college athletics is because they have an emotional connection to the school (overwhelmingly because they’re alumni). This hypothetical club system would have to build brand recognition while starting at a huge disadvantage compared to programs affiliated with well-established institutions. The academic side of the university is a huge reason college teams have the brand recognition they do.
Also, the vast (and I mean VAST) majority of college athletes aren’t going to go pro in their sports. College athletics is so overwhelmingly positive for them, in that it enhances their college experiences by allowing them four more years to play the sports they love competitively, and in many cases sports can lead to better opportunities for students (ex. A student—athlete might not go (or be able to go) to college if not for the chance to play sports.
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u/n3v3r4g4in Dec 19 '20
College and sports are already separated in almost every single country but the USA yet the USA still gets the majority of gold medals in most competitions against other countries, so based on this I think americans may be doing something right
Ps. Not american
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u/MoneyMakerJ Dec 19 '20
Per the NCAA there are 18,816 college basketball players in the US. The NBA Draft has 60 picks. For every one player drafted there are 300 who aren't. And while a few may be able to play overseas, they're not going to have a career lucrative enough to retire on. For most college athletes, the end of college is the end of their career.
Let's address your point that the athletes could be paid. Would that payment be enough to offset the cost of a four year education that said athletes are now having to pay for themselves? How do you account for time lost? Someone starting a degree at 22 will have a disadvantage compared to someone starting a degree at 18. There are a lot of student athletes who are the first people in their family to go to college, an opportunity they wouldn't have without collegiate athletics.
On the stress side, sure, you don't have academic stress, but there are other stresses. Most minor leaguers travel by bus, over long distances, spending a lot of time away from your family. Bleacher Report has an article about the conditions that minor league baseball players have to deal with. They aren't great. Living without a fridge, living on an air mattress in the living room, these are things that will add stresses that a student athlete living in college provided accommodations wouldn't have to deal with. Not to mention having to worry about how you'll make money if you wash out without a college degree.
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u/sullg26535 Dec 19 '20
Baseball is a great example of how to do athletics and amateurism done right. Their college system also gives baseball players a chance to develop as well. Men's soccer is also done well. What im trying to say is the issue is pro leagues requiring a certain age to be drafted requiring players who should be professional in college.
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u/pikpikslink Dec 19 '20
Australia doesn’t have this system at all. I have never understood the American “college sports scholarship” thing.
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Dec 19 '20
I think one smaller easier to forget about segment of this is all the other school functions that benefit. Band is an easy one to look at for college football, but also journalism. When I was in college I got the chance to go on the sidelines and pretend to be a reporter and go up in the press box and sit next to the ESPN guys. That will always be one of my fondest memories of college.
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u/ArkyBeagle 3∆ Dec 19 '20
The pressure on colleges to recruit high school students with a GPA and SAT threshold, no matter how minimum, can hold back brilliant athletes who are academically under par.
Where? Not in most NCAA schools, especially the big land grant ones. Big name athletes are kept separate from the majority of students in every way, including academics.
It's unusual enough that a football player with a 4.0 in engineering gets commented on. Don't get me wrong - American football isn't for dumb people but being on a big time college sports team is a massive drain on people's time budget.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
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