Looks like prison time for Sean Miller!

[X-Expert]

This current world and sports lives on millions and billions and trillions of $$$$ spent and used for bribes to get things done from top to bottom......college sports gets billions $$ contracts, coaches make millions to tens of millions as salaries, Universities take in tens to hundreds of millions each year from sports....but they do not want to pay the college athlete. The college athlete today is a pawn or slave to the masters over them who are using them for their own profits. Time to consider dumping the NCAA totally and start paying the athletes.....poor kids are not going to starve while they see their coaches and universities rich. A scholarship means nothing because 40% to 70% of the football and basketball college athletes do not graduate.

Understand the process but not a fan of paying athletes. Will open up additional can of worms. If I'm on the women's lacrosse team at Duke, I would certainly expect to be paid the same as the basketball team. In my opinion, the scholarship is payment. This gives them a stage to play on national TV, in front of scouts, etc. Not to mention the many perks they receive by meeting alumni, boosters, etc for those who do not play sports professionally. I understand both sides of the equation but this is more an issue of the expectations of coaches brought on by demands of boosters and the university. Coaches want their players to play and develop all year round so lets pay them so they don't starve. Maybe its time for them to get real jobs in the off-season. when I was in college, I worked 30 hours a week. If they want to pay a stipend, there should be a fixed amount for college athletes during their season. They can actually determine how much to pay them the following year based on how much they got paid in the jobs they got during the off-season. I know this will never fly but just my thought.

[ChitownSteve]

Not pretending to have the answers. I fall into the camp of those having a concern with paying athletes.

Frankly, many of these problems are starting at an earlier and earlier age, due to the search for college scholarships, because of dramatically rising college tuition.

Moreover, paying the athletes will not stop those, especially stars in the major sports, that "want more money" or "a supplement to to the stipend."

No easy answers. Many of the proposed solutions have unintended consequences or will still be circumvented.

[Shadow]

This current world and sports lives on millions and billions and trillions of $$$$ spent and used for bribes to get things done from top to bottom......college sports gets billions $$ contracts, coaches make millions to tens of millions as salaries, Universities take in tens to hundreds of millions each year from sports....but they do not want to pay the college athlete. The college athlete today is a pawn or slave to the masters over them who are using them for their own profits. Time to consider dumping the NCAA totally and start paying the athletes.....poor kids are not going to starve while they see their coaches and universities rich. A scholarship means nothing because 40% to 70% of the football and basketball college athletes do not graduate.

Gives credence to the sobriquet "dumb jock", does it not?

[JKC74]

This current world and sports lives on millions and billions and trillions of $$$$ spent and used for bribes to get things done from top to bottom......college sports gets billions $$ contracts, coaches make millions to tens of millions as salaries, Universities take in tens to hundreds of millions each year from sports....but they do not want to pay the college athlete. The college athlete today is a pawn or slave to the masters over them who are using them for their own profits. Time to consider dumping the NCAA totally and start paying the athletes.....poor kids are not going to starve while they see their coaches and universities rich. A scholarship means nothing because 40% to 70% of the football and basketball college athletes do not graduate.

Understand the process but not a fan of paying athletes. Will open up additional can of worms. If I'm on the women's lacrosse team at Duke, I would certainly expect to be paid the same as the basketball team. In my opinion, the scholarship is payment. This gives them a stage to play on national TV, in front of scouts, etc. Not to mention the many perks they receive by meeting alumni, boosters, etc for those who do not play sports professionally. I understand both sides of the equation but this is more an issue of the expectations of coaches brought on by demands of boosters and the university. Coaches want their players to play and develop all year round so lets pay them so they don't starve. Maybe its time for them to get real jobs in the off-season. when I was in college, I worked 30 hours a week. If they want to pay a stipend, there should be a fixed amount for college athletes during their season. They can actually determine how much to pay them the following year based on how much they got paid in the jobs they got during the off-season. I know this will never fly but just my thought.

A couple of things:

1. Whatever stipend the current college athletes are given should be doubled or tripled.
2. If players are on the payroll to play, what do we need them in school for????
3. Would they be willing to admit their scholarship is income and be taxed on it???
4. If a player does not graduate within 5 years time, no new scholarship for someone else until that athlete gets his diploma.
5. With no real solution to the problem, just turn all Division-1 athletic teams into Clubs like in Europe where the university
is the sponsor, pays all costs, collects all monetary benefits, removes the educational joke and lets the players do what they
will, a minor league. Lets put our cards on the table.

[mumuskie87]

A couple of things:

1. Whatever stipend the current college athletes are given should be doubled or tripled.
2. If players are on the payroll to play, what do we need them in school for????
3. Would they be willing to admit their scholarship is income and be taxed on it???
4. If a player does not graduate within 5 years time, no new scholarship for someone else until that athlete gets his diploma.
5. With no real solution to the problem, just turn all Division-1 athletic teams into Clubs like in Europe where the university
is the sponsor, pays all costs, collects all monetary benefits, removes the educational joke and lets the players do what they
will, a minor league. Lets put our cards on the table.


Don't disagree but the bureaucracy of the NCAA will fight that tooth and nail - mainly to protect their paychecks.
And they continue to hide behind the façade of their "student-athletes".
Maybe for some non-revenue producing sports the ideal of a "student=athlete" still exists but need to cut the crap with respect to college football and college basketball.

[kyzrex]

Maybe for some non-revenue producing sports the ideal of a "student=athlete" still exists but need to cut the crap with respect to college football and college basketball.

1st off, I hope that everyone realizes that the “non-revenue” sports do not get enough scholarships to cover the complete roster. That’s right, in those sports not every student is on full scholarship. Some are on partial and some get nothing at all. This is true even for sports at schools that could afford to give out full scholarships, but NCAA rules limit them in order to help create a more even playing field between the biggest and smallest schools.

2ndly....there is the fact that the revenue sports do put the largest amount of dollars into the athletic budget. Paying football and basketball players sounds great....but where is that money going to come from? Are people going to be willing to see potentially BIG price increases to tickets to cover that extra cost?

3rdly.....there is that pesky thing called Title IX. Spending between men’s and women’s sports at a university must be basically even overall. So it’s not just the amount of money that is spent paying the MEN’S players that matters. You are going to basically have to double that money, and then spread that money out among the women’s sports.

4th.....there is already a lot of disparity between what coaches are paid, practice facilities, travel, budgets, benefits, etc etc etc between the various sports at every school, let alone between the men’s and women’s departments. This already causes a lot of hard feelings and problems between staffs and students from the various sports. Starting to pay some players and not others will only cause this to get worse. Having discrepancies based on the status a player has on a team will only cause even more problems.

5th....after we start paying players are we then going to have to treat them like “employees”? Are they going to be allowed to organize and unionize? Go on strike? Will they get pensions? Unemployment? Workman’s comp?

Believe me.....I can’t for the life of me believe me that there is one single university President or Athletic Dirctor that is in favor of making the athletes, employeees of the university.