End of NCAA College Football?

I know every "school" in the $EC is totally for this because they're all paying their players right now--it's just under the table.  ;)

I have been on the side of pay the players since I first had an opinion on it and my opinion has not changed.  Like @Mavric though, I am not sure what the number is and admittedly this could get very, very, messy.  One question I have: Are all scholarship football players going to be paid the same amount?  Because in a true free market, the better players theoretically should earn more than the benchwarmers, right?  Making an All-American or All-Conference team should earn you more than just being a regular player, right?

I think maybe instead of out-right paying players, maybe allow them to charge appearance fees and charge money to sign footballs, hats, jerseys, etc.

I think paying players more than they are now is going to happen.  How that affects conferences and realignment... 

:dunno

 
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I have said for many years it will be a 4 16 team conferences.  But I have changed my mind on that.  I think in 20 years the sport will be all but  gone.  

I live in the Pass area of Southern California, between Palm Springs and Riverside.  In this small community, Banning/Beaumont we have two Jr. All American football teams and over 60 Soccer teams.  The two teams are having problems getting enough players to field teams.  Head injuries are the main comments you hear from parents.  The high schools are cutting back on the football budgets I have been told.  Without players the game folds.  Without High Schools fielding teams the college system dies.  I don't think I will be around to see it, but I think it is coming.  The big buck leagues would be fair.  They make a lot of money off these kids, and they are the ones putting their lives in danger.  

 
Mavric said:
They're getting quite a bit more than room and board.

Since you brought up the NCAA tournament revenue, that sounds like a lot.  And it is.  But - again - the pie gets split a lot of ways.  Even using the entire $1B number - which doesn't take any expenses out but is only one revenue source - and divide it among the 179,200 Division 1 student-athletes, that comes out to $5,580 each.  which is less than the stipend is right now.
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But that's only one source.  

 
skersfan said:
I have said for many years it will be a 4 16 team conferences.  But I have changed my mind on that.  I think in 20 years the sport will be all but  gone.  

I live in the Pass area of Southern California, between Palm Springs and Riverside.  In this small community, Banning/Beaumont we have two Jr. All American football teams and over 60 Soccer teams.  The two teams are having problems getting enough players to field teams.  Head injuries are the main comments you hear from parents.  The high schools are cutting back on the football budgets I have been told.  Without players the game folds.  Without High Schools fielding teams the college system dies.  I don't think I will be around to see it, but I think it is coming.  The big buck leagues would be fair.  They make a lot of money off these kids, and they are the ones putting their lives in danger.  
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Perhaps flag football is in our future.  ;)

 
southernoregonhusker said:
Nah, those kids shouldn't get paid.

"The NCAA Tournament will be broadcast on CBS/Turner through 2032. The companies signed an eight-year, $8.8 billion extension with the NCAA for the broadcast rights to March Madness, putting the tournament's yearly TV value at over a billion dollars for the first time.

In 2010, the NCAA and CBS/Turner agreed to a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal that will run through 2024. Apparently the parties liked that deal so much, they didn't even get halfway through their initial deal before a huge multibillion dollar extension."

Yep, you read that right.  TV money from March Madness is worth a billion dollars a  year.
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NCAA tournament? What has that ever had to do with Nebraska?

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irafreak said:
Yeah these athletes are sure getting exploited playing a game, getting rockstar status, and a free "education." Sure they work hard but so does every other college student and they get no compensation. These kids get their school paid for. They get a lot of perks. And they're still just playing a game. Grad students get their research used by the universities. You don't always get compensated in life. 
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It's been stated time and again that the trade between the work that a student athlete does and the value of what they receive in return is not equitable. At the very least, athletes should be allowed to make money off of their likeness, from apparel sales or commercial use. 

 
I don't follow how the free minor league becoming a paid minor league will be bad for the sport.  I think it's bad that a kid's test scores and grades can affect his ability to benefit from the best coaching available.  I think it's bad that a team in the top division can't play for a championship even when they've gone undefeated over the course of the regular season.  I don't even know how to sum up what a joke NCAA discipline is...

 
I agree with @Mavric that if you're going to go to a paid model, then it needs to be equal across the board: each scholarship is worth the same amount of $$$, regardless of sport, gender or conference. You can take steps to ensure equality among the P5 and G5 schools by having the conference and the school split the stipend cost, whatever that might be. 

 
I don’t even know where to start on this NFL minor league subject. Imagine all the politics of schools wanting to get in.

It would probably end up a big mess and hurt the sport.

 
Cdog923 said:
I agree with @Mavric that if you're going to go to a paid model, then it needs to be equal across the board: each scholarship is worth the same amount of $$$, regardless of sport, gender or conference. You can take steps to ensure equality among the P5 and G5 schools by having the conference and the school split the stipend cost, whatever that might be. 
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Stipend cost would be the tip of the iceberg.

While I agree with you I have concerns about each scholarship being worth 'the same amount of $$$', here is a little info to dig deeper that line of thinking...

Just looking at out of state tuition & fees. No stipends, housing, etc.

UNL had 451 athletes on some form of athletic scholarship in 2016. This number might not be maintainable if they were all on full rides but I will assume so to resemble the model you are recommending.  

Looking across the conference the highest tuition rate is Northwestern at $54,120 per year. The lowest is Nebraska at $25,571. Average is $35,100.

So for every athlete on scholarship UNL would need spend another $28,549 to make it an "equal value" from just a tuition perspective. With 451 athletes it would cost UNL an extra $12.875 million per year without any additional return. UNL could technically afford it but that is around 10% of the current AD budget. It would cost the average B1G team $8.58M if every school carried the same number of athletes.

Recalling that scholarships need to be equal value across all conferences we will use Northwestern as the benchmark for G5 teams as well. Using the B1G conference average and assuming 12 teams/conference, it would be ~$103M  per conference. ~$515M total. I'm not even getting into the 350+ D1 basketball schools that would all need to be included in some way. That would add an additional $6-8M burden to each P5 school on top of the initial $8.58M burden. 

Figuring in food, housing, and stipend would only make these numbers worse. Doing this would put more money into the hands of the athletes but would almost certainly kill off most non-revenue sports.

 
@zeWilbur really interesting numbers.  +1

However, I'm going to assume that they won't be factoring the difference in the cost of tuition into the calculation.  My guess is it will be tuition, room, board - which will vary by school but be considered "equal" in the formula - and then some stipend calculation that would be the same across whatever scope is being considered.  I would hope it would be the same across all Division 1 schools - or at least all Power 5 schools.  That is what would be best for keeping the playing field as level as possible and thus be best for the game at large (and other sports as well).  If it gets to where it's only the same within each conference - or worse, that every school gets to set it - it will be a complete arms race cluster.

The NFL is the most competitive league because they have a hard salary cap that keeps the talent fairly spread out.  MLB is the least competitive league because teams can basically spend whatever they want so a few teams are pretty good most years and a few teams have little chance because they can't spend what the big boys can.  I'd much rather have a system similar to the NFL than MLB for the good of the sport.

 
I think allowing players to accept endorsement deals or appearance/likeness fees is the only feasible way college athletes can be paid while still having college athletics to play.

 
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