Conference commissioners discuss good, bad of more pay to players (but mostly good)

[News Bot]

Yesterday, it was reported that the Big Ten was considering “bridging the gap” between the full cost of living for student-athletes and the payout of an athletic scholarship. League officials said players could potentially receive roughly $3,000 annually in additional monetary benefits. Whether it’s a good idea in the long run or not, conferences are…

Source: CollegeFootballTalk.com

 

[DRU2012]

This is true "It's about time!"-territory...and now that one of the "big" conferences has publicly broached the subject it can only be a matter of time before it actually comes to pass among ALL of them. I'm thinking SEC, ACC, PAC 10, Big 12 along with the Big 10--and few if any others, maybe a handful "in transition" to higher status. Not at all coincidentally, it will be this same group that will form the separate pool from which the eventual "true college football playoff-system" will emerge.
Personally, I always thought that pay-for-play would be part of such a total realignment--and the NCAA can either lead, follow or get out of the way. They've practically marginalized themselves over the last few months with their ineffectual, jelly-spine mishandling of numerous violations and scandals, and any kind of ill-timed resistance to these powerful schools' effort to recreate their future will likely leave them behind, presiding over "all the other schools".

 

[Escambia94]

I agree. At work during our football conversations, we all agreed after many months of debate that the NCAA Division I should be split into the "semi-pro NFL development league". The NCAA needs to bite the bullet and pick a path--hypocritical mafia stuck in the past or smart business moving forward.

A friend of mine actually got published for outlining such a business model. First he started with analyzing the market value of a sample of NCAA amateur basketball players. The model is easier for basketball, but it can be extrapolated for football. The NBA minimum salary is almost $500K for 0 years of service, and some of those kids that command that salary are "one-and-dones" with only a year of college! In recent years, NFL first-rounders command $10M per year for 5 or 6 years, with an average of about 3 years of college for each of those first rounders. NFL minimum salaries are lower than NBA minimums because we are spreading the average across QBs, WRs, DBs, LBs, and even kickers--$350K per year for 2 years.

So, for argument's sake, let us say NFL first rounders have a market value of $500K for 5 years as rookies. Auburn "allegedly" paid Cam Newton's dad $300K for one year as a college QB with 2 years of Division I backup experience and 1 year of Division II starter experience. One could argue that a 3-year starting QB in Division I has a market value of $500K/year (just as my friend argued in his paper). The top NCAA football teams turn tens of millions of dollars in profit. Let us assume they "only" wanted half of that profit so they could pay the NFL some penance for support as the NFL development league, complete with NFL support that would let them make that money back (profit sharing, anyone?). Teams likes Texas and Florida consistently rake in $20M per year. Divide that out by the 85 players on scholarship and you can easily pay each scholarship player $235K. The "poorest" of the profitable teams that consistently cranks out NFL talent, such as South Carolina, still turn on profits over $7M, so I will say they need to divvy up half of that and divide out to 85 players. This results in a $180K market value adjusted to the profit of the top NCAA teams with a 50% tax to the NFL. Funny. Cecil Newton hit the number right on the head--$180K.

The NCAA could take the top 20 teams and let each team pay out an average of $180K per year in FY12 dollars to its 85 scholarship players. Some teams may elect to pay the QB $500K per year and the kicker would get a box of cookies each week, or the team could elect to pay per statistic, or the team could develop its own business model within the $180K average salary cap. Some teams may even be rich enough to pay all 105 roster players using the average of $180K--it's their prerogative. This is a capitalist economy, and some teams can pay more.

This is win-win for the top 20 NCAA teams and the NFL, because the NCAA can negotiate to share profit with NFL and win back more profit for pushing out more NFL talent. The NFL gets a safer route to developing future talent, plus they can legally have a say in amateur/semi-pro ball. The players win because as semi-pros they should see the royalties off videos games, jerseys, and other items sold off their names.

 

[DRU2012]

Well thought-out AND laid-out...I would add only this: the model is even more appropriate in the case of football when one considers the actual length-of-career figures for the average players at various positions in the NFL, and how big a bite each year in college before that comes out to when you're figuring lost value, in terms of time, money, and/or risk.
Hearing that triumvirate-of-fools, each with his own biased axe-to-grind, pontificating on what a bad idea this is on College Football Live on Friday would have been funny if it weren't so frustratingly shallow, selfish and short-sighted.
In each case it sounded more like "sour grapes squared": all ex-players who had to get THEIR "piece" the old-fashioned way, under-the-table; now no one outside their own show is even asking them for their input, or even cares. It's gonna happen with or without them--or anyone ELSE from the media, the NCAA or the self-appointed and hypocritical "caretakers of the traditional past", pay-for-play in a separate "Major College Championship Association (MCCA)", and it just burns them up.

 

[Escambia94]

The great thing about the ideas I proposed in my earlier post is that similar ideas are being discussed at major colleges as viable business models. It still needs to gain momentum at the NCAA and NFL head sheds. There are people in both the NCAA and NFL who have discussed similar ideas, but the ideas keep getting shot down by the "mafia".

 

[robdog]

And we are only talking about an additional $3,000 for the students which might upgrade a few of their bread and water meals to Taco Bell or something. (yes I love me some Taco Bell, lol)

However, this could just be the start. Going to be interesting to see if other conferences follow this plan.

 

[DRU2012]

If it moves forward, they'd HAVE to--can't see this happening unilaterally; if one starts down that road, the rest of the "Big Boys" will quickly follow suit. They're probably already discussing it "off the record", behind-closed-doors. I'm telling you, this will likely be the "precipitating event", the issue that "separates the men from the boys" as far as a "Championship Tier" that eventually plays for a true Major College Championship.