Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

MacIntyre contract approved in 8-0 vote

Buffs35 said:
Way to set up a strawman.

Let's take your premise to its logical conclusion. Treat them all like real employees. So if they are all employees, that means the school should be able to fire them if they don't perform on or off the field. They should be able to pay some more than others. The employees should be able to quit to take a new job whenever a better one comes along.

This isn't apples to apples with the real world.
Click to expand...

8Jah said:
The harsh truth is that scholarship athletes are compensated far more than they are worth. They should be counting their blessings.

Workers in the free market are compensated for their market value, not for a percentage of the total revenue of their employer.

Athletes receive more in scholarship and living stipend (not to mention facilities, tutoring and massive amounts of athletic tutelage) than most college graduates will receive in their first jobs. Compare that to minor league baseball players who barely make make minimum wage.

In fact Basketball and Football have solved a major problem by building a collegiate minors system that uses the pride and loyalty of students, alumni and the states/communities represented as a built-in fan-base to create the athletic revenues needed to compensate developing players at a level that is unprecedented in the whole world. In fact, all these revenues are reinvested back into facilities, staff and scholarships for all the student athletes. There is nothing left over to add to the already awesome compensation that student athletes already receive.
Click to expand...

The only discernible argument here is that you both prefer to be arbiters of some form of economic fascism only you see fit to dispense. No one would stand for being told to accept some permanent base compensation for your services even if you were the driver of said revenues. That's not the system our economy is supposedly based upon.

The NCAA says athletes can't be paid out of self preservation and is a system based on keeping a permanent monopoly on college athletes.

https://economics.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/robertlemonshonorsthesis-may2014.pdf

This is economic authoritarianism and if it was happening to you I think you'd be signing a very different tune.
 
DrunkRalphie said:
Not particularly. Receiving an amount far below what could be conceivably gained in a free an open market shouldn't really be called compensation.
Click to expand...
About 10 to 15% of college football players are under compensated based on the number of new NFL players each year. Everyone else is fairly compensated or over compensated. Arena players make about $3000 per month at the high end and that is only during the season. You figure the average scholarship is worth about $40,000 in tuition, room and board. So the question then becomes if we stop giving them free tuition, room and board, and instead just pay them, would they be better or worse off. I would offer that they would be worse off because the appeal of college football would die (slowly) as people realize this would now be the same as minor league football. It would be much like minor league baseball.
 
AeroBuff99 said:
About 10 to 15% of college football players are under compensated based on the number of new NFL players each year. Everyone else is fairly compensated or over compensated. Arena players make about $3000 per month at the high end and that is only during the season. You figure the average scholarship is worth about $40,000 in tuition, room and board. So the question then becomes if we stop giving them free tuition, room and board, and instead just pay them, would they be better or worse off. I would offer that they would be worse off because the appeal of college football would die (slowly) as people realize this would now be the same as minor league football. It would be much like minor league baseball.
Click to expand...
What does the NFL and the arena league have to do with college athletics? This is an argument based on revenues generated by the athletic departments of universities around the country and the NCAA.
 
DrunkRalphie said:
The only discernible argument here is that you both prefer to be arbiters of some form of economic fascism only you see fit to dispense. No one would stand for being told to accept some permanent base compensation for your services even if you were the driver of said revenues. That's not the system our economy is supposedly based upon.

The NCAA says athletes can't be paid out of self preservation and is a system based on keeping a permanent monopoly on college athletes.

https://economics.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/robertlemonshonorsthesis-may2014.pdf

This is economic authoritarianism and if it was happening to you I think you'd be signing a very different tune.
Click to expand...
Actually, I believe college athletes should get paid, and I have for a long time. But I take issue with the way you framed your arguments.

Frist, you argue college athletics make a ton of money, so it is unfair that players only get free tuition, board, gear, etc. Apple and Amazon make bank, and they pay day laborers overseas pennies on the dollar. Walmart pays workers minimum wage which means Kronke can afford pro teams with his allowance from his wife. Oh the injustice. Most college athletes are more than fairly compensated. It's just a few that are worth more than a scholly. Profits don't have to be shared equally. Equitable division is all that is required. There will always be new athletes looking for a free ride in college, and wanting the exposure college athletics give them. Their value isn't as high as you think.

Second, you act like these players are being swindled and forced to play college sports, they are not. They new the rules before they signed up.

I think players should be able to profit from their own likeness, should be able to have a job, and a small portion of the revenues made by colleges should go into a fund to help former athletes with heath insurance to cover injuries sustained during their time in college.
 
DrunkRalphie said:
What does the NFL and the arena league have to do with college athletics? This is an argument based on revenues generated by the athletic departments of universities around the country and the NCAA.
Click to expand...
The revenues generated have nothing to do with compensation. In a free market, workers are paid according to their worth and what others are willing to pay them. You don't see profs or GA's getting paid huge sums even when some of their research brings in millions, do you? Bottom line is that there is a very limited market for professional athletes. The top performers get outsized compensation due to their unique and rare talents, everyone else gets pretty much nothing.

Also the revenue generated by college athletics is based on the idea that they are student athletes. If they ever become paid employee's that market may dry up.
 
Expanding on my point about baseball. Every year hundreds of high school players make the decision to forgo playing for pay in the minor leagues and instead choose the option of playing college baseball. Reminder college baseball is an equivalency sport, where the scholarships are divided among the players, and are almost never full scholarships. So we have a situation where there is a professional alternative and yet players still make the decision to pursue the college option because the amount they receive and the opportunity they have to get an education is worth "more" than the salary they would have received from playing in the minors. The best thing the NFL and NBA could do is eliminate the draft age restrictions. The NBA should open the G-League up to anyone. The NFL really needs to develop its own developmental league system. Then we can see what the true worth of a scholarship is.
 
DrunkRalphie said:
What does the NFL and the arena league have to do with college athletics? This is an argument based on revenues generated by the athletic departments of universities around the country and the NCAA.
Click to expand...
You ready to pay high school players too? How about the theatre department - are you going to pay those actors because ticket sales generate revenue? How about every band on any high school or college campus - you want to pay the band too? What about cheerleaders? Or student volunteers? Or are you just paying football players despite the fact that many other people are involved in revenue making enterprises?
 
I think there are legitimate concerns over whether college athletics are even viable if college football and men's basketball players are put on payroll. The scenario is rife with legal issues, especially when it comes to Title IX compliance. Certainly there are ways to compensate athletes that skirt some of the legal issues, such as by paying all scholarship athletes across all sports the same stipend, or an idea I've seen here that would allow athletes to capitalize on their individual publicity rights during college through endorsements, autograph signings, et al.
 
Buffs35 said:
Actually, I believe college athletes should get paid, and I have for a long time. But I take issue with the way you framed your arguments.

Frist, you argue college athletics make a ton of money, so it is unfair that players only get free tuition, board, gear, etc. Apple and Amazon make bank, and they pay day laborers overseas pennies on the dollar. Walmart pays workers minimum wage which means Kronke can afford pro teams with his allowance from his wife. Oh the injustice. Most college athletes are more than fairly compensated. It's just a few that are worth more than a scholly. Profits don't have to be shared equally. Equitable division is all that is required.
Click to expand...


It is an injustice what companies like Walmart and Apple do to factory workers. There remains a huge difference here, though. Factory workers in China are not the product people are paying to watch. They are laborers putting together a product. That doesn't mean they don't deserve a fair wage or ample benefits, but to act as if they are the product people are consuming and not a step in the process of creating a consumer good is a false analogy. College football players are THE product and college football ceases to exist without them. Factor workers to a much larger degree are fungible. Quite a difference.

Buffs35 said:
There will always be new athletes looking for a free ride in college, and wanting the exposure college athletics give them. Their value isn't as high as you think.
Click to expand...

https://economics.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/robertlemonshonorsthesis-may2014.pdf

Per the economic paper from Stanford I cited earlier NCAA athletics are worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $16 billion. What kind of value is that?

Buffs35 said:
Second, you act like these players are being swindled and forced to play college sports, they are not. They new the rules before they signed up.

I think players should be able to profit from their own likeness, should be able to have a job, and a small portion of the revenues made by colleges should go into a fund to help former athletes with heath insurance to cover injuries sustained during their time in college.
Click to expand...

When it comes to injuries? Debatable.

https://deadspin.com/the-ncaa-is-running-out-of-excuses-on-brain-injuries-1819854361

The NCAA has obfuscated just like the NFL on this issue.

Remember that when you hear "student-athlete" tossed off casually today during broadcasts: The phrase was coined as a means of denying compensation to the widow of a man killed playing college football.
Click to expand...

https://deadspin.com/the-origins-of-amateurism-or-why-college-sports-are-s-1566714902

Additionally, the NFL stipulates a player must be three years removed from high school before entering the draft.

https://operations.nfl.com/the-players/the-nfl-draft/the-rules-of-the-draft/

So while these players "knew what they were signing up for" when there are no other alternatives how is that some sort of legitimate excuse?
 
If there is a viable commercial market for that level of football, someone would have filled that market already. That the NFL has erected barriers to entry, or "job qualifications" doesn't matter. The players are not the product in college football, superstars are in the NFL, but everyone else is just a factory worker making entertainment. In college the primary selling point is to support "your school" and cheer on the "students" playing a game. I wouldn't have any interest in rooting for the Boulder Buffaloes club team when I could just as easily watch whatever local team, and by then I would rather just watch the NFL, where the real players are.
 
AeroBuff99 said:
The players are not the product in college football
Click to expand...
Funniest **** I've read today. Let's start trotting out a bunch of drunk frat boys and see if the masses still attend.

I guess when attendance lagged to all time lows in the past decade at Folsom it was totally independent of the product on the field.
 
DrunkRalphie said:
Arguments reminiscent of why the southern economy would fall apart without slavery. Times never change.
Click to expand...
You are completely ignoring the fact that you cannot just pay football players and ignore everyone else. Title IX would absolutely crush the NCAA if they tried to do that.

That being said you have to pay 420,000 athletes. That is an insane amount of "employees" to start having to finance. Not to mention you make them employees and you have to provide health insurance for them, workmen's comp, etc., not to mention the fact that all of your new "employees" now have to start paying TAXES on their new income.

This isn't a simple "just pay them, you are being unreasonable if you don't pay them". This is a HUGE change to collegiate athletics and those changes would not all be positive. Not by a long shot.
 
Last edited:
I was almost ready to accept that, okay, let a player make money on his likeness. Then I thought about it. It just would not work. The wealthy programs and high profile programs would gain a huge advantage.
 
The idea of 'paying college players' is a stupid thought fragment that is propagated by folks with a political agenda. Speaking of political agenda, the one thing I agree with Linda Shoemaker is the worry about CTE. That is a scientifically vetted issue and I think you do have to be able to honestly tell parents that their son isn't going to have long term mental issues from playing at CU.
 
8Jah said:
The idea of 'paying college players' is a stupid thought fragment that is propagated by folks with a political agenda. Speaking of political agenda, the one thing I agree with Linda Shoemaker is the worry about CTE. That is a scientifically vetted issue and I think you do have to be able to honestly tell parents that their son isn't going to have long term mental issues from playing at CU.
Click to expand...
The information is out there. It’s widely publicized and the sport has been hammered publicly. It’s up to the parents to decide to let their kids play, not CU or the NCAA to warn them there are possible long term health effects.
 
TSchekler said:
The information is out there. It’s widely publicized and the sport has been hammered publicly. It’s up to the parents to decide to let their kids play, not CU or the NCAA to warn them there are possible long term health effects.
Click to expand...
My son and I have already had this conversation. Deal was, get your grades up and I'll let you play. Of course, we talked about the other as well. My answer to him has never changed, "know what you're signing up for."
 
Uncle Luko said:
My son and I have already had this conversation. Deal was, get your grades up and I'll let you play. Of course, we talked about the other as well. My answer to him has never changed, "know what you're signing up for."
Click to expand...
No offense Luke, but children truly understanding the potential long term effects of playing football seems iffy at best. The possibility of having side effects when you are really old (according to kids) probably doesn’t carry the kind of weight with them that you would think.
 
Bufffan68 said:
I get where she’s coming from but ...the players aren’t technically unpaid (stipend) and certainly aren’t uncompensated. For me the rub is a matter of equity...is their current compensation fair considering the amount of revenue that is generated?
Click to expand...
“Fair”?

Who gets to decide what is “Fair”?
 
buffedup said:
No offense Luke, but children truly understanding the potential long term effects of playing football seems iffy at best. The possibility of having side effects when you are really old (according to kids) probably doesn’t carry the kind of weight with them that you would think.
Click to expand...
My son isn't playing. He is doing BB and baseball. He is probably best suited for FB, but we're not going to do it.
 
Vic Lombardi stated that this is why CU will never be great again. That is, that football and the academics folks in Boulder will never get along.
 
Last edited:
buffedup said:
No offense Luke, but children truly understanding the potential long term effects of playing football seems iffy at best. The possibility of having side effects when you are really old (according to kids) probably doesn’t carry the kind of weight with them that you would think.
Click to expand...
No offense taken, all good. As far as my son, he knows exactly what he'd be getting into. I didn't keep anything from him in that regard. We've discussed CTE etc and what some have done because of it or it was a factor at least I guess. Anyway, I left it up to him on whether he wants to play or not. Took some doing but his grades are really good now. If he decides to play, I'm fine with it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top