Frackie Robinson posted:

Yeah, but if we had a system where schools actually fostered an environment where these guys could actually attend classes and leave with a useful degree, it would be a good system. You'd have immensely increased the future potential of a lot of guys who'd never have had the means to attend college were it not for athletics. That's pretty decent compensation. That's root idea behind this whole system, and it's not a bad one.

Idiot Wind posted:

In a lot of cases the only reason they got in is because of the athletics, they certainly couldn't get in (regardless of background) on the merits of their applications simply as students!

Frackie Robinson posted:

Yeah, but if we had a system where schools actually fostered an environment where these guys could actually attend classes and leave with a useful degree, it would be a good system. You'd have immensely increased the future potential of a lot of guys who'd never have had the means to attend college were it not for athletics. That's pretty decent compensation. That's root idea behind this whole system, and it's not a bad one.

Frackie Robinson posted:

So is the answer to just give up on academics altogether and say "gently caress it, just pay them cash and drop the pretense"? That's just always struck me as a very defeatist attitude. A college education for every athlete should be a tremendous value, the fact that it's not being utilized most of the time is the real scandal. Sure, players who have no interest in or need for a college education should have other alternatives for continuing their football career, but that's not really the NCAA's fault.

MourningView posted:

Either drop the pretense or change things so they can take advantage of the great free education they're allegedly getting, but don't continue pretending that it's a fair compensation for what they're doing while working to make it close to impossible for them to take advantage of.

MourningView posted:

Either drop the pretense or change things so they can take advantage of the great free education they're allegedly getting, but don't continue pretending that it's a fair compensation for what they're doing while working to make it close to impossible for them to take advantage of.

wheez the roux posted:

To be fair to Komet, "foreign" to him is anything outside of Pennsylvania's borders.

Thoguh posted:

The kid who got into school because of athletic skill and is using it to get a degree and better his or her life (remember, college sports aren't just football and basketball) in not what is being discussed in this argument. Nobody wants to pay 100k for that guy's autograph. And those kids are the ones who will get screwed over if college sports go full semi-pro.

Idiot Wind posted:

E: VVVVV Getting forced through a degree program to fulfill the requirement to be a student isn't really bettering your life in some cases. The number of unemployed college graduates should be ample evidence that a degree isn't a magic bullet to improve people, but I think I get the point you're making. The non-major sports will suffer too, but I think there's an argument to be made that those don't belong at the university any more than football/basketball do. What's the argument for college athletics in the first place? The gentleman-scholar ideal from three centuries ago? Why should being good at sports give you any sort of leg up at all?

swickles posted:

Anyone want to post the Sarah Ganim article about the reading levels of college athletes. Apparently graduating from UNC gets you the ability to read at the 3rd grade level and not much else. Good thing they have access to this education!

King Hong Kong posted:

College athletics are an ancillary function that happen to provide substantial revenues to a relatively small number of universities from a relatively small number of sports, which seems to be the basis for the claim that certain college athletes should unionize. This logic encounters problems when a sport generates less revenue because there is not a basis for employing students in that capacity.

Vaya con Dios!!! posted:

Lots of Little Chickens in here. I can't help but notice that almost everyone in here lamenting the death of college football is being pretty selfish in their thinking. College football might change a little or a lot, but it's not going to go away and you'll still get your entertainment.

astr0man posted:

Which is why only athletes in revenue generating sports (football and mens basketball) would be eligible for this union if it actually happens. I don't think anyone would disagree that it is a lot harder, if not impossible to make the case that athletes in the non-revenue sports could make the claim that they are employees of a university.

Thoguh posted:

There are individual programs of football and men's basketball that lose shitloads of money. And there are also individual programs of niche sports that make money at certain schools. If you're say, a Hockey player at Minnesota, do you get to unionize? What if you're a football player at Kansas? Do you get to unionize? A basketball player at an Ivy? Do they get included?

Frackie Robinson posted:

It's a slippery slope.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/schools/finances/

Look how many of these athletic departments are running at a loss or breaking even and tell me how they're going to make it work if they have to share any significant portion of their profits from football. Yeah, at first you're going to have small token stipends that won't make a lot of difference. Then you'll have an inevitable escalation in compensation for players until eventually all but about 20 schools are priced out of it. Some will drop down to a lower division, others will hang on but be unable to remain competitive. At least that's how I see it.

King Hong Kong posted:

I disagree with the parallel between graduate student instructors and college athletes made in the LA Times article, since the former derive from the university's need to employ teachers in order to fulfill its essential purpose, teaching. If a university had sufficient personnel or an alternative to in person instruction, it could and certainly would cease to employ these students in these existing positions of need. Since universities do not, graduate students are employed, paid, and consequently often have the ability to unionize.

College athletics are an ancillary function that happen to provide substantial revenues to a relatively small number of universities from a relatively small number of sports, which seems to be the basis for the claim that certain college athletes should unionize. This logic encounters problems when a sport generates less revenue because there is not a basis for employing students in that capacity. As much as I enjoy football, I do not believe that it is essential to a university and I would certainly prefer that these athletes receive employment from a minor league than from a university, at which sports - like any other student activity - should remain an amateur extra-curricular activity.

superaielman posted:

D&D is thataway if you want an echo chamber of outrage. Cut the poo poo otherwise.

swickles posted:

I think a lot of people are equating unionizing with getting paid, and that isn't the case. Currently the NCAA unilaterally makes the rules and students have little to no recourse with any punishment they are given for violations of NCAA rules. There have been tons of documented cases of unfair and unequal treatment when players break rules. Not only does the NCAA treat schools unequally, but also the players. In fact, the NCAA is notorious for coming at a school or player even harder when they appeal. Having the players have the ability to negotiate some of these rules, and have a fair and unbiased appeal process would be a huge step towards improving the college football system.

edit: beaten by the above, and I am sure the article is much more explicative than I was.

bawfuls posted:

Whether these people are fulfilling an "essential function of the university" or not is irrelevant.

Both grad student TA's and football players are students who do work for the university (separate from their own academic work) which brings in revenue to their institution. That's the important link between the two.

And I feel like it bears repeating that currently these players at Northwestern aren't asking for direct pay-to-play, but rather better working conditions and the ability to make money independently.

bawfuls posted:

This LA Times article compares college atheletes to graduate student teachers, who successfully unionized about a decade ago.

Kill Dozed posted:

These laws vary from state to state. Some grad students can unionize and some can't. For example, they can't unionize in Ohio.

Idiot Wind posted:

Idiot Wind posted:

What do most grad students do that "brings revenue" as teachers? They're being paid to provide the basic service that a university is involved in providing. That is explicitly the goal of having TAs teach. How is voluntary participation in extracurricular activity at all the same? If the goal of student-athletes is to make money, why the hell are they in college at all (except because, at the moment, that's the stepping stone to pro sports)? Obviously conditions should be improved, but they just shouldn't be where they are right now. Whether they're asking for pay or not, they're asking to be treated as employees, when they just aren't employees at all.

bawfuls posted:

Whether these people are fulfilling an "essential function of the university" or not is irrelevant.

Both grad student TA's and football players are students who do work for the university (separate from their own academic work) which brings in revenue to their institution. That's the important link between the two.

And I feel like it bears repeating that currently these players at Northwestern aren't asking for direct pay-to-play, but rather better working conditions and the ability to make money independently.

Idiot Wind posted:

What do most grad students do that "brings revenue" as teachers? They're being paid to provide the basic service that a university is involved in providing. That is explicitly the goal of having TAs teach. How is voluntary participation in extracurricular activity at all the same? If the goal of student-athletes is to make money, why the hell are they in college at all (except because, at the moment, that's the stepping stone to pro sports)? Obviously conditions should be improved, but they just shouldn't be where they are right now. Whether they're asking for pay or not, they're asking to be treated as employees, when they just aren't employees at all.

King Hong Kong posted:

Football players are not doing "work" for the university any more than any other undergraduate student is in the context of their extra-curricular activity of choice. Their activity simply has the difference of bringing in more money to the university and that money is as often as not sustaining the program rather than creating a profit. As a result, the revenue argument for unionization is irrelevant except at a relatively small number of institutions.

SporkOfTruth posted:

This also applies to the topic at hand because college football is essentially an apprenticeship as well, in the vocation of professional athletics. No reason for them to not unionize.

SporkOfTruth posted:

All of these complaints would be resolved in UAW 2865's case if the UC would let all graduate student employees unionize, like they do at 23 other public universities in California. Y'know, at the CSU's. Yes, all grad student employees are unionized there.

bawfuls posted:

Grad student TA's are helping to teach classes. Classes are one of the services a University provides in exchange for tuition fees. TA's are contributing to the production of that service, thus they are contributing to the collection of that revenue stream.

bawfuls posted:

Grad student TA's are helping to teach classes. Classes are one of the services a University provides in exchange for tuition fees. TA's are contributing to the production of that service, thus they are contributing to the collection of that revenue stream.
Football players (at big programs) are doing physical labor which directly brings in significant revenue for the institution. How is that not work?

Doltos posted:

My only issue with all of this is the punishments doled out on players who try to make money on the side. That completely blows the TA versus Football Player argument out of the water. I've never heard of any institution of academia penalizing their researchers for applying their skills to earn them extra money elsewhere.

Dubar posted:

The idea of scholarship being as good as payment is like if a retail job paid you in gift certificates. Yeah, it has a monetary value, but the "cost" to the employer is a fraction of its market value. Or if a company picked their ten best employees and sent them paychecks and then sent the rest of their employees a bill instead.

Thoguh posted:

A great viable change I'd love to see come out of this would be for more of the huge amount of money that is being generated through the NCAA to actually go towards athlete welfare in the form of lock-tight medical insurance, realistic stipends, post-eligibility scholarships, and long term support. The IOC and just about every national governing body for Olympic sports is just as bad or worse as the NCAA and they need the same reforms. I don't think the solution is to pay them unless you go straight up minor league. But I think the athletes should be the ones benefiting from all their effort, not a bunch of people who skim off the top.

I mean, it isn't going to happen, zero chance, but I wish it actually would.

Femur posted:

Looking at news about tv contracts, coaches salaries, those bowl CEO's salaries, it's impossible not to think CFB makes a ton of money, and what the school does with all that money is really unknown. Embezzling it through building projects seems pretty popular.

Idiot Wind posted:

Are sporting events part of the service a university should supply? Obviously they are one at the moment, but should they be?

LARGE THE HEAD posted:

Title IX adds a special issue: Because the football team applicants are overwhelmingly male, per job requirements, the athletic departments may have to agree to have wages for male and female athletes line up. Either by averages, median dollars, total salary -- whatever it is, it's going to have a huge effect on women's sports because the colleges won't get away from paying the starting softball catcher $2,000 a year while giving the third-string cornerback $20,000 a year. At least, they won't without significant legislative turmoil and (likely) a court ruling.

King Hong Kong posted:

They are not employees, they are students participating in an activity for which they may or may not receive scholarships just like other students receive scholarships for other reasons. If they were employees in the same way many graduate students are (a status that is separate from their role as students), then the question of unionization would probably have been resolved long ago.

Mind you, in an ideal situation, I do not think that these students should be employed, but I also think that their participation in college athletics does not generally serve them well and quite often detracts from their lives. Create a minor league for those players and let college football be for true amateurs like almost every other college sport and activity is. That will not happen in foreseeable future, but at least it is a relatively good solution compared to the stop-gap measure of employment.

bawfuls posted:

I didn't say they were employees, I said what they are doing is clearly work, which you had disputed for some reason.

But the classification of "student athletes" as not employees is just semantics, as has been pointed out already. They are already given compensation (though insufficient and highly restrictive as it is) in exchange for their labor on the football field.