$50 million earmarked for the Doyt renovations?

[Lord_Byron]

These students are provided a college education that has a face value of at least $50,000 minimum and most are worth far more than that. Go out and start your own collegiate rules association if you wish to pay your athlete-students. Your Big 5 conferences have the power and ability to start your own association that is not the NCAA or NAIA.

Great point.

Bob Stoops went on a rant a few weeks ago about this very topic. He said all of his players get a free $250,000 education and they'll leave college debt-free, distinguising them from about 95% of their peers. They get five years of free housing, free books and a personal nutritionist designing and paying for their every meal. They get five years of personal training through their strength and conditioning program and five years of personalized, free tutoring through the academic advisement program.

$250,000 is a lot when compared to $0.00, and a free education does have intrinsic value that will repay itself throughout someone's lifetime.

But . . . simple math may say that $250,000/player is a little light when it is compared with the revenue that said player brings in to the university's athletic fund. Let's take for example the University of Michigan and their 105,000 seat stadium. Allowing for students and comps, lets assume that 95000 seats are sold each Saturday afternoon that the team plays home. Let's assume conservatively that said seats are sold for $90 each. That would mean a single home game brings in a revenue of about $8,500,000. Allowing for eight home games a year, ticket revenue alone brings in $68,000,000 per year. Since the $250,000 assumes a four year education, over the course of that 4 years, there will be about $272,000,000 in ticket revenue.

So. . . allowing for 88 scholarship football players at $250,000 the total personnel cost to produce that ticket revenue is $22,000,000 or about 10%. Doesn't sound like so much anymore to me.

This is before a single jersey, hot dog, or foam finger is sold. So, while yes, what athletes receive to play their sport is extremely valuable, there probably is some room on the upside for the schools that actually produce a great deal of revenue.

However, there are few schools that fall into the category that I've described. They can pretend that everyone in their conference is just like them, but it's not true. Indiana doesn't have the same economics as Nebraska. Not now, not ever.

A simple solution would be for the NCAA to go to an Olympic model of amateurism and allow sponsors to pay salaries to athletes who are competing. Then, rich alumni and business people could bid on high school athletes to attend the football factories with no under the table hypocrisy. It would have no effect on schools like us, since we're not getting those athletes anyway.

This could all be moot after O'Bannon v. the NCAA is decided.

[transfer2BGSU]

$250,000 is a lot when compared to $0.00, and a free education does have intrinsic value that will repay itself throughout someone's lifetime.

But . . . simple math may say that $250,000/player is a little light when it is compared with the revenue that said player brings in to the university's athletic fund. Let's take for example the University of Michigan and their 105,000 seat stadium. Allowing for students and comps, lets assume that 95000 seats are sold each Saturday afternoon that the team plays home. Let's assume conservatively that said seats are sold for $90 each. That would mean a single home game brings in a revenue of about $8,500,000. Allowing for eight home games a year, ticket revenue alone brings in $68,000,000 per year. Since the $250,000 assumes a four year education, over the course of that 4 years, there will be about $272,000,000 in ticket revenue.

So. . . allowing for 88 scholarship football players at $250,000 the total personnel cost to produce that ticket revenue is $22,000,000 or about 10%. Doesn't sound like so much anymore to me.

This is before a single jersey, hot dog, or foam finger is sold. So, while yes, what athletes receive to play their sport is extremely valuable, there probably is some room on the upside for the schools that actually produce a great deal of revenue.

However, there are few schools that fall into the category that I've described. They can pretend that everyone in their conference is just like them, but it's not true. Indiana doesn't have the same economics as Nebraska. Not now, not ever.

A simple solution would be for the NCAA to go to an Olympic model of amateurism and allow sponsors to pay salaries to athletes who are competing. Then, rich alumni and business people could bid on high school athletes to attend the football factories with no under the table hypocrisy. It would have no effect on schools like us, since we're not getting those athletes anyway.

This could all be moot after O'Bannon v. the NCAA is decided.

But the players do not pay for....

Meals while on the road
Hotels while on the road
Airfare or bus fare
Public relations
Medical needs
Uniforms

So if you want to pay them, go ahead and charge them for the other items then. There are EXPENSES with each of these teams and people keep forgetting about them. You have to get a player to a game and they have to eat and have a place to stay while on the road. If they get injured, you have to take care of them (most schools take out insurance policies to help cover those catastrophic costs that hopefully never arise).

[Lord_Byron]

I think Stoops included some of that in his $250,000.

Cost of meals and hotels -- it's a business trip. Companies pick up that expense all the time.
Injuries -- it's worker's comp. No company require employees to pay for on-the-job injuries.

Those are expenses to a business. They are not borne by employees.

If you want to treat them as independent contractors, then by all means go ahead and charge them for those items, but I'm pretty sure you'd have some major co-employment issues.

[professorjackson]

"Bob Stoops went on a rant a few weeks ago about this very topic. He said all of his players get a free $250,000 education and they'll leave college debt-free, distinguising them from about 95% of their peers. They get five years of free housing, free books and a personal nutritionist designing and paying for their every meal. They get five years of personal training through their strength and conditioning program and five years of personalized, free tutoring through the academic advisement program."

Unless they get injured or the coach decides to cut them for a new offensive or defensive philosophy...

[MarkL]

Unless they get injured or the coach decides to cut them for a new offensive or defensive philosophy...

Oklahoma is not in the SEC

[professorjackson]

Ha!

[mscarn]

"Bob Stoops went on a rant a few weeks ago about this very topic. He said all of his players get a free $250,000 education and they'll leave college debt-free, distinguising them from about 95% of their peers. They get five years of free housing, free books and a personal nutritionist designing and paying for their every meal. They get five years of personal training through their strength and conditioning program and five years of personalized, free tutoring through the academic advisement program."

Unless they get injured or the coach decides to cut them for a new offensive or defensive philosophy...

True, but players also have the option of transferring (two AZZ.com posters in the last 3 words!) if they so desire. They have to wait a year and we can argue the fairness of that, but an entire year of subsidized education is not exactly a hardship. The top LB recruit at Florida State who just signed a couple months ago is already trying to get released from his letter on intent.

Dan Enos, the head coach at Central Michigan, was in the news recently for upholding the scholarship of a recruit who came down with leukemia. While there are numerous less than wholesome reasons (free publicity, a story to tell other recruits) to do something like this, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.