OT: TB12's agent Donald Yee Blasts NCAA For Economic and Racial Discrimination

patriot lifer said:

Your first point is part an appeal to authority.

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No, it's not. It's noting that I've been in the position personally, to get my background on the issue out there in order to get out in front of the kind of comments ("You're biased!", "But you didn't play in Alabama!") that might follow, followed by the pointing out that there's a difference between fact and opinion. Saying the education is a farce is an opinion, not a fact. The reality is that, using the same sort of arguments, I could call any number of non-athletes' educations a farce.

patriot lifer said:

Your second point is fair to an extent but you're starting to argue that the value is in the practice of sport--not the degree and education.

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I'm noting that there are multiple things of "value" involved, not that a degree and education is without value.

patriot lifer said:

Most student athletes don't make a living as athletes--they're not good enough. For most students the practical value will be the education.

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How good a player is does not matter in terms of potential opportunity.

patriot lifer said:

i think you need to re-read your own post.

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No, I don't.

patriot lifer said:

You stated that scholarships are essentially forms of payment...

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Yes, clearly.

patriot lifer said:

while not acknowledging that not every student athlete receives a full ride, such as with your BC example.

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It's irrelevant. A partial ride is still a payment. If you want to argue sufficiency of payment, that's a different argument than existence of payment, and it would apply to all scholarship athletes, partial or full.

Snake Eyes said:

John Oliver did a pretty good job on the NCAA.

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Do you know how this breaks down?

1$ billion. OK, that's the total take in ads, the NCAA receives $700m. $400m is used to run all the sports championships nationwide, D1 to D2 and D3, plus NCAA headquarters. In other words, the money is used for putting on playoffs for tens of thousands of schools and 20 or 30 different sports.

The remaining $300m is then split among 400 D1 schools according to what they call conference credits. Essentially, each school averages less than $1m in revenue from the tournament, and for the schools that actually have to travel all over the country for the entire month of March, they don't see any profit at all just because of the expense.

But I'll say this again. The basketball players have the immediate option of turning pro.

Why aren't they going pro? They can play in the NBA minor leagues or else overseas. They have options. Not only that, but the level of competition is even higher outside of college. Both the NBDL and the overseas leagues play a tougher more skilled level of ball. But they don't have fans watching them.

And guess why that is? Some thing John Oliver can't seem to comprehend: when it comes to college sports, we willingly watch an inferior product because we cheer for the laundry. If we wanted to watch a higher quality of ball, we'd go to NBDL games instead, but we don't. In terms of what the market will bear, that's the reality.

upstater1 said:

Since states and taxpayers decided not to subsidize public education anymore. There are states that are now fully out of it.

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What? States don't subsidize education?

Patsrock said:

Why? I know lots of people with Art degrees that are successful and happy.

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I have one myself, the entire purpose of which was to get easy A's. It felt like a 4 year vacation, I can't emphasize enough how little effort it required. Not to say there are not interesting or even some useful things being taught in those programs, but the demands on students are low.

Jlaff said:

I have one myself, the entire purpose of which was to get easy A's. It felt like a 4 year vacation, I can't emphasize enough how little effort it required. Not to say there are not interesting or even some useful things being taught in those programs, but the demands on students are low.

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Conversely, the demands on students in my English classes were very, very high. Even majors were dissuaded from taking more than two English classes a semester due to time constraints.

ausbacker said:

One thing is for sure Kontra, we're living in an interesting socioeconomic time.

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This current generation is burdened by incredible amounts of debt from student loans, which is a relatively new thing that the older generations were not experiencing on this level. The cost of college has skyrocked over the last 20 years and most of that is going to administrative positions, including hundreds of millions a year to executives

Snake Eyes said:

What? States don't subsidize education?

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Some states don't subsidize Higher Ed anymore. Louisiana is now totally out of it. 0%. Arizona is almost out. But even up north, you have states reducing tax subsidy as a % of the budget to below 10%.

Look at U. Michigan and PSU. $16k tuition for in-staters, subsidies below 10%.

I just looked through a study as part of my job and one huge thing stuck out in all the analysis. When you see tuition outpacing the rate of inflation, you can't equate tuition with actual expenditures. Expenditures are not outpacing inflation. One example: we looked at the University of California-Berkeley. In 1991, the state subsidy was $16.4k per student, or 50% of the $33k expenditures per student. Tuition was just a hair below $2k. Fast forward to 2011 (which was the last year of the study's 20 year analysis) and California had reduced its subsidy to $9.7k. In the meantime, tuition skyrocketed to $11.5k (it's at $13k in 2015), but the cost per student was at $40k. So, the news reports and news reporters say, "tuition shot up over 1000% in 20 years, outpacing inflation by an astounding 20-to-1. At this rate, tuition will be $120,000 in 20 years!!!" But the reality is that tuition is skyrocketing while expenditures are keeping pace with inflation.

JarOfMayo51 said:

This current generation is burdened by incredible amounts of debt from student loans, which is a relatively new thing that the older generations were not experiencing on this level. The cost of college has skyrocked over the last 20 years and most of that is going to administrative positions, including hundreds of millions a year to executives

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Tuition is increasing fast. Not expenditures. A big difference, since tuition only pays a fraction of expenditures at most public schools (for privates, it's the exact opposite, tuition is above expenditures). Do you mean hundreds millions a year to administrators collectively?

Increase scholarships so more than just the stars get money for their education.

unoriginal said:

Conversely, the demands on students in my English classes were very, very high. Even majors were dissuaded from taking more than two English classes a semester due to time constraints.

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That's exactl what we hear from students. Communication Schools (my degree at Boston U.) are sweeping away all the Humanities students because of the degree of difficulty. The engineers have it even harder than the Humanities students. In my view, the professional schools are the easiest. Here's a study that backs me up: Amazon product ASIN 0226028569
You have to read past the blurb meant to sell books, but their study showed that 36% of students made no gains through both 2 and 4 years of college. Many of these were students taking business classes. There were big gains made in the core Humanities majors as well as Sciences. The authors of the study did allow that students who like to socialize more tend to be the ones who take professional classes, such as business. And they thought this could contribute to the relative lack of skills-building.

Gene In Montana said:

No one forces anyone to play college sports. If you don't like what is being offered, then don't play.

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Or play Division 3 where academics are priority one.

To say they are like indentured servants is the stupidest thing I've ever read. They are getting a free college tuition. With that being said, I still think they deserve money

upstater1 said:

Some states don't subsidize Higher Ed anymore. Louisiana is now totally out of it. 0%. Arizona is almost out. But even up north, you have states reducing tax subsidy as a % of the budget to below 10%.

Look at U. Michigan and PSU. $16k tuition for in-staters, subsidies below 10%.

I just looked through a study as part of my job and one huge thing stuck out in all the analysis. When you see tuition outpacing the rate of inflation, you can't equate tuition with actual expenditures. Expenditures are not outpacing inflation. One example: we looked at the University of California-Berkeley. In 1991, the state subsidy was $16.4k per student, or 50% of the $33k expenditures per student. Tuition was just a hair below $2k. Fast forward to 2011 (which was the last year of the study's 20 year analysis) and California had reduced its subsidy to $9.7k. In the meantime, tuition skyrocketed to $11.5k (it's at $13k in 2015), but the cost per student was at $40k. So, the news reports and news reporters say, "tuition shot up over 1000% in 20 years, outpacing inflation by an astounding 20-to-1. At this rate, tuition will be $120,000 in 20 years!!!" But the reality is that tuition is skyrocketing while expenditures are keeping pace with inflation.

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I'm glad that a few are out of it, hopefully this will continue.

The NCAA can have whatever insane policies they want regarding who gets paid what, if anything, but many athletic programs are a taxpayer subsidized talent farm for professional sports. If the NCAA wants to keep operating it should do so without taxpayer support.

I would suggest that all colleges should go the way of the Division 3 model, but for quite a long time now there is no closing of Pandora'$ Box.

Yee is an agent. Because he is Brady's agent does not make him wholesome. Agents just as the NCAA and the NFL are overwhelmingly motivated by their own individual success and their profession's future success. His statement is not outright wrong because he is an agent, however, it is worth noting his motivation.

Second, the real problems:
(1) at it's heart it is dishonesty for parading these athletes as students. Many are simply athletes that have been given a permission slip to attend college courses to further this dishonestly. There's a reason why colleges vet their admissions. Giving someone a piece of paper that says you can come attend class at School Z does not somehow instantly make them college level capable of learning. And this is a greater than NCAA sports issue that has been happening in the name of egalitarianism -- with too often similar results of young adults unprepared to be successful at college. So you want to make it meaningful for some of these athletes who are not at college level aptitude? Give them whatever needed remedial schooling while they play -- with a full scholarship to be started after remedial classes but before the 4 year playing period is up.
(2) Same issue as always, winning is all that matters. It was already bad, however, the Hurricanes and many others took the lie of "student who is an athlete" to an absurd absurd level. Some of these students had no real chance to succeed at college (have the time at college mean anything) -- much less practice all day then study all night (LOL, that's just absurd).

If you are taking athletes and compensating them with a free education then actually educate them. Make it the college's business to provide the extra-learning areas that can one day bring them to a point they can maybe succeed at college. Otherwise it's an F'n joke (for those colleges that do do this) to bring in a significantly below college level aptitude student, put him in class with students who are at or above that aptitude, then call that a college education. Why don't you teach the class in chinese for all the good it will do him? That isn't a college education - it is fanciful babysitting session to give cover for the dishonesty of 'this student is an athlete'.

Deus Irae said:

No, it's not. It's noting that I've been in the position personally, to get my background on the issue out there in order to get out in front of the kind of comments ("You're biased!", "But you didn't play in Alabama!") that might follow, followed by the pointing out that there's a difference between fact and opinion. Saying the education is a farce is an opinion, not a fact. The reality is that, using the same sort of arguments, I could call any number of non-athletes' educations a farce.



I'm noting that there are multiple things of "value" involved, not that a degree and education is without value.



How good a player is does not matter in terms of potential opportunity.



No, I don't.



Yes, clearly.



It's irrelevant. A partial ride is still a payment. If you want to argue sufficiency of payment, that's a different argument than existence of payment, and it would apply to all scholarship athletes, partial or full.

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It's really funny how buthurt you are. Also do you have an issue with players getting money from endorsements, because for the life of me I don't see how that would affect anything, why can't the players each get a stipend from appearing in the team calender, or be able to sell stuff they autograph? I can see how people would be concerned about paying players, but why can't these guys make money on their own image? It can't be amateurish when conferences and schools are getting so much money from tv deals and merchandise.

billdog3484 said:

To say they are like indentured servants is the stupidest thing I've ever read. They are getting a free college tuition. With that being said, I still think they deserve money

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I would point out the dictionary definition of indentured servitude is: a person who is bonded or contracted to work for another for aspecified time, in exchange for learning a trade. It also helps that the nfl won't let players go directly to the nfl so college is the only place they can learn their "trade"

meatface said:

It's really funny how buthurt you are. Also do you have an issue with players getting money from endorsements, because for the life of me I don't see how that would affect anything, why can't the players each get a stipend from appearing in the team calender, or be able to sell stuff they autograph? I can see how people would be concerned about paying players, but why can't these guys make money on their own image? It can't be amateurish when conferences and schools are getting so much money from tv deals and merchandise.

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????

I'm not butthurt, at all.

Snake Eyes said:

I'm glad that a few are out of it, hopefully this will continue.

The NCAA can have whatever insane policies they want regarding who gets paid what, if anything, but many athletic programs are a taxpayer subsidized talent farm for professional sports. If the NCAA wants to keep operating it should do so without taxpayer support.

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Sorry, I should have clarified. I didn't mean out of college sports. The vast majority of colleges still subsidize college sports. I was talking about taxpayer subsidies for higher education. Louisiana now provides no money to LSU at all. Arizona is almost out as well. I'm talking about the academic side, not the athletic side.

The scholarship players do get consideration for their services in the form of room, board and college courses. Someone let me know when Nick Saban or the fat cat conference commissioners are ready to take the same deal. And by the way, this "consideration" cannot be used to buy a sandwich or a sweater or for savings. It's not the same as money.

There are players who are recruited into schools they are not academically qualified to attend. These "scholar-athletes" are the ones herded into nondescript majors and given course loads solely designed to help them maintain their eligibility. There is no question that a "free college education" has different utility for different people. Some can and do make great use of it; others, not so much, and for a variety of reasons.

Is anyone going to argue that the consideration to the players represents market value for their services? Clearly not the case. In addition, the players (unlike the coaches) are expressly forbidden from realizing any other income through endorsements, memorabilia, etc. at risk of losing their "eligibility." Again, not so for the coaches, some of whom rake in $millions for TV shows, and endorsements. Ah, the purity of amateur athletic competition.

Yee argues that there is a racial component to this and he's right. He's not saying that young black players are being discriminated against and (I believe) they are not, but only because the NCAA is perfectly willing to exploit anyone without regard to race, gender, creed, sexual orientation or planet of birth. However, it is true that a disproportionate share of the players are black while the same cannot be said for the coaches and conference commissioners who make the truly big bucks. Who is making the money and who is carrying the load? Nobody is watching to see the coaches coach or the commissioners administrate. (In case anyone hadn't noticed, the NFL league office is filled with empty suits who make more money than the vast majority of the players in the leagues. Funny how that works, Roger.)

One thing that Yee left out is the huge benefit the NFL realizes from all of this. The league's player development system is college football. It costs the NFL not a penny. Negligible player development costs is another contributing factor to the league's huge profit margin.

The offshoot is this for me is that I'm done watching college football. It's an inferior product, lacking in any reasonable form of competitive balance and is run by fat cat greed-heads, hypocrites and morons (I know, not unlike the NFL). That the University of Alabama pays their strength and conditioning coach $600k per year tells you all you need to know. The fiasco about scheduling the playoff games on New Year's Eve coupled with the recent revelations about the absurd amounts paid the coaches and administrators killed it for me. I've got better things to do.