The Northwestern football players have done it. They won a judgement against the NCAA and can now be classified as a “worker’s union”. This means they deserve to be paid. Uh oh….The NCAA doesn’t like this and I’m sure they’ll appeal quicker than they can send an email. Here are my thoughts.
1. Right now, this only pertains to the 17 private universities and colleges. The public colleges and universities are going to have set up their own lawsuit if they want to fight the big bad NCAA.
2. I haven’t the slightest clue about government. Ok, I take that back I know a little…very little. I do know that some people love big government and others hate it and would rather their local government run the show. Let’s say the universities are local governments and the NCAA is big government. The state of California is bringing in much more money than the state of Maine, the good thing is that these two states are not competing with each other.
The University of Miami and Florida State University are competing with each other. Miami, private university, money to throw at kids. Florida State, public university, no money to throw at kids. This is not a fair fight. Even if the public universities go through with their own lawsuit and win, more often than not, the private institutions are going to have more money at their disposal than the public institutions.
This is a matter for the NCAA to handle as a whole and not let the schools control it themselves. If the NCAA doesn’t handle the situation, then you could easily have Notre Dame turn into the New York Yankees and the Fighting Irish could just start buying championships.
3. I think it’s hilarious that only 29% of white people think athletes should be paid and 73% of black people think athletes should be paid. You guys are aware that the majority of college football and basketball players are black right?
4. USA Today reports that these student athletes are worth 28k. The athletes deserve to be paid, I certainly feel that way. But let’s be real….NFL players making millions can’t handle their money. I heard stories and know players who’ve had to take out loans during the offseason because they managed to blow through 3 million dollars — in 8 months! Hell, a college football player might run through 28k faster than he can run through the stadium tunnel.
I think a nice solution is to pay players, just not immediately. Setup a trust for student athletes. If 28k is the number, pay them 28k a year…just don’t give it to them. For each year that a player is in school he gets the money put in a trust fund. The only way to get the money is to withdraw from school or graduate. And yes, that money is going to be taxed. Sorry players, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
5. If I hear another person say that college athletes are getting a free education. I might start a petition to annex my bite sized NYC apartment from the union. Just be my own country! People, this is not a free education. Free is something you receive for nothing. They players aren’t getting a free education. They are trading their athletic labor for tuition, room, and board. You try waking up at 5:30am to go workout, then go to class right after, and then go to practice after that, then go to study hall and when you leave from there it’s 10:30pm and you’ve got to be up in seven hours.
6. I have so many questions. I’m curious to see how this affects the rest of the athletic student body. Title IX is a great thing, but let’s be fair — people aren’t paying millions of dollars to watch women’s volleyball. People aren’t paying millions to watch college track and field. They are paying millions to watch men’s basketball and college football. The two big time college sports basically carry all of the other athletic programs on their backs.
If players are paid will there be enough money for those sports to sustain? If the players are considered employees, does that mean they’ll now be taxed? How the hell is this going to work? Maybe we’re being to hard on the NCAA. Maybe they aren’t greedy. Maybe this problem is something they can’t figure out. Like a dirty room they don’t want to deal with and they’re just sweep everything under the bed. Maybe like bad credit and they are just sending all bill collectors to voicemail villas. Ok, yeah….no, the NCAA is greedy. They can play the players, they just don’t want to play the players.
A few years ago I had a dream where college football players around the country just…didn’t play one college saturday. They all came together and demanded to be paid. Silly right. You need a union to go on strike and 17-23 year boys wouldn’t act like men and form such a thing. Really…Northwestern just did and that’s far fetched enough.