You certainly cannot go more than a day or two without new allegations popping up for some major football or basketball program. A sample from the past year:
-UCONN men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun is found guilty of major recruiting violatons
-Former Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez is found guilty of major violatons
-Former Tennessee men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl is found guilty of multiple major and secondary recruiting violations
-Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton's dad is accused of soliciting almost $200K cash for his son's services during the recruitment process
-Ohio State suspends five players for selling memorabilia for cash and tattoos, and consequently suspends Jim Tressel for covering up the violations
-Oregon's football program is accused of major violations in regards to alleged use of recruiting services
-Four former Auburn football playes accuse multiple schools of offering cash during their recruitment, and indicate Auburn paid them large sums of cash throughout their time at the university.
Again, these are just a sample of the major stories that have broken out over the past year, and has created quite the black eye for not just the individual universities, but for the NCAA as a whole.
HBO ran a piece last week that focused on two central, intertwined issues: alleged recruiting scandals and the pay-for-play issue. It was a fascinating (though highly one-sided) look at both topics, including reporting features as well as a panel of guests for discussion (find the story here: www.hbo.com/#/sports). To be clear, the two sports these discussions always focus on are football and men's basketball, as they are the primary revenue generators for colleges and universities.
The reason these two issues play hand-in-hand with each other is the thought that if players were paid, they may not be accepting 'illegal' benefits. There is basically two schools of thought I have found surrounding the pay-for-play argument:
1) Players are already paid through scholarship and minimal living expenses
2) Players need to be paid due to school's profiting off of services these individuals are providing on the field/court
I'm not sure I have a stance on this that I am ready to take; I see good reasoning for both sides. First of all, a free education is worth a significant amount of money today; not for just the immediate cost, but for the value it allows for future earnings. However, the NCAA is the only organization I can think of that provides zero literal compensation for its 'employees' (which is essentially what these athletes are).
HBO's panelists consisted of former college basketball player/annoucer Billy Packer, former Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, former Ivy League commissioner Jeff Orleans, and columnist Jason Whitlock. Of all the fluff that was passed back and forth between this group, I thought Whitlock (for once) had a valid suggestion: in lieu of paying them directly while they play, why not pay those who finish their degree a graduation bonus? This would do two things at once: first and most importantly, it could encourage a larger percentage of these athletes to actually finish school; and second, it will provide those who finish a small cut of the money they assisted in earning that program. While this would not alleviate certain individuals from accepting extra benefits while in school, it should help focus several others on finishing their degrees. Graduation rates are atrocious for these two sports (55% of less for the two, according to HBO); if schools want to consider the 'student' part of student-athlete at all, they need to put some focus back on academics.
While not a perfect plan, this does provide some sort of structure for a type of "revenue-sharing" between schools and their athletes. However, their are some dicey issues that would need to be resolved:
1) How much do you pay them? My thought is you could pay them a small percentage of that sports' profit for the year, therefore allowing small programs to stay afloat (as opposed to a flat amount regardless of school; Duke's football program, which loses money, could not pay the equivalent of Texas). If a sport does not earn a revenue, than the players don't receive a portion (after all, they are still getting the free scholarship).
2) Does this discriminate against females? If you follow the model from my first point, then the answer is no. If Tennessee women's basketball earns a profit, then their playes would be compensated for that.
3) Does this penalize the supreme athletes who leave school early for the pros, who are probably the ones more responsible for the profits? It doesn't necessarily penalize them, since they are freely choosing to leave school early. The hope is that it may encourage a larger percentage of those who do play to stay in school (less than 1% of all college athletes ever play at the professional level).
4) Where does the money come from? This would be my largest concern; college sports that are profitable use that money to pay for better facilities, support non-revenue sports, scholarships, department salaries, etc... My fear would be that schools would end up cutting smaller, non-revenue sports to make up for the shortfall that they may be paying. The fan would also most likely see an increase in ticket prices, as budgets would become more strained.
While I tend to like this solution better than straight up paying college athletes, there really is no one perfect answer. However, something needs to be done to clean up what is creating all the current messes. Too much money is at stake, and with money comes greed from all parties (see: NFL).
I am certainly curious to hear other thoughts - what would work in your opinion?
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