ESPN--Northwestern players get union vote

[MeanGreenTexan]

...

10. Guarantee that college athletes are granted an athletic release from a university if they wish to transfer schools

11. Allow the opportunity for student-athletes of all sports to transfer schools at least once without punishment

...

Awesome CW.

I say NO WAY! to these, or the mid-majors turn into jucos for the P5 schools to troll for talent. Think an SEC school wouldn't have made room for Brelan Chancellor last year?

You'll see the Alabamas of the world sign 10-15 freshman per year and offer their remaining schollies to mid-major studs, and even lower-end P5 school high achievers (think Oklahoma poaching big12 newcomer-of-the-year Isaiah Johnson from Kansas or something like that).

[CMJ]

Awesome CW.

I say NO WAY! to these, or the mid-majors turn into jucos for the P5 schools to troll for talent. Think an SEC school wouldn't have made room for Brelan Chancellor last year?

You'll see the Alabamas of the world sign 10-15 freshman per year and offer their remaining schollies to mid-major studs, and even lower-end P5 school high achievers (think Oklahoma poaching big12 newcomer-of-the-year Isaiah Johnson from Kansas or something like that).

Maybe if the rule was you can transfer without penalty if your coach leaves, I'd be on board with it (because that sucks for the kids). Otherwise I am with you.

[meangreener]

Here's something I didn't know until twenty minutes ago:

The Northwestern students are not seeking stipends. They're NOT looking for "pay-to-play".

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/1/28/5354718/college-football-players-union-pay-for-play

They're arguing for 11 points and only one (maybe two) of them are focused on financial benefits.

1. Minimize college athletes' brain trauma risks.

2. Raise the scholarship amount to cover cost of attendance and nothing more

3. Prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses

4. Increase graduation rates

5. Protect educational opportunities for student-athletes in good standing

6. Prevent universities from using a permanent injury suffered during athletics as a reason to reduce/eliminate a scholarship

7. Establish and enforce uniform guidelines for all sports to help prevent serious injury and avoidable deaths

8. Eliminate restrictions on legitimate employment and players' ability to directly benefit from commercial opportunities

9. Prohibit the punishment of student-athletes who have not committed a violation

10. Guarantee that college athletes are granted an athletic release from a university if they wish to transfer schools

11. Allow the opportunity for student-athletes of all sports to transfer schools at least once without punishment

They're seriously not advocating for any additional pay because they fully realize that they are currently being paid for their performance.

Also, the NCAA response has been nothing but comical, and it greatly highlights how they're trying to shape the conversation around all this - and by this thread and many others around the internet, I'd say they're succeeding.

http://www.sippinonpurple.com/northwestern-wildcats-football/2014/3/26/5551692/the-ncaa-released-a-statement-on-the-nlrb-ruling-and-it-is

While these things sound good and all...except the last two...these are students, not employees.

[UNTFan23]

1. Minimize college athletes' brain trauma risks.

2. Raise the scholarship amount to cover cost of attendance and nothing more

3. Prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses

4. Increase graduation rates

5. Protect educational opportunities for student-athletes in good standing

6. Prevent universities from using a permanent injury suffered during athletics as a reason to reduce/eliminate a scholarship

7. Establish and enforce uniform guidelines for all sports to help prevent serious injury and avoidable deaths

8. Eliminate restrictions on legitimate employment and players' ability to directly benefit from commercial opportunities

9. Prohibit the punishment of student-athletes who have not committed a violation

10. Guarantee that college athletes are granted an athletic release from a university if they wish to transfer schools

11. Allow the opportunity for student-athletes of all sports to transfer schools at least once without punishment

I am good with 1 through 7 and 9. Regarding 8 I do think allowing a student athlete to have a part-time job is not a problem but benefiting from a commercial opportunity is asking for trouble and abuse. I am against 10 & 11 as a student athlete commits to a school and as others have pointed out, smaller programs will have the best players get poached.

[greenminer]

Not sure how I feel about #6.

If I can't do my job, I sure as hell don't hold my employer to a continued salary.

It's not the student athlete's fault they got injured, but neither is it the university's. Crap happens. That doesn't mean you should get free money.

[CMJ]

Not sure how I feel about #6.

If I can't do my job, I sure as hell don't hold my employer to a continued salary.

It's not the student athlete's fault they got injured, but neither is it the university's. Crap happens. That doesn't mean you should get free money.

That may be so, but if a kid suffers a career ending injury representing our institution, I'd let him try to finish school if he wanted to. Since he's not a "student athlete" anymore and just a student, he wouldn't have all the resources available to him though.

[greenminer]

That may be so, but if a kid suffers a career ending injury representing our institution, I'd let him try to finish school if he wanted to. Since he's not a "student athlete" anymore and just a student, he wouldn't have all the resources available to him though.

Find some way to help the kid, but don't hold the money towards the athletic scholly cap.

[Christopher Walker]

While these things sound good and all...except the last two...these are students, not employees.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

As a student I held two student employment positions, one of which the direct work by my -and not another coworker's, mine - hands and skill set have since brought further acclaim to the College of Music. My department was even recognized as the best individual department on campus at the end of academic year Presidential luncheon last year.

At this point, I'm certainly willing to recognize the work I've been seeing twice a week for the last few weeks by these guys in front of me on the practice fields under similar parallels.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Christopher Walker

[ChristopherRyanWilkes]

While these things sound good and all...except the last two...these are students, not employees.

They are both, they provide a service and receive compensation in form of scholarship/grants. According to the ruling, the amount of time they commit to football is 40-50 hours a week, or the equivalent of a full-time job. Hard to argue with that when you think about watching film, work outs, games, and weekly normal practice.

[outoftown]

Just out of curiosity, where is all of this money going to come from? There are very few programs in the black, so it would seem that the money would need to come out of coaches salaries and higher ticket prices unless the NCAA is going to throw some money into the programs to offset. Ultimately, the fans are going to foot the bill here and there may be a considerable number that decide not to pay the freight. Not sure how this will end, but there are a number of ways that it could end badly for everyone.

As for this only affecting private schools, this will eventually hit everyone. How do you compete with a school that can pay players and where they get a say? You do the same thing. If this continues, everyone will follow suit quickly.

Yes, there are very few programs in the black. But people forget that the advertising the sport does for a university is not factored into the revenues, because it is hard to pin an exact dollar amount to it. That does not mean it is not an important factor, that also allows for more school pride and increased donations, apart from more porspective student applications.

But coaches salaries (and some places assistants) are very often a big part of increased spending compared to 5 or 10 years ago. The schools have increased the market for coaches with the money sometimes knowing full well that this will put the AD in the red, because they wanted to compete,and because they did increase revenue to before and are aware that either endowment (mostly private schools) or the tax payer (via subsidies for in the red public schools) will foot the bill if they do. Some of that money went into facilities, which get updated at maybe a bit too fast a pace all over the landscape. I mean is it really necessary that every AAC school has an indoor football facility? Or that every MAC school has an additional basketball practice court? Are bigger video boards indispensable? College sports worked perfectly fine without those things, they are just part of an arms race. And since so many even small schools seem to take part in that arms race, it is logical that people feel like there is money everywhere.

The rest of it goes to coaches. The same kind of arms race. How much do we pay our basketball coach? 400k? Or another example coach brown at SMU gets how much? Even coach Mac. He makes a bowl this year he'l make 800k next year. I mean I like coach Mac, but is it really necessary that UNT pays 800k to it's coach? In the current environment it may be, because you will lose that coach if you pay him that much under market value. But if everybody had to spend some of that money on the players, all other schools were paying less to coaches, and nobody would cry a tear saying that a coach couldn't live well for 300k. But right now 800k is what you pay because everybody is willing to go this deep into the red to buy a coach out, and if everybody is doing that, then that creates perceptions.. ..that can only be because there actually is more money than there used to be. These kinds of things are shaping perceptions more than the AD having to go ask for subsidies at the end of the year. The latter is just one 3 line newsline on only one of 365 days a year.

Edited March 27, 2014 by outoftown

[ragpicker]

I can guarantee that if this mushrooms into the law of the land I will be finished with supporting UNT athletics and following college sports. No more Mean Green Club donations and no more season tickets. I am already having a difficult time justifying the money we spend now so when college athletes start getting paid to boot its time to walk away.

I agree

[ragpicker]

Yes, there are very few programs in the black. But people forget that the advertising the sport does for a university is not factored into the revenues, because it is hard to pin an exact dollar amount to it. That does not mean it is not an important factor, that also allows for more school pride and increased donations, apart from more porspective student applications.

But coaches salaries (and some places assistants) are very often a big part of increased spending compared to 5 or 10 years ago. The schools have increased the market for coaches with the money sometimes knowing full well that this will put the AD in the red, because they wanted to compete,and because they did increase revenue to before and are aware that either endowment (mostly private schools) or the tax payer (via subsidies for in the red public schools) will foot the bill if they do. Some of that money went into facilities, which get updated at maybe a bit too fast a pace all over the landscape. I mean is it really necessary that every AAC school has an indoor football facility? Or that every MAC school has an additional basketball practice court? Are bigger video boards indispensable? College sports worked perfectly fine without those things, they are just part of an arms race. And since so many even small schools seem to take part in that arms race, it is logical that people feel like there is money everywhere.

The rest of it goes to coaches. The same kind of arms race. How much do we pay our basketball coach? 400k? Or another example coach brown at SMU gets how much? Even coach Mac. He makes a bowl this year he'l make 800k next year. I mean I like coach Mac, but is it really necessary that UNT pays 800k to it's coach? In the current environment it may be, because you will lose that coach if you pay him that much under market value. But if everybody had to spend some of that money on the players, all other schools were paying less to coaches, and nobody would cry a tear saying that a coach couldn't live well for 300k. But right now 800k is what you pay because everybody is willing to go this deep into the red to buy a coach out, and if everybody is doing that, then that creates perceptions.. ..that can only be because there actually is more money than there used to be. These kinds of things are shaping perceptions more than the AD having to go ask for subsidies at the end of the year. The latter is just one 3 line newsline on only one of 365 days a year.

No coach should make more than the average salary of the rest of the faculty and certainly not as much as a Noble Prize physics professor, for example. For those who argue that the football team bring in a lot of revenue, that is true in some cases, but ignores the fact that accredited universities are not in the business to make a profit. The whole system has become an example of rank hypocrisy which is one of the things seats of higher learning are suppose to expose rather than practice.

[greenminer]

No coach should make more than the average salary of the rest of the faculty and certainly not as much as a Noble Prize physics professor, for example. For those who argue that the football team bring in a lot of revenue, that is true in some cases, but ignores the fact that accredited universities are not in the business to make a profit. The whole system has become an example of rank hypocrisy which is one of the things seats of higher learning are suppose to expose rather than practice.

That was never my understanding.

[Ben Gooding]

Here's something I didn't know until twenty minutes ago:

The Northwestern students are not seeking stipends. They're NOT looking for "pay-to-play".

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/1/28/5354718/college-football-players-union-pay-for-play

They're arguing for 11 points and only one (maybe two) of them are focused on financial benefits.

1. Minimize college athletes' brain trauma risks.

2. Raise the scholarship amount to cover cost of attendance and nothing more

3. Prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses

4. Increase graduation rates

5. Protect educational opportunities for student-athletes in good standing

6. Prevent universities from using a permanent injury suffered during athletics as a reason to reduce/eliminate a scholarship

7. Establish and enforce uniform guidelines for all sports to help prevent serious injury and avoidable deaths

8. Eliminate restrictions on legitimate employment and players' ability to directly benefit from commercial opportunities

9. Prohibit the punishment of student-athletes who have not committed a violation

10. Guarantee that college athletes are granted an athletic release from a university if they wish to transfer schools

11. Allow the opportunity for student-athletes of all sports to transfer schools at least once without punishment

They're seriously not advocating for any additional pay because they fully realize that they are currently being paid for their performance.

Also, the NCAA response has been nothing but comical, and it greatly highlights how they're trying to shape the conversation around all this - and by this thread and many others around the internet, I'd say they're succeeding.

http://www.sippinonpurple.com/northwestern-wildcats-football/2014/3/26/5551692/the-ncaa-released-a-statement-on-the-nlrb-ruling-and-it-is

Let them run rampant all across the country from school to school? That ain't gone happen. And let's be perfectly clear, this is them just trying to pry open the safe. Their primary objective is to get money in their pockets. Let's not kid each other.

[Ben Gooding]

That was never my understanding.

yeah...when have universities not been in the business of making money? This. Is. Capitalist. America.

[Ben Gooding]

I agree

I agree. We support and attend all games for the sake of improvement in all facets. What will be the point if this starts to snowball? We will forever be in a rut with no ending in sight.

[JesseMartin]

Universities aren't in it for "profit" but they are certainly out for increased revenue for research grants, fellowships, etc. Officially, it's not profit, you're all right about that. But it's the higher ed equivalent of profit, and every single school aims for that. Remember, a good portion of rankings are based on endowments and fellowships and the like. It's almost impossible to become a Tier I institution without rolling those dollars in.

[forevereagle]

Yes, there are very few programs in the black. But people forget that the advertising the sport does for a university is not factored into the revenues, because it is hard to pin an exact dollar amount to it. That does not mean it is not an important factor, that also allows for more school pride and increased donations, apart from more porspective student applications.

Because it is not revenue. No money has been brought into the program. It is a value add of having the program, an outcome of playing sports. It cannot and will not pay any salaries, expenses, or other overhead. There is also no guarantee that the monies donated or revenues generated as a result of participating in athletics will become a part of the athletics budget, so it is hard to say that the advertising benefits will offset increased costs as a result of players unionizing.

Edited March 28, 2014 by forevereagle

[ragpicker]

Universities aren't in it for "profit" but they are certainly out for increased revenue for research grants, fellowships, etc. Officially, it's not profit, you're all right about that. But it's the higher ed equivalent of profit, and every single school aims for that. Remember, a good portion of rankings are based on endowments and fellowships and the like. It's almost impossible to become a Tier I institution without rolling those dollars in.

Speaking of "Tier One" aspirations, how are our recent "accounting irregularities" going to affect our donor base? Our current endowment is quite modest at best for a university our size and age. I would suspect that large donors become somewhat skittish when they see a mishandling of university finances. Does anyone have any current information on this subject?

[KRAM1]

Speaking of "Tier One" aspirations, how are our recent "accounting irregularities" going to affect our donor base? Our current endowment is quite modest at best for a university our size and age. I would suspect that large donors become somewhat skittish when they see a mishandling of university finances. Does anyone have any current information on this subject?

Yes...just completing a $200,000,000 capital campaign successfully when a couple of multi-million dollar pledges get completed. Dr. Montecino and President Smatresk spoke to this issue just today during the UNT Alumni Association quarterly board meeting. Several large donations have come in and/or are being completed currently. Dr. Monticino who heads up Advancement mentioned no challenges completing the drive due to any of these issues. In fact, he spoke optimistically about exceeding the goal in the next few days.

The bad news, yes, some future donors might have second thoughts due to the current financial situation. However, the good news is the "irregularities" are of the "accounting" nature...not of the theft or fraud nature. Bad news, indeed, but not the kind that would "scare off" most donors capable of giving in the six figure plus range. Most folks are giving for a purpose, a scholarship, a program, etc. and not just to the university. This is not a problem that will cause any real long-term damage....just some relatively short-term belt tightening in some areas, and some changes to the way things are done moving forward. A black eye? Sure. Any lasting long-term damage? None, unless the issues continue. That will not happen.

[UNTflyer]

Paying football players cannot possibly be sustained. What about basketball players? Baseball? Women's gymnastics?

What about students on academic or arts scholarships?

Lawsuits will fly and the universities cannot pay all of these students like they were employees.

[ragpicker]

Yes...just completing a $200,000,000 capital campaign successfully when a couple of multi-million dollar pledges get completed. Dr. Montecino and President Smatresk spoke to this issue just today during the UNT Alumni Association quarterly board meeting. Several large donations have come in and/or are being completed currently. Dr. Monticino who heads up Advancement mentioned no challenges completing the drive due to any of these issues. In fact, he spoke optimistically about exceeding the goal in the next few days.

The bad news, yes, some future donors might have second thoughts due to the current financial situation. However, the good news is the "irregularities" are of the "accounting" nature...not of the theft or fraud nature. Bad news, indeed, but not the kind that would "scare off" most donors capable of giving in the six figure plus range. Most folks are giving for a purpose, a scholarship, a program, etc. and not just to the university. This is not a problem that will cause any real long-term damage....just some relatively short-term belt tightening in some areas, and some changes to the way things are done moving forward. A black eye? Sure. Any lasting long-term damage? None, unless the issues continue. That will not happen.

Thank you, Kram1, I feel a bit more optimistic about the situation now.

[Christopher Walker]

Paying football players cannot possibly be sustained. What about basketball players? Baseball? Women's gymnastics?

What about students on academic or arts scholarships?

Lawsuits will fly and the universities cannot pay all of these students like they were employees.

'Cause we all know things like Work Study are completely unsustainable.

[UNTLifer]

How will these kids respond when the IRS states their scholarship is a benefit of their employment at the university they choose? Taxes on that education to Northwestern or Stanford may have them second guessing their committment to these expensive schools.

[Ben Gooding]

Yes, there are very few programs in the black. But people forget that the advertising the sport does for a university is not factored into the revenues, because it is hard to pin an exact dollar amount to it. That does not mean it is not an important factor, that also allows for more school pride and increased donations, apart from more porspective student applications.

But coaches salaries (and some places assistants) are very often a big part of increased spending compared to 5 or 10 years ago. The schools have increased the market for coaches with the money sometimes knowing full well that this will put the AD in the red, because they wanted to compete,and because they did increase revenue to before and are aware that either endowment (mostly private schools) or the tax payer (via subsidies for in the red public schools) will foot the bill if they do. Some of that money went into facilities, which get updated at maybe a bit too fast a pace all over the landscape. I mean is it really necessary that every AAC school has an indoor football facility? Or that every MAC school has an additional basketball practice court? Are bigger video boards indispensable? College sports worked perfectly fine without those things, they are just part of an arms race. And since so many even small schools seem to take part in that arms race, it is logical that people feel like there is money everywhere.

The rest of it goes to coaches. The same kind of arms race. How much do we pay our basketball coach? 400k? Or another example coach brown at SMU gets how much? Even coach Mac. He makes a bowl this year he'l make 800k next year. I mean I like coach Mac, but is it really necessary that UNT pays 800k to it's coach? In the current environment it may be, because you will lose that coach if you pay him that much under market value. But if everybody had to spend some of that money on the players, all other schools were paying less to coaches, and nobody would cry a tear saying that a coach couldn't live well for 300k. But right now 800k is what you pay because everybody is willing to go this deep into the red to buy a coach out, and if everybody is doing that, then that creates perceptions.. ..that can only be because there actually is more money than there used to be. These kinds of things are shaping perceptions more than the AD having to go ask for subsidies at the end of the year. The latter is just one 3 line newsline on only one of 365 days a year.

Hell yes it's important that Mac gets 800k a year and just as important that the next coach gets the same. Money talks, and paying out to quality coaches gives the school an unquestionable amount of advertising by simply being competitive. No disrespect, but this is typical art major talk. You have to see the big picture. Not the picture you want to see.