Texas athletic director: With new rules, Longhorns would pay each player $10,000

[TexasTowelie]

WASHINGTON — The University of Texas could spend nearly $6 million a year to comply with a string of recent legal rulings requiring colleges to be more generous to their scholarship athletes.

That won’t break the bank, Athletic Director Steve Patterson said Tuesday at a forum on the fast-changing business of college sports. But even rich programs like UT’s will be forced to make tough choices in the future if momentum in the courts continues to push colleges to treat their players like employees or semi-pros, he said.

Chris Plonsky, director for women’s sports at Texas, said the school already employs 350 workers to coach and care for the students who play in Austin. The money for all of those jobs, she said, comes from just two sports, football and men’s basketball.

“If we begin to {further} remunerate the participants, that’s going to break that model,” Plonsky said.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/college-sports/headlines/20141021-texas-athletic-director-with-new-rules-longhorns-would-pay-each-player-10000.ece

[KeepItReal]

1. Paying *all* their players is only $1 million more than the head coach's compensation

$5 million a year for head coach Charlie Strong.

[tularetom]

2. If it gets too expensive they'll have to eliminate some of the non essentials

Such as classroom instruction and research.

Then they can concentrate on what really matters.

If they didn't have to educate students, imagine what a fantastic football program they could put on.