Mark Nocera in NYT Magazine: Let’s Start Paying College Athletes

[alp227]

Mark Nocera, NY Times op-ed columnist, wrote this in-depth piece for the Sunday magazine advocating paying salaries to college athletes. Of course many of you will raise questions and doubts about his plan, and he addresses some concerns that readers may have.

Nocera's plan:

There are five elements to my plan. The first is a modified free-market approach to recruiting college players. Instead of sweet-talking recruits, college coaches will instead offer athletes real contracts, just as professional teams do. One school might think a star halfback is worth $40,000 a year; another might think he’s worth $60,000. When the player chooses a school, money will inevitably be part of the equation. For both coaches and players, sweet-talking will take a back seat to clear-eyed financial calculations.

The second element is a salary cap for every team, along with a minimum annual salary for every scholarship athlete. The salary caps I have in mind are pretty low, all things considered: $3 million for the salaries for the football team, and $650,000 for basketball, with a minimum salary of $25,000 per athlete. I would keep the number of basketball scholarships the same, at 13, while reducing the number of football scholarships from 85 to a more reasonable 60, close to the size of N.F.L. rosters. Thus, each football team would spend $1.5 million on the minimum salaries, and have the rest to attract star players. Basketball teams would use $325,000 on minimum salaries, and have another $325,000 to allocate as they wish among players. Every player who stays in school for four years would also get an additional two-year scholarship, which he could use either to complete his bachelor’s or get a master’s degree. That’s the third element.

The fourth: Each player would have lifetime health insurance. And the fifth: An organization would be created to represent both current and former college athletes. It may well turn out to be that this body takes on the form of a players’ union, since a salary cap is illegal under antitrust law unless it is part of a collective-bargaining agreement. (That’s why most professional sports leagues embrace players’ unions.) This organization — let’s call it the College Players Association — would manage the health insurance, negotiate with the N.C.A.A. to set the salary caps and salary minimums, distribute royalties and serve as an all-around counterweight to the N.C.A.A.

Nocera expands upon those 5 plans later in the article.

Given the controversies over boosters paying athletes under the table (as was case in USC and Miami Florida): "Schools could turn to boosters to help raise money to pay the players. What an improvement that would be — using booster money to legitimately pay players instead of handing them cash under the table."

And then there are D-1 colleges whose programs didn't generate enough profit: "Schools that truly couldn’t afford to pay their players would be forced to de-emphasize football and men’s basketball — and, perhaps, regain their identity as institutions of higher learning. Ultimately, I suspect that if schools had to start paying their players, we would wind up with maybe 72 football schools (six conferences of 12 teams each) — down from the current 120 Football Bowl Subdivision programs — and 100 or so major basketball schools instead of the 338 that now play in Division I."

Nocera never advocated paying athletes of D-2, D-3, or NAIA sports. If a student wants to play a sport while in college but declines a payment, the student can humbly turn to Division II or below.

Before you start howling: "But the student athletes already have the money for their dorms and books!" then read this passage: "N.C.A.A. rules make no allowance for poverty, yet surely college athletes should be able to go on a date, rent an off-campus apartment, lease a car, have some clothes, visit home and pay for their parents to see them play once in a while. That is what the minimum salary will provide."

[JonLP24]

1. I posted before reading but I agree

I know this opinion catches fire but coaches, the team, television, bowls, make big money. Players don't even get workman's comp if they get injured, I just think they deserve the same labor rights as All-Americans.

If you don't want it to be professional then stop with the games on school nights, nationally televised appearances, in general professional pressure to win. Coaches get fired all the time when teams under-perform or fail to improve.

Of course there are potential problems as far as how much teams can spend and how much teams are allowed to spend. I'll read what he has in mind but I think it is possible to balance fairness and paying athletes. However, there is inequality now, the top athletes all go to Alabama or USC, other schools like that.

[trumad]

2. excellent