A lot of college athletes don’t get scholarships. I am totally fine with athletes being paid. I would prefer that than some of them being on food stamps.

If you’re not getting a scholarship, the. You are opting in to playing. You don’t have to play; it is your choice. You are clearly deriving a benefit if you chose to play a sport.

If you are getting scholarship money, you are being paid already.

Having said that, if scholarship athletes do end up getting paid, the slippery slope is all athletes become employees. Is that a good or bad thing? I see pro’s/con’s to it.

I’m not opposed to it necessarily but realistically the majority of athletes across all NCAA sports would get paid less than the value of a scholarship or nothing. Obviously I know many of them don’t even have any athletics scholarship money, but on the other hand those athletes wouldn’t be highly “paid” or paid at all in any market sense either. It does cost money for institutions to run many of these programs. Sometimes alumni endowments can help a lot if the program isn’t especially revenue generating. But it’s still not going to be realistic to run the program and also pay out salaries.

Even in non NCAA sports many professional/Olympic level athletes barely make money and it’s nothing like the NFL. Some are barely funded by sports specific funds or a combination of that and family contribution/savings. It seems pretty naive to think the NCAA will be any different because some schools make a lot of money off football.

On the other hand, you have (relatively few) athletes who are missing out on a lot of money and being exploited in the sense they’re making a lot of money for the institution that they will never see a cut of.

Even before the NIL changes I thought that athletes should at least be allowed to put brand deal money in some kind of trust until after their NCAA obligations. Maybe some kind of trust situation would work for revenue sharing as well. And you have to fulfill certain obligations and graduate to get the full amount. Not sure about the practicality of that in a legal sense but it’s my first thought.

Anonymous wrote:They get paid by being able to attend college for free. They are lucky to have a "talent" that gets them in because they probably wouldn't be accepted otherwise.
What they make of the opportunity is up to them.

This simply isn’t true. The vast majority of college athletes don’t get scholarships- D3 has none, and even D1 has limited scholarships dollars, so most kids who do get a scholarship will get a few thousand bucks knocked off the cost of tuition. You see a few sports played by a couple dozen schools on TV. Those athletes represent the smallest, tiniest fraction of all college athletes.

Pay, don’t pay, give scholarships, don’t. Kids who love their sports and love to compete will still play in college, just like theater kids act in college, and musicians play in college, and newspaper kids write in college.

They get paid by being able to attend college for free. They are lucky to have a "talent" that gets them in because they probably wouldn't be accepted otherwise.
What they make of the opportunity is up to them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Direct pay to athletes will be the end of college sports as we know (and love) it, including the non-revenue sports. Colleges will just decide they don’t want the hassle or expense or paying players. When that happens, competitive sports will likely become “professionalized” around pro teams much like the English soccer model but for sports that can afford it (football, basketball, soccer (already happening)). Without the incentive for a college scholarship, many travel or club teams will really struggle to survive and many will fold. Youth sports will still exist in some form (maybe better) since there won’t be the travel club player imbalance. The most negative impact (besides the loss of college sports generally) might be the end of United States’ Olympic dominance in the non-revenue Olympic sports—track, swimming, volleyball, etc. Without the lure of a college scholarship, participation in those sports will drop drastically thereby impacting the overall talent pool.

Meh. Lots of people in other countries play sports even though they aren't connected to schools (high school or college). And there's no way colleges won't pay athletes in revenue-generating sports, so long as they are still making millions. It's not like the NFL folded because players had to be paid.

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That’s true but womens participation is way higher in the US bc of the college scholarship model.

Title IX is why women's participation is high here. If schools want to pay football players, womens soccer is getting paid too.

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Except when the costs of paying players becomes too much and they discontinue the sport!

Anonymous wrote:Most college athletes are already getting paid IE scholarships, food etc.

This is not true.

Most college athletes are already getting paid IE scholarships, food etc.