HornSports Staff
HornSports.com
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2013
- Messages
- 2,482
Darren Rovell Article - Texas AD counters unionization effort
- Thread starter HornSports Staff
- Start date
BudreauReye
Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 1,723
Patterson said, "...We do everything that they say they wanted." Everything but a small stipend for walking around money. That would mean a whole lot for a lot of these guys. Patterson is only doing his job as he sees it, and you would expect him to say the things he said in that article. Of course there are lawyers who smell a fee, but there is eventually going to be some changes made. There is a lot of money being made off of these young athletes. I think it would be better if Belmont got out in front on this issue, and helped shape the way this is going to work, or they may not like the eventual look of the landscape.
streettopeschel
Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2013
- Messages
- 4,385
He's a lawyer, so he'd know.
I doubt any AD sees this stuff as a positive development. He does raise a point in the last paragraph addressing pay-for-play that 'booster x' would find a way to work the system. No kidding.
Chris Flanagan
Premium Members
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2012
- Messages
- 950
Isn't Patterson and other ADs, most of which went to law school, trying to keep money in their pockets? Again the message is hypocritical, "The University should make as much money as possible but the players doing the work should get nothing."
You can talk about the negatives all you want. No human solutions are going to be free of problems. But this is a case where the philosophy of the NCAA is hypocritical and does very little to benefit the student athlete.
I know college graduates who struggled to find jobs with their degrees with internships, these "student-athletes" go 50-60 hours a week of football with no credit for it so their degrees are worthless because instead of building connections in their desired field, they are forced to practice or lose their scholarship. Most of them can't afford college on their own.
These "voluntary practices" are complete hogwash because if they don't go, they could lose their scholarship and most do. So what's voluntary about that? Not to mention the NCAA is unilaterally making a decision and the player has no right to appeal the sanctions put against him. We all remember Myck Kabongo's situation and all thought that was ridiculous but if you recall the Minnesota wrestler Joel Bauman who was ruled ineligible because he made a song and got some money from it. The Daily Show did a funny sketch on that one. But that wrestler had no recourse for appeal. The school could but no one could represent his interests.
That's the issue. These players have no rights. No rights to appeal. No rights to earn a living. No rights to profit of their own image. A union protects those rights for those players. I don't think players should be paid millions of dollars but they should get something for the work they do. Not just a scholarship which is essentially moving money from the left pocket to the right pocket but money to get a pizza on a Saturday night and not be penalized for it. The NCAA is going to have to make changes and the world won't end because of it. The schools aren't going to give up the money they are earning for this.
Last edited by a moderator:
streettopeschel
Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2013
- Messages
- 4,385
dammit grande. now you've put me in the position of agreeing with bob-effing-stoops.
flanagan...you make some decent points, but i think the arguement grande quoted trumps most of them. and as far as 'walking around money for a pizza' i knew plenty of guys who DIDN'T have room, board, tuition, books, tutors etc covered that couldn't afford pizza either.
flanagan...you make some decent points, but i think the arguement grande quoted trumps most of them. and as far as 'walking around money for a pizza' i knew plenty of guys who DIDN'T have room, board, tuition, books, tutors etc covered that couldn't afford pizza either.
The part you are not factoring in, and indeed may not be aware of, is that if you to give the football players a stipend, then you would have to give all of the female scholarships athletes the approximate equal amount. This is not an issue of fairness, it is an issue of federal law.
I am not sure if you could give the football players a stipend and not the baseball team or other men's programs (Bball, golf, swimming, track and so on). I have never really considered this.
But what I am certain of is that whatever you give to the football players you would have to give very close to the same amount to ALL the female athletes. This is Title IX as interpreted. It may not have been written that way or intended that way, but its the way that the courts say it works.
And you can bet that there are teams of attorneys ready to pounce on this issue. And I do not mean a small group. Like abortion or gun rights, Title IX enforcement is a cottage industry for certain attorneys and activists. This is, in part, what Patterson was referencing although he did not spell it out with specifics, for obvious reasons. These folks are sitting back in the comfortable chairs right now egging on the stipend arguments types. Because they know that it means more money in their pockets. It is a professional gravy train.
It is impossible to change this current situation without re-writing the law. And since it would be political suicide for anyone to even try, you can assume it will be with us as it currently works well into the foreseeable future.
So, back to your question, yes, a school like Texas could probably absorb these additional costs. And so could a handful of other programs. But these costs will hurt the majority. Possibly/probably causing the elimination of programs. Is this your goal? Because it is going to be one of the results. You need to own them all.
Lastly, as you can or should be able to see, this argument that you put forth and employ as a premise -- that the schools make all this money off football that the players are earning -- falls on its face once you are forced to give the non-positive-revenue sport athletes stipends.
Last edited by a moderator:
Haha. We all hate Stoops. You get to keep your mancard. But we are big enough to admit that even he gets some things right (unlike aggy).
BudreauReye
Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 1,723
Chris Flanagan made the case much better than I could, and I am pretty much in agreement with what he said.
Juan Grande, you are correct in that there is no good solution to this other than a complete remaking of college sports. And, unless there is some movement on behalf of the athletes, I think that we will see much greater changes than most of us would like to see much sooner. There is just too much money being made on the shoulders of the football and basketball players at the higher echelon schools. It may be possible to define that college athletes are not employees, but they certainly are a special class whose rights are limited in exchange for the things that have been given to them for their efforts. It does not take a rocket surgeon to figure out that they just might have a case for claiming that they are not receiving their fare share, at least in some cases. I do not follow pro sports as we know them much, and I would like UT sports to remain in some semblance of their present form. I do not know how this will play out, but I think that in some form or another, the top money making schools in football and basketball will eventually band together, and reorganize the way they do business - offering at least some limited recognition that at least football and basketball at the level that they represent, are not amateur sports. They did it with the Olympic sports, you would think that Patterson and his counterparts could figure out how to make it happen.
Juan Grande, you are correct in that there is no good solution to this other than a complete remaking of college sports. And, unless there is some movement on behalf of the athletes, I think that we will see much greater changes than most of us would like to see much sooner. There is just too much money being made on the shoulders of the football and basketball players at the higher echelon schools. It may be possible to define that college athletes are not employees, but they certainly are a special class whose rights are limited in exchange for the things that have been given to them for their efforts. It does not take a rocket surgeon to figure out that they just might have a case for claiming that they are not receiving their fare share, at least in some cases. I do not follow pro sports as we know them much, and I would like UT sports to remain in some semblance of their present form. I do not know how this will play out, but I think that in some form or another, the top money making schools in football and basketball will eventually band together, and reorganize the way they do business - offering at least some limited recognition that at least football and basketball at the level that they represent, are not amateur sports. They did it with the Olympic sports, you would think that Patterson and his counterparts could figure out how to make it happen.
HornNdriftwood
Premium Members
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2013
- Messages
- 436
Regarding the "too much money being made," are you referring to gross or net. If you think they should get their "fair share" of gross then shouldn't they have to pay for some of their expenses. Seems fair.
If you're talking about net, then that's another arguement because the majority of schools have no net. Sure Texas can afford it and we do give our athletes everything the rules allow. But there are only a handful of schools in the FBS that can do that and probably none in the other divisions of the NCAA. Where is this money supposed to come from?
BudreauReye
Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 1,723
Actually, I am not thinking about either net or gross. I really do not care one way or the other. I am thinking that there is change afoot. Conferences are going to be re-aligned. Playoffs will see to that. It is very possible that the "rich" athletic programs will jettison the rest and band together in their own self interest. I don't know anything about it, but it seems that this thing about players demanding more of a share of the profits in some form or other, well, it seems that this has legs. I am neither a lawyer nor a financial person by inclination. So, I have no solutions to offer. It just seems to me that Patterson and his ilk had better get out in front of this issue, or they may just well eventually be overtaken by it if they ensconse themselves behind their castle walls ... What is your solution?
About Us
