Maybe the first idea to come to out of California in a generation that I agree with. The current system of using colleges as a minor league for pro sports and everyone getting paid except the player is a travesty. Long overdue.
8
Yay for my state! Call college sports what they are, football and basketball are farm systems for the pro leagues. The ncaa is corrupt and corrupts higher education.
6
With all the problems in CA, this is what is at the top of our Governor's agenda?
College athletes are amateurs, non-professionals honing their skills while earning an education. How many will finish college if they have big endorsements? How many will lose their scholarships because the income will disqualify them?
How about sponsors/companies pay athlete students' tuition to free-up scholarship money up for other students who don't play sports. That way the student athlete is benefiting from a free education and another student is benefiting too.
College is for education. Let's not turn college into the minor leagues and farm teams. Keep the focus on education, not paychecks.
2
It's simple. Colleges should eliminate athletic scholarships, and offer personal service contracts that would pay for school, and allowed stipends, in return for any and all incomes earned while under contract. This would eliminate the Title IX burdens on universities to support female athletic programs scholarships equally, and the ability of students to profits above their contracts.
1
Don't they already receive all-inclusive scholarships? Maybe use the absurd profits to provide scholarships for needy students and student-performers -- such as theater majors or members of the college orchestra.
2
College football and basketball have served as the minor leagues for the NFL and NBA for years. Most of these kids never get to the big time and many never finish school. Yeah they get a scholarship, but those from poor backgrounds don't have enough money in their pockets to go out for pizza after practice. Meanwhile the college is making millions of dollars off of them. Paying student athletes has its hazards but the current state of affairs is simply unfair.
4
There’s so much misinformation here it’s hard to know where to start. NIL rights are endorsement rights—contrary to popular misinformation, being on TV isn’t a use of someone’s NIL rights. So what will happen?
First, the CA statute lets schools pay players for their NIL rights. But there’s no way to value NIL rights so that’s pay for play. Since most sports are net revenue negative, this will have a big impact. More money to stars in football and men’s basketball, the only positive net revenue sports. Less money to players in other sports, or elimination of those sports entirely. Title IX requires financial aid to all women to balance aid to all men so the men’s sports other than football and basketball are really at risk.
Second, the CA statute also allows boosters and school sponsors like shoe companies to make the payments. Some schools will think that’s a way around Title IX—divert the contributions and royalties to the stars. I see a Title IX suit coming on that. Worse, the shoe companies will control college athletics.
Third, there’s nothing to keep high school players from selling lifetime NIL rights for too little money. No union to protect the players.
College sports (all sports) break even at best, with football and men’s basketball supporting all the other sports. At most D1 schools that doesn’t even happen—and student fees have to subsidize the sports programs.
This should be interesting. But not because the changes are thoughtful. They’re far from that.
4
Big time college sports is broken. I'm not sure if this will provide any kind of direct fix; but it certainly will shake things up. It, obviously, has started people thinking and talking about the system in place now.
Horse has left the barn. California is leading this perfectly. Especially with the lead time and the instigation for other states to follow. The US Supreme Court based on the US Consitution could hardly knock down this law. The schools of a great many states will realize that the writing is on the wall for athletes to have liberties beyond the playing ( no paying ) field. They will keep their hold inside the stadia, they will keep their control of how their school programs’ strengths and scholarships are worthy of attending. Only a handful of loudmouth, flashy, highly talented players will make any real dough hamming it up on YouTube, IG or at the local grocery store as a prop. Actually, the seeds of discord will be sown among the players who have zero income vs. the teammate who is prospering.
2
What would have been better would have been for California to allow the student athletes to form a union. Like all professional sports have. This may benefit the 'stars' of college athletics, but what about all the supportive cast? The linemen who get beat to a pulp everyday and create the holes for the star running backs for example. You think they will get Nike endorsements? I think a better system would set up an IRA for college athletes and a health care plan. That way when they don't get a college degree or it isn't worth the paper it's written on, they will walk away with something. And when they are 65 or 70 and can't remember their own name or don't recognize their family they have an insurance policy to help take care of them. And while we are at it if the pro leagues are going to take these athletes after college, why aren't the leagues required to pay into a fund strictly for the athletes. A minor league agreement as it were. The money to be spread equally among all the athletes.
1
“Business model” is the correct term. Remove the non-profit status of universities; it is a sham in every single university endeavor, particularly science and sports.
Wonder how long it will be until Trevor Lawrence announces he is transferring to UCLA.
1
I say - if you think you should make money as a college player, the you clearly don’t need taxpayer funded “scholarship” money.
If you have your hand out for a free ride for tuition and board, sorry, shut up and spend your time trying to get an education, if you can actually make the grades.
If your just using the school as a shell for your own selfish finances interests, pay your own way or, man up, leave school and turn pro.
This is really outrageous -
6
@Steven I agree w/your comment whole heartily. If the schools want to pay these players to come & play for their school, no more scholarships/grant money for these kids! Monies used for scholarships can then be given to students who really need them for education. I guess I’m crazy for thinking that college/universities are institutions of learning, not playing sports!!
3
The NCAA is a criminal enterprise that exploits youth, and contributes nothing to higher education.
5
A recruit's agent will be hired in high school demanding a high level of "exposure" to attend.
NCAA wants to continue the slave mentality. PLayers get little compared to their coaches who even if they are losers walk away with millions in gauranteed contracts. The average life of a profootball players career is 3 years. The real money does not start until after their rookie contract. That is why Ezekiel refused to play. He knows the NFL is s scam and the NCAA is an even bigger scam. A coach makes $6 million plus endorsements plus camp fees. A player nothing but maybe a degree that was worth little. How many football players graduate with a worthwhile degree. Few if any. How many actually get a full ride for 5 years, few it is only sometimes. Why should the NCAA be able to use their image after they are done with football. These players are right to leave the game if they can trun pro but what about the rest whose career is over after college and we know are subject to brain damage and a short life and long term damage to their joints. Players deserve their cut and needs agents and lawyers to protect them. These are young women and men who are being taken advantage of by thge NCAA and even their high schools. How many high school players do not spend their time doing their schoolwork and preparing for a real job. How many high school players suffer lifelong joint and brain damage? I think every other state should follow suit. Why would any top prospect play in another state when if they play in California they have a chance to market their name.
2
Bravo Gavin Newsome!
It’s about time!!!
3
I like that if player like "Johnny Manziel" becomes big he can now sell his "Johnny Football" shirt. Is it flaw yes, and I know there is 2 of every number, but if Clemson place a white guy wearing number 16 on billboards and stuff it is meant to be Trevor Lawerence. Because 3 years ago it was not that. Tennis players who goes to school just football can earn up to $10,000 in prize money, but they to get a education. If the NCAA bans Cali teams from playing, it will hurt because they can make a deal with NAIA, join and the top players will then go there until more schools leaves. The NCAA needs them, they do not need the NCAA.
The schools own the university logo, colors etc, not the student athlete wearing a particular number. The school could sue and recover the monies on a trademark infringement or even a counterfeit product prosecution. The student might be able to make a deal to share the revenues of sales of his shirt number though during his years playing.
1
As a former NCAA student athlete, I’m fully in support of this. The current system is a contorted version of modern slavery. NCAA: ‘We feed you! We house you! We educate you! But we’re going to keep the MILLIONS of dollars that you make for us! Be happy! Go State!’
2
Tell me again why they receive scholarships and free or discounted room & board?
5
@Bored
'If your teams have lost their luster like many of the California schools you can undercut the rest of the nation's programs by paying the athletes. This is another example of how a badly run California is and how its failures hrth the rest of the nation.'
California schools. There's really only four that play real football. Cal, Stanford, USC & UCLA. None except USC have ever been football 'powerhouses' like you find in the SEC or the Big Ten. Student athletes come here because they know that if they don't go on to play professionally, as most don't, they'll at least have a degree worth something.
Aside from that, why shouldn't these kids get paid ? They can hold a job at McDonald's. Why not get paid by Nike ? No real difference. Personally, I think it's a bad idea. Just look at what the big money has done to players in the NFL
Loved your backhand slap at California. Badly run ? Maybe. I never liked Newsom. But we're still carrying you.
Anything that brings the NCAA to its knees has my approval.
It's a sanctimonious, money grabbing organization -- that ascended to its position of power through a combination of crass commercialism and phony morality.
I'd veto the California bill if coaches were limited to salaries no more than half that of the President of each university.
1
Just one more example of California flouting Federal law and interstate commerce. Of course the courts will knock this law down. When the "big one" finally strikes out there, can we tell CA to "Drop Dead"?
1
Dont tell me NCAA athletes arent paid.
I just put three kids thru college. Cost me $150k each. These students get that free ride plus world class coaches, tutoring, training, facilities and PT. And only 2% of NCAA athletes even go pro. Over 80% end up with degrees. No comparison to the dismal salaries and resources in a farm system. Slaves? Baloney.
5
The first time any freshman should think about football or any other sport is during the first week of classes when the following notice is posted: tryouts for the football team, Thursday at 4 in the stadium.
1
Wait, no billions of dollars of revenue for NCAA football and basketball?
The idea of colleges and universities returning to their ancient roots of educating young people is simply too radical in 2019 for sports manic America.
Satire aside,
"...Only a fraction of college athletes eventually turn professional, and for the rest, “college is the only time they have to profit off their hard-earned athletic successes,” Hayley Hodson, a former Stanford volleyball player, said during legislative testimony in July..."
Well said, Mr. Hodson. Those who don't get picked up by the pros are quickly forgotten about as alumni look to the fresh meat that will bring glory to their alma mater.
I love when my alma mater wins but I'm not fooling myself anymore that, in the end, it's a mammoth entertainment business.
It is long overdue. Other states should follow California’s lead. New York State you are on deck.
1
Big contrast. Apart from Syracuse basketball, can we name any major collegiate sports teams making noise in NYS ?
Less than 2% of draft eligible college football players go on to the NFL. The rest are playing because for the experience and the free ride. And that free ride is worth a lot of money these days. Ask any grad with student debt. So spare us the “farm league”, “slavery”, and “indentured service” bunk.
5
It's about time the student athletes control their own names and likenesses. The NCAA has unfairly robbed these athletes of money they deserved for too long now.
@Eric Johnston
Great move California. Now male athletes will receive much more money than the women.
1
Once again, California leads the way. College sports became professional long ago — even in Divisions 2 and 3. In football, even high school has been corrupted by money and the false claim of amaturism.
Stop the abuse of the athletes. College and university presidents need to do the right thing and stop the sham. Develop athletic extensions that operate as the for-profit corporations that they are. Let the NCAA battle it out with the NRA for the title of Most Duplicitous American Organization.
1
@Chris
A Division III school will generate a net profit from the athletics department? And the revenue will come from where?
This could be a huge benefit for poor students, as scholarships that were wasted on "student athletes" could then be funneled to "student students" that are there to learn, not play games.
As long as the students are not being given free education while they are being paid for playing sports, this is not an issue.
So what do we do when this issue arises?
Once a player gets a contract, it should terminate any scholarships, and if it is lucrative enough, there should be a clawback option for the school to recover their expenses.
Problems solved, folks.
Oh wait, the NCAA doesn't want to disturb their multi billion dollar cash cow.
This is a tragic decision furthering our society's compitulation to avarice.
Universities and Sponsors have lead the way, shamelessly.
Can you just imagine the situation on campus after this? The college experience, you know getting a well-rounded education (which I know is much questioned these days as uneconomic and unnecessary).
I am a huge Bama fan, and they are egregiously will funded, but spread the wealth with a funding of a true education and post graduation support, not professionalism of college athletics.
The resolution for this will be analogous to vaping: thoughtless innovation for the sake of a dollar bill.
Kids ruined, paying football or not.
MB
2
Funny but last I knew if you received an athletic scholarship your tuition, room, and board was paid for. Plus there are other perks that a regular student is not privileged to. I am 100% opposed to paying college athletes in any way more than what they receive now. There are college coaches who make more than the university presidents, lots of them. College sports are another example of how perverted our priorities have become. Money rules, who cares about education...
5
Picture this: you've worked yourself to the bone to get accepted as a student at the premiere public university in your state. Let's call it "Cal." You've got the grades and standardized test scores. You ran a big community service project. You completed a year-long independent study project. You dedicated hours per week to extracurriculars or a job to boot. You applied for every scholarship under the sun, but even with some small grants and some big loans, your time at Cal will be a great financial burden on your family. But you made it! And then you learn that the football player sitting next to you in your intro Sociology course is not only getting a free ride, and maybe living in a special dorm, and using professional-level sports facilities, and has a head coach with experience in the NFL, is getting PAID to attend? Really? Frankly, the very notion is an ABOMINATION! Universities are meant to be EDUCATIONAL institutions, and sports are meant to be EXTRACURRICULARS, not the main purpose.
Here's a better for solution for student athletics: eliminate athletic scholarships, reducing coaching salaries to the level of professors, stop paying for pro-level sports facilities, let the NFL and NBA set up minor league programs and, most of all, DO NOT PAY STUDENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN SPORTS. In other words, end the OBSCENE CHARADE of the "student athlete."
5
Letting those who actually do the work share in the profits may not be all that crazy. It is about time that the exploitation in the name of purity is ended.
I usually can’t say much positive about CA or it’s Governor, except thanks for taxing your businesses to Texas. But......in this case, I am happy to see the NCAA get kicked and challenged on something that has needed to change for a long time. If Texas and Florida would follow, its game over.
College athletes are already paid for their play with a free college education !
5
Why have big money sports on college campuses at all? Universities are for learning, not for prepping for a professional sports career.
3
That is how Western European nations do it. The football ( soccer ) is all professional minor league development away from campus.
1
The main issue here is very clear. Competition for the best high school talent. If a California school gets you on a wheaties box and a million dollars, and in Texas you can't do that..where are you going to go?
Also, athletes, such as in football, can actually retire before they are eating Gerber from CTE, or using a walker at age 45.
I like it for minor sports athletes and women as well, as many in these areas don't have the option of high paying professional careers in sports after college.
The concept of the NCAA judging our constitution and commerce is laughable. What an ego! And what greed!
Obviously money is the issue..nothing else here. Do we really need a gazillion bowl games every year? That isn't about college/academic/sports life in the least. Just dollars at the collegiate level that shouldn't be there....for advertisements for companies.
It's about time something changed. The fat cat NCAA administrators rake in the money for basically sitting on their duffs and doing nothing while the players do all the work, and now the NCAA is upset that this rule might cut into their takings. No sympathy for them from this corner.
I went to the University of Kentucky. The players on the men's basketball team aren't even properly classified as students, as they don't REALLY go to school there. And they aren't employees, as it isn't legal to pay them. Yet they work incredibly hard, in a role that may leave them with serious injuries. And the work they do makes a lot of money for someone. Don't get me wrong - I love college basketball. But these young men often don't have enough money for their basic needs, and they aren't getting an education. They are exploited. They are victimized by the university and the NCAA. They are unpaid employees with no benefits and no worker protections. Others make millions from their work. It's a disgrace.
Higher Ed scholarly articles opine CA public HS average 1 college/career counsellor per 1,000 students.
NCAA created an "elite student athlete" classification for HS students likely to earn endorsement income in college, or, earn an annual salary in professional sports upon leaving college. Not likely the 1 out 1,000 college counsellors can sift through a dozen or many more compensation/academic packages.
One Ohio State booster operating a closed shop collective bargaining subject to NLRB policies offered players summer starting union apprenticeship jobs at union scale. NCAA sanctioned OSU for violating its "exempt from Sherman Anti-trust" policies.
Top three colleges for Olympic athletes in all sports are University of Southern California, UCLA and Stanford. I was a volunteer in the predecessor to JFK's Peace Corps that used sports -- tennis and soccer mostly -- and jazz music as cultural exchanges. Today there are missile bases of foreign powers in the country where I volunteered aimed north at America.
I wholeheartedly support non-CTE-gladiator sports and culture for the purpose of understanding with some long term goal of global cooperation.
Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic sure come in handy.
Common core by state legislature, social score graded by the NCAA and college pays determined by professional Coaches and Players unions are worries.
I just finished talking to one of my students who is struggling to do well academically while trying to fulfill the extraordinary demands that the football coaches extract in terms if his time as well as his physical, psychological and intellectual resources. The ‘bargain’ of a scholarship in exchange for being exploited by the big business model of college football - including the NCAA, the Big 10 Conference and the university - is in itself a shabby one. But when the likelihood of a football player having chronic traumatic encephalopathy (a risk that is shockingly high) at the end if his short college career, that bargain is unethical at best and criminal at worse. If they *must* play, these young men deserve all the compensation they can get. I am grateful that Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting this football rolling.
Changes are needed for sure. We should eliminate this entirely from the educational system entirely. It has corrupted both education and sports. The schools have become addicts when it comes to this money and has fostered corruption at the highest level.That being said if the schools get paid than the athletes should get paid the bulk of that. No one is there to watch the grass grow or read corporate logos.
Now that Cal and UCLA football players will be getting paid like professionals, the State of California can stop taxing me to pay for their stadiums.
1
NCAA meet the First Amendment. It is the NCAA that faces real constitutional issues by continuing its current shameful practices. An athlete making an endorsement, ALLOWING the use of his face, name or likeness, or seeking appropriate assistance in determining his or her rights by retaining an agent is simply protecting his or her rights under the First Amendment. These students are literally risking their lives to enrich the administrators, athletic directors, coaches and boosters of athletic programs in which their full participation diminishes the value of the only compensation they can"legally" receive--their education. Sports schedules don't leave time for that little nuisance, as far as those raking in the dough are concerned. And please, don't raise Title IX. Women's sports are a threat to male egos--I watched every game of the women's soccer championships this summer and none of the men's. While enjoying a late lunch with my wife at a restaurant dotted with TV on sports channels, I realized that day's game had begun and asked the bartender to change the channel. One guy at the bar objects, and was almost set upon by all the other patrons who agreed with us--change the channel. The only thing this law will do is provide further recognition for the true quality of today's women's sports competitors.
About damn time! I find it disgusting that the highest paid government employee in many states is the American Football coach of one of the state schools. It is as if we value sport more than everything else and then some. Let’s end this scam. Big ticket sport can promote minor leagues for prospective athletes.
"...college athletes should earn a degree, not money, for playing sports."
College football players have a graduation rate of approximately 50 percent, which is one-third lower than the general student population. So half of the players do not receive degrees and most do not make it to the NFL. Earning compensation in college will most likely be their one opportunity in life to cash in on their athletic skills.
1
@Michael. Where do you get that stat? From USA today: “The Institute for Diversity and Ethics and Sport shows in its report that the overall football Graduation Success Rate (GSR) is up to 79 percent, climbing from 77 percent in 2017.”
1
In many ways college football and basketball are grand socialism. They make big money that supports entire athletic Dept. Budgets which include all women’s sports. It shocks me that California would vote for free market over this model. There is a finite amount of money for college sports and the universities are in control of those dollars now but if California gets its way on this that won’t be the case going forward. Unintended consequences
This should be treated like soccer in Europe. There are different leagues or divisions from more amateur to more professional and people get paid accordingly. There should be payment for Divison I, II, III etc. but if athletes want to compete above the pay grade for college level I, whatever that is, they need to go to the NFL.
While agreeing with most commenters here (about time this changed), i would like to point out that it is largely a myth that schools profit (directly) from their athletics. the athletics departments are pretty much self-sustaining and operated independently, and the schools don't see much money coming from them. what the schools are after, in this insanely competitive higher-ed world, is the incredible name recognition that comes with a successful athletics department. in other words, athletic departments are just big publicity stunts.
1
(FYI - Ex-pro & now work in the sports industry)
Approach sports like the rest of the world & remove them from the education system all together. This is a step in that direction. Most Div 1 schools barely prioritise education as it is at that level.
Paying athletes while still in school, places money above education as fund raising will become their main focus. Not all competitive athletes are made equal, majority will never be elite. Less than 2% of NCAA athletes go on to be professional. Education at university level is more important for the rest.
The NCAA system is so broken. People on the outside don't realise that scholarship athletes from impoverished backgrounds suffer in the current system. They may be having certain things paid for, but they have no 'spending' money. No money to fly home to see a sick relative, to go home for the holidays, money for extra groceries, or for sundries. If they are given money by ANYONE they are in violation of NCAA rules. They can't get jobs to help support themselves. THIS is the problem. They are making money for everyone else but themselves. A LOT of money - more than the NFL makes! For many athletes their prime years are their 15-22, they should be able to capitalise.
On the other side, children that don't have professional elite athlete capabilities, but their parents think/dream that they do, will suffer. More than they already do.
1
College musicians, actors, dancers, etc should be paid as well.
2
Dancers, musicians and actors can be paid anytime they perform. There is not NCAA or other legal restriction or absolute practice. So what is your point ? Also, the law does not mandate the schools pay the athletes as employees ( which in a sense they are ) but rather the athletes have the right to get a job tangential, adjacent or fully removed from their commitment to sporting participation representing the university.
1
Umm, they can be already. There are no amateur rules for these groups. That’s the point the Governor is making.
1
If they allow college students to receive pay for playing, then those same students should not be allowed to receive any scholarships. Sports scholarships are there to educate those students gifted in sports yet can not afford college. If students are being paid to play then they are double dipping, earning big money, while not having to pay for college because of the received scholarships. Thus taking scholarship money away from those that cannot afford it. I have no problem with college students receiving pay to play sports but I believe once they receive such pay any and all scholarships should be withdrawn.
3
@Thomas
"Sports scholarships are there to educate those students gifted in sports yet can not afford college."
Oh, please. Sports scholarships are there to convince star athletes to attend a particular college. "Need" has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Athletic scholarships are in a totally different bucket than scholarships based on need. No athlete is taking scholarship money away from a non-athletic scholarship.
6
Let me enlighten you. Take a look at the UNC academic scandal. These student athletes, except in rare instances, are not in real degree programs. After their athletic eligibility runs out, they leave school with no real degree, no athletic future, and in some instances injuries that they will have to endure the rest of their lives.
1
Major college football and basketball are multi-billion dollar businesses in which the most important participants are the lowest paid.
Let those that can make money from their excellence.
Lou Saban could quit coaching tomorrow but the Alabama football team would still have 80,000 faithful fans on Saturdays and millions of TV viewers.
But if the players went to the beach instead - Game Over.
So tell me, who do you think really earns that money.
6
Convincing argument but it’s Nick Saban not Lou.
If college athletes are paid, would this bar any of the athletes from competing in the Olympics?
1
No, because the Olympics are NO longer an amateur event. Professionals of all sorts compete in the Olympics.
1
Shhh. Don’t tell anyone but NBA, NHL and pro soccer players all compete in the Olympics.
1
Now that this will be the law of the land, how do we ensure that students can also profit from technology that they develop/ research at these same universities? Similar to athletes having a right to profit from their talents (while using the infrastructure of their schools), non-athletes will need to have right to profit from their IP as well.
2
@Father of One
"Now that this will be the law of the land..."
It's the law of California, not the law of the land.
This is a change that will have many unintended and unforeseen consequences. I love watching college sports and my secret fear is that I will not love what this change will do college sports, particularly in rural states and small markets. However, the athletes deserve some of the millions that sports generate and it is not right for people to profit from athletes who take significant physical risks for the scholarships/payout they receive.
@Robert Flaherty
'I love watching college sports and my secret fear is that I will not love what this change will do college sports..."
It's not all about you, Robert. Both you and college sports will somehow survive this catastrophe. Perhaps you'll even have the opportunity to find new things to love, possibly ones that have even more meaning than watching sweaty students throwing balls around a field or court.
This will now expose the corruption that is college sports. Too much money, too many seats are taken from the actual purpose of college - an education, not a development league for the NFL and NBA. College sports should be an extracurricular activity for students, not a training ground for professional athletes. Do what baseball does. Develop your minor leagues and let the students play in college, some of whom may still become professionals. Paying college athletes, letting them promote themselves, will only turn colleges into professional leagues for 18-22 year olds. I hope the schools only offer athletic scholarships for those who commit to earning their degrees.
5
The 2023 effective date should be emphasized.
Three more legislative sessions (years).
This is a bargaining chip.
3
But don’t the schools deserve a cut?
At any rate... California’s going to attract all the top players next year.
@Marshall
"At any rate... California’s going to attract all the top players next year."
Which will certainly put the lie to the myth of the athlete who's in it for love of the game.
1
Two great points. 1. Sure, why not ?, the school could make a contract with the player which states that they share his social media revenues or they won’t recruit him. 2. Not all the best players will go to California. Why not ? Because there are only a certain number of positions open for QBs and Point Guards on a certain number of top flight teams in important NCAA conferences. The vast majority of aspiring players will still choose to get a FREE education and a position with game playing time at the top ranked football and basketball programs in the other 49 states.
1
So what if this destroys big time college sports, or even all college sports? That's not supposed to be the business they're in anyway. Not having big time sports hasn't hurt the University of Chicago.
Besides, the social purpose of big time sports is to give people something trivial on which to be experts. Lest they become experts on important things.
14
This will definitely spread to the other schools after it becomes clear that the good players will go where the money is.
College sports will basically become professional.
Honestly it makes no sense to have colleges go so crazy about supporting their sport team. Colleges are supposed to be academic institutions, focused on learning. You got to college to study, learn, get a job. Sports teams should be operated through student run clubs like other casual activities. If an athlete wants to go pro they should have other organizations to support them focused solely on the task.
Also coaches shouldn’t be making more than Nobel Scholars.
5
I think this is a good forward step.
Many of these players are exploited with a promise to get access to college. If they get injured in the process they lose it all. I don’t agree that it should only benefits the coachs/schools. Some of them can be real good and won’t see the daylight in NFL/NBA.
California always seems to be taking the lead: good legislations on pollution, on minimum wages, on protecting independent workers right.. Hope it encourages others states to take the right steps !
3
They said it couldn't be done, but someone has figured out how to make the west coast competitive with the SEC. Forget the flawed Pac 12 tv contract. The talent is coming west!
4
ABSOLUTELY!!!! No longer will these West Coast kids journey to the SEC or Big Ten. They will stay in California.
I broke into applause having just read this on my phone, even though I'm the only one in the room at present. This is one of the noblest and most principled statutes ever written, and I applaud Governor Newsom for signing it into law. Shame on those who want to keep the status quo. When I was an engineering graduate student I was paid for my work in the department, in addition to receiving free tuition. Science and engineering teaching assistants and research assistants are paid whether they are undergraduates or graduates. Those students are also entitled to share in royalties from patents resulting from their research.
The student athletes deserve no less. Those who don't make it into the NFL or NBA will finally reap the just profits from their likenesses that they spent years of effort cultivating. Only the most regressive proponents of involuntary servitude would deny a young person the fruits of his or her labor.
18
@Richard
"Only the most regressive proponents of involuntary servitude would deny a young person the fruits of his or her labor."
There you go, ragging on Republicans again.
The impact of this law has been greatly exaggerated. There are very few college athletes who are good enough to be marketable. The vast majority of athletes toil in obscurity. I think this law will have very little impact.
4
I am for this law and don’t agree with your position.
Here’s why: Social influencers don’t have to be superstars.
We’ve seen this over and over again in other spaces (business areas).
Also, Colleges and Universities have milked billions of dollars a year off of student athletes ever year for years.
There’s nothing wrong with students getting paid for their accomplishments so that they have money for more than the dining hall, the dorm and school.
It’s about time!
3
I don’t understand the reason behind a coach getting paid millions of dollars when the sportsman gets nothing. A coach can only train his or her ward to the extent possible but the ward has to implement the plan and simply not the coach.
What is wrong if talented players get some handsome amount out of their performance ? Those colleges and schools, who have milked the cow will have bitter taste anyway. Not every student gets huge endorsements in any case..
Only extraordinary students end up in getting big endorsements and others will get precious little. It’s definitely the case of sour grapes for NCAA.
This is at least some opportunity for the talented students to be free from any sort of a loan whether college or home loan.
6
I’m glad colleges will be paying theses athletes, so they will no longer need athletic scholarships and that money can be used for non-athletic scholarships.
4
@Sue
If athletes don't get scholarships, that money won't go to non-athletic scholarships. Different buckets, different piles of money, different sources.
2
So if more States follow suit will it eventually leave the NCAA as an organization that is totally irrelevant? Will it become an organization without any members? I guess then they can make all the rules they want...rules that will apply to no one.
3
The system is already corrupt. Schools spending millions on stadiums and workout facilities. Football and men’s basketball coaches being the highest paid “public” employee in a given state. Alumni payola.
Pay the players however they want. This only impacts the big power conferences. No one is paying the QB at some D3 school or Ivy.
And if students aren’t focused on the lifelong benefits of a good college education, they will pay the price down the road.
1
What we can bet on is that since politicians got involved there will be unintended consequences. For example, players who might get paid for the use of their name and/or likeness will seek out the schools who have the largest fanbases/alumni. So that means for the most part the rich get richer. So it becomes an arms race of schools working to essentially guarantee the highest return for star players who may pick them. I think the players deserve some form of compensation and because the NCAA refused to be proactive on this now they are getting forced to deal with it from a weak position. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
6
California just opened Pandora’s Box in college athletics, and it is bound to have reams of unintended consequences, most of which will be profiled and lamented on these pages in the coming years. The dollars will naturally flow to the affluent, big time football and basketball programs, which in turn will reward a small handful of elite athletes. The under the table boosterism that has scandalized college athletics in the past will now be an open market, further distorting the already significant disparities between schools and between athletic departments alike.
7
True to some extent but USA Today figures show a decent program could be funded with No North Carolina school's NCAA sports program pays for itself. All are subsidized with what the NCAA calls "allocated revenues" - student fees allocated to athletics, direct and indirect institutional and alumni support, including state funds, tuition, tuition waivers, federal Work Study amounts for student workers employed by athletics department; the value of university-provided support such as administrative services, facilities and grounds maintenance, security, risk management, utilities, depreciation and debt service that is not charged to the athletics department; and direct government support, ie appropriations.
2
Billions and college athletic revenue at risk, most programs or not anywhere near self-funded but depend on student fees and taxpayer dollars. See USA Today
No North Carolina school's NCAA sports program pays for itself. All are subsidized with what the NCAA calls "allocated revenues" - student fees allocated to athletics, direct and indirect institutional and alumni support, including state funds, tuition, tuition waivers, federal Work Study amounts for student workers employed by athletics department; the value of university-provided support such as administrative services, facilities and grounds maintenance, security, risk management, utilities, depreciation and debt service that is not charged to the athletics department; and direct government support, ie appropriations.
1
The MLB and the NBA have turned college sports into a Petri dish to develop players to play in their leagues. Add to this the influence and support of alumni who are the types of people who want to live in a perpetual college reunion and will give and expect a sports program that feeds into the NFL and the NBA and with that you have a toxic mix.
My question is why don't colleges and universities renounce the monetary gain and get on with the job of educating students. Their promotion of football is making generations of players physically compromised. And by the way, tell the alumni to find a better charity, unless they want to support an educational program at their alma mater. College is for learning not making a salary.
3
Good luck with this. The NCAA rules will remain in place and any “student” athletes caught taking money will remain subject to the private association’s rules. The school is free to withdraw from the NCAA, but until it does, it will remain subject to its association rules/bylaws.
This act is purely political posturing, especially since it does not come into effect for years. I assume the “progressive“ legislators are mostly hoping that this will “encourage” the NCAA to get on board and change its rules. But since this law will primarily help the mega-schools and/or outlaw programs, I don’t see why the rank and file school programs would choose to go along with it.
2
This law goes into affect in 2023? Surely some student athlete and his/her agent will look to cash in on this opportunity in 2019. I'd be very surprised if we don't see basketball and football players exploiting this concept immediately. A 2023 payday is of no use to them.
1
Nice move Gov!
I hope Illinois passes the same law, except making it effective in 2020 to help our (generally) underperforming Illinois college sports teams. Student athletes can then come to Illinois and strike endorsement deals!
University athletic departments are side businesses, for the most part contributing nothing to anything outside of athletics, except the occasional scandal and some extra revenue for the orthopedic surgery department.
The football coaches are portrayed on TV as these kind human beings that really enjoy mentoring young men. What kind of mentor takes a $2 million salary while his mentee is suffering permanent brain damage from the work. Thanks for caring so much coach!
4
Midwest: The problem with your logic is that no one would pay a player from the Illini to endorse their service or product. It works for a handful of major programs. Unless Joe’s Carwash in Champaign wants to pay some ho hum Illinois player some chump change to pitch his special clear coat rinse. Not sure it will really make a dent.
It's about time players be compensated in the big money-generating sports. If a school can pay a football head coach $7 million, and assistant coaches millions annually, it can pay every member of that football team at least $25,000 a season -- so when said player graduates, he walks away with a $100,000 start in life.
8
OK, now can we start paying college football coaches realistic salaries. Like A LOT LESS! Lets face it any one can get the BEST players to the championship!! So hopefully this will be equity for the players to help them make their decisions based on pay and not the university and coach who could care less what they do after college.
2
The rich will get richer. The rich schools that have name-brand programs will be more attractive to athletes because they are more likely to be able to swing a marketing deal as a star player for that school. It will give those schools a recruiting advantage over non-name-brand schools. The blue bloods will thus get better players, win more games, go to bowls that pay more, etc..
So the Texas, Alabama, Michigan, ND and USC of the world will get even richer then they already are and a couple of dozen 5 star recruits will also benefit.
4
Oh, yes. Surely colleges can both reward the athletes and return funds to the "minor" sports.
For one thing, they could pay their head coaches less.
For another, if they're going to claim the protection of the academy to keep players amateur, they've got to be intellectually honest enough to prune conferences to the appropriate number or change their names (i.e., make it the Big however many schools now or shed the extras. Eight teams in the Pac-8, ten in the Big 10 and so on. Or work with )
2
It’s about time we quit pretending that college football has anything to do with the actual college. Just create a minor football league that can feed the meat grinder of the pro teams and be done with it. 90% or more of the college players are there to play football, not get a college education anyway, just admit it.
8
College level athletes will need CA DE-4s to withhold their estimated taxes. Wait until the State of California comes after them for the FMV of the scholarships and other swag (as imputed income).
Careful what you wish for...Newsom and the CA Democrats never see a revenue stream they don't want to tax!
4
You would think those on the right would applaud turning college sports into a free market system (lol) where individuals can profit from their abilities.
1
This is just for political points. The NCAA will simply ban a player who has signed with an agent and if he plays, the team will be banned. I would hope that no player falls into this trap.
2
"The measure .... threatens the business model of college sports."
Good.
6
We all know the "professionalism" of college sports. But two things. If they can not make money off the "money makers -- football and basketball" then they will not have the resources to fund the other sports, track and field, swimming, tennis,golf, to name a few, and, of course the near and dear to the liberals, women's sports in their entirety.
3
@Richard Frauenglass. Where's the evidence that using slave labor is essential for the funding women's sports? What I see are astronomical salaries for coaches and athletic directors. In any case the money flowing to athletes will not be from schools.
3
“amateurism model that has been foundational to college sports”
And written without the slightest hint of sarcasm
College sports has nothing to do with education...let’s stop pretending it does
3
It's important to remember a few things:
1. The law allows the athletes to profit from the use of their name and image. Just like the rest of us. What's wrong with that?
2. These are adults, not children. As adults, they have the right to exploit their talents to their own financial gain. Students who are also tech entrepreneurs, Instagram models, YouTube personalities, or have other gifts have the right to exploit their talents as well regardless of their attendance.
I don't recall Harvard telling Mark Zuckerberg that he couldn't profit from Facebook because he was a enrolled in Computer Science 100.
Why can't this same logic apply to student-athletes?
8
Eliminate athletic scholarships, and form teams for intercollegiate competition, if you must have them, from already-admitted students.
If you want an education, go to school. If you want to play a sport, join a club.
7
This is a welcome development. I.e., a logical step in the right direction in a long time. I get that once there were slaves who were fed to lions, and once there were gladiators who fought for some glory or that. But now, a lot is asked of the players who enrich colleges. Share the wealth.
2
Many people are missing the point here. The institution will NOT pay the athletes. They will only bring in revenue if they earn it themselves. Any one going to college can sign a modeling contract or make income from being an influencer. Athletes should have the opportunity to earn money if they are offered it.
For many of them there is tremendous earning potential and they should be allowed to take advantage of that. Of course there must be rules and guidelines that avoid certain conflicts, but they must have the freedom to earn those dollars if they are available to them.
8
A first and very long overdue step toward reform of higher education in the US. Yes, higher education, not just the NCAA.
3
I hope this is the beginning of the formal uncoupling of big time D1 sports from the educational part of the universities. Create the University of X football corporation and let the U of X license their name. The employees of the corporation are certainly free to attend classes but are under no obligation to do so. Alumni and fans will be happy that their teams are so good. The players will love that they get paid closer to what they're worth without having to suffer the annoyance of attending classes and doing homework. Coaches won't have to choose between honesty and winning. University Presidents won't have to deal with boosters and alumni who want winning teams, no matter what it costs to the school and the players. The opportunity to be a student athlete will still exist at the schools that elect not to go corporate. I think it's win win win win.
5
One way or another this soap opera will play itself out over the next decade or so, and I'm not sure that it won't be followed up with a million hours of pundits on ESPN and Fox regional Sports networks arguing that it is either "about time" or the end of amateurism.
Didn't tennis used to be only AM not Pro?
Golf's Grand Slam was the US Amatuer the British Amateur and oh yeah, the Open and the USOpen.
So things change particularly in the world of self promotion and social media. God help us.
I'm not sure how this law is a danger to he NCAA.
If an athlete is good enough to have a market for his/her "likeness", how is this disrupting/distracting NCAA sports oversight? It's not as if an athlete would be being paid by (over)zealous backers and/or shoe companies. For example, why should a game company get the free use of a collegiate athlete's name, face or number while having to pay a professional athlete for the same?
The usually rated college teams will still be rated while getting the usual number of “scholar/athletes” and megabuck contributions from avid alumni supporters.
I suspect that the number of athletes who actually profit will proportional to those who actually have a professional sports career and that business as usual for the NCAA and the colleges will continue unabated.
3
The NCAA millionaires will have to go start their own minor league system and colleges can revert back to fielding student-athletes. What a concept!
4
@Jim Dennis
Nick Saban may have to work part-time at Walmart to make ends meet.
1
Colleges are supposed to be about education. College athletics should be a sideline for students to pursue while getting an education. Look at division III athletics to get an idea of how the system should work. The big-time football and basketball universities have allowed themselves to become corrupted by their athletic programs. Is this a step in the right direction? No. It is simply an acknowledgement that the universities have strayed from their purpose.
8
Football programs support the rest of the athletic depts - except for maybe men's basketball.
Texas a couple of years ago:
UT-Austin: $94.9 million football profit, compared with a $9.4 million combined loss for the rest of sports.
Texas Tech generated $19.1 million profit in football, compared with a $14.4 million loss for the other teams.
4
@SteveRR--very few schools run profitable football programs and even fewer provide sufficient profits to support other sports.
4
However, kids who love the sport as spectators and admire the particular college team, especially kids who have the grades and the money to matriculate at full price will gravitate to the university. Hence the demand to enter the school rises and the ability to gather full rate tuition from the student body of fans is kept solid. I would offer Notre Dame and USC as two great exhibits. No in-state tuition offered. Any rabid student as a fan much pay a very high tuition to sit in the student section on five Saturdays in the Fall.
1
This is how progressives change the times in order to achieve their goals. They start the ball down the slippery slope and let the progress gain steam.
First endorsements but how long will it be before the athletes must be paid in cash rather than in free education and room and board?
As to endorsements the Alabama's of college football will guarantee their desired high school pledges endorsement money as an incentive. Boosters will provide the money and endorsements but now it will be legal.
Progressives rarely understand the damage they do because many of them are happy to damage the status quo, any status quo.
12
@David There is nothing more capitalistic or free enterprise than being allowed to earn as much money as you can when you can. How can you trash "progressives" for doing this?
12
So exploit the kids instead? Yea, right.
2
Getting paid, is a job.
Going to college, is supposedly to get an education.
Why should these kids try to learn anything, when they can just go bash other kids and get paid?
Gladiator Academy, that’s what California colleges are now.
8
You mean all colleges,not just California?
@AutumnLeaf--They appear to bash their heads with or without getting paid.
Maybe its time to pay them for their work.
4
This is a terrible move for the State of California. I'm not a backer of the NCAA, per se, but the message this sends to publicly-funded schools like Cal Berkeley is "start shelling out money to your athletes." As soon as Alabama and other football powers join in and raise the ante, an arms race for the best athletes will ensue, and, in the case of public schools, the taxpayers will be left holding the bag when teams have strings of bad seasons. Disaster. I agree with others here--if these coddled athletes don't see the value in a scholarship and free room and board to a major university like Stanford or Cal, it's time to de-couple Division I football from colleges and make them into semi-pro teams. Newsom's populism strikes again.
3
@Bryan
You, and many other commenters, seems not to have read the article or understand what the legislation does. There is no requirement to pay student athletes. All the legislation does is to allow student athletes to do the American thing. Make money by promoting their talent from sources outside the Universities and Colleges. And they cannot be censored by the NCAA. Colleges still will make their millions from TV and other revenue sources. Bravo to California and to Newsome!
4
The money comes from endorsers, not the State. Read the fine print. The colleges exploit the athletes. How many actually graduate? I was an undergrad at Berkeley, the football players are channeled into easy classes and used. They are kids! Terrible.
2
@GEO2SFO Correct, they may not get paychecks. But this will still cost schools tremendous amounts to compete. I attended a Big10 school, where the line between boosters and the official football program was already blurry. Once those college boosters, say, license the image of a star quarterback for their car dealership, they will gain tremendous leverage with the school. The college in turn will have to pay even bigger bucks to honor the booster, to build even nicer facilities for the athletes, and pay more for coaches and booster "handlers." If you don't know how big-time football programs work, you are not paying attention. This new rule just makes the formalities go away, and raises the stakes exponentially. There are a lot more ways to pay players than cutting them a check, and CA universities will show you how.
As with all forms of entertainment, there is a huge pool of unpaid or underpaid labor supporting the extremely few very highly paid, very public people at the top. College sports vary from minor recreational activities, some with educational value, to functionally professional mega-events, where everybody from hot dog sellers to ticket scalpers to coaches to universities get paid, often with big bucks, while the primary workforce, the athletes, are not paid. Allowing, not mandating, some financial benefit to be negotiated by these workers is not merely abstractly just but how all of us want to be treated in out own lives.
As to those commenters claiming with absolutely no evidence that most college athletes are not qualified to be students and have no interest in being successful students, I would simply say that you have absolutely no evidence to that effect because there is none. While the business model of the universities includes maintaining the fantasy that their athletes will succeed in becoming mega-millionaires, the athletes are not any more stupid than you and I and know full well that their chance of "succeeding" in that manner is lower than in almost any other occupation.
2
Better yet: put an end to 'college athletics.' The only athletics on college campuses should be intramural
8
@Tim--yup. The focus of administrators, faculty and students should be education and research.
2
I can’t wait to see the Google Stanford cardinal. They can play the USC Disney team as the elite NFL minor league. The real losers will be the minor sports and women’s teams who are supported by what was school affiliated men’s major sports. Now they will be pro minor league teams and the players won’t need to go to the school.
2
@James,
Consider for a moment the small numbers of student who actually participate in intercollegiate athletics relative to the student body. Hardly a loss. Maybe schools can start lowering tuition and fees for all students.
@James, Somehow baseball and hockey have managed to survive at the college level while many players go to the minor leagues instead.
Let's get honest for a sec:
1. Football destroys brains. Even kids brains. It's not concussions....that is what the NFL wants people to focus on. It is the very nature of the stop and go playing and the tackling. Schools should ban it if they are really about training the mind. Short of this, these kids should get money.
2. See 1
3
College football is a multibillion dollar industry. You have millionaire coaches Playing games in multimillion dollar stadiums making untold amounts of money off of endorsements for naming rights and tv contracts.. It’s about time that the students get more than a piece of paper, and sometimes a lifelong medical ailment, from playing football.
Professional athletes were supposed to destroy the Olympics, that didn’t happen either. After a lot of moaning everyone will settle down and the players will get some cash they deserve.
9
How about getting rid of NCAA? College is a place to study, not to play balls. College should focused on educating young adults and not making money managing professional sport teams, build stadiums and handling ticket sales. Those that wants to play professionally in the NFL should join a regional/little league after high school instead of “attending college” and get a participation degree
7
The NCAA has a business model! What is it? To make Athletic Directors and Coaches multi million dollar a year contracts when you include endorsments! And to do as little as possible to help their student atheletes? Use them like, I am gong to use a strong word, slaves to advance the NCAA money making machine. And dispose of them when they are finished with them? Every kid I know wants to go to college to get an education and the possibility of a better life that education will provide. Let the NCAA turn into a professional league like the NFL or the NBA.
1
This is amazing, the NCAA is a corrupt fraud, and everyone knows it. The head football coach makes $5 million a year, the AD $3 million and the athletes $0. Anyone who thinks anyone on the USC football team is there for any other reason than to play semi-pro sports is naive.
4
Collegiate athletics offers opportunity to kids who otherwise have none. (Unless you are a Hollywood celebrity PhotoShopping your kids head onto an elite soccer players body). Now it will be out of their reach by highlighting the high profile athletes to the detriment of the kid in the trenches. But it’s part of the weird Left agenda to blow up stuff that works in favor of a social justice program that has no legs or proof of life. Let them suffer and re learn the lessons of life. Sorry, young strivers deprived of opportunity. PhotoShop, anyone?
2
The guys are professional athletes. The idea they get some scholarships, ets. is ludicrous. Go and play against other professionals.
3
This is something I've wanted for so many years, when Joe Nocera exposed this dirty business, in the NYtimes. Thank you Gavin Newsom!
4
A complex issue but what is missing from the discussion is the value of a college education (and not just in earnings terms). Perhaps, any athlete who is receiving endorsements, etc. should be ineligible for scholarships. Also, Lebron James has shown he is thoughtful and knowledgeable about many things, however the value of a college education is not one of them.
1
The NCAA runs a plantation system, where the athletes work for free (the so-called free tuition model doesn't work for star athletes, who are forced to practice more than they study), while universities rake in billions of dollars from their efforts. It's time to drop the charade of "student athletes" in major sports, and to guarantee all athletes a fair percentage of the revenue earned from college sports.
9
The plain truth of college sports is the fact that a few profit enormously from the efforts of de facto slave/athletes.
When colleges realized they could monetize virtually every aspect of their business model the gloves came off. The TV rights to games skyrocketed, donors were courted with naming rights, international students were recruited at top prices tuition rates. Meanwhile staff was cut, professors were contracted per class and researchers had to bring grants with them to get lab space much as hairstylists rented space in salons. Even with all this money tuition and fees outstripped inflation for the last three decades.
Sorry, no sympathy. Labor needs to be paid and education should be the focus. And to that end it needs to be accessible, not just for the moneyed or the athlete.
5
It will be interesting to see the reaction of the PAC12 Conference. Will they allow the four teams located in California have a competitive advantage, based on the ability of their players to make money? Or will they expel them from the conference?
3
How does being able to earn a living and/or studying apart fro your playing an amateur sport produce a competitive advantage ?
I went to a Pac12 football game a few years ago and it was professional football in every respect except one - the athletes don't get paid. It had zero to do with academics or any other aspect of the mission of a first class university. I see nothing good about the present system and no reason why talent that generates huge bucks shouldn't get their share.
14
As a resident of CA, I am so gald we are out of real problems that this needed the attention of the legislature and governor.
9
This may “lead to the professionalization of college sports and many unintended consequences related to this professionalism.”
It already is extremely commercial, in billions. The link with post-secondary education is perverse.
10
If this is the right move (and I think it is,) why postpone it for FOUR years?
Why should pro athletic farm systems be entitled to a subsidized training system with indentured servitude protected by law? Why should these be reserved exclusively for colleges and prep schools? And why are schools indemnified from covering current and future injury costs, while they make many millions of dollars off these kids?
If it's real amateur athletics we really want, intramural sports can serve the purpose just fine.
If it's younger pro sports, then pay them, already.
5
The NCAA uses the argument that California students will miss out on tournaments,etc. How about non-Californian schools are going to be missing out on top athletes with their now significant recruiting disadvantage.
Does this whole issue now get pushed down to the high schools?
3
This is awesome news. The standard excuse given by Universities for this raw form of slavery has been "we are training them to be professionals", while making money selling merchandise. Most of these kids end up hurting themselves, or dropping out of school with bad grades. If the kids have to imperil their lives, they might as well earn well while they are doing it. Because by the time the graduate, most of them will be too broken up for anything else. And Universities can go back to what they were intended to do - teach well and attract students who want to learn. Using sports and entertainment as a proxy for learning and teaching has destroyed the core of our education system.
6
You are exactly correct!
While I agree with this law, its implications are far more narrow than it may seem. How many college athletes are going to be able to command endorsement deals? Very few. The vast majority of professional athletes do not have endorsement deals. That said, the NCAA should not be able to stop the free market of sports.
2
The TV show Ballers tackled the NCAA issue last season, with the character Spencer taking them on..
NCAA is a well oiled machine that uses the strength, stamina, hopes and energy of teenage youth to make money for themselves.
Only in USA do Sports Directors and Coaches of colleges make more money than professors, educators, etc.
Muscle worship is more important and mind development.
NCAA may produce GOAT athletes, but will not produce GOAT who will fix Climate change, Space innovations, better farm to table food issues etc.
3
The business model of college athletics is to generate money from network coverage of some sports to pay for the non- revenue sports, allowing more students to participate in athletics. Why is this a bad thing? I do think that scholarships should include reasonable, normal student spending money. But California is wrong, for all sorts of reasons. It will take money away from athletic departments, hurting many student athletes. The NCAA may bar California schools from competition. I would. College is not about making money, but getting an education (Then making money). All I can say is: Yuck.
4
Not arguing. How will this take money out of athletic departments?
1
At last American Football takes its rightful place in a capitalist economy; it is no longer a sport, but just another business.
1
The real and more meaningful "game changer" would be a complete divorce of sports from all levels of the American educational system. This is the situation in most of the rest of the world where clubs sponsor amateur athletics with a community focus. High dollar sports are the tail wagging the educational fog in this country.
4
This bill doesn’t guarantee income for any college athlete. It only provides college athletes with the opportunity to get endorsement deals and have representation (agent)for such deals.
3
Way to go Governor!!! Finally, someone is sticking up for the kids who play the games that make major college programs hundreds of millions of dollars every year. I'm sure that these fine institutions will contest the law to 'protect' their athletes. They have always had their best interests at heart.
1
The college athlete, at any level, is always susceptible to injury that will end a career. That these athletes, many who are black, should sacrifice their health and future for free so that the schools and highly paid coaches can prosper is absurd. Games that are picked up by the networks make tons of money off of the free labor on the field. Anyone with even a casual knowledge of Div 1 sports knows that training, travel and games are a full time job with little room for academics. These athletes should be able to return to get a degree, for free, after their athletic contribution has ended.
5
Seriously? Next we willll see college betting! Who is making money on this bizzare law?
Will players be protected when they go to other states to play or will cal have an agreement with the states?
I can think of other protection for all players like full medical care and full disability ins, but this is just for stars. Money, Money, Money
2
Guess a free ride to a school like Stanford ($74,570 a year) or USC ($70,758) is not good enough! Student Athletes need to act more like students. The chances of making it to the pros are extremely small. When student debt in this country is 1 1/2 trillion dollars, a full ride to college should not be taken lightly or wasted.
And don't give me that they're being exploited while the school makes millions off of them. Stanford basketball and football pays for baseball, tennis and volleyball. Same for USC. Good luck to those secondary programs once funds are dried up by payments to football or basketball players. And if these athletes feel like they're being treated like slaves, let them play for a Division II or III team. Oh, wait a minute! They want to make it to the pros by attending a high profile Division I school, right? Now who is using who to make millions??
3
@John E.
How does Stanford "pay"? It's not free to attend those games. They also sell merchandise.
The fact is that a college education IS wasted because they're not spending their time learning.
If playing college sports wasn't a full time job, then can you name one pro athlete who does something else full time? No, you can't, because they don't exist.
3
@Viv
Football and basketball subsidizes the other programs. Did you ever go to a college baseball game or a college volleyball match? Other than the College Baseball World Series, have you ever seen a college baseball game on tv?
Exactly my point about wasting a college scholarship. They need to get that degree.
It’s called time management. Look it up. There are student athletes who go to class, play sports and get a degree. I went to college with some and work with some. Not an easy thing to do but it can be done.
It's time to do this. For many schools, college athletics is a business rather than academics.
The Ivy league is different. It admits athletes with need-based financial aid as long as the applicant also meets the other admission requirements.
3
@BlueGoose
Should have pointed out that some superb athletes are marvelous students, regardless of the school they attend.
1
About time. With so many other people making money off these athletes, they should be permitted to get a portion.
As we've seen with scandals like fake course at the University of North Carolina, schools don't take education seriously for major sports. The NCAA doesn't either given there was no penalty when the fraud was disclosed.
The business model is exploitative and I for one am glad it's being broken.
6
End the slavery. You get to own your self. Imagine that
6
Sports agents licking their chops. This could launch an entire new industry in America.
6
Yes, its about time.
"The measure, he said, was “a big move to expose the farce and to challenge a system that is outsized in its capacity to push back.”"
The NCAA has built a feudal system based on indentured servitude - and it makes huge profits and that fraudulent system.
7
@H Smith The article mentions a court challenge. How? On what basis do you challenge a law that, say, bans slavery, or enables free speech?
The interstate commerce act is NOT an all purpose all law that protects every whimsical, or draconian, business model you may dream up.
Actually, the Cal Law does ban slavery and enables free speech.
1
Alabama's football coach, Nick Saban will make $7.5 million this season.
Alabama's starting quarterback, Tua Togovailoa will make $0 million this season.
Hmmmmm.....
10
Bad form.
2
Finally, now they can compete with the utterly corrupt SEC . What top black athlete would chose to live and work in slave states like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, S Carolina etc etc. Now athletes can play in the sunshine state for even more money. States rights baby, the 10 th amendment.
2
There are no slaves in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc as slavery was outlawed a long time ago. It was in all the papers.
Great. Let’s gut the gig economy (I’ve already lost a $10K contract) and by all means make it easier for student athletes. Because football.
1
Don’t worry. Trump will issue an emergency declaration nullifying the state law. He’ll rely in part on his own personal experience as the greatest college athlete of all times (luckily, he did not develop debilitating bone spurs until later).
2
I would love to see colleges get out of the athletics business altogether, like in Europe. Too many resources are devoted to supporting these endeavors, and giving free rides to athletes distorts the whole idea of getting a college education, while many less athletically gifted people struggle just to pay their tuitions. Colleges make too many decisions based on athletics and their US News rankings, producing distorted groups of winners and losers in the aid lottery. College should be extremely affordable for everyone.
8
Sports are there to teach team playing, sportsmanship. To learn to fail and to succeed.
I refuse to watch any sports that isn’t teaching my children those objectives.
Mainly, sports my children are part of.
Once our kids pass their teen years, it becomes pretty stupid to watch sports.
It becomes grown adults playing games and other grown adults wasting all their money on “their team”.
2
It will be a disaster for all concerned. CA better start it’s own sports league cuz big time college programs in other states will not be recruiting them and having rich CA athletes and actual student athletes in the same program. And maybe CA will fill up with college athletes looking for money. But then non-CA colleges will take them off the schedule. And so might the NCAA. CA shows once again the destructiveness of the Gavin Newsomes of the world and his left wing comrades.
4
Bad idea.
3
I find it interesting that college baseball doesn't seem to have this problem. Is it because baseball has minor leagues that has big leagues support?
The NFL and NBA have a free ride for a long time. If college in reality the "minor" leagues, it is about time they supported higher education.
6
The second of the Times' two summary sentences below the title says it all: "The measure, the first of its kind, threatens the business model of college sports."
Why in the world should college sports have a business model to begin with? Bravo for California leading the way in recognizing the exploitation and hypocrisy that the NCAA is all about.
7
College's have been taking advantage of 18-22 year old athletes for years . This has been a long time coming . YEA
10
Sports should be gone from Cal campuses. They are for education, not business.
4
This will be the end of college athletics. "Star" athletes will flock to states where they can cash in. What happens to the athletes in other states or athletes with less talent who still play their heart out, but for an education rather than making beaucoup bucks? Nice way to be team layers.
1
Thank you Gavin! This is a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Some college players, who are great athletes, never go on to the pros. The inherent talent belongs to the athlete, NOT to the school or to the NCAA. They should be free to market that talent. In addition, colleges should offer courses for these athletes to teach them how to manage their business and social affairs. The schools treat these athletes like indentures servants, and that has to stop!
6
good...now lets cut all athletic scholarships then!! no reason they should be payed to play (and a scholarship most definitely is...regardless if the 'student athlete' takes advantage of the 'student' part) if they are getting their own money from playing. Let them pay their own college bills...it will be like an investment.
2
What's next, pass a law that requires NCAA to allow 5 downs for games in CA or one where CA schools cannot limit football scholarships to 85, or maybe allow them to hire as many assistant coaches as they want. All are rules you agree to as a volunteer member of the NCAA and the players sign a contract when accepting their scholarship that outlines the terms of agreement. Again, no one is forcing them to do so. I suspect the courts will have the last word on this.
3
Only a tiny fraction of NCAA athletes would be able to take advantage of monetizing their name. I imagine it would be mainly male athletes in the revenue sports, who are already likely to make big money once they turn pro.
1
The NCAA is breaking with its educational roots and should be finally and fully disconnected. California is exploiting its power which is weakening to disconnect things further—for the money. The Univ of Chicago did it generations ago, hence the high education esteem its held in. It used to be a degree and a major was seriously held in higher regard, the essence of a scholarship, biut now the degree is downgraded and colleges are training players for NFL. The degree is worth far less than the professional contract. The question is do we care more for education or NCAA income, glitz, entertainment. We reap what we sow.
1
So the best athletes are all going to California schools. This should shake up the SEC monopoly. But expect the foot dragging politicians in every state to follow through almost immediately.
1
@Tom
Don't forget the lobbying that the NCAA will do to have federal law make the California approach illegal.
The NCAA is sitting on a pile of money and has a devoted fan constituency who like college football and basketball just the way it is.
3
College coaches and recruiters have the most to lose if college athletes can make money off of endorsements.
The coaches will no longer have 'scholarship' leverage over their players, because threatening their education by ending team participation will no longer exist if an athlete has 'back-up' endorsement income to pay for tuition: coaches will also have to stop treating their players like indentured servants.
Talented high-school seniors will attract endorsement deals long before they graduate: no longer being desperate for a scholarship will make them less vulnerable to aggressive college team recruiters and their 'perks' promises.
The only downside is potential business conflicts between the respective players' and team's competing endorsement sponsors.
2
The "one-and-done" phenomena in college basketball is illustrative of colleges exploiting athletes for their talents and reaping huge financial rewards. The risks of injury are always present as was seen last season with Duke freshman star, now a professional, Zion Williamson. College is for education, but for many its for exploiting athletes to gain revenue from TV, alumni giving, filling sports arenas and winning championships with millionaire coaches. There was a time when athletes were allowed to compete as professionals while also attending college. Perhaps that would be the best solution although the NCAA would not profit from their talents nor would the colleges and universities they attend. I can remember my fellow alum, Jody Foster, who attended Yale while also being a major Hollywood star. Clearly, colleges must stop profiting from athletes and allow them to have their own professional career. That means colleges shouldn't be paying them or playing them, but let them attend in the off-season.
1
The Pac-12 is worried that this could lead to the professionalization of college sports"? Really? Pretty sure they crossed that rubicon the moment that football coaches became the highest paid employees at these universities.
The problem is the NCAA wants to have it both ways. They want make billions off of these athletes but then pretend that the players - and only the players - be treated as scholar athletes. Why not extend the rules to the coaches as well? If you're going to hide behind the veneer of education then why should a coach make more money than any other professor? That a football coach makes more than someone training surgeons is obscene. Also if you want to keep it focused on amateur athletics and education then you need to drop the TV and endorsement deals.
Of course then there's the question of why sports should even exist at the university level...
10
Two things about California's action amuse me.
First, I can't wait to see the legal battle over whether California has violated the Constitution or Federal statutes by allowing college athletes to profit from their work. We will see some very creative lawyering.
Second, I can't wait to see how long it takes other states to follow California's lead. After all, if you're a best high school football player in the country, where would you play, Stanford ($$$$) or Alabama (peanuts)? Duh!
2
Silly me. I thought that the primary goal of college was education...
7
Bravo! Well done California!!
4
This is great!! These school people have cheated athletes for so long!!!
4
College athletics need a complete overhaul. First of all, students should not be admitted to a college simply because they are good athletes but are otherwise imbeciles. This would also address the shocking admissions fraud practices at places like Stanford and USC where non-athletes (but, likely, still imbeciles) photo-shopped their way into these schools by pretending to be athletes. If universities think that they need to be farm clubs for professional sports, then they should just straight pay these semi-pro athletes and then actual student athletes would either play on intramural teams or on an intercollegiate B league.
5
Let’s ask Alabama football coach Nick Saban, of the 18-figure salary, for his take on the situation...
6
Let’s ask Alabama head football coach, Nick Saban, of the eight-figure salary, for his take on the situation...
Let the First Annual Hunger Games begin!
2
Expect this to also be opposed by the NFL. Basically what the system does is render a minor league system, like baseballs, unnecessary. So the billionaire owners get their own minor league at the taxpayers expense.
2
college athletes should not be paid, but the NFL should create a paid minor league...
5
So then, why do those athletes who “make” the team and get paid ... including for endorsements ... even need to be a student? And in the contexts of being non-profit and having educational mission, why do institutions that virtually hire athletes need a team, ie, for what and to what end? Money seems to have a way of fouling things up, making “fun” for sale.
2
NCAA athletes should be eligible for a cash stipend same as contracted ROTC cadets, preferably from the NFL. They should also be permitted a summer/off-season job that pays the going rate. Most of these players are not going to the NFL. They need to maximize their college s holarship not be scrounging for gas money.
They already get paid .... it’s called an education
Non scholarship recipients haven to pay for their education
It’s time do boycott college sports also
When’s the next rugby match ?
4
Talk about a law to benefit the far less than one per cent.
2
Here's the only thing you need to know: if California came up with this idea and was the 1st to put it in effect, how can it possibly be right?
2
Not sure why the governor and legislators conveniently over look 2 facts 1. these players are well compensated with free college tuition . Talk to any non athlete and see if they consider that a pay check or not. Food private tutors etc They also get tons of legal swag from the sponsors of their programs adidas etc clothes shoes training equipment etc.
2. This legislation conveniently leaves the universities themselves ...the number one beneficiary of exploiting student athletes for money with no responsibility to share the windfall. Nothing in here saying California universities should pay the students even though they legitimately can be called their employer.
This looks like typical liberal cronyism make legislation that makes us look and feel good but doesn’t take a bite out of all the revenue the universities and municipalities make off of these kids.
3
As with all forms of entertainment, there is a huge pool of unpaid or underpaid labor supporting the extremely few very highly paid, very public people at the top. College sports vary from minor recreational activities, some with educational value, to functionally professional mega-events, where everybody from hot dog sellers to ticket scalpers to coaches to universities get paid, often with big bucks, while the primary workforce, the athletes, are not paid. Allowing, not mandating, some financial benefit to be negotiated by these workers is not merely abstractly just but how all of us want to be treated in out own lives.
As to those commenters claiming with absolutely no evidence that most college athletes are not qualified to be students and have no interest in being successful students, I would simply say that you have absolutely no evidence to that effect because there is none. While the business model of the universities includes maintaining the fantasy that their athletes will succeed in becoming mega-millionaires, the athletes are not any more stupid than you and I and know full well that their chance of "succeeding" in that manner is lower than in almost any other occupation.
1
It's about time college athletes are not slaves to the colleges they play for. They are being exploited for money right now.
Good job Mr. Newsom.
1
The NCAA is upset as they feel they're the organization to initiate and make changes to how college athletes are managed by the universities that employ them. Why not? They've done a great job so far!
About time. Long past time, actually.
Given the current advancement of science, we now know in greater detail the profound risks of a sport such as Big Time College Football.
What do these athletes receive for 40+ hrs/week of work and sacrificing their long-term health? Not much, especially compared to their coaches, who make millions of dollars, and the endless parade of administrators who make hundreds of thousands of dollars.
About time.
4
I used to be totally opposed to giving college players any money for their sports participation. After all, they get full ride scholarships worth $25-70k per year. But with head coaches getting -- but not necessarily earning -- multi-million dollar salaries, plus endorsement opportunities, it's unfair to the athletes that they can't get at least a small piece of the pie by being compensated for the use of their likeness.
1
@NT
I'm a convert too. I used to love the thought of the 'pure' amateur athlete doing it for the love of the game. Then you realize how many people are profiting off their hardwork and talent AND the risk that these players are taking. Career-ending injuries abound even before the paid career has started.
3
College athletes are already paid, indirectly with free stuff amounting to over $200K in some cases. All this will do is provide another revenue stream, transferring additional wealth to the entertainment industry. No wonder California was on-board.
1
That’s nonsense
3
In the usual unintended consequences, the NCAA will make any California team ineligible for championship play, should they participate in paying,and the TV exposure that the schools so dearly covet will disappear. The major sports football and basketball support the women’s and minor teams.
1
Curious how this will reflect recruitment.
Paid or not paid?
The most cogent point is that no other group of college students require a national governing board. If a science student creates some new wiz bang thing, they can make billions from its sale and that will not effect their standing in their classes in any way. The same is true for the computer geek who invents the latest social media thingy. An English student can write and sell the next great novel. Every other student can sell what ever thing of value that they posses or create. The NCAA has always been about their ability, along with the colleges and coaches, to control the lives and value of athlete's talents, as no other student is controlled. The Olympics have done well enough since athletes were allowed to prosper, if they could, from their abilities.
15
It is about time that the plantation model of sports is ended. Future generations will look back and see the current system for what it is, a model designed to exploit the talents of mostly African-American men without giving much of an education in return. The level of commitment required to play at the top level makes getting a quality education extremely difficult (my brother was a scholarship football player at a Division 1A school and he would tell me of all the time they had to spend outside of practice on football). If colleges really cared about the student's education, they would let the players bank their free education, and allow them to use it when they were done playing sports and could focus on school, but that isn't what the business of college sports is really about.
10
This could be a win-win. The athlete either keeps the scholarship for that year or he gets paid for promotions and then he doesn't get the scholarship.
1
The boosters who distort college athletics are the big winners. Now they legally support their pet players through endorsement deals.
1
This works for me but they’re missing the other crucial piece — scholarships to play ball at a particular school.
If athletes can now act like pros, all scholarships to athletes should immediately be halted w/no further disbursement to the athlete. All scholarship shoulds now be issued based on merit...not athleticism. Bring college back to its roots, you know, to educate.
7
I fully support this. The NCAA and the colleges make huge amounts of money on the backs of the people who are the stars of the show: the student athletes themselves. The spirit of amateurism ended long ago for many college sports, most notably football and basketball. The dishonesty is continuing to pretend that this is all about amateur sport when colleges, the NCAA, and many coaches are earning hundreds of million dollars. Enough of the pretense.
4
Yeah but you totally are bamboozled by this legislation it doesn’t require the ncaa or the universities to share the windfall they receive. It just says oh yeah let a few start athletes get some money everyone else gets zip.
1
That’s fine. The athlete said should be paid, and the scholarship money can go to students with academic merit and financial need instead.
7
The population and economy of California make it the equivalent of a large country (larger than Poland and almost as large as Spain). All of the best athletes will now apply for admission to California colleges and universities (at least by 2023). There's nothing the NCAA can do about this because other states will follow suit to compete. These athletes should be compensated for their efforts. Many of them come from underprivileged backgrounds and should not be expected to follow the modus of those for whom wealth is a given.
10
And many really should not be in these universities at all because they cannot make it academically so millions of tax dollars for scholarships are wasted basically so these kids can play a sport not get an education. So let’s not have it both ways . Get rid of scholarships for paid athletes. This legislation does not require the universities to pay anything to these kids it jus says let someone else pay them while we the university still reap millions off their talent.
1
Ultimately, the pro leagues will have to allow for more minor league teams, especially in the NFL, where there is no minor league, in order to account for this problem. It will weaken major college football, which have been the minors for the NFL for many years.
2
On the positive side, some endorsement income may keep students in school long enough so they can finish a degree. The pressure to go pro as fast as possible in order to help support a mother/siblings/child is there for many student athletes.
4
It's about time student athletes get their share of money. I applaud Gov. Newsom for doing the right thing.
5
But he doesn’t require universities to pay these athletes so what has he really done??? A few start athletes will get endorsement money and everyone else gets nothing.
1
Really the NCAA to me is as self interested and no more credible whan they say they have the student-athletes interests at heart than Don King saying he only wants what's best for his boxers.
The question is why people accept the debasement of their universities for alleged football and basketball glory.
Is a football game a sort of proxy holy-war for alumni/fans of a team? What relevance can it truely possibly have to someone? When you're old are you going to fondly reminisce about your team winning a football playoff? Just pathetic.
4
Good work Governor Newsom
4
This is long overdue. These people are de facto professional athletes and should be treated as such. The NCAA - little better than a bureaucratic mafia. Still enriching themselves from kids. We call that Child Abuse.
4
About time
Free market !!
4
NCAA executives who make millions of dollars off student athletes feel that it is "unconstitutional" to pay those same athletes any money ...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2019/05/23/ncaa-president-mark-emmert-2-9-million-net-salary-2017/1207369001/
4
... well California Universities can stay within California boundaries and play against each other.. that will show em!
2
It’s about time.
2
The current business model of college sports is akin to slavery with NCAA sanctions serving as the whip.
3
The Pro College Football league. Gonna be some $50mil college players. What a joke. More people dropping out of school to try to make money. Woth big money players, colleges won't even have to do fake grades any more. "Junior can't read!", the NYT headlines will say.
3
I was a collegiate athletics administrator for 44 years. I look at the reader comments and the intent of the legislation (honorable) and can understand the sentiments but they are naive. The number of marquee athletes that have the individual power to strike an agent deal is incredibly small. The "power" is with the institution's name and tradition, not the current quarterback or power forward at State School U. And behind these few young men (I don't think there is a female student-athlete in the NCAA that has the name recognition to broker a meaningful deal) are thousands of real student-athletes that play tennis, golf, soccer, lacrosse and so forth. Those NCAA PSA's are true. The legislation is a big mistake, one that will make those that dislike college athletics happy for a short time before we all realize that it further warps the competitive balance. Can you imagine what a Kentucky or Duke men's basketball player or an Alabama football player will get paid (from a recruiting basis, not for his marketing worth). If the elite young super stars want to get paid, go professional and skip college.
3
@Rocket
I agree that it'll be a tiny % of atheletes who will have endorsements. However this is an indication that the legislation isn't looking at the situation correctly: top talent that is recruited from early HS should be able to contract with the university at full market rate. If that means a game changing player is paid $1million--so be it. Take it from the coaching staff salaries--they can afford it!
1
@Rocket This is exactly right. This law will essentially reverse title 9 equal opportunity for women. It is, essentially, naive.
@Rocket. If the sports companies are willing to spend thousands each year equiping college athletes of all sports as is the current standard, it's not a stretch to imagine they'd be willing to pay some amount in cash as well. Nike, Under Armor, Adidas, and any number of sports-specific athletic companies, along with local organizations that would gladly pay a small fee to have a college star show up and give a clinic, are all logical sources of income for the top athletes in All college sports. Your conclusion that the balance would be thrown off is in itself naive. If only California is doing it, perhaps yes. If it is a level playing field across all schools, you have no basis to conclude that one school would be any more advantaged than they already are in the current system. How many times have Clemson and Alabama been to the BCS the past 5 years? Can't get any worse than we have now.
Another nail in the coffin of feudalism - first riding hailing services, and now college sports. Way to show the way CA . . .
Doesn't this suggest strongly that the NCAA colleges IRS classification be changed from 503c3 to 503c6? (I.e. no more tax-deductable monies to colleges and universities that do not separate out their "athletic" [now clearly "entertainment"] programs, since "A 501c6 organization is a business entity that doesn't necessarily seek to promote the public good but rather the interests of a select group of business people.") About time!
2
There is only one reason why California wants to allow college players endorsements, and it’s for tax revenue.
2
One has to chuckle at some comments that say this will destroy the business model and the inherent (or really apparent) idea of retaining the amateur status of the game and its players. It is hypocritical and basically naive.
I would submit if that was the case why is it, especially in schools with big money generating sports programs, that the coach of the football/basketball team is among the highest paid individual of any profession in the entire state in which the university is located?
1
Finally, the charade of collegiate sports can be relegated to the dustbin. Good time to take away the “non-profit” status of D1 schools also
4
Love it! It's EVIL to pay nothing to someone to make money for you. It's the very definition of exploitation. NCAA even exploited minors for their labor in order to make a profit for themselves and colleges. Time for a change!
1
It's hard to view claims of amateurism credible when the governing body strikes billion dollar contracts, or when somce college coaches make millions of dollars.
1
Sure. Why not? The whole system is a publicly funded training ground for bizillionaire pro sports teams anyway. Taxpayers never seem to squawk about their tax dollars being used this way, sports being a national religion (or disease). Try and wheedle a few bucks out of them for the arts or students pursuing arts careers and they’ll scream bloody murder.
1
A sound mind and a sound body go hand in hand.
This is a terrible idea. Funds from profitable college sports support many sports at the school that do not make money. If these athletes want t be professional they can always try. It is the universities they attend that make them not the other way around. If your teams have lost their luster like many of the California schools you can undercut the rest of the nation's programs by paying the athletes. This is another example of how a badly run California is and how its failures hrth the rest of the nation.
35
@Bored
It's just so *weird* how NCAA football keeps getting more and more profitable but schools can't seem to fund their programs and infrastructure.
Why, it's almost as if what you're saying isn't entirely true.
84
@Bored
It's actually the NFL and NBA that are the real criminals here. They have found a way to privatize the profits and socialize the costs. Instead of running minor leagues they let states do it via the university system. And a lot of colleges are making a lot of money in the process being the defacto minor leagues.
55
@Bored NCAA football and basketball are professional entertainment enterprises housed in universities. That is obvious. Everybody gets paid except the on-field labor, who are employed for the negligible cost of providing them room and board and access to classes that, for the most part, the university was going to teach anyway. Maybe some other support services, like academic advising get tossed in as well. That's called really really cheap labor.
What if all college head coaches, as educators, had their salaries restricted by the NCAA to $1 million or less, with no endorsements or other income? Assistants could make, at most, $500,000, and you could only have 4 at that level. Everyone else could make $300,000 or less. Even more money could go to other sports or even academics! After all, "it's the universities that make them not the other way around." And surely there would be an infinite supply of people ready willing and able to coach college football for that salary should these particular individuals not be willing or choose to take their talents elsewhere. If the coaches don't like it, they could just go to the pros, same as the athletes. The reason we wouldn't do it is because it would deprive the individuals from the ability to earn what the market would pay them. Declaring that it all has a purpose you deem noble and then disregarding the exploitation is weak. And that's all irrespective of your claims, which are misleading.
50
I don't think there is a good equitable solution to this issue.
A student athlete is a student first athlete second. If that is not the case they shouldn't be at the school. Maybe we need semi-pro leagues disassociated with schools.
Under CAs law a few students will profit tremendously, while most will not see a dime. That will certainly cause a number of issues.
What about students who are not flashy QBs or recievers? The tackles or other linemen? These are team sports, a good QB isn't without a good O-Line.
I don't want to remove sports from schools but I don't really know how we can pay athletes without opening up any number of other issues.
I've thought the best option would be to take a percentage of school/league/conference profit and put it into accounts for students to be released after successfully completing and graduating from college. They would still be paid if injured and can't complete all years as an athlete, but wouldn't be paid if they leave early for a pro-career (reward in itself) or drop out. Distributed equally to all athletes at the school...
1
Let’s get real - College basketball and football, hockey, possibly soccer teams are the pro league’s minors - their farm teams.
And they steal money earmarked for students and academic programs because of the myth of “amateur sports” and the lie, constantly repeated, that they bring in money.
Why do campuses need ‘em anyway?
Pro baseball’s had to spend a fortune on its A and AA leagues because, with school not in session through its prime time, it hasn’t had campuses pay to train players.
It’s time all the other big time sports took over, building the stadia, paying young players, paying to connect with a well-regarded school and, giving back what they’ve been steeling for generations.
Time for the Rutgers Giants to play for the NJ state school, they and other farm teams paying for the cost of real campus athletics, things students do because they want to - not as a possible career path - the pros can pay for “amateur” Olympic Corporate training as well.
Forget about state-funded athletic programs, scholarships, and the big lie the players are “students” - instead, require minor-league football, based on a campus, to promise players a 4-year program at any school they can get into if they don’t make the big leagues.
And tell me, will SUNY Stony Brook students cheer less for the campus Islanders than they would the Sea Wolves?
Not with near-free student tickets at the new campus rink, open to any member of the campus community for fun and exercise.
2
I could not agree more with this decision. I completely lost faith in the college sports model when I went by a major university and they were putting in luxury boxes.
The idea of the fat cat alumni and college presidents sitting in the boxes sipping chardonnay while these kids bang their brains out is a little more than I can handle.
To Tony Long, it's been 70 years since Cal was in the Rose Bowl. Don't hold your breath.
3
I wonder how many commentators were college-level athletes? I was, but in a sport (track) that is not a money-maker.
The income generated by our Division 1 football and basketball helped pay for my team and all the "other" sports such as swimming, tennis, golf, gymnastics, volleyball, equestrian... (in fact, there were more of us "other" athletes than the combined football and basketball teams). Few of us ever expected to turn our passion into a lucrative profession, but were grateful for an opportunity to trade our abilities for tuition and housing. Given the cost of college, it was the only way I could afford to attend a Div 1 school.
So many here see the two biggest trees in the forest - football and basketball - and forget that an entire ecosystem is reliant on the success of those programs. No, it's not perfect, but isn't that true of any system?
3
@Kparker There are many of us who, literally, do not care about any collegiate athletic programs except intramural sports. Why should you have more access to a scholarship than a brilliant scholar does?
1
@Barbara *I* don't / didn't have more access. I attended a poor, small rural high school that couldn't offer me the type of education that would qualify me for opportunities available to "brilliant scholars", so I made the most of the talent that I had.
Div 1 schools have a cap of 85 full-ride football scholarships. At my college, I'm sure there were more academic scholarships, and they didn't have to show up at practice twice a day while maintaining a minimum course load and GPA.
@Kparker There are more academic scholarships, yes, for sure. Look, I have nothing against you or athletes in general but I do have a lot against the idea that the most stellar and sought after athletes owe you or anyone else anything.
That the highest paid state government employee in each state is usually the head coach of of the largest state university's football team is emblematic of the perverse condition of college (amateur) athletics. Cut the coaches' salary in half and divide the rest among the student athletes.
2
Granted the current system needs revision. But for commercial interests to pay, let's say, a quarterback who is quite talented and promising and gets news coverage often but not to pay his teammates who are less talented and less well-known in the media sets up a dynamic that seems detrimental a to sense of team cohesion. In that case, all team members should get paid based on ability and market value, as in the pro leagues.
3
I wonder what the tax rates will be here.
At the heart of this I think the CA Dems are more motivated by how much this will add to their coffers.
1
@Norville T. Johnson What does that even mean? Forcing the NCAA to give some of their profits to the athletes actually generating those profits is a scheme to put money into lawmakers pockets?
1
@Samuel
The NCAA is not giving any money up here at all. The money will come the companies that pay for the endorsements. The NCAA is not paying a dime in this case.
I was asking what will the tax rate be here and how much will end up in the states pocket.
Someone other the intended recipient always benefits somehow.
1
I think that this is a big mistake. I am not that crazy about football but I do believe that it has some desirable qualities. But the money in football has turned it into a corporate battle for profit.
This will only make the money side of football even worse.
4
"Amateur" sports is a great idea but it is no long around in the college or perhaps in some high school level. Even the Olympics dropped that idea already. This is just an institution who hides behind that idea while maintaining their hold on college players. If the coaches and administrators are paid millions, it is no longer amateur. Glad someone is knocking down the facade and of course the establishment panics and sprouts visions of doom.
4
I went to college in the 1990s. When we went to a dining hall/cafeteria, we had a few choices: cereal bar, prepared hot meal #1 (typically some sort of meat, vegetables, potato), prepared hot meal #2 (vegetarian option), deli bar and then like burger/fries.
If you visit a NCAA school -- particularly a P5 school -- and you check out the dining hall, you'll notice a way different experience, where kids get a carving station, made-to-order omelette station, etc. I suspect big-money in sports has something to do with this. But kids, college kids do not need carving stations! Or anything like that.
2
Why can’t college baseball be the model? Coming out of high school the players have a choice. Play in the minor league and be paid, or accept a scholarship and go to college. This year Vanderbilt won the World Series. The cost to attend Vandy is approximately $70,000/year. A $280,000 credit plus a top notch education is not a bad deal. Have the 2 tracks and allow the athletes to choose.
7
@D. Because then the NFL and NBA wouldn't be able to subcontract their training leagues to colleges, and they'd have to actually pay the players they select through through their time in the minors.
Personally I agree with you, that if they ACTUALLY cared even the tiniest bit about their athletes, they would adopt this model. But it's obvious that they only thing these leagues and the NCAA care about is money.
2
In other news, the NCAA sanctioned Georgia Tech basketball for "improper" compensation given to recruits. In one case, a former player paid for a recruit to go to a strip club. In another case, a booster paid for over $2,000 in benefits to a potential recruit. The head coach was not sanctioned. The head coach makes over $2 million per year. An economist might describe the endless litany of "violations" in NCAA Division I mens basketball and football an example of "market failure."
2
“Every single student in the university can market their name, image and likeness; they can go and get a YouTube channel, and they can monetize that,” Newsom said
What a sleight of hand. Most students do not get nationally televised time. They don't have a fully funded advertising machinery behind them.
“a big move to expose the farce and to challenge a system that is outsized in its capacity to push back.”
The farce is the money making collegiate athletics business. Do these "not for profit" institutions pay taxes on the revenues? They ought to be made to divest the teams, put them into separate corporate entities in which the private equity or endowment arm of the university could invest and such entities could properly pay taxes. The athletes could then be allowed to apply to school on their own time and own dime and pretend to be students. (And they could be asked to leave if they don't meet GPA standards like everyone else.) That would end the "farce". And ridiculous athletic facilities worthy of pro teams could be sold to pro teams. One other option: the universities could just change themselves into pro athletic clubs and stop pretending to be educating people.
4
If you want to see the epitome of institutionalized racism look no further than the systems at the NCAA. The entire economic apparatus should be dismantled and rebuilt with reparations paid to former athletes and equitable compensation for current ones. That overall effort to accomplish this should be studied, documented and then taught in the very organizations that participated in this. It should be a model for other industries and countries that have participated in similar systems of oppression. Make it right.
4
Once again I am proud to say I'm from California where politicians are willing to stand up to large corporate interests and do the right thing. It's absolutely insane that the NCAA makes as much money as it does with little benefits to the students that participate.
2
If we were truly unselfish and looked at this from an ethical perspective, perhaps it is time to look at college athletics across the board. These are educational institutions, we’re the only country that really does this. What started 100 years ago were club sports teams as part of an extracurricular programs, like in high school, has morphed into something more. Then we kept adding more sports (not just because of Title IX) most of which needed to be subsidized.
To what end? Where do sports fit into the mission of colleges that so much attention and money invested?
I get that football and basketball generate revenue in Division 1, but Division II and III Schools are also caught up in this sports-mania. The number of student-athletes on those campuses is crazy, some as high as 30% and they use it as marketing tools with silly "signings" and the like. These schools view it as something must have to compete and I suspect a lot of them would be glad, if they could, to rid themselves of the burden. But they can’t. None of these kids are going professional, simply decent athletes whose careers would have otherwise ended in High School. Yet schools feel the necessity to subsidize all these sports programs with little fanbase, so many simply play in obscurity. To play for the love of the game is great, but that is the purpose of club sports. Why are we subsidizing so much of it.
All so odd. There needs to be a reckoning.
4
College sports should be about students who happen to be athletes, not athletes who the schools and kids enroll as "students." All college athletes, including at the Ivies, should be admitted as students first based on their academic records, independent of their athletic acumen.
10
Let's face it, the idea of the "student-athlete" is a lie. For the NFL,NBA and the NHL college sponsored sports are their minor leagues. At least MLB sponsors minor leagues so college level baseball is fairly free of commercial corruption (disclaimer: I played baseball). Pro sports need to take financial responsibility for developing future players.
4
@Rich
College-level baseball is "free" from what you claim and MLB "sponsors" minor leagues, because A LOT more people play, and are capable of playing well, baseball than the other three sports combined, so there's not enough room for them either in college or in the major leagues.
Americans don't realize it but Hockey is run the same way in Cay Nada.
@matty
Here in MN we have both high school and "club" hockey. Boy do we have a lot of hockey players here, and it seems more popular than baseball. I don't agree that more people play baseball "well", but that depends on your definition what is "well played" baseball.
If it's so important to individual growth to play these sports without payment, let's have unpaid coaches and athletic directors. Sure, there should be a paid college employee or two to paint the lines on the field and water the grass from time to time.
OK that's not going to happen. But the exploitation of young athletes pursuing their dreams of glory has to stop. I'm including the fact that many - colleges and coaches - make huge $$$ off the backs (literally) of these guys. And you see the Larry Nassar (et alii) story at Michigan State. Exploitation is exploitation and it's an exercise of power. NCAA and Nassar are two sides of a very tarnished coin.
1
I agree that competitive sports has a role in a young person's development. But participation in sports at the N.C.A.A. level doesn't leave sufficient time for college athletes to participate in academics.
Those 4-5 years a young person has before establishing a family or whatever are extremely valuable for future success in today's society where college skills are highly rewarded. Enticing an impressionable young person to prioritize sports over studying in those years is being disingenuous by our colleges.
1
This should give California schools a huge edge in recruiting the best athletes coming out of high school or transferring. It’s going to be a mess.
6
PAC-12 will be a powerhouse conference once again.
2
It renders legal what was going on.
There are no limits what alumni can hand out - from $'s for most improved player to handshakes after games with 100 dollar bills handed over.
Seen it
1
Let's call the NCAA what it is -- a business monopoly. Time for it to end.
4
When you know something is right, you feel it in your being. This is right for the athletes. This way they can earn money to pay for college. And pay for a way to make the transition to adulthood easier by getting out on their own and starting a life apart from their nuclear family. It will teach the students financial stewardship, responsibility and decision making. The colleges have been making money on the athletes for far too many years. Athletes are forced to wear one brand or another not by a decision they themselves have made. These companies can still work with the colleges to support the athletes and athletic programs. So what if the schools lose a little bit of money. It is peanuts compared to what they earn. I have no skin in this game as all my children are grown. But you can feel the winds of change and they are blowing against the backs of mostly black athletes who can and should benefit from their hard work. This is the right decision though, of course, the powers that be will try and fight it tooth and nail. It is right and you know it.
4
@This just in
"It will teach the students financial stewardship, responsibility and decision making"
No it won't, unless, perhaps, all "earnings' are placed in a blind trust, or some other financial instrument unavailable to them for a number of years, so they can't blow it all in weekend with their entourages.
@This just in--"This is right for the athletes. This way they can earn money to pay for college."
They are getting free tuition, free room and board (and many schools have athletes dining halls with much better food than the regular students get) and a stipend to play D1 football and basketball. Pay for their college? Seriously?
That was the sound of a lead ballon hitting the floor in Indianapolis. About time.
1
Time to just get rid of college sports completely and just make colleges focus on education.
4
Exactly
The only lament around this matter is that it does not come into play until 2023. I'm sure there are legal reasons for the delay. The sooner the better - for all !
4
@OLG
Yes, the reasons being giving everyone involved enough time to create lawful avenues with which to tie up and or hide the money.
Good! It is about time. Every player should be paid for revenue generation for a college or university. Division I has long been known as a scam. Look at the graduation rates of Div I football players and show me how it isn't a pro league without having to pay. These scholarship men and women should be given extended health care for injuries and two years of school beyond their eligibility to graduate with an effective education. Now NCAA athletics is a slaughterhouse.
A lot of people here mocking the "student" part of student-athlete. Bluntly, they don't know what they're talking about.
I'm a recent college graduate, and while in my undergrad, I knew quite a few student athletes. I even tutored some. Yes, there are those who embody the worst stereotypes. Most don't.
For many, that athletic scholarship was the one and only ticket to a college education. For many, they were the first member of their family to step onto a college campus. For every "dumb jock," I met at least one who came alive in an environment that prized education and intelligence, and saw a lot of athletes who barely made it through high school lock in and complete their bachelor's degree early. I knew one football player whose family came from Africa with almost nothing. He played on the offensive line, one of the most mentally demanding positions (if you're laughing at that, you're just showing your ignorance of the game). It's also one of the most anonymous - they're not star players and you never hear their names unless they make a mistake. No one is going to come offer him an endorsement deal - his payment for playing is the opportunity to attend a top 50 university for free. He graduated in three years with a double major in physics and chemistry and a double minor in German and Chinese. Without the current model of student athletics, it wouldn't have been possible.
California's plan is a bad idea with little forethought for what it will mean for the future.
6
@Aiya Here is an idea- lets take all of the money spent on coaches, stadiums, trainers, travel, and use it instead to give some athletes a free education and not require them to play a sport. The university would save money, the athletes would be better served and the general student population would see a tuition savings.
All this controversy calls to mind the old, old wisecrack about alumni complaining that their college team was "playing like a bunch of amateurs.
3
Big college sports in this country is not about education really at all and only about making money. What's wrong with the athletes actually sharing in this cash bonanza that comes from this exploitative business model?
3
Memo from: Nike
Subject: Paying college athletes
JUST DO IT!
4
One more college sports fan rooting for California.
Here's my solution--get sports entirely out of institutes of higher learning. They don't belong there. It's an intellectual sham. If Washington State pulls this stunt, as an alum of their largest university, I will cease to support them financially.
3
“Every single student in the university can market their name, image and likeness; they can go and get a YouTube channel, and they can monetize that,” Newsom said in an interview with The New York Times. “The only group that can’t are athletes. Why is that?”
Because the other students are not receiving a free education and free room and board which, in the case of many private universities, comes close to $100,000 per year. At a state university that number can approximate up to $70,000 per year. That's why.
2
@bored critic A lot of schools have full ride merit academic scholarships, and those students only have to go to class- plus they can work or do whatever they want. Their job is to get a good education and hopefully give a pile of money back to the university some day
Outside of football and basketball, most athletes don't get full rides. Baseball and Lacrosse have ~10 full rides to spread around to teams of 25-50 athletes.
1
Actress Lori Loughlin's daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, did not want to go to college, but got into USC through a scam perpetrated by her parents. While at USC, Jade conducted business and used her image and endorsement deals on Instagram and youtube to profit from and to set herself up post college for a career as a Influencer, product endorser and model. If Olivia Jade can profit during her time in college, sell her college experience through social media, make money off endorsement deals, and not even want to be in college, then tell me why an athlete can't do the same while helping to bring in billions of dollars to the university and local economy?
7
Throwing a ball around has absolutely no value to society. Its fun to watch but there is no meaningful value. It’s a shame so much money is made off sports.
1
@Hothouse Flower Define "value" please. You don't think enjoyment experienced by citizens is valuable to a society?
@Samuel No. it’s just amusement with no inherent value. Throwing a ball around does little to improve anyone’s life other than for the people throwing it or for those owners of teams that throw them or those making mega bucks from licensing rights.
Start new leagues and get sports out of colleges. The National Pre-Pro football league, where brains are obsolete.
2
Why are we spending public money on this farce?
2
About time. The NCAA already does this for 'white sports' like tennis and golf. The states should take this in their hands, they're the ones being impoverished in many cases. Colleges win but needy communities lose.
No more sports in college please. College is for academics. Professional athletes should go pro and stop this farce. Will clean up admissions as well. Messi did not pretend to go to college so BD could play soccer...
3
"The Rich (schools) get richer," brought to you by the state of California
I applaud this strictly because it will help tear down college athletics. Why should a university make tens of millions off a player's name and all that player gets is a scholarship worth, at best, a few hundred thousand dollars that won't translate into a meaningful career afterwards? "Student-athletes" get a 'free ride' not only by way of tuition, but also in taking watered-down classes, preferential grading and relaxed requirements. In the end, the paper they have their diploma on is mostly worthless. Meanwhile, in sports like football, their bodies are put through so much abuse that long-term damage is frequently done.
Football, et al, should try and thrive the way baseball thrives, by having a minor league system which protects the players' health, not by subcontracting it out to universities who turn a student's best chance at an education into an injury plagued frat party. When football has to pay the full bill for the harm it causes to it's players, it'll fold quicker than a terrible hand at a poker table.
208
@John, Basketball at universities is HUGE business.
Have you never heard of March Madness?
An annual contest where the top 64 teams in the nation compete for millions of dollars, ALL of which ges to the universities.
That is wrong. It is exploitation bordering on slavery.
The universities hold all the aces in those unequal relationships.
What classes kids take, whether they attend classes or practices, how much the kids get for a food allowance.
There must be an equitable way to share the vast profits generated by NCAA sports. Coaches are paid millions when professors are paid hundreds of thousands, and players make nothing?
California got it right.
14
@Tom McLachlin Not a single college student is forced to accept an athletic scholarship.
2
@John
Really?
All that money off of a player's name?
You can name - let's be generous - a dozen players on the top 4 teams this year?
Fans come for the schools and the coach and the tailgate party.
1
Beginning in the early 1990s, public education at every level, from pre-school to university, has been defunded. The consequence for our public universities is that they are experiencing a steady process of privatization.
At the same time, our public universities--and some privates, as well--are in thrall to the entertainment industry.
In that context, the California law is nothing but a side show.
It's time to end the charade and returning all college athletics back to the true Student/Athlete. Let the pro leagues develop farm systems to develop players who have no interest, aptitude, or desire for college. Big time college athletic programs have no shame.
179
@Michael Hansen
The top 64 colleges could become the farm teams with paid athletes who happen to work at these schools (and attend classes if they desire). The lower echelon schools should simply give up the athletic scholarship model and have volunteer teams that compete for old-fashioned glory.
9
@Roy Lowenstein That sounds pretty great.
1
@Roy Lowenstein It would also help to require all students to attain a minimal proficiency in some type of athletics. Anything that gets them in shape.
2
Seems fair, but it works both ways...If the athlete is using the university's name, logo, or trademarks in any way to give himself recognition, the university should be compensated.
4
Well, if it can finally get Cal to the Rose Bowl, I'm for it.
47
@Tony Long
Doesn't cal go to the Rose bowl when they play UCLA at home?
2
@Tony Long. Cal will never go to the Rose Bowl as a Rose Bowl participant. Why? Well, Cal is a good, actually great, school. They just don't break the rules enough to entice great players. Stanford does. Stanford is a private rich school that knows how draw the better athletes who are reasonable students. Cal just isn't capable of doing that. This little law isn't going to help them any because you have to have some notoriety to be able to draw endorsements and you have to have ultra wealthy alums to make the whole thing work. How many Cal graduates founded a company like Google?
2
Just as it did with low emission vehicles, California sets the standards. As the biggest auto marketplace in the country, car makers had no choice but to make all their cars to the California standard.
This same theory is true in this case, once California establishes the rule, every other state and college will have to do likewise, because obviously if players have the opportunity to make money by going to California schools then you can bet every star player in every sport will head west for the gold in them hills.
Bravo California. While others talk, you accomplish.
3
Does anyone else find it highly ironic that the NCAA is considering challenging the California law on constitutional grounds because it violates the Interstate Commerce Clause? So collegiate sports is "commerce"? Glad to hear the NCAA is contemplating finally abandoning the hoary fictions of "amateur collegiate sports" and "student athletes" once and for all!
5
@Julio Wow that didn't even occur to me reading the article, but you're absolutely right.
A couple of points in response to fellow commenters; while I have not conducted or even read any recent studies I do know there are more than a few student athletes here at the U of O who have earned high marks and degrees. On top of a full commitment to their sport. Often daily training, and even twice a day.
I also know that the coaches and their staff are generously compensated.
U of O football coach Mike Bellotti's compensation plan both while active as the Ducks football coach and his life long Public Employees pension have made him a millionaire. — Check it out online, the money is mind boggling. — He receives an outrageous monthly check while Oregons public employees educators and the state education financial picture are bleak because of huge debt. So while the top PERS recipients bask in huge payouts the rest of the recipients contracts have seen sharply escalating cutbacks to their pension plan. And this in a state who's teacher pay is dramatically less than our neighbors Washington and California,
Another glaring wrong is the injured players who are cut with no compensation, no degree, and no future as an athlete. This is double wrong, the schools should insure these hard working students against injury and provide a full ride for four years or more.
5
Finally someone did the right thing. The courts have done more and more to acknowledge the outright unfairness of the current system but stopping short of doing anything about it. Kudos to California!
5
I'm not sure, because I don't go back that far in time. But I don't think the original team's profitability years ago was ever expected to morph into today's reality. It's certainly a new day, and expecting to review old paradigms is not unreasonable. (;
2
@Our Road to Hatred The University of Chicago was a charter member of the Big Ten and had the first Heisman Trophy winner. They dropped out of the Big Ten in the 30's because they saw that money was taking over.
50,000+ seat college football stadiums have been around for a long time. There is nothing new here except coaches are now making more and more money.
1
There does seem to be something inherently biased and unfair to milk these star athletes and reap tens of millions for colleges and coaches when the athlete's only remuneration is a free or discounted cost of education (scholarship = discount) at a football factory.
9
The amateur rules of the NCAA don't relate to real life any more. These rules were established when college teams were dominated by wealthy, privileged, nearly all white kids, who were hardly ever the best athletes out there. College was too expensive for most Americans. College teams were more like club teams, where the amateur rules were meant to keep teams from slipping in too many 'ringers' into their teams. Now that colleges compete for the best athletes because the best athletes bring the most money and prestige to the schools, the amateur rules are absurd and unfair. Look at the recent Kansas investigation brought by the NCAA. Kansas is probably going to pretend that its coaches didn't know the shoe company was paying its athletes, alleging plausible deniability, but (wink, wink) we all know what's really going on. And, of course, it's not just Kansas. It's time the rules for college athletics reflect reality. It's time that colleges start paying for the talent they display on the field, on the court, on the track, in the pool and elsewhere. It's only common sense and it's only fair.
3
Public colleges and universities aren’t being supported by state governments anymore: the taxpayer funding for operating costs are down from about half to low double digits. Increasing income from sports and tuition are the way colleges survive. A fairer deal for the student athlete means less money for the university that will have to be made up in other ways.
For example, entire teams wear the Nike swoosh and the university is paid for that. Individual player deals mean no endorsement money for the teams. Now what?
2
@Yeah
Higher % of revenue for the individual player(s). Nike wants a winning team or memorable teams wearing their shoes as well as the best players. They are allegedly already paying key players under the table now it would all be above board.
1
@Yeah Most of the mid tier Division 1 athletics need subsidies from the general fund of the University. In the Mid America Conference the best performing athletic department only generates about 40% of their budget from athletic income. Athletics drive up the price of most schools.
Very few athletic programs run at a profit- except Division III which doesn't give scholarships and most of the athletes pay tuition..
2
@ Hugh G by taking the athletic department as a whole you miss the mark. The department as a whole includes intramural sports and general rec facilities. Without the football and basketball programs raking in big bucks, those programs...the truly social and amateur activity...will have to go or other funding will have to be found.
The fact that institutions were able to contractually prohibit student-athletes from engaging in free-enterprise of a $1B/year industry is absurd to begin with.
7
@Remarque It's the nature of monopoly. It's not so much that the NCAA had the authority to do this, as they had the power. If their control over your industry is such that you can't play/work without their say-so, then they can put whatever restriction on you that they want with impunity.
There really is no good solution here that I can think of when it comes to the bed fellows of college sports and money.
It is undeniable that college sports (football, basketball) give many people great joy, community and a sense of pride to follow a state's football team or an alma mater. However, it is also undeniable that a very select few (mostly white men) make an incredible amount of money off the backs of young men (and some women) risking injury and bodily harm.
And then all teams and all athletes are not created equal - football and basketball are totally outsized where as other collegiate sports still maintain what most remember college sports to be - friendly competition, student athletes prouding representing school and also actually studying and getting degrees with no hope or intention of playing professionally.
I think it is right to push the NCAA and all those involved to find a new model.
1
This is a brilliant move by Governor Newsom - beset by homelessness that is out of control, a "train to nowhere" that is hopelessly underfunded, and environmental challenges too numerous to catalog - he chooses to solve the problem of under-representation among elite athletes.
Great job, Governor! Keep up the good work!
5
@John
Injustice is injustice. Considering that this could funnel money into the neediest neighborhoods and towns, it isn't completely unrelated to homelessness... Inequality has more than one cause and this is one of them.
@John maybe worry about Georgia's problems. California can walk and chew gum at the same time. (2018 GA rankings from U.S. News: Crime and Corrections: 35, Economy: 14, Education: 31, Fiscal stability: 13, Health care: 42, Infrastructure: 17, Opportunity: 33, Quality of life: 32)
@John Looks like it doesn't effect you in any way as you live in Georgia.
1) Kids on academic scholarships are allowed to earn money off their intellectual and technical abilities, while retaining their scholarship eligibility. But NCAA athletes can't. Let athletes earn money off their abilities, just like any other kid.
2) With a fair amount of frequency, "non-revenue" sports are dropped by schools, in favor of balancing the Title IX men-to-women ratio. So, once that happens (men's crew, for example), the teams are considered "club" teams, which are unregulated by the NCAA, making those athletes eligible to play and make money off their likenesses/athletic prowess. Pretty ironic that "non-revenue" club athletes can get paid, but "revenue" athletes can't.
3) I realize that club athletes are not on athletic scholarship (thus, the argument being we should let them earn money). However, not all NCAA-sport athletes are on scholarship either, or the amount is not close to a full ride, so how is it ok for them to not be allowed to make money? It's easy to focus on high revenue men's basketball / football, in the major Div I leagues, but what DII? DIII, where sports scholarships aren't even permitted?
1
"Student" athletes are already being paid. Free tuition, room, unlimited dining and a stipend. At a private U that's about $100k/yr, $70k @ state U.
The system is broken. The fix? Make college sport a "minor" league. No scholarships, no education. They aren't there for that anyway. Let the school recruit, sign and pay players based on a market value. Let the athletes sign marketing deals. In effect, they are now "professional" athletes. The universities sponsor these "minor" league teams and make their money off it. NFL teams can choose to sign players any time from these teams. Just like minor league baseball. Because that's what college sports really are, a minor league stepping stone to the big league. Everyone gets what they want, everyone gets paid and the sham of the "student athlete" fades into the sunset.
4
@bored critic
Or, free enterprise. Schools can do whatever business they want and so can student-athletes. Let schools compete for the best athletes. Let athletes sell their image. Less is more.
1
@bored critic
Lets solve by making college sports a "minor"
I think a lot of commenters are missing a major point here.
The universities will not be paying the athletes.
This law simply permits the athletes to sign advertising deals and market themselves.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with this, given how much money those same universities make off the back of these athletes.
22
@confounded This is a zero-sum proposition: the "advertising dollars" you reference are in fact being paid today to the NCAA, selected conferences (primarily the Power Five), and individual schools (Notre Dame, notably) in the form of broadcast rights. Those monies are then distributed to member schools, who use the funds primarily to fund non-revenue sports required under Title IX.
If the "advertising dollars" you reference flow instead to elite athletes in major sports, the monies currently funding Title IX beneficiaries will simply dry-up.
Do you really want Jalen Hurts benefiting at the expense of Oklahoma's Volleyball team?
3
@John If you fired the entire athletic department at most Division 1 schools and instead gave 500 athletes a full ride and didn't make them play a sport, most everyone, including the university, the other students and the athletes would be much better off financially.
1
@Hugh G--how can you have a 500 athlete sports program and no athletic department?
I don't know if this is the right step, could have easily been resolved by creating regulations that obligates the institutions to pay the student athletes, it seems fair especially if the coaches are paid.
The endorsement regulation doesn't address what will likely be a majority of the student athletes will never see an endorsement.
1
I do not think we would have any arguments if you substituted the word "welfare" for revenue in the sentence "in annual athletic revenue" N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments, made-for-TV moments that help some universities log more than $100 million each in annual athletic revenue.
So what if there are 2 hotshot players on a team, that are getting $50mil each for selling shoes made in Indonesia? What about the rest of the team? Suppose none of them get an endorsement? Is that right? How about a stipulation that all money to a player has to be matched to the University's diversity scholarship funding? Would that be a good idea?
@BorisRoberts
Now you are worried about the rest of the team? What team? And where do you think the current shoes are made? Your concern, two people becoming multi-millionaires at $50 million each. So, you do understand there is money available for enrichment but just not too much enrichment. If the rest of the team is successful they will benefit from revenue from television/cable/on-line and e-games. Please know that the schools are still firmly in the drivers seat and they will fight to make sure that the billion dollars in revenue from trade marked merchandise etc. stays in their coffers. It is unfortunate that the free market is only important when we can declare who gets to benefit from it. If no one else on the fictional team gets an endorsement well that is how the market works in the real world. Oh, and first there would have to be a diversity fund. If all monies generated by an individual athlete would have to be matched that would have to be across the board to every other entrepreneurial student. After all that would only be fair.
Hard to agree with this initiative.So-called student-athletes in glamor sports, football, basketball would be set apart from other students who don't play sports or do less glamorous sports, track, etc. The "big men on campus" would now be wealthier, than their peers who are merely students. And what about the females? They don't compete in football. The notion of student-athletes has long been flawed. Few of these athletes go to college to be students. They go to be athletes. The amount of tutoring they receive is not available to those who go to be students. There must be a more sensible solution.
4
@blgreenie
Tennis and golf already are allowed endorsement deals, albeit limited to cover costs. But it hasn't broken anything. This is a step in the right direction.
@blgreenie
Wow. We currently have no students on any of these elite campuses who are already wealthier than their peers? I was unaware of this (must be) recent development. It only matters if they are potentially wealthy student athletes?
Smaller colleges in small population states will lose recruits to the big city colleges. Students will be looking for the biggest media markets for the most endorsement money. And California has the biggest media market. The governor signed a bill that could attract the best players to come to California. Doesn’t seem right.
1
I would rather universities give this zero thought. Other countries look at our combination of university and sports like we are crazy.
@Jim isnt that true for NFL/NBA?
Now that we've correctly labeled them as professional athletes instead of students, can we spin off college athletics altogether so universities can get back to, you know, academics? The only college athletics should be intramural and club sports.
41
@Will
Colleges have become/have always been the free development league for the NFL. Maybe it's time for the NFL to start funding development leagues much as the NHL does with the AHL and ECHL leagues.
3
California's law will benefit only a few elite athletes and does nothing for the vast majority of college athletes.
Most schools with intercollegiate sports don't generate enough revenue from sporting events to pay for the programs and the programs are subsidized with general fund income.
The accusations of greed and exploitation apply to whom, maybe .01% of college athletes. 99.99% of student-athletes are very happy to be able to play the sport they love and complete school with no or less debt.
8
@Michigander Scholarship money spent on college athletes is a total waste of funds. 99.99% of student athletes are less academically qualified than the rest of students on campus. If they want to play games they can go do that on their own time. They should only be at college if their primary focus is academics.
4
@Jeremy
"Academically qualified," an interesting choice of words.
To play sports in college, you have to be disciplined. Conditioning is a requirement throughout the academic year, often very early morning while your classmates are snoozing.
It's like a part time job, often requiring 20 hours a week, every week while in school.
The graduation rate for athletes is 86% compared to only 64% for all students.
Ask yourself. Who would you rather hire, a graduate, or a student-athlete graduate who in addition to the academic work, worked the equivalent of a 20 hour a week job while taking classes and plays well with others?
1
Turning college sports another into professional league is about the worst thing that could happen to college sports.
Let the kids who want to play in a minor league somewhere, but don't attach it to college sports.
And if we have to, kick the California teams out of the NCAA.
5
@Mmm Worst thing for a fan and those making $$. Not the worst thing for these student athletes. There are no true minor league options for athletes other than Baseball. Very few athletes make it professional. For the majority of basketball and football players, they have monetized fro the benefit others. Assistant football coaches make $750k a year and often much more. AD's, head coaches and various other Administrators make millions and are often the ghiest paid employees of their states. It is not morally or ethically right. Player gets injured, it is all over -- no contact, nothing but an education worth $150k at a state school, if not less.
1
@Harrison
College sports are not professional minor leagues. Nor should they be.
Sports sanctioned by the NCAA include the following: basketball, baseball (men), beach volleyball (women), softball (women), football (men), cross country, field hockey (women), bowling (women), golf, fencing (coeducational), lacrosse, soccer, gymnastics, rowing (women only), volleyball, ice hockey, water polo, rifle (coeducational), tennis, skiing (coeducational), track and field, swimming and diving, and wrestling (men).
1
@Mmm Agreed. Where do sports fit into the mission of colleges in 2019? It has gotten out of control and your list proves it. These are educational institutions.
It is just as dumb in Div II and III schools but for other reason. The number of student-athletes on those campuses is crazy, all these kids play in obscurity and are subsidized by the School. Schools feel like they have no choice as the sports are marketing tools and the schools they compete with for students have all these sports. Round and round we go. Every time I see a Div II "signing" of a player for lacrosse, water polo, skiing, fencing....crazy. This should be the realm of club sports, just like countless other clubs on campus (e.g., hiking, spelunking, video games and a bunch of other sports that didn't make the list.)
1
The NCAA can make this problem vanish by paying all student athletes a reasonable stipend. Elite athletes aren't there for the education anyhow. "Starting at defensive tackle, majoring in general studies.."
7
The NCAA should end the collusion that caps athlete compensation at a scholarship.
@Midwest Josh--the athletes are already getting paid. They get free tuition, free room, free unlimited dining and a stipend. Add it up. $100k per year at a private university, $70k at a state U.
Clearly, not only is the NCAA making BILLIONS from these players but they have, from time to time, proven themselves to be corrupt. People forget, that despite whatever the college athletes receive in return for their services, only a small fraction of them ever make it to the pros. One can also not ignore the fact that for years now only a handful of schools attract the top players and why is that happening and who do we think we are kidding here?
One can recall the documentary of student football athletes
attending a major university in Florida in which athletes took meaningless course while driving to and from school(mostly practice) in BMWs.
6
Athletes play college sports for two reasons: 1) love of the game and 2) to get a scholarship to off set the costs of getting an education. If they want to get paid, then they should bypass college and go directly to a professional level league.
In the alternative, if universities decide to pay athletes, then get rid of sports scholarships altogether, pay the athletes from TV revenues, and give the institutional scholarship money to students who need it to study and get a degree.
7
When one considers the amount of revenue being generated by a conference like the SEC, it becomes difficult to argue that some of this money shouldn’t be shared with the student athletes. Granted, not all conferences are created equal. Additionally, what many people fail to remember (or conveniently forget) is that the money generated by the big money producing sports (i.e. Mens Basketball and Football) is used to fund lesser attended sports programs on both the Mens and Womens side, not to mention faculty salaries, and otherwise raising the profile of the University for prospective students.
That being said, I think the Power Five conferences have an opportunity to get out in front here and be on the right side of history. Granted, these numbers are being pulled out of thin air, but how about holding $25K in trust for each player for each year he is on the team. This would mean that if a player stays in school for four years, he would receive $100K upon graduation (not a penny before then, and that number would be reduced if you leave school early.) Not an overly significant sum, but also something that could set a kid up for the rest of his life if he is smart about it.
I don’t think that college athletes should be making millions of dollars, but as a lifelong College Football fan, it’s becoming more and more difficult to ignore the elephant in the room.
6
We are seeing the creation of a second rate professional league that will produce a product no one is interested in. National recruiting has already decimated the traditional concept of conference play (the best in my state competes against your best; Florida vs Georgia/ Ohio vs Michigan). Will college free-agency be the next step toward professionalizing the college game? We are already moving in that direction with the transfer portal. If I want to watch the best in the world do something I watch the pros, not some second tier knock off, which is the best a college team can hope to be. It is important that colleges remain within the amateur ranks. Once colleges become a lesser quality professional product, I am not sure many people will maintain interest. Further, what happens to all of the sports that are financial losers and don't produce big media stars? Does the government step in to "level the playing field" and demand everyone gets a share of the pie? Here we have the government as the big fixer of all social issues. College fans will live to regret this move away from the historical foundation of collegiate sports. If I want to watch professionals at work, I will watch the best in the world.
6
@Robert
I am confused by your comments. Where now, do the bulk of the players for both the NFL and NBA(best in the world) originate from and the fact still remains that regardless of what these players might ultimately receive in return for their services only a small fraction of them will ever make it to the pros anyway and ultimately receive the "big paycheck" that will totally overwhelm anything they might have received at the college level.
1
@Robert
Historical is correct. Big schools have always had an advantage recruiting the top talent and no one to date seems to mind. The sports that are financial losers... how about they recoup some of the million dollar salaries paid to the " amateur" college coaches and spread those shoe endorsement, and televised game dollars across the board internally or it that off the table?
This is long overdue (Universities exploit students to make millions off of them while compensating them a fraction of their market value). I say this as a college professor. However, I fear this will only exacerbate the already-too-low graduation rates of athletes.
How's this for a wrinkle. Colleges will sometimes charge a "tax" to professors for their outside consulting, since they are using, in part, the prestige of the university to charge the lucrative rate they do.
How about a 30% university tax on all endorsement deals student athletes secure as part of a university program (a reasonable reimbursement to the university for using their name in the endorsement).
The wrinkle...if the student graduates within 5 years of matriculation, the money is returned to the student, with interest.
7
Why? Why does it matter if student athletes graduate? Everyone knows they are not there for the degrees. That’s not why the university let them in and that’s not why they enrolled.
2
@Vanyali If education has nothing whatsoever to do with it, then why does the NFL get to subcontract their training league out to colleges?
If you truly believe what you said, then EVERY college team in the country should be closed, and the NFL should just create a minor Leauge like baseball has, so each franchise has its own farm system whereby it trains its payers before bringing them up to the show.
1
@DispatchesVA I think the tax is a great idea. It would result in different amounts of pay for students at different schools, however, and potentially between sports (do "non-revenue" sports' athletes still get a cut? do UVA tennis players get the same percentage as UVA football?), and gender (UVA men's basketball generates more revenue vs women's). Or, everyone gets the same amount?
1
It's wild listening to 'free market conservatives' defend a cartel's right to artificially cap compensation at a wildly below market, non-cash rate because "amateurism".
In almost every athletic league that turns a profit the athletes receive somewhere between 45-50% of total revenue as income. If you applied that % to the top 50 or so college football programs the 85 players would *average* ~ $250,000 a year in salary. Instead they get an education most aren't really expected to complete in any meaningful way (you try getting the most out of a scholarship after a 50 hour work week and cross country travel), room and board while their coaches, administrators and almost everyone else not in uniform gets rich.
23
@pt. How have you identified free market conservatives? Is there a dog whistle we’re all missing?
1
College football. It was a nice run. Even more stunning and disappointing than this decision is how short sighted many people are. Well, this will allow me more time to do and follow real stuff.
5
@Seldom Seen Smith
it was a REALLY good run for the folks getting rich off other people's labor.
1
An athletic scholarship at Stanford pays, per year, $53,000 tuition, $19,000 room and board, books, lab fees, etc., private tutors, $4,000 stipend, to participate in a made up pretend game.
Oops, I forgot, everybody is a victim these days.
College football is a racket and this is a step in the right direction. But I worry about the unintended consequences.
4
@Brad The unintended consequences will be that most schools will probably drop D1 football, which they should anyway. Only the power 5 conference schools will survive.
This will basically benefit a handful of star athletes who will get their faces on ads for campus bars, car dealerships, and other local booster companies.
I think a better way to go would be making sports a "work-study" job in which athletes, regardless of star power, make a few bucks for playing ball, much like other students who mop floors or work in the cafeteria.
3
@SoCal
That might fly but generally (out on a limb here) you do not risk a brain concussion mopping floors or working in the cafeteria.
@SoCal
Boo boo, capitalism. As opposed to before, where coaches and staff were the only ones making money. They could also endorse a whole team and spread the joy of money. Unlike before, where all the athletes shared were injuries.
What if colleges and universities were for education and research? Let the business model be business.
5
@Lawrence Norbert
Too late that ship has sailed. College and Universities have a new purpose which is to have curricula linked directly to getting a good job so you can earn. If you somehow are also well educated that is just a secondary by product.
Slippery slope. Rutgers cancelled several Olympic sports to help fund their football program. Where's the money coming from to pay these athletes? Who's really paying for this boondoggle. Yes, the university makes money off the endorsements, but the players already have scholarships and training facilities that an athlete in an Olympic sport, or a chemistry major lacking proper lab equipment, can only dream about. Beware the unintended consequences.
3
Too bad the law does not also prevent college coaches from green-lighting admission for athletes and force student athletes to choose between the scholarship they receive now, valued at $30,000-$70,000 s year (on top of the value of the coaching they receive, the training, and exposure for the few college athletes with a legitimate shot at a pro career) and what they can earn profiting from their imagine, etc.
College athletes - scholarship athletes - are already paid. And whenever they choose to leave school - they do it debt-free. The idea that they should further profit when most kids have to gain admission without the help of a coach and often graduate with debt is incredible.
5
@Douglas Weil - I would agree with you if the NCAA and Colleges did not make billions of dollars a year on the backs of the student athletes.
2
@Douglas Weil
If an Alabama football player told Nick Saban he needed to skip practice or miss "voluntary" weight training to study his scholarship would vanish in a heartbeat. These schools care nothing about a player's education. If schools put education ahead of sports for these athletes you might have an argument.
10
@Andrew Reid
Every college athlete can opt to apply to college the same way everyone else applies - choose the schools, fill out the application, ask for teacher references and complete the optional essay.
Scholarship athletes have sn easier path to admission, they are paid in the form of a scholarship worth tens of thousands of dollars, and graduate without debt.
For the few who legitimately can make a go at a professional career, they receive coaching they could never afford in the best facilities and are given i credible exposure worth tens and tens of thousands of dollars.
I don’t disagree that there are problems that must be addressed beginning with the balance between athletics and academics. But the answer is not adding to the financial windfall college athletes already receive. It is in reforming a system that has the balance wrong between sport and class.
4
One more step is necessary: to abolish requirements that athletes be required to give up valuable practice, sleep, and partying time in order to pose as "student-athletes" [sic] by attending classes and meeting course requirements.
Let them enrol in real academic courses (if they want to) without charge, but *after* their athletic eligibility has expired.
Only by separating "athletic" and "academic" in this way can universities preserve their primary educational mission, while at the same time furnishing high-quality circuses so as to generate support from alums, the public, and legislatures.
11
I would rather not have any of the sports that serve as a pipeline to professional
sports represented in any way in college, because in this country they have an absurd, oversize importance relative to academics - you know, the reason people go to school.
But if that can’t be changed, because of alumni and the way some communities consider their college sports, then we might as well run this openly. But the money that pays for these salaries, the scholarships (would they still be handed out), the expensive sports facilities should all come from a profit-making athletics department, corporate and alumni sponsors, etc, separate from the rest of the school.
Otherwise I fear this will serve to siphon yet more money from academics.
6
This is long overdue as college sports have not been amateur events for decades. I cannot look at what I have termed "plantation" sports particularly at the collegiate level when revenues are at the billion dollar level. The athletes receive little and that includes scholarship support if they are injured and if they graduate. How can a coach and his staff become millionaires based on the work of "student athletes". How do universities which should be the keepers of the flame for thought mount a critical argument in support of this excess.
21
Isn't it amazing how long and hard a road to get folks to face the truth in these United States?
College football and basketball players have long been hired to work for universities, bringing profits to those institutions on the promise of possible professional earnings on the other side.
Their labor has been exploited just as interns were once exploited by hospitals in the name of "education."
Oh, they got an education, all right, on how the rich and powerful stay that way while the workers are broken by dreams of glory and reward which accrue to only the very few.
15
@Claudia
Well argued and thoughtful. And while we are at it, why not unionize the athletes so there are protections if they are injured and so they are paid a fair wage for the hard work they do on and off the field. Most large corporations are loathe to embrace change but many do and so will the rich and powerful colleges. Most are already very well endowed and should share their largess when they can. This country needs to be more egalitarian and this is how it starts. For example, Levain Bakery in NYC has profit sharing with the employees. Someone once made an argument that the people that take the chance and start a business and invest their time and money deserve the profits. Yes, if you also realize that they have workers too on whose backs the money is made. Yes, you had the idea, the know how and the start so you should have more but there comes a point when enough is enough. Though Levain engages in profit sharing, it has not stopped them from growing and opening new locations in what is a highly competitive lucrative market. The Big Business of Bakeries. It is time for companies and colleges to share the wealth. There is plenty for everyone and this is how we grow.
4
People seem to be focusing solely on big name players. What about the players that are on scholarship, but no one knows who they are? If students are getting big contracts then that's less money going to schools. The logical next step will be to provide fewer benefits to student athletes. Why should the university pay for your room and board and food if you're getting six or seven-figure endorsements? That's all well and good for Manti Te'o, but what about the second string DB whose name no one knows?
I agree that it is unfair for money to be made off the students, but it's not as cut and dried as supporters of this bill are making it.
3
@AnonymousPlease But most athletes do not receive anything like a full scholarship, and why should I, a parent of non-athletes spend a lot of time worrying about "student athletes" at all?
5
@Barbara Because athletics bring money and publicity to Universities. They do benefit non-athletes.
@AnonymousPlease Sorry, that trope has been disproved time and again. When you add the all in costs of stadiums and facilities and innumerable others, very few athletic programs actually earn money. The only possible argument is that they keep alumni more engaged with the school and more likely to give money. At some point, that can't be good enough.
5
"At the same time, it also explicitly declares that it is the Legislature’s intent “to avoid exploitation of student-athletes, colleges, and universities.”"
We'll see. Almost 80% of NFL players are broke just two years after retirement. Where's the money go? "Friends", agents, investment scams, you name it. These 18 year-olds are going to be making a lot of money - for somebody else.
3
@mijosc They're ALREADY doing that. You realize that every year, EA Sports puts out a new game using the images and likenesses of every college football player in the country, and none of them get paid a dime for that. That, by itself, not even considering the other ways they're exploited by the NCAA, is enough to merit this law.
3
I wonder what this will do to the student dynamic. Right now the athletes are considered classmates, contemporaries and cohorts, will the same hold true when the players are treated like professionals who share the campus but not the "college experience"'? Either way the change is welcome, long overdue and, unless everyone else wants to forego profit, fair.
@Rick Gage "Right now the athletes are considered classmates, contemporaries and cohorts . . . ."
How long ago did you graduate? Certainly, some of the athletes in my classes were just students, but most were not. Those athletes who are at the center of recruiting fraud are not regular students, and a lot of other athletes are expected to maintain such a punishing schedule they literally cannot be regular students. Half the time they can't even decide which classes to take and are provided with all kinds of tutoring and extracurricular assistance, and end up socializing with other athletes.
7
@Rick Gage
College should be about diversity, financial and educational. College is the place where you come together from diverse backgrounds, The great equalizer is the college experience itself. All students should live on campus, eat together in the college cafeterias, work together, share thoughts in the classes they share and in college activities. It is a growing time. Money wise, all students should be required to take financial planning classes. It is a big field for sure and the young should be a captive willing audience. When I started my first job 35 years ago, for the Federal Government. they gave us our first paycheck and took us downstairs to the Jamaica Savings Bank in the building and helped us open accounts. We had regular classes on the new Thrift Savings Plan Program as the Government was transitioning from the Civil Service Retirement System to the TSP. We learned about contributions and matching which the Federal Government does. These lessons were not wasted on most of us. Thanks to this, I saved and invested well. I also was made aware of Series EE Savings bond. A low cost but steady way to save a lot. I got bonds for 20 years and now cash them regularly as they mature at 30 years. Student athletes and college students in general are ripe for the teaching.
1
If college athletics is totally different from the pro games, pay college coaches the same amount other faculty members get.
141
@Murray Suid
faculty members are way overpaid. They hardly work.
The "business plan" of colleges and universities should be education, not running a multi-billion sports franchise. I am perfectly OK with these changes. The unpaid exploitation of college students has gone on for way too long and enriched only a small circle of insiders.
26
The states of Ohio, Alabama and Michigan will soon follow. This gives California schools a competitive advantage- above the table money.
22
The ongoing fraudulent claim of "amateurism" that the N.C.A.A. exploits as the foundation of its business model, has all the moral legitimacy of a street corner 3 card Monte scheme. Infuriatingly, it is a scheme that all college athletes are required to play, despite being aware that their time & labor (and in many cases, their health) is making vast sums of money for individuals who have much less at stake. An aggressive restructuring of the financial rewards associated with college sports is long over-due. Beyond the obvious point that athletes must be compensated at a level commensurate with the entertainment value of their athletism & performance. College coaches in major sport programs should be compensated as tenured professors at their universities, as was generally the case before television money corrupted college football & basketball. The revenue generated should be distributed more broadly, eliminating the abuse of authority, rampant nepotism and celebrity life-styles based on what amounts to slave labor. The revenue generated by college sports should benefit colleges, educators, staff & students more broadly. My apologies for offering a simplistic solution to a deeply complex & corrupt system. These are some of the ideals the California legislation begins to address. There is still a long way to go. But it's an admirable & courageous first step.
33
@mike4vfr
Thank you and well said.
@mike4vfr
Exaggerate much? There is no such comparison between slave labor and college athletics. Get a grip.
Scholarship athletes receive a free education and free room and board. Most non-athletes who attended Division I colleges will be paying off student loans for decades. Spare us the righteous indignation because the students who are receiving a six-figure college education and experience for free aren't getting paychecks on top of it.
If athletes must be compensated, allow them to profit from their name and likeness and hold the earnings in trust until graduation.
4
@David No, allow the athletes the choice of playing professionally instead of being forced to attend college when they don't want to. And maybe, just maybe, divert the scholarship money that is paid to athletes to students who really do want to be there.
22
@David, most college athletes are not on scholarship, approximately 2%. Even those who are, many of the scholarships are partial and dont even cover a full year of school. I am not in favor of a select few athletes getting huge deals, but there should be some greater revenue sharing from the NCAA to the actual student.
4
@David
These student " amateur"athletes are working a full-time job that essentially requires their regimented participation, training, and travel solely on the terms of the colleges and universities. Perhaps your argument might have merit if the athletes were all talented enough to "go pro" and leave college to do so. That would be an equitable ROI in the that the institutions could posit we gave you an opportunity to showcase your talents, train at an elite level, and you graduated. However, we are talking multi-level merchandise deals, video games, and shoe and apparel deals in the millions. Not to mention the revenue generated by fundraising from generous alumni as result of sports on campus. These lucrative revenue streams surpass what any thinking person in a capitalistic society would deem to cut themselves out of. In what other business model is this even imaginable ? We urge students to go to college so they may get a job that pays them for their performance. Yet, these students athletes are not being paid for their verified performance where very aspects of their performance is statistically scrutinized weekly. I agree that the income at least a portion of it should be held in trust. Why not give the money mangers an opportunity to participate it what will soon become another lucrative avenue by which to live off the labor the students.
It is my personal opinion that anything that weakens the business model of college sports is a win for higher education.
106
This is ALL about monetizing their social media and I bet there are digital marketing firms looking to make deals with schools as we speak.
1
The top conference football and basketball programs are semi-pro feeder leagues for the NFL and NBA. It is dishonest to call them college athletic programs. The connection is artificial. It is all about the money. It is long past time that the athletes got a piece of the pie.
19
May I be the first to congratulate California for stepping up to the plate and playing hardball with the NCAA.
21
It means nothing unless they manage to get the NCAA to change their rules.
2
We live in a brutally capitalist country. Student-Athletes take on the risk of long-term injury while earning millions for their colleges. Most of these guys will never play professionally. They deserve to be paid for the risks that they are taking.
27
@Mickey
The entire modern day enterprise of the NCAA has been built mainly on the backs of African American student-athletes and run primarily by white organizations. See any resemblance to slavery?
All this law seems to do is allow students to make money from their own image, rather than only allowing fat cat coaches to make money from their player's images. To me, this NCAA rule is the most egregious breach of individual rights. It basically states "we own you."
10
Yup, might as well completely abandon the charade of "student" athletes.
Would love to see the N.C.A.A. call Newsom's bluff.
4
About time.
Time to break up the NCAA, which is essentially a criminal enterprise that profits off the free labor of collegiate athletes.
20
This is nonsense. Free tuition and getting paid on top of that. Scrap college football and just call the "college" programs what they are: NFL minor leagues or development leagues. Let the NFL finance it. Then use that money to give real students more aid.
6
Watch the California schools attract the best talent in the country. Stanford, USC and UCLA should be thanking the governor.
3
Good. College basketball and football, especially the latter, is equivalent to modern day slavery. When the entire world has more ethical models for training and producing athletes you know there is a problem. That for generations we have given kids brain damage with no financial reparations is sickening. That people still watch college football and even the NFL, which also shares an incredibly backwards financial model, is fascinating to me. People are watching people shortening their lives by decades right in front of them and they aren't even getting the money they deserve! What good is a college degree if it comes with severe brain damage?
7
Love it. Big time college sports is all about exploitation of the players. It's a cynical calculation by the sinister NCAA and its members.
4
California is simply the best state. I miss not living there anymore but equally happy to help turn a red state sane.
7
This is great news. Let the people who do the work get paid.
11
Many people forget the difference between the two types of student - athletes.
There are students who get into the school on both athletic and academic merit, and have athletics as just one part of their life and education. These are the students who should be around.
The other type are a good majority of football and basketball players - only there to bump up their draft stocks. In the words of Cardale Jones, "we ain't come to play SCHOOL!" No more preferential treatment for these people
2
@Khoi Nguyen
I really do not understand how "these" people are getting preferential treatment. I still assume someone admitted these students.
Bravo Mr. Newsom.
The argument is that this is amateur sport, all for the love of the game, right?
Surely if that's true, it's unnecessary and unwise to pay a coach $4,000,000 or more per year to manage things, right? And give him a staff of some 40 coaches/assistants/trainers?
The model is ridiculous. Sure it used to be about pride and athleticism, but that was ages ago. Now it's about plain old money. The model to the students whose bodies provide the basis for the revenues is crass and outdated.
399
@Joe you need forty people to watch the miscreants called athletes.
@Joe
College coaches should not be paid more than the governor.
@Joe: As someone who competed at the world level (albeit in an obscure sport), and thus had to follow the Olympic rules pertaining to amateur status, I can only say that eliminating any charade of amateur sports at these levels is welcome. It worked well for Olympic sports.
And for many student-athletes, the 'student' part is also a charade. Not sure this is the right way to deal with that issue, but college is a joke at many of the top collegiate programs in football and basketball.
1
The exploitation of athletes by those who have big purses and power in our society has got to stop. This is one step in the right direction.
237
The playoff scheme was the first big step to commercialize the NCAA. California has now taken the next big step. I’m saddened.
1
This is how change is made. Cheers to the California Governor and Legislature for addressing this long term abuse of labor.
21
@DMS26 not sure its abuse if they are getting scholarships. Work for free tuition and housing. The problem is that training and tournaments prevent these students from working any additional "real jobs" and so don't have any spending money or money to live on. So its hard. But its not like any students jobs pay any real money anyway.
1
@marx True, but most students aren't generating millions of dollars in income for the university, either.
1
When the NCAA's Board of Goveners states that “...consistently stood by its belief that student-athletes are students first", did everyone laugh?
The concept of the student-athlete was a good one, long before it started making big money. Now, it detracts from the purpose of academia. I love college sports, but it is harming our academic system.
55
first of all these players get full ride scholarships to top schools, secondly the governor of California does not have the power to do what he is trying to do, it will go to the Supreme Court and California will lose to the NCAA. watch and learn.
4
@Zion A full ride to a top school where their only job is to make sure that the head coach doesn't get fired. Most don't have time to do anything but their sport and and are not encouraged to major in a degree that would actually benefit them.
Why doesn't the governor of California have the power to do what he is doing? What is constitutional about denying athletes the same rights as other students? If you are on a full ride academic scholarship you can make as much money from your image as you want.
@Zion
Everyone gets paid the same ?
Isn't that socialism ?
A better solution would be to create minor league systems for football and basketball as already exists in hockey and baseball. It is a for profit enterprise as it stands, why hide it behind the university system?
34
@Slim Sadey But California doesn't have the power to force the NBA and the NFL to do that. Indeed, baseball and hockey are examples of sports where a minor league exists side by side with collegiate level sports, including Division 1 teams. I think this occurred because so many professional players are not American -- Canadian, European, for hockey, and from Latin America for baseball. Nonetheless, you don't see collegiate hockey and baseball teams at the center of the fraud in Division 1 athletics. If a minor league were created, the brightest and best players with checkered academic records would not be playing in college. Everyone knows that.
1
California is leading the rest of the country to the future right now. Amazing the difference a solid Democrat majority makes! Positive change seems to start there.
204
@alan haigh
Not to mention a capitalist, free-market, free-enterprise change
It's amazing how Republicans pretend to applaud the free market right up until people who look a certain way want to participate in it
38
@alan haigh
In South Carolina and at the National level, it is mostly the Republicans who are pushing for a California like law.
1
@Jackson: "Wow, leading in overpaid athletes." Please explain what that means?
College athletes can be dismissed for taking a hamburger lest they throw the game yet college coaches "earn" multi-million dollar contracts. So please tell the rest of us which overpaid college athletes you are referring to. That is [college athletes]- after all what the article is about. Oh; what about Virginia's homeless problem (since that topic is quite relevant to this article)?
7
The NCAA ruined the careers of many athletes when it used to stop a player good at baseball and football from playing one professionally while still being able to keep eligibility in the other.
It took forever for that to change.
The only problem I see with this California law is that it sets up some possible jealousy in teams where a player gets paid endorsements, like a quarterback, and a lineman who does the heavy work gets nothing.
We shall see. However, too bad, NCAA.
3
How’s that different from the pay scale in the NFL—or for that matter the differential pay scales in most work venues?
@John Harrington Give California credit- they are apparently not as socialistic as everyone says they are- otherwise they would have decreed that the lineman gets the same amount of money as the quarterback.
1
@Murray Suid
Very different because colleges are not professional sports leagues in how they operate. The NFL is a pro sports league.
The jealously in the NFL is part of the program.
I am in favor of college athletes being able to make money the same as any non-athlete is.
I played college football. We weren't allowed to have any sort of job during the school year or we would have lost our eligibility. I did not come from a moneyed background. In my first two seasons, during the winter, I played minor league hockey under an alias and was paid $200 a game in cash.
I transferred in my junior year. I was a red shirt for a season and, then, I gave up my last two seasons of eligibility because of the NCAA and I got a job at a ski resort so I could afford to live and ski.
I am sure the NCAA has forced many student athletes to have to make the choice between playing or having to work their way through school without having to accrue a massive loan debt.
I had a tuition, room and board and books ride for my first two seasons, but I had to walk on when I transferred, meaning I had no financial help. Yet, to stay on the team, I could not work.
Poverty. My junior year, during football season at least, was sheer poverty just so I could be on the scout team in practice. So, I quit the game.
I will go on record here as saying I think the NCAA is as hypocritical an organization as could possibly exist given what they receive for selling their sports to television.
3
Either make every Division I college sport an intramural, or pay the athletes. I sat in the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University watching a men's basketball game. Syracuse sells alcohol at their home basketball and football games. Syracuse makes money from alcohol revenue while paying their athletes nothing. It's sick that adults are drinking at college games where the athletes themselves are too young to drink. Colleges are making millions from unpaid labor. It has to end or be changed somehow.
66
@Michael. Their athletes are paid with scholarships. I guess those should be taxed.
16
@Jackson - Some, far from all, are 'paid' with scholarships.
4
You’re right about taxing the scholarship. But do you support giving the bosses the sole control over the athletes’ compensation? For example should the NFL be able to keep athletes from appearing in commercials? If not why limit college athletes from selling their celebrity?
5
I say colleges and universities shouldn’t have athletic programs at all. Why should they? Is somebody going to get a Masters Degree in Football? A Bachelors if Science in Basketball? Give me a break. All of these schools are addicted to the money raised by these sports, period. Maybe they should focus on actually providing an education to students, not spending time and money on sports.
139
@BrainThink College athletics are hugely popular and widely supported by many people who never even went to the colleges they support. Have you ever been to a college football game and experienced the feeling of community and esprit de corps of tens of thousands of people exuding pride and excitement in an institution, their state, and their youth? When I go to a game or watch my team on TV it gives me a sense of hope that people can celebrate and share a common purpose. And that is something that is so greatly lacking in nearly every other aspect of our society these days.
3
Excellent! The school, coach, and corporations should not be the only ones to profit from the efforts, and terrible health risks, of these kids. PAY THEM!
48
The colleges should pay the athletes. And pay them a lot. The coaches get paid millions. The colleges get lots of advertising from the teams, which is worth plenty. So the athletes should get some of the money. The market rate, at that. Today there is really no reason that big time sports--in particular football and basketball--should be connected to colleges. In the 1920s maybe it made sense. For smaller colleges it makes sense today. For Ohio State and USC it makes no sense. The teams are big time businesses. The colleges should sell them, license the names of the colleges and teams, and let the teams be run like the big time and big dollar sports that they are. There is zero reason for having them connected to the colleges.
24
The NCAA has been a ruinous force for higher education, turning once-respected institutions like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill into a sordid business. And the NCAA's protestations that California's move would diminish the separation between amateur and professional play is laughable.
The appropriate course of action is to have professionally promising athletes play in a minor league, like baseball. That way the players could make as much money as they can while the major leagues look them over. Or they could be recruited to the majors right out of high school.
Most of the football and basketball players in universities have no interest or cultivated aptitude to study - that's not why they're there. They want to play, and they should have another pathway.
That way both sports and universities become less corrupt. They never should have become so linked to begin with.
60
Fine. But take it a couple of steps further. First, admit that this is all about big-money, big-time, TV football and not about riflery, volleyball, or water polo. Think anybody in those sports is going to rake in the bucks by endorsing a local restaurant or a line of jock straps? Then, having gotten real about it, drop the pretense that those recruited to play big-time college football are, or even should be, students first or students at all. Let colleges create professional football teams housed on campus and that play in the name of the school--and who cares whether they are students there or anywhere else? Pay them a professional's salary commensurate with their talent and whatever fame they garner, and let them make money on the side any way they like as long as it's legal. In other words, when it comes to big-time football, drop the myth of the (cough, cough) "student athlete," the "student" part of which has never been much more than a myth, and let college football be its own self-contained, big-money, professional enterprise, which it already is for everybody connected with it except the players. Any other way will just create gross inequity for students who play the not-so-glamorous sports, have no chance of making any money from them, and really are, in some cases at least, students first.
7
I think the Governor is doing the right thing. I could never understand why they would be barred from earning money on top of their scholarships. With that said, would be great to see the Governor solve the homeless and budget crisis that his State is experiencing.
4
@Steve What budget crisis? Faux news.
NCAA basketball and football funds do more than just line the pockets of advertisers and media companies. In a vacuum, allowing collegiate athletes to be paid sounds reasonable; but what happens when every blue chip athlete goes to school in a big media market (i.e. Stanford, USC, Miami)? Half the schools in all the Power 5 Conferences and most of the mid-America conference schools (and their students) lose athletes, lose funding, and a won't recover.
Compensation for collegiate athletics also won't greatly benefit softball and water polo athletes; it'll pay out athletes that already stand to make money professionally. Worst case scenario these athletes leave school with at least a good portion of their education paid for. Many of us have been out of school for years and are still paying off the loans; they'll all more than welcome to join the ranks.
2
I’m hesitant to endorse this change unless my agent says they’re going to pay me enough to go watch the games and/or my bookie says the odds are good enough that I can’t lose.
3
The only group the "amateur player" model benefits is the NCAA itself. Of course those people, who have made billions of dollars exploiting student athletes for decades, have a problem with the legislation. And Newsom is right - the NCAA cannot be trusted to do the right thing by the students. This is definitely a situation where the exploiters will never recognize or acknowledge that they are exploiting - it will have to be stopped from the outside. The rise of social media means that - as Newsom says in the article - any college student can start an Instagram account and become an "influencer" and get paid for their opinions and endorsements. Any student except a student athlete, who could benefit hugely from being able to have an agent and promote products while they're playing. Problem is, in this new model, none of that money would flow to the NCAA. That's the problem the NCAA has with the "paid student athlete" idea. They don't directly benefit. This is all about money, it has nothing - ZERO - to do with what's good for students. What's good for students is to be able to leverage their talents to their best advantage. It's a new world; the NCAA needs to start living in it.
39
I look forward to the title IX lawsuits when men players are paid more than women players.
The commercialization of college sports was always a bad idea.
31
@Prudence Spencer
The hyper focus on sports at an educational institution was always a bad idea.
7
@Prudence Spencer
This only allows the students to get payed from outside sources. The school themselves wouldn't be paying the athletes.
3
Gov. Newsom is setting an historic and damaging direction to college sports. There are two fundamental solutions to this problem:
1. Most Division 1 college football teams should become NFL minor leagues teams, not associated with any university. The system would be similar to minor league baseball.
2. Eliminate all athletic scholarships in universities and colleges, similar to all Division 3 schools. The amateur athletetic programs that result from this system are much more interesting and enjoyable. You play a sport at the end of a day of real academic courses to get some exercise and unwind. Most important, all athletes in this system are actually preparing for careers and productive lives.
19
@Paul Robillard
You don't think that this is a first step in this direction?
Exposing the strange bedfellows of highly competitive athletics and intellectual inquiry should begin to force open the barn door, and perhaps lead to one of the outcomes you endorse.
7
@Paul Robillard
1. Will never happen.
2. Will never happen.
Reasons. - Money.
1
It’s time to disconnect college and university athletics from the huge machine of professional sports.
Why should there be a connection with educational institutions anyway?
And yes we can use Europe as an example. They have plenty of professional sport teams but they’re not wound in the universities and colleges.
29
@srwdm
Because money. Compare the attendance at a minor league game to college games.
@srwdm
We probably can't tell private colleges what to do but, public universities, in particular, should get out of the commercialized athletics (scholarships, and all) and concentrate on academic programs.
7
If I was a lowly college football blocker and I knew that the block I was about to throw that may kill me would be what assured that the hot-shot running behind me would realize his big payday from Nike, would I? No way, let that sucker earn it himself!
5
"business model" is all you need to hear to know this system is as far from "college education" as these sports have gotten.
11
College football will cease to be the Alabama invitational.
7
I am all for people getting paid. However, we should factor in the scholarships they receive as payment as well. So long as the universities do that, I don't care how much they pay them.
1
@Dave
When I attended college [as a non-athlete] at a Pac-10 Division 1 NCAA school there was no way that I could have served the two masters of my department and a coach at the same time.
There are not enough hours in the day - 15 credit hours * 4 hours of effort/week/credit hour = about 60 hours of academic work/week. Even if you can get through your essays and problem sets and labs on 3 hours/credit hour that's 45 hours a week. With practice, gym, travel and games there is no way that these 'student-athletes' can truly utilize the 'scholarship' that lands them on campus.
14
@Andy 60 hours a week focusing on academics? Seems a bit much.
College was much easier than real life as I recall.
@Dave
scholarship and stipend are good benefits to being student athletes.
but why would they be prohibited for getting shoe endorsements?
or creating their own YT channel to make money?
those are separate endeavors that is not related to playing with your school?
1
Good on the Gov. Newsom. The NCAA, colleges and universities have been exploiting young athletes for too long.
14
This is fantastic.
And for the 380lb defensive linebacker on a 100 meal stipend a day? It's about time to finally get fed.
3
The NCAA is an absurdly commercialized enterprise for the benefit of megacorps at the "students"' expense anyway. Their model is the rigged "gig" model of the Uber-Lyft cartel, and as with that cartel it's time to stop hoping these athletes won't be exploited as underpaid employees under a veneer of "college education"—and start giving them protections, benefits, and WAGES as the workers they already ARE.
8
"The powerful universities... said the law would put their athletes in danger of being barred from routine competitions and showcase events like the College Football Playoff and the men’s and women’s N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments....that help some universities log more than $100 million each in annual athletic revenue.
In a Sept. 11 letter to Newsom, the N.C.A.A.’s Board of Governors said that the measure would “erase the critical distinction between college and professional athletics” and that the N.C.A.A. had “consistently stood by its belief that student-athletes are students first, and they should not be employees of the university.”
----
The universities have devolved into greedy corporate-like mobsters who want their entitled money and don't anyone disturbing their shady racket.
A university is supposed to a place of learning, education and productive mind expansion, not the official minor leagues of the National Football League extorting indentured servant athletes for hundreds and hundreds of millions in exchange for an NFL lottery ticket with really low odds.
The NCAA pretends it's a non-profit entity, but it's as profit-minded as Exxon-Mobil and any other large multinational corporation.
Good for the student-athletes who have been systematically exploited by the money-hungry NCAA and their university overlords for fifty years.
260
Make professional football and basketball create farm leagues like baseball, and get colleges back to what they are supposed to be doing . . . TEACHING!
445
@Mtnman1963
And lose all those $'s from collegiate sports? Dream on. The athletes are not slaves. Let them earn some money while they can because only 10% make it to the big leagues.
2
@Mtnman1963 How do u make private industry do anything they don't want to do?
about time and ask any real sports fan if they think otherwise. The NCAA is beyond corrupt. How about we be grownups about this?
7
I hope every cent they make gets deducted from their scholarships. No double dipping here.
4
The IRS should go after NCAA division power 5 conferences football and basketball programs.
1
Want to make college athletics amateur? Don’t pay coaches and end athletic scholarships. If someone wants to sponsor a team or an athlete, like is done in the little league, then fine.
13
@AG This doesn't make sense. High school football is an amateur sport but the guy that mows the grass does it as a job.
And so to the teacher/coaches.
The students should be students first. If they want to play a professional sport, let them go do that as professionals.
@Mmm High school coaches double as facuulty in many cases and are not paid obscene amount like college coaches (who are paid multiples of what other, even nobel laureate, professors get)
2
Excellent first step.
The next step is to completely decouple the Division 1 sports from the public universities. These sports are basically just free minor leagues for the pro major leagues, and those major leagues should be paying for the programs, not the universities and as such state taxpayers.
While many schools see big-time sports as cash cows, the reality is that most of the athletic departments are already self-funding and how the universities — and more specifically the states which operate them — participate in the revenue sharing is opaque.
171
Everyone knows that many if not most "student athletes" who play a sport for any of the schools that makes millions from that sport are, in fact, just employees of the school. Many if not all of them are admitted with academic credentials far below what the school would normally accept. Many of them never finish their degrees or else the degree itself is a joke. Effectively the schools are running a sports enterprise as a side business to their academic enterprise, and they only have to pay their key employees (the players) room and board. Of course it's critical for them to maintain the illusion that the players are really students because that's their whole justification for being in the business.
392
@JerseyGirl
Yes. It’s an often dangerous unpaid internship that players hope the survive in order to get a chance for a real job in professional sports. While the schools rake in money and focus less on academics.
In a word; exploitation.
25
@JerseyGirl
This is also true for the colleges that do not make money on their teams - the academic standards for athletes at the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc are lower than the standards for other students. It is time to make college sports about student-athletes, not the other way around.
14
@JerseyGirl. This is just not true. Over 80% of NCAA athletes earn a degree. 35% earn a post graduate degree! Less than 2% go on to be professional athletes. Drop your biases and get your facts straight.
5
The NCAA needs to be reformed. They claim to support amateur athletics, but yet they fail to enforce egregious pay to play scenarios in basketball. Laws like the one in California will help bring the money in college athletics above board. A number of players are already being paid, just off the books. This will help move things in the right direction and allow athletes in the less popular sports to earn money too. College lacrosse and volleyball players already support youth sports camps at their universities in the off-season, now they can get paid for their efforts.
14
Gavin Newsom is living in the real world and the NCAA is trying to perpetuate a fantasy. the tragic aspect of the NCAA stance is that it has real and negative consequences for athletes in revenue sports ... not least of which is assuming risk of serious and debilitating injury without compensation. That networks, colleges, coaches and athletic directors reap profits from this arrangement is obscene.
in short: it's about time.
300
@j hogan I actually stopped participating in my office NCAA championship pool when it dawned on me that even I could make more money from NCAA athletics than the athletes. The status quo is diseased.
11
I have such sympathy with this effort and I do believe that some college athletes are exploited. As a parent of nonathletes, however, I resent the fact that some of these athletes are getting free rides in return for their playing; depending on the school, this can amount to more than $200,000 over four years. But this is a tough topic and I'm glad Newsom is forcing the issue.
8
@Reader I am a father of non-athletes as well. I spent close to $100K on my son's 4 year engineering education in Illinois. But he, in his Senior year, has already received job offers from silicon valley and other places, including full sponsorship for his MS. I doubt the degrees conferred to most of these student athletes get anything close to that. For most of them it is either pro or bust (and for majority of them it is bust). So, yes, I don't envy them one bit.
1
@Reader
The athletes get a free education on paper and spend most of their time playing the sport and not going to class. Only football and basketball players largely have free rides, for the other sports they split the scholarships up and the athletes have to pay real tuition. A lot of athletes are not allowed to major in anything relevant, like a science or other time demanding majors
You should be thankful your kids are not athletes.
2
@Hugh G
I was on scholarship in the Big Ten for golf. I then went to law school. It paid for my undergraduate degree. You might want to talk to some college athletes first.
This is great. It simply brings the payments already being made out in the open while taking the burden off the schools for paying. Since the schools themselves won't be paying, it won't violate Title IX either.
The NCAA will argue that small market schools will be at a disadvantage, which will be debunked when other states take the same position as California. Does anyone think players at schools in "small markets" like Tuscaloosa, South Bend, and Norman won't being making just as much or more than players in LA and the Bay Area?
6
@skmartists If the NCAA fairly paid all college athletes for their semi-pro activities, this would never have happened. It is the NCAA's greed and insistence on an indentured servitude model that created the crisis.
84
@JS, "indentured servitude" give me an absolute break. These "student athletes" are absorbing scholarship benefits for free tuition, room & board at institutions where a non-scholarship students would pay tens of thousands of $$. Ironically many of the top recruits for the big money sports (football and basketball) would have NO SHOT to gain admittance on their academic abilities alone. Comparing an athletic scholarship to indentured servitude is a gross twisting of facts and frankly a slap in the face to myriad students from impoverished backgrounds who labor tirelessly just to afford the chance to better themselves intellectually in higher education setting.
2
@Mike S Simply put, these "student athletes" are given a worthless piece of paper as their diploma in "whatever" is not going to get them a job, assuming they finish college. No normal student would pay tens of thousands of dollars for that diploma.
It is an apt comparison to indentured servitude as they toil for a few years for this worthless piece of paper when the colleges and NCAA makes millions out of their efforts. If you compare their scholarship to normal students, then why is a coach paid in millions and not like a normal (even nobel laureate) professor?
Of course most of them would have no shot at being admitted to a regular curriculum and they shouldn't be. The right thing would be for them to be in farm teams a la baseball and pursuing basic college education on the side through colleges that offer them a flexible schedule and truly seeks to educate them.
This is a good first step to allow college athletes to get some of the enormous amounts of money generated by their play. The fiction of "amateurism" has been used for way too long to justify paying nothing to the kids who are risking their long-term health for our entertainment while others reap tremendous profits from their exploits.
78
@Pat
I whole heartedly agree. I would like to see the Alabama Crimson Tide spun off as an NFL team. Then the players can be paid what they're worth. It's disgusting that Nick
Saban makes 7 million dollars a year and his players can't accept an ice cream cone from a booster without losing their scholarship, getting kicked off the team, and having the team sanctioned. That's exploitation.
16
This is a simple moral issue, but a difficult legal one. The young men risking their brains on every snap of a football game deserve the proper compensation for the revenue their sacrifice brings in.
That being said, a law in California only establishes the groundwork for launching a lengthy campaign in the courts. The NCAA operates in all 50 states to the best of my knowledge, and this law would change almost every aspect of the NCAA as it currently functions. I hope a reasonable compromise can be reached between all parties.
13
@Spencer
I am not a lawyer, ... but it sounds just possible that you aren't either - or are ill-informed about this particular question. I trust the California legislature - as a guess, 1/2 of its members ARE attorneys - is not "playing games" that will take years and cost millions to litigate. That is, I suspect the NCAA MAY fight a losing battle in court, because the stakes are high enough, ... but lose they will!
OF COURSE, there are colleges in all 50 states, but the NCAA is NOT a governmental agency. Yes, Calif. may have to fight for its "right" to require emissions levels in cars lower than the (federal) EPA might prefer.
But Doctors "operate" in all 50 states, and the AMA "lobbies" for many of them. Still, each State is free to pass hundreds of laws that govern just what doctors can and cannot do in the few thousand square miles delimited by the state's boundaries.
Actually, I wonder just how hard the likes of Stanford and UCLA will "push back," but if Uber looks to have lost - pending Court action - I guess that the universities in Calif. are smart enough to know when a position is indefensible - ethically AND legally - and smells bad, too!