With conversation about college football moving toward the possibility that players might actually be paid at some time in the near future, I've been thinking about the financial implications of that change.
How many players would actually be good enough to command a salary over and above their scholarship?
How much might a star player command on the open market?
Or would schools pay all their players the same amount, the way they do now, regardless of ability or star power?
Would there be an entry level salary, with pay raises based on merit after that?
Would an offensive lineman who is eligible to go into the draft but who still has eligibilty left command a premium to stay in school?
To be perfectly honest, they aren't all worth the same amount. Some athletes are better and more valuable than others. So why would an institution pay every athlete equally? The pros wouldn't, and neither would any other employer in the private or public sector.
So, though only a Sophomore, the highly effective starting QB and his agent negotiate a healthy compensation package, while the third string running back in the rotation, a once-productive but now an often-hobbled-by-injury fifth-year Senior earns a relative pittance.
There will be bruised egos and mounting dissension within the teams, and the student-body-at-large will revolt, so I offer a solution: let's simply reward our student athletes with full-ride scholarships (Option A) and call it a day. Or let's make college athletics just another extracurricular activity -- like the chess club, for instance -- and encourage folks to play for the sheer joy of it (Option B).
Nobody is forcing kids either to attend college or to engage in organized sport. But if they choose to do so, they should have options: A or B.
(This post was last modified: 10-31-2018 10:14 AM by colohank.)
(10-31-2018 10:13 AM)colohank Wrote: To be perfectly honest, they aren't all worth the same amount. Some athletes are better and more valuable than others. So why would an institution pay every athlete equally? The pros wouldn't, and neither would any other employer in the private or public sector.
So, though only a Sophomore, the highly effective starting QB and his agent negotiate a healthy compensation package, while the third string running back in the rotation, a once-productive but now an often-hobbled-by-injury fifth-year Senior earns a relative pittance.
There will be bruised egos and mounting dissension within the teams, and the student-body-at-large will revolt, so I offer a solution: let's simply reward our student athletes with full-ride scholarships (Option A) and call it a day. Or let's make college athletics just another extracurricular activity -- like the chess club, for instance -- and encourage folks to play for the sheer joy of it (Option B).
Nobody is forcing kids either to attend college or to engage in organized sport. But if they choose to do so, they should have options: A or B.
If the NCAA loses the lawsuit, A and B are very likely off the table.
The players will be employees. If so, will they have a player's union of some type?
Significantly less than athletic department revenue divided by the number of players.
Most people putting money into an athletic department do so because they became fans before the current players were ever born. There is not a single player for Arkansas State who was born when I started buying season tickets. I was a season ticket holder before the athletic director played football at Arkansas State.
The current players have little to do with most fan spending.
They will be worth that ever the market will bear. In addition, what has yet to be discussed is the ability to generate money from their likeness/image/social media following. If you have say, 500K Instagram followers, there is a greater value in your influence than someone with 17K.
(10-31-2018 10:13 AM)colohank Wrote: To be perfectly honest, they aren't all worth the same amount. Some athletes are better and more valuable than others. So why would an institution pay every athlete equally? The pros wouldn't, and neither would any other employer in the private or public sector.
So, though only a Sophomore, the highly effective starting QB and his agent negotiate a healthy compensation package, while the third string running back in the rotation, a once-productive but now an often-hobbled-by-injury fifth-year Senior earns a relative pittance.
There will be bruised egos and mounting dissension within the teams, and the student-body-at-large will revolt, so I offer a solution: let's simply reward our student athletes with full-ride scholarships (Option A) and call it a day. Or let's make college athletics just another extracurricular activity -- like the chess club, for instance -- and encourage folks to play for the sheer joy of it (Option B).
Nobody is forcing kids either to attend college or to engage in organized sport. But if they choose to do so, they should have options: A or B.
If the NCAA loses the lawsuit, A and B are very likely off the table.
The players will be employees. If so, will they have a player's union of some type?
I'm not certain that will be cast in stone. The lawsuit seeks only injunctive relief to allow each conference to make its own decision. So what exactly does that mean / require? The conferences must be allowed to make their own decision, but the NCAA wouldn't necessarily be required to allow them to remain in that organization. And no conference would be required to make players salaried employees.
What if, as an alternative to salaries, conferences choose instead to allow players to be compensated by someone else (like an apparel company, or agents)? Perhaps they might try to create an arrangement where their football teams are licensed to other non-government entities.
But my OP was also trying to get at how much we think different kinds of players could command on an open market. Would they get $100K a year? 200K? Or something much lower? Would some be able to get $500K while others get nothing? It might be hard for conferences to decide to pay before they have some idea how much they would be on the hook for.
Would it be legal for a group of conferences to agree to an overall team salary cap as long as they don't cap any individual's pay? Must they wait for a Players' Association to form before they act, or can they get started unilaterally?
(10-31-2018 10:13 AM)colohank Wrote: To be perfectly honest, they aren't all worth the same amount. Some athletes are better and more valuable than others. So why would an institution pay every athlete equally? The pros wouldn't, and neither would any other employer in the private or public sector.
So, though only a Sophomore, the highly effective starting QB and his agent negotiate a healthy compensation package, while the third string running back in the rotation, a once-productive but now an often-hobbled-by-injury fifth-year Senior earns a relative pittance.
There will be bruised egos and mounting dissension within the teams, and the student-body-at-large will revolt, so I offer a solution: let's simply reward our student athletes with full-ride scholarships (Option A) and call it a day. Or let's make college athletics just another extracurricular activity -- like the chess club, for instance -- and encourage folks to play for the sheer joy of it (Option B).
Nobody is forcing kids either to attend college or to engage in organized sport. But if they choose to do so, they should have options: A or B.
If the NCAA loses the lawsuit, A and B are very likely off the table.
The players will be employees. If so, will they have a player's union of some type?
I'm not certain that will be cast in stone. The lawsuit seeks only injunctive relief to allow each conference to make its own decision. So what exactly does that mean / require? The conferences must be allowed to make their own decision, but the NCAA wouldn't necessarily be required to allow them to remain in that organization. And no conference would be required to make players salaried employees.
What if, as an alternative to salaries, conferences choose instead to allow players to be compensated by someone else (like an apparel company, or agents)? Perhaps they might try to create an arrangement where their football teams are licensed to other non-government entities.
But my OP was also trying to get at how much we think different kinds of players could command on an open market. Would they get $100K a year? 200K? Or something much lower? Would some be able to get $500K while others get nothing? It might be hard for conferences to decide to pay before they have some idea how much they would be on the hook for.
Would it be legal for a group of conferences to agree to an overall team salary cap as long as they don't cap any individual's pay? Must they wait for a Players' Association to form before they act, or can they get started unilaterally?
You want a cap, you have to get via collective bargaining. Doesn't matter if it is a total roster outlay cap or a player max.
That's the whole basis of current litigation on scholarship maximums.
(10-31-2018 04:24 PM)ken d Wrote: The lawsuit seeks only injunctive relief to allow each conference to make its own decision. So what exactly does that mean / require? The conferences must be allowed to make their own decision, but the NCAA wouldn't necessarily be required to allow them to remain in that organization. And no conference would be required to make players salaried employees.
At first, the conferences will all send their $5 million-per-year commissioners out to podiums to blather on about how amateurism is sacred and athletes should always play for nothing.
At some point in time, some school or some conference will break away from that and permit athletes to be paid for endorsements. Maybe coaches from big-name basketball programs pressure their conference(s) to let their star players openly take money from Nike or adidas or whomever. They'll say it's more healthy for the sport than having money passed through shady bagmen using burner phones and handing over cash inside a big SUV with darkened windows.
(10-31-2018 01:26 PM)Renandpat Wrote: They will be worth that ever the market will bear. In addition, what has yet to be discussed is the ability to generate money from their likeness/image/social media following. If you have say, 500K Instagram followers, there is a greater value in your influence than someone with 17K.
And very few of them are worth as much as they are getting now in scholarships. They are easily interchangeable.
A few are worth more, but I doubt you have more than a half dozen on any G5 team and none in FCS, Div II or Div III. You probably don't have 20 on any P5 team.
At most G5 schools Football players are worth roughly -$100K a year, since the athletic department subsidies (red ink) averages about $10M more a year than comparable Basketball only schools. At UConn it's closer to -$150K and at EMU closer to -$200K.
On the flip side, the average for schools like Ohio State, Texas, Texas A&M, Notre Dame and Alabama the same math says around $1M a year. Of Course overhead and brand name would probably reduce that by 2/3rds to maybe $350K. Probably less than half that at the average P5 school. Cut $50K out for room, board and tuition.
The problem however, like the NFL, there is considerable variance in individual player value. A deep bench special teams player, even at Ohio State, is not worth much, while a star player may be worth $2M. Market place value is really hard to estimate, as it's mixed with the school brand name.
players are making 100,000 yr between
schlorship-rm & board
Ins-medical, disablity, workmans comp,life,
cloths- sneakers, sweatsuits
football buildings- wieght rms, lounges
stipen, pells grant
tuturing & counsling
(This post was last modified: 11-01-2018 06:14 PM by templefootballfan.)
(11-01-2018 04:23 PM)templefootballfan Wrote: players are making 100,000 yr between
schlorship-rm & board
Ins-medical, disablity, workmans comp,life,
cloths- sneakers, sweatsuits
football buildings- wieght rms, lounges
stipen, pells grant
Add-professional quality training for those desiring to go to the NFL.
(11-01-2018 02:02 PM)Stugray2 Wrote: At most G5 schools Football players are worth roughly -$100K a year, since the athletic department subsidies (red ink) averages about $10M more a year than comparable Basketball only schools. At UConn it's closer to -$150K and at EMU closer to -$200K.
On the flip side, the average for schools like Ohio State, Texas, Texas A&M, Notre Dame and Alabama the same math says around $1M a year. Of Course overhead and brand name would probably reduce that by 2/3rds to maybe $350K. Probably less than half that at the average P5 school. Cut $50K out for room, board and tuition.
The problem however, like the NFL, there is considerable variance in individual player value. A deep bench special teams player, even at Ohio State, is not worth much, while a star player may be worth $2M. Market place value is really hard to estimate, as it's mixed with the school brand name.
How many of the people donating and buying tickets buy and donate because X is playing for the team?
When Lebron James changes teams, people go buy his jersey with his new team.
If the best player for Ohio State transfers to Michigan and the best player at Texas transfers to OU and the best player at Alabama transfers to Auburn how many people run out change their affiliation because of that?
If the fans stick with their team regardless of whether the best player sticks with the team, that player's value to the school isn't very much.
(11-01-2018 02:02 PM)Stugray2 Wrote: At most G5 schools Football players are worth roughly -$100K a year, since the athletic department subsidies (red ink) averages about $10M more a year than comparable Basketball only schools. At UConn it's closer to -$150K and at EMU closer to -$200K.
On the flip side, the average for schools like Ohio State, Texas, Texas A&M, Notre Dame and Alabama the same math says around $1M a year. Of Course overhead and brand name would probably reduce that by 2/3rds to maybe $350K. Probably less than half that at the average P5 school. Cut $50K out for room, board and tuition.
The problem however, like the NFL, there is considerable variance in individual player value. A deep bench special teams player, even at Ohio State, is not worth much, while a star player may be worth $2M. Market place value is really hard to estimate, as it's mixed with the school brand name.
How many of the people donating and buying tickets buy and donate because X is playing for the team?
When Lebron James changes teams, people go buy his jersey with his new team.
If the best player for Ohio State transfers to Michigan and the best player at Texas transfers to OU and the best player at Alabama transfers to Auburn how many people run out change their affiliation because of that?
If the fans stick with their team regardless of whether the best player sticks with the team, that player's value to the school isn't very much.
The value I assigned is how much net income (after expenses which are huge) a Football program brings the Athletic department, including donations. Then I just divided by 100, since the sundry staff, not just scholarship players are part of that.
Brand is most of the value. But the brand only keeps value by winning. So it is fair to assign a significant portion value to the players because "the Jimmies and the Joes" are what make the brand win and keep value. I then divided by about 2 or 3 to come to specific player value, since we are talking WOR.
For G5 schools, it's a subsidized activity and heavily subsidized. So the value of the players is negative.
(10-31-2018 08:51 AM)ken d Wrote: With conversation about college football moving toward the possibility that players might actually be paid at some time in the near future, I've been thinking about the financial implications of that change.
How many players would actually be good enough to command a salary over and above their scholarship?
How much might a star player command on the open market?
Or would schools pay all their players the same amount, the way they do now, regardless of ability or star power?
Would there be an entry level salary, with pay raises based on merit after that?
Would an offensive lineman who is eligible to go into the draft but who still has eligibilty left command a premium to stay in school?
How would you see this playing out?
If it goes that way nothing but the market will determine their value.
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How much are college football players worth?
