A Scholarship Is Nice, but College Athletes Should Still Be Paid

I enjoyed the interesting piece written by Michael Collins describing why he feels that a scholarship is more than enough for college athletes. 

I don’t want to get into a back and forth with him or anyone else on this topic, since I am not sure how productive that would be.  I think that when it comes to this interesting issue, we should present the evidence, information and ideas, and allow people to come to their own conclusions. Even if I disagree with his opinions, you should know that I respect and appreciate them.

In his article, Collins mentions many of the same arguments used by NCAA President Myles Brand regarding why it is impossible, devastating and ultimately wrong to compensate college athletes.  He mentions the high cost of college tuition, the complications of implementing a fair compensation system, and how the NCAA is ultimately protecting the athletes and their families from the strife that they themselves are willing to endure in order to keep us watching exciting games on Saturday afternoon.

How noble of them.

When it comes to the NCAA, simplicity is the best approach.  You see, anyone attempting to withhold resources from another individual or group of people will always find a long list of complicated reasons that they can’t pay you: they are protecting you in some way, they need the money, they’ve already spent your money elsewhere, the list goes on and on.  That might be what you call the “it would be too complicated to figure out how to pay you” argument.  The truth, however, is if there is money to be made, the NCAA finds a way around all the complications.  When it is time to negotiate the complications of getting a $4 million dollar per year coach onto campus, the NCAA finds a way to get the deal done.  When they have to negotiate multi-year TV rights deals, international broadcast restrictions, and complex zoning regulations in order to prepare for the Final Four, they get it done.  But when the athletes come to the table demanding their share of the gravy train, the response suddenly becomes “we can’t figure out how to make it work, it’s just too complicated!”  This form of intellectual laziness is problematic from an organization that has gobs of PhDs in its association.  

Then there is the “we can’t afford to pay you” argument. Let’s be clear: The NCAA makes money, lots of it. Their annual revenues are in line with the NBA, NFL and NHL.  So, the notion that we should, for one second, feel sorry for them because they are losing money is tough to imagine. If the NCAA were not making money, they would not be paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the building of elaborate stadiums, the purchase of luxury homes for their coaches, or the massive compensation packages of marketing and promotional teams.  The same humility and financial conservatism they expect from the athletes (many of whom have families in dire poverty) is not mirrored by their own extravagant behavior.

Then there is the following argument: “What about Title IX and the fact that we’ve already spent YOUR SHARE of the money paying for every sport across campus? (Please share this with your mother as she is getting evicted from her house)” Issues such