Yes, Rouge Agents Are Worse Than Pimps

Recently, Nick Saban put forth this idea that sport agents are worse than pimps. Several sports writers have questioned this idea. Apparently, they do not understand that the agents are making a bad situation worse by their behavior.

These writers usually start off with the high salaries of college football coaches. That is not a valid comparison. A coach is a professional with years of experience and bills to pay. A college athlete has, or it is would be unsual for an athlete to have, either one of these things. People have to remember that the costs of going to college is rather high. To dismiss the free education these athletes get as a small reward is quite insulting to the people who actually paid for their own education.

The next point generally is about the "billions" in revenue colleges get from these athletes. What is never explored is the actual profit earned by the colleges. This is quite difficult if not impossible to find out because colleges, as far as I know, are not required to disclose where the money goes. I take great offense to just using gross income to assume huge profits. I have personal experience in this false reporting. In 2003, the Wall Street Journal published an article about mortgage brokers. The article pointed out that all a broker had to do was pick up a ringing telephone, quote a rate and earn about $1000. If it was that simple I would still be a mortgage broker. Costs, getting loans approved and competetion were not even discussed. That is just one example of very poor reporting. When we do not know how the money is spent, we should not think about increasing the costs to colleges. Openly paying these spoiled athletes would only make a bad situation worse.

These articles usually point out the how these athletes are exploited by colleges. I am quite frankly amazed that this concept is still around. Reports about how spoiled these athletes are can be located anywhere. Athletes holding out for their own particular scheme or refusing to be hazed are prevalant in todays papers. Most of these people have not be told "no" in their lives. Rewarding bad behavior is not a way to fix issues with college sports.

I have a couple of ideas. First, if the college does not graduate at least 60 or 75% of it student athletes, then the college does not get to play in post season or get any money from their conference from post season games. Most conferences have some form of revenue sharing. Second, have people go to these colleges to make sure the student athletes go to classes. Again failure to comply means an automatic ban from any post season rewards. No exceptions and no arguements should be allowed. These ideas can be easily implemented and enforced. That is probably why the SEC schools will not want them.