Hey brother, can you spare a dime?

The amount of money that trades hands in any commercially viable sport enterprise is staggering.The NFL is the most lucrative league in the world with a revenue for 2013 at just over 9 billion dollars. Each NFL team is worth, on average, 1.7 billion dollars. That is close to twice as much as the average worth of the top 20 soccer teams around the world (968 Million). The big money college sports aren't doing to bad themselves. When the University of Utah and the University of Colorado joined the then Pac-10 to create the Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott inked a television deal with Fox Sports that was to pay the new conference 3 Billion dollars over 12 years. In essence each team would be paid roughly 21 million a year just for being in the conference. Compare that to the U of U's 1.2 million dollar piece of the Mountain West Conference pie and you can see that they have done quite well for themselves.

In the past few years there has been an increase in the calls for NCAA athletes to be able to "get paid" while participating in their sports as "amateurs". In fairness it mainly comes from the Football and mens basketball players because they are the ones largely responsible for the large television deals, bowl game prize money, March Madness bonuses, and University endorsement deals with Nike, Reebok, Under Armour, Etc. Whenever I hear about college athletes asking to get paid I get annoyed to the point of anger. They don't have to pay for school, room and board are provided, as is world class training and medical care, AND they want to be paid too. Give me a Break. I work two jobs, go to school full time and raise a family and nobody is offering me any of the perks these athletes are given. Of course I am also not a highly talented athlete either but that is besides the point. Or is that the point

It occurs to me that I may be misunderstanding the intent of the argument. Would it be less offensive to term the plea for money differently? What if athletes were allowed to make money on themselves, like the university is doing, instead of the University paying a salary or stipend? This creates a fair market system that pays the players who are recognizable (and more profitable) and keeps the football revenue where it belongs; supporting the other sports on campus who aren't making any money like cross country skiing, swimming, and women's soccer. I would have less of a problem if the athletes were making money signing autographs and making paid public appearances than if their University had to give them yet another means of compensation. Texas A&M makes a profit on the sale of a Johnny Manzeil jersey in the bookstore so why shouldn't "Johnny Football" be able to enjoy some of the money from something like that. The jersey wouldn't be as valuable without the attachment to him. Or be allowed to spend some time signing autographs and selling those.


 
(tigerboard.com)

Another option would be to allow individual athletes to accept endorsement deals. Yes it violates "amateurism" but lets be honest, unfair advantage is a term the NCAA compliance office uses to say "they broke the rules." If they honestly think that there is an even playing field between a quarterback at the University of Alabama and the quarterback at New Mexico State they may not be sports fans or else they are delusional. While I consider the benefits enjoyed by collegiate  athletes to be excessive (as well as the benefits afforded to professional athletes, actors, and politicians) I can see the argument for allowing the top name collegiate athletes to be paid, but not by the school.