march madness...

[7ontheline]

You explained your point better in your last post, so I do see what you mean. Apologies for any insulting tone I may have used. However, the sports leagues are different than other industries. The computer industry analogy is not completely apt - software companies do not need other software companies to survive. I'm sure Microsoft would love other companies to disappear (and they've tried). Sports teams need to exist within a league structure to play each other. I would say that the NFL and NBA do have it set up better than MLB - salaries come out of a common pool of revenues, with each team able to make money on its own through luxury boxes, concessions, etc. MLB is much more of a free-for-all which is reflected in its salary disparity.

This also comes down to the customer. The average person benefits if there are a lot of software companies, keeping prices down and quality up in general. However, the customer wants a good sporting product on the field. This is much less likely to happen if you eliminate the draft and allow teams to sign anyone they want. The high-revenue teams are going to win a lot more often, which will eventually drive out the low-revenue teams. You'd have a league of 6-8 superteams with supremely rich corporations or owners backing them, at which point the ticket prices would be astronomical to pay for the salaries. I'd say that this probably wouldn't benefit most of the customers. The leagues overall popularit would also likely suffer. For the salary-capped sports at least, I would say that the players and owners have established a business model which, if not completely fair, at least is stable and balanced allowing the league, individual teams, and the players to profit. The league has to act as a corporation at least in some ways to ensure the survival of the sport and individual teams.

I do think that a more free market approach would eventually lead to a steady state, with less teams than there are currently. Prices would eventually be balanced by lower profits. I think the resulting intervening instability would be more detrimental for the sport/players though, with no guarantee of a better outcome in the end. Again, this is where government support of the sports teams gets dicey. This forces taxpayers who don't care about the sports team to put money in. An ideal system would have the consumers who wanted the sports team bearing the cost of fielding a team.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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But I also wanted to point out something else that I find a bit absurd: the draft as these kids come out of college to the NBA/NFL/MLB, etc.

These kids are told: you aren't allowed to negotiate to sell your services to the highest bidder, like everyone else in non-communist countries.

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This argument is idiotic IMO, even though I agree college athletes are exploited. The NFL/MLB/NBA certainly have a lot of advantages they probably shouldn't (say, the MLB anti-trust exemption) but they are ultimately businesses. Nobody has a RIGHT to play professional sports. The draft is the hiring process for the leagues, and they are designed to keep the sport competitive. No one is going to watch the sport if EVERY year the same team keeps winning. It's in the interest of the pro leagues to have fans across the country, and that won't happen if your local team ALWAYS sucks. If the athlete doesn't like it, they can go play in the Arena league or Canada.

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you are missing the point. Are you going to argue that nobody has a RIGHT to work in the computer industry, so if the various software companies band together and set up a draft, and ban people from negotiating their hiring with whoever they want to work for (who wants to hire them)? Because that would be better for the companies and the people who use software?

The point is that it is illegal for companies to set up this sort of arrangement, because it inhibits competition, violates the rights of employees, and leads to exploitation. the ONLY exception is communist countries and professional sports. Your argument is that the whole league is one company, so it can hire however it wants. But the whole league is NOT one company, so if it were not for special antitrust exemptions they could not band together like this.

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Maybe think of it as the leage that's the employer, not the individual teams. If you're a football player, you can apply to work at the NFL, the CFL, or the AFL, maybe somewhere else. If you want to go to the NFL, you're an employee of the NFL and your direct boss is the team that you get assigned to. If you get drafted by Buffalo, then they're saying "we have a position available for you in Buffao." Take it or leave it. If you want to move somewhere else or get a pay raise or promotion, then you work for it and get it in a few years. If you don't like it, then decline the contract they're offering you and do something else - play in another league or go lay tile or something. Hey, here's an idea! You just graduated college - go use your degree! Oh, wait...

In my line of work, there are certain places that I can expect to get a job at. When I was offered a job with the company I'm at now, they offered me a position in San Diego. My now wife and I didn't want to live in San Diego for more than a few years. I took the job and worked toward an oppportunity in Denver. It's not that dissimilar.

[mmbt0ne]

All I know is that if you want to start paying the athletes, be ready for the cost to enjoy college athletics to skyrocket. Many middle of the road programs in big-name conferences are barely meeting expenses in their athletic departments, and it's not rare to see some running at a loss.

[IggyWH]

I'm in no way defending one way or another on this issue because I don't think it's a black & white thing. However, I love how people think college atheletes don't get paid.

Those one full rides get :

* Tuition + room & board

* A meal plan that will cover them eating 3 meals a day everyday. This isn't your typical college hall spread either and is usually just for athletes.

* Meal dollars where you can buy pretty much anything you'll need from somewhere on campus and most college area restaurants/stores will also accept these meal dollars (when I was in school it was $1,500 a semester)

* A monthly stipend, which when I was in school was ~$900 but I think it's now over $1000.

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So you're looking at $30,000 for state school tuition and board for a year. A meal plan that you can't really put a dollar amount on but let's just say $5 a meal so $5,000 for the year. Meal dollars of ~$5000 after summer semesters and $12,000 cash per year.

You're looking at these college kids getting $50,000 a year min. This doesn't even try including all the perks they get, such as free clothes, free books and other things.

Sure, your superstars are worth more than $50,000, but on average, that doesn't seem all that bad for your average kid.

[gumpzilla]

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Sure, your superstars are worth more than $50,000, but on average, that doesn't seem all that bad for your average kid.

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Well, they aren't your average kid, though. And in some kind of system where the stars are the ones who are actually getting paid, the value of the education itself seems like it's going to be a lot lower than the sticker price.

[IggyWH]

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Sure, your superstars are worth more than $50,000, but on average, that doesn't seem all that bad for your average kid.

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Well, they aren't your average kid, though. And in some kind of system where the stars are the ones who are actually getting paid, the value of the education itself seems like it's going to be a lot lower than the sticker price.

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I'm looking at it in a more overall picture, such as all the women sports who get full rides and don't really generate any revenue (and for the most part lose revenue for the schools).

Sure, the superstars are getting screwed, but if you take all athletes on average at a school that are on full rides, $50,000 is decent money.

Notice that full rides also aren't just given to superstars. Your average walk-on on all these 300+ D1 basketball teams end up getting full rides after a year. Same goes with football.

[gumpzilla]

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Notice that full rides also aren't just given to superstars. Your average walk-on on all these 300+ D1 basketball teams end up getting full rides after a year. Same goes with football.

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Of course, but it's the stars that would be most likely to get paid significant amounts, and so I think those are the ones to focus on.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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Notice that full rides also aren't just given to superstars. Your average walk-on on all these 300+ D1 basketball teams end up getting full rides after a year. Same goes with football.

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Of course, but it's the stars that would be most likely to get paid significant amounts, and so I think those are the ones to focus on.

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Don't forget they're also given a national stage on which to give themselves the opportunity to get into the major professional leagues and earn batrillions of dollars. I don't feel bad for them. Consider it an internship.

[IggyWH]

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Notice that full rides also aren't just given to superstars. Your average walk-on on all these 300+ D1 basketball teams end up getting full rides after a year. Same goes with football.

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Of course, but it's the stars that would be most likely to get paid significant amounts, and so I think those are the ones to focus on.

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I think this is the main problem when people talk about paying college athletes. They only want to talk about the superstars, but superstars make up less than 1% of all college athletes.