Why The Capitalism Argument on Pay for Play Doesn't Work
"This is America! Of course student-athletes should be paid for playing sports. They are the ones who sweat out the wins and the losses. They are the ones who produce all the labor. Did you ever hear of capitalism, for crying out loud? The laborer should be paid for his work."
That is the more strident version of the capitalism argument for why student-athletes in intercollegiate athletics should be paid, and pay for play is one of the most frequently asked questions I encounter from audiences during speaking engagements. There are other arguments for pay for play (the fairness issue is one I'll take up in another posting), but capitalism is usually the first one.
It has merit.
This is America, and we do believe in capitalism. We see it as the best and fairest way to generate consumer product. We are convinced it promotes hard work, competition, innovation and quality of life. And it does. It has its flaws. It has a tendency to produce large gaps between the haves and the have-nots; but it does encourage a strong work ethic, and I wouldn't trade capitalism for any other economic model as a structure in which business operates.
But it isn't a workable approach for every aspect of American life. We don't apply it, for example, to churches or charities. And we don't use capitalism as the model for how education works. With some few exceptions, American higher education does not function within a capitalistic structure.
It isn't that money is not important to higher education. It is; even big money. It's not uncommon for large state universities with hospitals for teaching future doctors to have annual budgets in the $3 to $4 billion range. It takes a lot of money to run a large university and provide a quality education. But they do not operate within a capitalistic structure. They are purpose driven; not profit driven.
If they were profit driven, campuses would have to give up many courses of study that are essential to a university education, including (God forbid!) my discipline -- philosophy. Why would they have to give up some studies? Because they are "loss units" that have to be subsidized from other revenue-generating courses of study or other services, and that isn't a sound capitalistic approach.
Higher education offers a comprehensive range of study because its purpose is to educate a population of future leaders who will enhance society as a whole based on a broad body of knowledge and skills. There is educational value to offering even that which is not profitable.
The same is true of intercollegiate athletics. Football and men's basketball are the only two college sports that consistently have revenues that exceed expenses; and even then, not all football or men's basketball programs generate enough revenue to cover costs. All the other sports have to be subsidized. And all but about 20 Division I universities have to subsidize from their general funds because athletics doesn't generate enough to cover expenses.
That flies in the face of the popularly held perception that intercollegiate athletics -- think of all those television contracts, all that bowl money, all the merchandizing -- are awash is excess revenue. It just isn't so.
The money from football and men's basketball (and only 60 to 70 percent of those programs actually cover their own costs) are helping pay the way for the other sports. Adding a budget line for salaries in those two sports would undoubtedly mean cutting sports -- first for men and then for women.
So what! Why worry about the other sports?
Here is the answer and the critical point: Because there is educational value in participating in sports. Athletics is one of the essential co-curricular activities that teaches important life skills -- team work and hard work, persistence and resilience, self-sacrifice and self-discipline and pursuit of excellence in life. Those are skills that are important to the individual and to society at large. We want to maximize the number of students who learn these skills, not cut programs in order to pay salaries to a few.
So, the capitalism argument doesn't work for a variety of reasons. It favors the few over the broader interests of the many. It is based on a false perception that there is sufficient revenue to pay student-athletes even in football and men's basketball to play the sports. And most importantly, it tries to impose an economic structure on higher education and intercollegiate athletics that runs contrary to the way in which they do business.
The critic will respond, "But it just isn't fair. What about everyone who is making money?"
That's the topic for the next post.
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“It's a really big thing for the players to be honored here tonight. There are no losers out of this. Success or failure in football doesn't matter, they're both not permanent. It's what you turn your life into that matters.”
Dan Hooks
". And we don't use capitalism as the model for how education works. With some few exceptions, American higher education does not function within a capitalistic structure.
does the poster know that most tenure-track positions have been replaced by adjunct faculty? (cheap intellectual labor with no benefits). the poster doesn't seem too familiar
with today's universities, from the ivy league all the way across the board.
I have always supported the following plan:
(a) small stipends (or per diems) for all players to use when they travel for contests or team-related activities;
(b) for football and basketball players (the revenue-generators) payment of a modest salary into a trust fund to be accessed only after the player has graduated from that institution or a subsequent one;
(c) the players should be allowed to take 5 years to graduate as many get red-shirted and the amount of time they spend on their sport provides good reason to give them the extra year.
If tha amounts are modest, I think Brand's concerns may be addressed.
What are universities for? I thought they existed to further educate young and not-so-young adults. Student athletics isn't an academic venture -- it is a business.
The solution is to get the NFL and NBA's minor leagues off the college campuses and make these leagues pay for the development of their new stars. Then we could pay students who turn up and get decent grades!
> Here is the answer and the critical point: Because there is educational value in participating in sports.
I agree that playing sports has educational value, but what percentage of the student body is allowed to participate in sports at this level?
And what percentage of student athletes are able to fully participate in the other educational opportunities at these institutions? Even at small (e.g., third tier) schools, student athletes miss significant amounts of class time and often are unable to keep up with their studies because of the massive amount of time required to excel in their sports. Many pass courses only because the athletic department has exercised its power of "persuasion" on individual faculty members.
College atheletics, as currently practiced is a lose-lose proposition. The only clear winners are the sometimes handsomely compensated coaches and the college administrators who are more interested in athletic prowess than academic success.
I totally disagree with this article, anyone who has played a major sport in college knows how much work and sacrafice the athlete makes. The universities are making millions of dollars off of the backs of these athletes and the athlete shld get a piece of the financial rewards. Chris Webber's jersey made millions of dollars for Michigan U and he got none of it. You think this is fair? The coaches make millions and the athletes get none of it? It is ridiculous for anyone to suggest that college sports is anything other than what it is , exploitation. We shld all gather around and watch migrant workers pick tomatoes it is the same concept.
At Stanford, the wrestling team got its funding cut whiile the football players were put up in hotels for HOME GAMES. Many of the football players got a free ride to a school that they otherwise would have never gotten into. They were some of the dumbest and most unruly members of my classes. My education cost enough already, I would have been pissed to see some of that money go to football and basketball players. The Google guys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, brought Stanford hundreds of millions of dollars with the PageRank patent, and they didn't get paid directly for their efforts by the school. Why are athletes being exploited anymore by, say, doctoral students?
The solution is not to pay "student athletes" but to replace the big time college sports with professional minor-league systems. Baseball has done that for years. Then there won't be the need to universities to maintain the charade that many of the "student athletes" they exploit are qualified to attend.
Once set up as a professional minor-league system, this philosophical conflict between capitalism and the academic world will vanish—though it will still leave others.
Some will argue that atheletic scholarships are sometimes the only way that young people can afford to get through college; however, I would be surprised if the number of times that an athletic scholarship *successfully* puts a student through college is only slightly higher than the number of Reagan's Cadillac-driving welfare queens. A fairer and more cost-effective way can and should be found to allow qualified students to attend and complete college.
I totally agree. It's ridiculous the way people romanticize and generalize capitalism. The proposal of paying student-athletes is ridiculous to me. Just because someone exerts effort doesn't mean it's a job. It has to be productive, and this isn't. (Don't get me started on regular pro sports.)
This, it seems to me, is an incredibly shallow post. Brand repeats arguments made by big-time universities for years. For those same years there has been no data to back up the arguments. If the goal is to teach "team work and hard work, persistence and resilience, self-sacrifice and self-discipline and pursuit of excellence in life" to a maximum number of students is intercollegiate athletics, which serves a tiny number of students the way to do it? Do we really know that athletics teaches "team work" etc. at all? And if it does, isn't this something that can and should be learned K-12 and not at the college level? Doesn't intramurals or recreational programming or club sports teach the same concept at far less cost? Do colleges attract good students and faculties because of their sports programs? How does the University of Chicago manage to survive? What about all those European universities without football teams? What is really happening is that universities are interested in keeping alumni happy and and milking them for cash. Even that argument is weak. Do alumni give for medical research, for example, because the football team is a BCS contender? If so, where's the data?
One thing that Mr. Brand ignores is the talent drain from NCAA basketball and, to a lesser extent, football. When a talented athlete decides to play at a college, in the back of his mind he knows he is one injury away from ending his sports career. Combine that with no pay and it is no wonder that UCLA's Kevin Love for example, left for the pros. A "Minor League" sports division run by the college power houses of Football and Basketball has an upside in returning talent to teams that would otherwise never stay in College sports. Kareem Jabbar and Bill Walton never would have stayed with UCLA like they did during the John Wooden era. I would like to see those days come back.
To me all 'athletic' scholarships ought to be ended. The money should go to qualified scholars, not someone who is well below acacemic qualifications for a given school because they can play Football or Basketball at a high level.
There is plenty of data to support the fact that athletes actually graduate at HIGHER levels than non-athletes. They are, by all rights, scholars who are there for education first and athletics second. Additionally, athletes must meet minimum NCAA and university requirements before being accepted. Look at Brandon Jennings. All evidence pointed to the fact that his SAT scores wouldn't qualify him to play in college. He opted out and signed a seven figure contract to play in Europe. Sure, there are some athletes that may not be as intelligent as their peers, but there is ample evidence that athletics play an important role in creating leaders who excel both in the classroom and on the field.
For your purposes, you are pooling in sports that generate money like football and basketball with sports that don't generate money like gymnastics, crew, track & field. I bet your findings would be different if you broke them out.
Actually this is not factually correct. The comparison of graduation rates is with all students as a whole. If you change the parameter to students that attended the university for three years or more there is a sharp difference between Athletes and the regular student body. It is not a question of whether the athletes are as intelligent as their peers. Sen. Bill Bradley, who played for Princeton and the championship Knicks is incredibly smart. The problem is that the pro-leagues and the NCAA have conspired to force players to use the Universities as the minor league route to the pros. If they are to be used as a minor league, they should be paid minor league rates.
Given the extremely high drop-out rate for open-admission schools, this isn't saying much. At the local four-year college, 45% of the students are gone within their first year. The reasons are varied, but the inability to afford the costs is probably a signficant factor.
I don't see why it wouldn't work for football and basketball at the D-I level because these schools bank off of these kids and don't allow the athletes to have jobs outside of school.
The NCAA is the single most ineffective, myopic and backward non-governmental organization in America.
Brand is raising a red herring that doesn't even come close to addressing the real issue.
Without some form of pay-for-play in the premier sport, football, at the larger institutions, there is a real risk that the goslings of the geese that lay the NCAA's golden eggs will one day win their court ruling and voila!
No more pigskin product for the NCAA and the University Presidents to sell to the media at a Billion-dollar plus rate each year.
College athletes are, as a class, exploited. They get no payment for their work and most drop out of college before graduating.
Dropping out has little to do with not getting a small payment.
By dropping out they give up the only payment offered - an education.
But they are not chosen for their prospects of academic success but because they can play football.
It is exploitation, pure and simple.
I think your claim that most drop out before they graduate is demonstrably false. Do you have any proof to support your assertion?
Despite the enlightened climate attributed to big universities, they are really built on a base of student exploitation not much better than the worker exploitation that is all too common in the commercial world. Many universities would cease to function effectively if they did not have a pool of teaching "assistants" working for subsistence wages and usually no benefits. In some schools, the "assistant' is the sole instructor for the class while in others the "assistants" provide all the direct student contact where the courses are taught by regular faculty in arena-sized classrooms. Across the country, big-name universities have bitterly fought attempts by their teaching "assistants" to unionize. In addition, the more highly-valued research at universities would grind to a halt if highly-educated graduate students were not putting in long hours at subsistence wages to put their advisor's name on papers and provide support for their grant work.
um..... How about the fact that most of the student athletes in the football and basketball programs are getting at least a reduced cost to attend the school, and many are not paying a DIME!!!
Yeah, well that half-scholarship is costing the school essentially play money--less than what the school will pay out to have a knee pronounced bum and buy the kid a one-way bus ticket home. Work-study is far less cost efficient.
And they should, explain to me one reason why they shouldn't.
Student A from the burbs pays $10,000
Student B from the burbs gets a free ride and makes his school millions in revenue
You're right. We should continue to treat athletes as though they are somehow better than other humans. Treat them like special little people. Nothing could go wrong with that. Like, drugs, shootings, jail time, dog fights, steroids. These people have everything handed to them and many believe they are super-human and above the law. Meanwhile most can't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a floodlight. But, let's continue to worship athletes and the money they produce. Good thinking.
So should doctoral candidates be paid any time their research (which under the current model is owned by the school) leads to income? Should famous alumni be paid for attracting applicants to the school?
If the athletes are being paid, then surely the cheerleaders, the band, the college radio announcer, the student newspaper that writes them up.. should all have get a slice of the pie.
I'm actually not opposed to the scholarship program. In fact, I think that it's a great way for schools to get the best talent. However, to ignore that and insist that schools should PAY the athletes is moronic!
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