Paying Players

[CyDude16]

No college tuition debt when they graduate
Don't pay for books
STIPENDS
Room and Board
Meal Plans
Academic help that is free i.e. tutor, academic success center services
Clothes
Easier class loads, sad but true for a majority of athletes, not all.

Pretty sure thats quite the rate of return for the commitment they make year round.

But no thats unfair, the athletes need to be paid!!!

[IcSyU]

Pay them... it's pretty easy to see that multiple interests make millions from their play! Maybe not at ISU but elsewhere. Pay them, tuition is not enough for their exploits

It isn't just tuition.

Room and board.
Food.
Clothes.
Stipend.
Books.
Free tutors.

Heck, if most of them got a real degree in something useful they'd really have it made.

I make about $30,000 per month (give or take) in revenue for my employer. I don't get anything CLOSE to that in salary. Athletes, welcome to the real world.

STIPENS

There's a 'd' in there after the 'n' there, skip.

Honest question: How many people on this board had the money to buy whatever they wanted in college? How many of you actually worked if you wanted to buy something? How many of you had loans if you wanted something?

I don't feel a bit of sympathy for athletes. You get paid to lift weights, watch video, practice, rarely get a degree that will get you anywhere, and come out of school with zero debt all while having your living expenses covered (within reason). The average student at Iowa State takes a full class load, earns some kind of degree, and walks out with $30,000+ in debt, and has to pay for their food, clothes, housing, tuition, books, etc.

[ruxCYtable]

Fourteen years ago, the maximum Pell Grant award was $2700 per year and the average award was $1700. It's never been higher than it is right now ($5500 per year max).

I just passed on what I was told. Maybe there was some other aid included in that $4500 figure. All I know is what I was told by the boyfriend, which was that she received over $18k in aid that went straight into her pocket and had zero for expenses.

Even if it had been half that amount, I know I could have lived pretty well on $9k a year if I had no expenses when I was in college.

[Tre4ISU]

Pay them... it's pretty easy to see that multiple interests make millions from their play! Maybe not at ISU but elsewhere. Pay them, tuition is not enough for their exploits

So how long until people see that we already do pay them? They don't pay for a single frickin thing they need. All they have to pay for are the extras. According to the following, ISU is right around $5000 a semester paid as a stipend. That includes your housing payment though, I would guess. I lived in probably one of the most expensive places in Ames (Cyclone Plaza) and it cost me less than 6K per year. So, using that, then there's $4000 extra. I don't know if all that is correct but if the money is simply managed a little, it should be plenty.

CFB Explainer: How do scholarships and stipends work, again? - Dr. Saturday - NCAAF*Blog - Yahoo! Sports

[IcSyU]

So how long until people see that we already do pay them? They don't pay for a single frickin thing they need. All they have to pay for are the extras. According to the following, ISU is right around $5000 a semester paid as a stipend. That includes your housing payment though, I would guess. I lived in probably one of the most expensive places in Ames (Cyclone Plaza) and it cost me less than 6K per year. So, using that, then there's $4000 extra. I don't know if all that is correct but if the money is simply managed a little, it should be plenty.

CFB Explainer: How do scholarships and stipends work, again? - Dr. Saturday - NCAAF*Blog - Yahoo! Sports

Knowing a few athletes, it's a little bit more than that right now. I have a really expensive apartment ($1,200ish after rent + utilities + DTV for 2 of us) and that'd still leave me with $240ish extra per month. That's a ton of money when you don't need to buy clothes nor do you really need to buy food. Throw in the fact that the majority of the athletes don't live in apartments that expensive, and they have a ton of extra money. A bunch of the football players live in West Ames in 4 bedroom apartments that are $1,200/month + utilities, basically leaving them clearing about $500/month.

[Skyh13]

This along with Title 9 shoot a huge hole in paying College athletes.

Bingo. And honestly, that's a good thing.

I was watching Chicago Tribune Live the other day, and as much as I disagree with him and think that most of the time he's a complete idiot, David Kaplan made some GREAT points about paying players.

First thing he said was, "Okay, what about female athletes? Then they should get paid, too."

And the other sports writers were arguing "No, that's impossible", "the schools couldn't pay for it", etc etc. They tried to argue that men's basketball and football bring in money, so they should be the one's being paid. And Kaplan says "What about the UConn women?"

If you're going to start paying players, it's gotta be fair. The athletes for sports outside of men's basketball and football work very hard, too, and just because it isn't a billion dollar industry doesn't mean they should be ignored. These are still Universities, right? Not Pro sports?

This is aside from the fact that, again I agreed with Kaplan, paying players wouldn't solve a **** thing. It isn't going to stop boosters from trying to pay players even MORE to play for a school, and isn't necessarily going to stop a player from trying to get extra money by selling autographs or something. IMO, people who think paying players will alleviate these problems are just fooling themselves.

[CyJack13]

Every pay the players proposal I've seen so far calls for equal pay for all football players. Can anyone give me a reason why the fifth string tight end deserves as much as the starting QB? If you come to college and under perform and are a backup your whole career, why the hell should you get any extra money? Shouldn't you be paying money back to the school?

[flycy]

You really dont know what it is like to be be a Division 1 athlete. First of all, all athletes do not qualify for Pell Grants. As far as working, I know first hand of players with summer jobs working 30-40 hrs/wk and alot of times into the evening To 10-11 o'clock and weekends. Now do you get up at five in the morning to lift weights and work out to be followed by a rushed breakfast and then to class,followed by afternoon volunteer work and study time, and time spent during the week for passing league and running. They are required to be on campus. They have one week after classes end in spring to come home and another at the end of July before starting preseason camp. As far as working in the fall they cant. They carry a full caseload and + for many with the same early morning lift schedule and meetings/pracitice/treatment etc. starting at approx. 1:30PM and extending into the evening followed by supper and then study with some sleep and start all over. Dont forget the time for travel and missed work that they also have to make up. THIS IS A FULL TIME JOB PLUS SCHOOL. THEY DESERVE WHAT THEY WORK SO HARD FOR. Not saying that they should be paid but money is tight if no grants. Now does is sound like you could handle this job with its physical demands on top of all this. Dont criticize unless you have been in their shoes!!

They already get everything they need. Tuition, room & board. I'm not concerned about 'spending money'. I did not have spending money when I went to school because all my money went to the things they already have paid for. I also did not recieve pell grants and did not get money from home I know what it is like for money to be tight. These are amateurs, they should not be paid in any way. If you don't want to play for love of the game, you should not be playing. Yes I recognize that they cannot work most of the year, but recognize that the compensation they already receive exceeds what they would be able to make working the same hours. Most of the talking heads advocating this are former college Div 1 atheletes so no surprise what their opinions are. If players are paid, I'm done with college sports, just like I have no interest in the olympics since paid atheletes were allowed in.

[temperflare]

I wish those of you who are proponents of paying players were equally as passionate about the pay for enlisted men and women in the military. They only defend this country at a fraction of the pay and compensation that these "hard working" athletes get. And considering their lives are on the line... I'd say student athletes are welcome to shut up.

I don't see anyone going to bat for those students in research who come up with innovative ideas and technology that become intellectual property of the universities and the universities make millions as a result of those students' efforts. You don't see or hear those kids ******** and whining about not being compensated enough.

I feel no sympathy for student athletes.

[FootballinTexas]

Once again, I'm not advocating paying players. However, if the ATHLETIC department wants to give an additional stipend during the season I'm ok with it. You do understand that the Athletic department's budget is separate from the university's general fund. So, the money paid out for their tuition, books, housing, meals is money that the players have generated from playing their sport, tv revenue, apparel, ticket revenue, etc. BTW, that money is paid to the university and it benefits non-student athletes like you. Believe me, these kids pay for their college experience. Maybe it's not what you had to do and they come out of it debt free, but they do pay for their education.

Now, if you don't like what they get and how it's handled, stop supporting athletics or just petition to have athletics removed from the university. I will tell you this, without athletics, you would be in much greater debt because cost of tuition would be much higher. The 2011 projected athletic department payment to the university for scholarships, facilities, utilities, meals, etc is $16.7 million. If athletics were dropped, ISU would have to increase your costs to make that up. So, don't ***** about paying an increased ticket costs or players getting a little extra. That's far less than what your debt increase would be. Or.........just quit supporting athletics!

[iahawkhunter]

I don't know if this has been suggested yet (and apologies if it has), but what about a royalty payment post-graduation? This could be something to allow the athlete to get a cut of the money their participation and/or likeness generated for the school/NCAA/EA/etc. Doing something like this could allow the compensation to reflect the sport's popularity and player ability (no one buys Madden so they can be the third-string tight end in career-mode). I imagine that there are some sports fanatics out there who would get their jollies out of developing some set of equations to determine the royalty owed to each player. Additionally, if graduation (or at least completion of their years of eligibility) were required to get the royalty check we may see more athletes sticking it out in college and not jumping ship to the pros.

[Tre4ISU]

Once again, I'm not advocating paying players. However, if the ATHLETIC department wants to give an additional stipend during the season I'm ok with it. You do understand that the Athletic department's budget is separate from the university's general fund. So, the money paid out for their tuition, books, housing, meals is money that the players have generated from playing their sport, tv revenue, apparel, ticket revenue, etc. BTW, that money is paid to the university and it benefits non-student athletes like you. Believe me, these kids pay for their college experience. Maybe it's not what you had to do and they come out of it debt free, but they do pay for their education.

Now, if you don't like what they get and how it's handled, stop supporting athletics or just petition to have athletics removed from the university. I will tell you this, without athletics, you would be in much greater debt because cost of tuition would be much higher. The 2011 projected athletic department payment to the university for scholarships, facilities, utilities, meals, etc is $16.7 million. If athletics were dropped, ISU would have to increase your costs to make that up. So, don't ***** about paying an increased ticket costs or players getting a little extra. That's far less than what your debt increase would be. Or.........just quit supporting athletics!

No one was ********. No one said they get too much. I just don't think they are underpaid. They are getting a lot if they decide to use the free education. Now, if they don't do that then I suppose you didn't get much. As for your last paragraph, our AD will soon become self sufficient for the first time. They were taking some money from other places.

[FootballinTexas]

I wish those of you who are proponents of paying players were equally as passionate about the pay for enlisted men and women in the military. They only defend this country at a fraction of the pay and compensation that these "hard working" athletes get. And considering their lives are on the line... I'd say student athletes are welcome to shut up.

I don't see anyone going to bat for those students in research who come up with innovative ideas and technology that become intellectual property of the universities and the universities make millions as a result of those students' efforts. You don't see or hear those kids ******** and whining about not being compensated enough.

I feel no sympathy for student athletes.

I support increased pay for military, police, firemen, and teachers. And I understand that our military defends our country. But, all of these groups put their lives on the line every day. That's their job. And WE are very proud to do it!

BTW, I don't know of any student-athlete that's complaining about not getting paid. This stuff was started by others.

[IcSyU]

Once again, I'm not advocating paying players. However, if the ATHLETIC department wants to give an additional stipend during the season I'm ok with it. You do understand that the Athletic department's budget is separate from the university's general fund. So, the money paid out for their tuition, books, housing, meals is money that the players have generated from playing their sport, tv revenue, apparel, ticket revenue, etc. BTW, that money is paid to the university and it benefits non-student athletes like you. Believe me, these kids pay for their college experience. Maybe it's not what you had to do and they come out of it debt free, but they do pay for their education.

Now, if you don't like what they get and how it's handled, stop supporting athletics or just petition to have athletics removed from the university. I will tell you this, without athletics, you would be in much greater debt because cost of tuition would be much higher. The 2011 projected athletic department payment to the university for scholarships, facilities, utilities, meals, etc is $16.7 million. If athletics were dropped, ISU would have to increase your costs to make that up. So, don't ***** about paying an increased ticket costs or players getting a little extra. That's far less than what your debt increase would be. Or.........just quit supporting athletics!

It sounds to me like you're advocating paying players. They're making over $40,000 in "income" per year. Most of them don't pay squat for their "education." Look at the football roster right now and tell me what percentage of the players have a degree where they'll be able to do something with their lives post-graduation. They "pay" for their education through horrible exploits like practicing, lifting, etc., a choice they made. This keeps them from having to have a real job so they don't come out in debt up to their eyeballs like the average Iowa State student. Oh my gosh! They don't have the money to have a 60" TV, a new car, rims on that car, a sound system, a video game system, and everything else they don't need. The horror!

And Iowa State wouldn't need to increase that much to maintain the current level. The athletics department isn't paying for me to go to school. They are paying directly for the athletes. Without the athletes, you don't need to pay up scholarships, facilities, utilities, meals, etc. The athletics department isn't just cutting the general fund a few million dollars in a check and saying, "well, here ya go! Glad we could donate that!"

I don't know if this has been suggested yet (and apologies if it has), but what about a royalty payment post-graduation? This could be something to allow the athlete to get a cut of the money their participation and/or likeness generated for the school/NCAA/EA/etc. Doing something like this could allow the compensation to reflect the sport's popularity and player ability (no one buys Madden so they can be the third-string tight end in career-mode). I imagine that there are some sports fanatics out there who would get their jollies out of developing some set of equations to determine the royalty owed to each player. Additionally, if graduation (or at least completion of their years of eligibility) were required to get the royalty check we may see more athletes sticking it out in college and not jumping ship to the pros.

Only if the "royalty" check is bigger than a signing bonus for the pros. Not a good idea.

[jl112481]

WOW! Thanks to everyone for giving your view on the topic. I wanted to spark some debate and see what the view points were of most people. Reading this was great. There was a lot of information that I never really knew about. As I said from the start I didn't really have an opinion one way or the other. I seem to be the only one as it seems to be a very passionate topic. Although now that I know more about how much the athletes do get I would probably lean toward not paying anything additional.