Paying Players

[TedKumsher]

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!

1) Additional stipend? Like they don't get enough now?
2) If the athletic department went away COMPLETELY, you'd be VERY hard pressed to ever convince me that tuition would increase at all. You point out $16.7 million that athletics pay the university. You don't have any figure for the amount of expenses that's being used to reimburse. It's like the difference between your gross income, your adjusted gross income, and your net income. Guess what -- if the athletic department went away, there would no longer be scholarships that need to be reimbursed, nor facilites, utilities, meals, etc. that the $16.7 million is for.

2b) And even if you are correct that there would be some absolute maximum of $675/student increase in tuition for ISU, this is seriously only an argument for a small upper percentage of universities that aren't revenue neutral or revenue short.

 

[TedKumsher]

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.

I think any athlete that violates the rules by (as 1 tiny example) selling memorabilia is effectively "complaining" about not getting paid. Unless "others" are forcing athletes to violate the rules.

 

[cyinne]

I understand that these players help universities bring in a bunch of money. But, most of their expenses are paid for. They have not only their school and books, but rent and endless food on campus. What's not paid for is going to the bar, getting tattoos, buying clothes at the mall and electronics at Best Buy. I'm not going to say that the players shouldn't have those things, but they do get some stipend money for that. What I would suggest is upping the stipend an extra $100 a month DURING THE SEASON when they can't have jobs. Say FB season is 6 months, that's $600x85 players = $51k. That seems reasonable and affordable. I would guess that most schools have less than 200 scholarship athletes, that would put the money around $120k. That kind of money would not force any schools to drop sports or drop down to 1AA. It would give athletes a little bit of pocket money to spend when they can't have jobs. But if you don't make it across the board for all of D1, you open up a Pandora's Box that will destroy college sports.

Yes, I know that you are only talking about the 85 scholarship players, but what about the other 20 "walk-on's" that make up the 105 man roster for fall camp, or the additional 20-25 that are added to the squad after school starts? Do they not get paid? It isnt fair to pay the 85 that get scholarships and not the additional 40-45 kids that "walk-on."

 

[Tre4ISU]

Yes, I know that you are only talking about the 85 scholarship players, but what about the other 20 "walk-on's" that make up the 105 man roster for fall camp, or the additional 20-25 that are added to the squad after school starts? Do they not get paid? It isnt fair to pay the 85 that get scholarships and not the additional 40-45 kids that "walk-on."

Sure it would be. That's why they are called walk ons.

The whole thing isn't possible. How is a school like ISU going to be able to afford to pay every athlete an added stipend? They aren't. What about a school like NIU? How are they going to do it?

You know what I find comfort in? I find comfort in the fact that I am pretty confident that at ISU, there are very few shenanigans. I don't belive we are comepletly clean. I don't think anyone is but it's a different culture here. We don't have a bunch of boosters running around paying people. I would guess things go on but no one is giving out cars to a third of the football team. The teams that pay the kids are often the ones that can afford not to. Look at OSU and USC for instance. They didn't need to do all the extra stuff but their boosters care so much and can afford to do it. I just don't see that attitude here. Most of the time I do wish our fan base cared more but in these instances I appreciate that people aren't so caught up in collegiate sports that they break a whole bunch of rules.