PAC-12 Football Players Organized and Make Demands on a Number of Areas

[cwdickens]

The football players have organized and have demanded that the conference address a number issues, please link below

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29583023/pac-12-football-players-show-unity-list-demands-letter-conference   

Will this be start of a trend?  Thoughts and opinions.   

[UA1882]

Very very slippery slope. Do I think the ncaa is perfect?... no I dont.... However something that is constantly lost in all this is the fact: THESE GUYS ARE ON A FULL RIDE!!!!! They pay for nothing.... not even books. 

If I'm the PAC 12 I say HELL NO. Dont play then. I'm sure they will do everything they can to keep the players safe.  As for the other stuff ...F@$% Off. 

[Eli]

1 hour ago, UA1882 said:

Very very slippery slope. Do I think the ncaa is perfect?... no I dont.... However something that is constantly lost in all this is the fact: THESE GUYS ARE ON A FULL RIDE!!!!! They pay for nothing.... not even books. 

If I'm the PAC 12 I say HELL NO. Dont play then. I'm sure they will do everything they can to keep the players safe.  As for the other stuff ...F@$% Off. 

Yeah. Hard pass here. Don't want to play for a free education from a top national university? There's the door. I can understand the concerns about health and safety due to COVID-19 but my guess is even without the virus this would still have become a thing due to all of the racial stuff going on...so COVID-19 is a tiny % of this 'issue'. Evidently, athletes being black and all and not being paid (while receiving an education that can be valued anywhere from 50-250k)...they now feel slighted.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Eli

[Clickclack]

I'm going to take the contrarian view after reading the article. Nothing from my reading of it seems completely over the top, even the 2% set aside for financial aid to low income students. P5 schools are making huge bank of these kids, schools are making huge profits. If there was EVER a time to help minority communities to better themselves this is that time. Education clearly plays a huge role in how successful one will be...otherwise, why are we pontificating about people lifting themselves up by the bootstraps? How much do these mega programs need, people forget that these are colleges that are supposed to nurture and educate the next generation, advances sciences and humanities to better our word. These schools don't exist to simply provide football entertainment. To that end, invest some of those windfalls in your communities and human beings. 

I'd have to learn more about it but first reaction to this for me isn't one of rebuke. I think when people ask for help or ask to engage in civil discourse on the issues of the day, it would be foolish not to at least listen. What's the alternative, riot about it?

EDIT: probably the most eyebrow raising item is the 50% distribution of revenue among all athletes, maybe a bit to high but it can't be the 100/0% split that it is right now. Their biggest concern appears to be their own well-being in this pandemic...it's their right to stand up and say we don't feel comfortable playing considering how this is being run now. 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Clickclack

[Eli]

It's not that I don't want to listen, it will simply never work. I'm using outrageous numbers here as I have no clue but this is how my brain is processing it:

X P5 school makes $100M on Y team. After all expenses (tuition, staff, facilities, marketing, travel, etc.) they are left with $20M clean net. Say that is split 60/40 school/players. Cool...players get $8M to split amongst themselves. They are no longer amateur's using any NCAA or federal guideline. That's issue number 1.

Issue number 2: crappy AE school only makes $10M on Z team. After all expenses (tuition, staff, facilities, marketing, travel, etc.) they are left with $200,000 net. Say that is split 60/40 school/players. Cool...players get $80k to split amongst themselves. 1) They are no longer amateur's and 2) they made a TON less than their P5 D1 counterparts. Both are D1 athletes and many probably played on the same HS teams.

As UA1882 said, slippery slope galore. This may have a VERY negative effect on small conferences like ours once more and more players either 1) start asking to be paid or 2) leave for 'higher paying conferences' (look at what the graduate rule is doing to the Cremo's and Nichols' of the world - this will be similar but worse). Disaster written all over it. This isn't pro sports where market dictates who makes money and who doesn't...these are STUDENT athletes. Their main form of payment is getting an education that many Joe Shmoe's can't afford without SERIOUS debt. Some of those educations are valued at 2 or 3x my yearly salary. Educations that any of those kids should be able to use to make a comfortable life for themselves and their families (since, lets face it, only like 1 or 2% of them are going to go pro).

This is a bad idea.

When I think of paying athletes...I'm talking about $1,000 month to spend on junk food, sneakers and video games or to send back to mom & dad and help pay the rent (since many of these athletes are from low income areas unfortunately). Anyone who thinks it's smart to turn these kids into $50k, $80k, $100k, $200k/yr money makers is losing sight of the STUDENT part of their 'job title'.

EDIT: Another interesting thought...like any business model, the schools who have to pay will just pass that cost on to the students who aren't athletes in the form of tuition hikes. School is already expensive enough...no P5 university is going to tap into the money they are already making and cut a slice of that pie. They are going to make sure the slice of pie ends up being as small as possible or outright use the payment to players as a guise to make even more money off non-players.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Eli

[cwdickens]

PAC - 12 Football and PAC - 12 Men's and Women's Basketball are big time money makers .... which means they support other athletic programs and other academic programs for member institutions.  If the football players prevail, they likely only going to hurt non income generating sports perhaps the opportunities for football players in the future as the PAC - 12 members attempts to contain costs and re-direct monies to other aspects in their requests.

None of us know what the PAC-12 member institutions spent to support minority programs, many are state financed schools ...Do think the student athletes have a gasp on the actual dollar amount currently spent?  I am very certain the schools know.  The student-athletes did their home work... knowing they needed a social aspect to their request.

The COVID-19 protection request while legitimate is likely a smoke screen for a money shake down.  Likely to get ugly ....  Our past & current social and economic climate has a lot blame for this.  This is going to end up in the court system

[Eli]

17 minutes ago, cwdickens said:

The COVID-19 protection request while legitimate is likely a smoke screen for a money shake down.  Likely to get ugly ....  Our past & current social and economic climate has a lot blame for this.  This is going to end up in the court system

Nail meet head. Definitely will be going to the courts.

[dslyank]

I did not read the article/link, so probably have no right to comment; nevertheless IMHO:

Pay college athletes NO WAY {already pay/give them TOO much}.

Profits from power 5 conferences should #1 be paid to the NCAA to supplement athletics and allocated to ALL member schools. #2 After they have "paid" their allocation; all remaining money goes to the schools general fund to be spent as the school wishes. If the power 5 conferences do not wish to support, non-money making conferences or schools {which is most schools},  I say tell the power 5"s to " GO PLAY WITH THEMSELVES."

Like always all opinions/comments/disagreements respected and encouraged.

Edited August 4, 2020 by dslyank