JONATHAN CHAIT APRIL 5, 2011
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Matthew Yglesias continues his jihad against college sports, which is always premised on the idea that there are no important differences between college athletics and for-profit economic cartels:
Allison Schrager stands up for mandatory amateurism for guys who are skilled at football and basketball:
Second, playing on a college team instead of a professional minor league one is often better for the athletes. Most players, even in elite programmes, do not get a professional contract, so their alternatives would be a few years as a poorly paid minor-league athlete or a stint on a college team that includes access to a college education. The education alternative has the potential to diversify an athlete’s human capital, by developing skills other than those specifically related to basketball or American football. These skills are more valuable than wages they’d be paid as minor league athletes.
Maybe . . . but . . . do we apply this logic to any other field of endeavor? Maybe we should let movie and television studious form a cartel that refuses to pay actors in any form other than than University of California scholarships. After all, most aspiring actors won’t make it and the education they receive may prove to be more valuable than their wages. But nobody proposes that, because it would be insane. I think it just so happens to be the case that highly skilled 18 year-old football and basketball players tend to be politically disempowered individuals from politically disempowered families.
First of all, there's no "mandatory amateurism." There's nothing stopping anybody from starting a football or basketball minor league that attracts talented 18 year olds, paying its players, and then having some of those players go on to make greater sums in the NFL or the NBA. Why doesn't such a league exist? Because there's no demand for it. You have the NBA developmental league, but that league is subsidized by the pros. This suggests Yglesias's exploitation model is pretty seriously flawed. During the beginning of the NCAA tournament, he wrote, "Professional basketball players are way better at basketball. Just saying."
He's right. And yet college basketball is highly popular. Why is that? Perhaps it's because people like watching games between college students, even if they understand that some of those students are just looking for a pathway to professional basketball. They do not like watching an NBA training league. Now, everybody understands that the reality often falls short of the ideal. I'm very much in favor of reforms like ending freshman eligibility and so on. Yglesias seems far more interested in destroying college athletics than in thinking about what to change it into, or whether that thing could even survive.
A second, and more persistent, flaw in Yglesias's critique is the problem of profit. He's been making this argument for years, and he never deals with the absence of profit. A movie studio forming a cartel to underpay its workforce and thus enjoy greater profits is different than a university that does not have any profit. Yglesias might have some explanation for why this difference doesn't matter, but to ignore it altogether is not really a persuasive approach.
And the issue of profit is really key here. Sometimes Yglesias says the problem with college athletics is that they're a money making venture disguised as part of a college. And sometimes he says the problem with college athletics is that it's a money-losing venture subsidized by non-athlete students. The one commonality between his views is his passionate hatred for college athletics.
The truth is that most college athletics programs lose money and are subsidized by the university. A handful of very successful programs, mostly football and men's basketball, do make money, but they use that money to fund money-losing athletics programs, and therefore avoid (or minimize) having to get subsidies from the rest of the university.
I've never been clear on exactly what Yglesias is proposing. Is he saying that only athletes in revenue-generating sports should be paid? Or is he saying that all college athletes should be paid? If it's the latter -- and Yglesias focuses his argument entirely on the merits of paying student-athletes at revenue-generating sports -- I don't know what his reason is. The women's cross country team at Connecticut works just as hard as the men's basketball team. The difference between the two are:
1) The men's basketball team gets to play on television and be famous
2) The proceeds from the television contract subsidize sports like women's cross country, and
3) The men's basketball players have a higher chance to become professional athletes
I'm not sure what about this situation suggests that the men's basketball players deserve to be paid by UConn but the women's cross country runners don't. So who would get paid here? All college athletes?
14 comments
How about paying those athletes who play in revenue-generating sports? If you play in a non-revenue-generating sport you do so with the understanding that you won't get paid, but if the university is sticking the athlete's likeness and name on jerseys and t-shirts and selling them by the thousands, I don't see why those athletes should receive a cut of that money.
- DC Spence
April 5, 2011 at 11:09am
MY is right, but for the wrong reason. College football and basketball programs exist and thrive because of the diploma mills - which produce all those alumni - on which they depend. It's the diploma mills which are the real story and whose days are numbered. And I'm not just referring to those state schools for low achieving students. I'm referrring to the millions who attend college and receive what are rapidly becoming useless degrees. Yes, there was a time a nice boy or girl could go to college, join the fraternity or sorority, get a degree in whatever, and then return home to a well paying but otherwise low-skilled job in insurance, or real estate, or local banking, or retail, or whatever. And thereafter support his or her college's football and basketball programs with season tickets and occasional contributions to the college that provided the pass to the easy life he or she now enjoys. Anybody noticed that the pass has been rescinded. That all those useless degrees won't provide the entry to that well paying, low-skilled job, because those jobs are disappearing. And with them the diploma mills and the football and basketball programs that depend on them.
- rayward
April 5, 2011 at 11:16am
Also, just to point out yet again, they players ARE being paid. They get a free ride scholarship at a qualified, D-1 school, even as tuition is soaring. Unlike most financial aid students, they won't have to pay off student loans. The entire argument we should pay college athletes is a pseudo-libertarian Neitzschism that we should build a college athletics system entirely around the top 1% in talent in the game. It argues that "they aren't here to study anyway" when roughly 99% of even just football and basketball players won't be drafted and won't go pro. Even the best teams (Florida '07, UNC '09, Kentucky '10, and Kansas '08) have recorded only five players drafted. There are 60 total draft spots in basketball each year, of which 10-15% are usually international prospects. Each basketball team generally has 12 players, and if you do the math to the 68 teams in the tourney (or alternately the 75 schools in BCS conferences) that leaves 816 or 900 basketball players in any given year, even ignoring all the smaller schools, mid majors ,etc that also have talent. Even in the bigger athletic schools, the vast majority of players aren't NBA bound--they're college students who should graduate with degrees. Being able to get a free ride to a better school then you would have gotten on your academic pedigree alone, and starting out your life with out a student loan burden and with all the connections being on the big state team can bring is a substantial benefit. College athletes get plenty. To argue otherwise is to decide that the needs of the few, or the one, outweigh the needs of the many. It's college Reaganomics.
- Crock1701
April 5, 2011 at 11:27am
The positions taken in this debate can be explained entirely by the facts that Chait went to Michigan and Yglesias went to Harvard.
- subterran
April 5, 2011 at 11:32am
Matthew Yglesias is incoherent on this issue. It is evident that his loathing of college athletics is affecting his thinking about it.
- liberalref
April 5, 2011 at 11:32am
Lebron James deprived himself of a college experience for money and while i can't distinguish his demeanor from many other players who seemed to not have taken their college education seriously, I can distinguish him from those that did take their college education seriously. I would prefer to see the emphasis remain on school and not money.
- Nusholtz
April 5, 2011 at 11:40am
"The truth is that most college athletics programs lose money and are subsidized by the university. A handful of very successful programs, mostly football and men's basketball, do make money, but they use that money to fund money-losing athletics programs, and therefore avoid (or minimize) having to get subsidies from the rest of the university." Chait...surely you haven't been on campus for a while or you forgot what it was like to pay mandatory athletic fees to "subsidize" those money-losing athletic programs. When I attended CU-Boulder in the early 90s when it actually had a nationally ranked football program, the money it (football) generated was kept exclusively for the football program. I had friends who played for the club sport teams which included golf, tennis, rugby, hockey, swimming and cycling. All of which were underfunded by the athletic program, had to use the same worn-down and overused recreation facilities that all of the regular students used, had to pay for much of their own equipment and had to use rental vans to get to events. Meanwhile the football program enjoyed private facilities that were only for the football program, separate eating facilities and tutors! Hey...got to keep up the image of the student-athlete right? For many students, and I suspect this is so for MY, is that there is an almost automatic disdain for the preferential treatment for the certain athletic programs at their particular college (school pride aside). Whether it's Duke and basketball, LSU football and baseball and the entire SEC, all of these programs are also highly supported by alumni and independent athletic foundations that provide monetary support and political pressure with regards to their specific support for certain sports. Believe me, the subsidized sports aren't supported by the big-money making sports programs. That once was the case but in this day and age, the club sports are subsidized by student fees and the athletes themselves. The football, basketball and baseball programs fight to maintain all of the money they bring in. The last thing that Les Miles is going to do is hand over some of his televised game profits over to the LSU rugby team. That aside...even the Sports Curmudgeon Frank DeFord is all for compensation of specific athletic programs within the NCAA. Because many of these athletes aren't student-athletes but simply use the College route as their minor league training and DeFord recognizes this. But me thinks MY is simply a nerd that is still bitter about paying those hefty athletic fees back the college days when the star QB rolled through campus in his tricked out SUV and MY had to ride his used bike to classes.
- singlspeed
April 5, 2011 at 11:44am
singlspeed: I think you're confusing the club teams and the other NCAA teams. The big programs subsidize the other student athletes in the athletic department (soccer, tennis, hockey, track et.al.) on legit, competitive teams. Club teams have always lacked that athletic support, including scholarships, but players also benefit from the less serious time commitment required (both my sisters ended up playing club soccer at UGA rather than make the time commitment to play on the regular D-1 team, despite having enough talent do do so).
- Crock1701
April 5, 2011 at 11:53am
Crock1701: "It argues that 'they aren't here to study anyway' when roughly 99% of even just football and basketball players won't be drafted and won't go pro." The rate at which "student" athletes go pro isn't relevant as to whether "they aren't here to study anyway." Whether or not the players go pro, many at big-time programs get special treatment on admissions and special academic treatment to maintain their eligibility. For many of them, athletics that takes precedence over academics, and they're not there to study whether or not they wind up being drafted. Yes, they get a free ride on tuition. But that's not to say such compensation is proper, or adequate, or fair. (Some kid who can put a ball through a hoop gets breaks on admission and tuition, but a whiz kid from the same socioeconomic background has to fight for those things?) I'd prefer a system where the players get paid, and class is optional. That, or hold everyone to the same baseline academic standard and award financial aid only on the basis of need. The current middle ground is ethically untenable to me.
- dsimon
April 5, 2011 at 12:14pm
I'm really surprised we haven't just come out and say that we just allow student athletes to make money on their own. If I were a journalism major at a college and I got a job writing for a newspaper I wouldn't lose my academic scholarship. If anything, the college I was attending would point to me as an example of how great their school was because I was able to get a job without even having to graduate. As such, I think college athletes should be able to own their likeness and make money off of their abilities if someone is willing to pay them, like in any other field. This would likely benefit more student athletes because many could make more money in college than they ever would in the pros.
- DocStrange
April 5, 2011 at 12:53pm
My cousins son was a Pa. wrestling champ and got a full scholarship to a top school. Obviously there is no pros for him to go into (at most is the Olympics). My cousin runs a home repair company and my cousins son told me he wants no part of it, it is not that he is lazy (he is a wrestling champ) but he hates that work so he is busting his ass in college. And damn right he deserves his full scholarship, being a state champion and getting good enough grades is a major accomplishment for anyone. Jeez, excellence matters. I simply don't understand this adolescent anger. My cousins son is a real nice kid, at least to me. I have no idea how he is with other 18 year olds but I don't care. Maybe Yglesias was bullied by jocks...get over it already. No one will give him a salary to wrestle, the idea is silly. A scholarship, on the other hand, is a reward for excellence and to continue that excellence in college. And lets be honest, we are only talking about a few thousand athletes at top schools in Football, Basketball, and to a lesser extent Hockey. Such a fuss over so few is just nuts. As I said my cousins son is a State wrestling champ in Pa. therefore he is one of the top wrestlers in the country and I can guarantee that no one here would recognize his name. His getting the scholarship is the recognition and damn right it is deserved.
- blackton
April 5, 2011 at 1:28pm
Crock....you are right to a certain extent regarding Club teams for particular sports. But some of those teams become club teams simply because they can't get the funding to adequately field a team or lack alumni vocalizing support to field a D-1 team. Case in point. A good friend had a walk-on partial scholarship for the CU golf team. However, the team provided minimal equipment support save transportation and reduced green fees yet required 20+ hours of practice time and offered none of the tutoring support (that many D-1 athletes get gratis) for their athletes who actually wanted to learn. He ended up walking away from the scholarship. Even those programs that do field a team for D-1 competition still operate on shoestring budgets and athletes still have to pony up for their uniforms and equipment. Virginia Tech's cycling team is a case in point. The cycling team has to buy their own clothing kits and bikes. Yet the cycling team operates at the D-1 level for regional races and national championships. Can you imagine requiring the Wolverine football team to buy their own jerseys and pads? There's a big division among all of the sports that a University might offer. The parity will never be there because many schools focus on one or two money making sports to bring in alumni dollars and advertisement & television revenues. Nothing wrong with that. But I think some defenders of the system status quo need to quit pretending that the big sports subsidize the smaller sports when in many respects they don't.
- singlspeed
April 5, 2011 at 1:38pm
Signlspeed, I agree that at some schools D-1 sports do operate on a shoestring, and that "revenue sports" are actually drains (although I suspect that it's difficult to calculate how much a football program contributes to alumni donations, undergraduate applications etc.). At a few schools (I know Michigan is one), however, the major sports (football and to a lesser extent basketball and hockey at Michigan) do subsidize reasonably well-funded small sports. Michigan has a new tennis facility, academic support center for athletes, field hockey field etc all paid for by football. The idea that most athletes waste their educational opportunities is something that I'm not sure is true either. Brian Cook from mgoblog.com (a Michigan sports blog) looked at the '97 championship team, and found that a significant percentage of the players had advanced degrees and/or successful non-sports careers. I suspect that the competitive drive and discipline that high-level sports incorporates helps overcome any academic gaps between athletes and the general student population.
- PeteM
April 5, 2011 at 6:08pm
I'm not exactly sure what the standard is, but many school programs don't use their general funds, or state funds, for their athletic programs. See here: http://www.purdue.edu/athletics/jpc/membership/FAQ.html. But in a sense, that does detract away from the school's other pursuits, since those deep-pocketed donors would otherwise give money to the school's general fund, I suppose. But how often are those donors inspired to give due to the sports team in the first place? However, I take offense at the idea that Purdue, Michigan, Connecticut, or any other D-I school is a "diploma mill." America still has probably the best higher education system in the world. (It's the fact that it's prohibitively expensive to get into that's the problem.) And as far as your point that a diploma doesn't guarantee you a job these days, I fail to see how that's the universities' fault. But regardless, I'd say that rayward has it backwards--there was a time when a college degree wasn't an essential requirement to having a successful career, but that time has come and gone. Now, the lack of a college degree will almost certainly bar you from most white-collar jobs. As I said, the lack of access is the big problem there.
- ulexamp
April 6, 2011 at 10:39am