It’s late January and college sports are somewhat slow. The Super Bowl’s keeping everyone’s attention before College Basketball really takes off.
I’ll be honest, I ramble to my friends way to often. I call one friend probably twice a day just to complain about something in sports. Well, now I’ll be writing the rambles here because he’s probably sick of my calls. Now let’s talk money.
Before I start, I just want to say let’s all be adults. We all see how much money major college football and basketball bring into their schools. It’s not a secret. I don’t need to pull out stats for anyone because they already know it. Those players should be getting paid. But not everyone should be.
Saying people don’t deserve to be paid is probably not the greatest thing to say. They all deserve it. Every Division 1 athlete works insanely hard. Who am I to say who shouldn’t be paid? I don’t play a Division 1 sport. But to think that everyone earns all that money for their school is childish and stupid.
Not every sport makes money. It’s a fact. Most sports actually lose money. I don’t want to be that guy, but most women sports lose money. It’s nothing against the sports or athletes, it’s just the fact that people don’t watch it, even if they are televised. That’s coming from someone who doesn’t watch any baseball, but watches college softball. Honestly, their games are 100 times more entertaining than any MLB or men’s game in my opinion.
But in a three year period, from BuissnessInsider.com, the top earning Athletic Department was Texas A&M at OVER 192 MILLION DOLLARS. They received over 92 MILLION DOLLARS in donations. Wild right? Wait for it. Take away that donation, and they still made roughly $100 million. You know who made around 57% of that money? The football team. Shocking. You know who made roughly 9% of that? Men’s Basketball. That 9% isn’t small either. It’s almost $9 million. You know what the women’s basketball program made? $1.5 million. That is typically the most revenue generated in a women’s sport.
From that same article, I’ll talk about a few different stats that show the school’s highest average earning women’s programs over the 3 year period. Oregon came in as the 21st earning athletic department. Their women’s basketball program only averaged around $300,000. Now, a lot of the schools averaged over a million, including Tennessee averaging over 5 million. That showed to be an outlier since the only other program in this study to reach over 3 million was Florida State.
I know half of the people reading this are screaming “TITLE 9”! Well, to be honest that shouldn’t matter for paying players. It just shouldn’t. I’m not even saying all the men’s sports should be paid. I’m only arguing the Men’s Basketball and College Football should be. They’re the ones who are funding some of these programs. Before you want to murder me, lets look at some stats.
Let’s pay the players who bring in money. If a program can’t afford to do it, then so be it. It is what it is. Not every guy’s going to be offered money. Nick Saban wouldn’t pay his third string offensive tackle. Also, for some guys, getting that education is enough.
Also, the likeness argument is my favorite by far because it’s fucking insane that players can’t go to the mall and make money off their signature. How can the NCAA act as if they own these players names? Anyone in America should be able to make money off their own name. Johnny Manziel should have (probably did). Reggie Bush should have (definitely did). John Wall should have (maybe did, but not on the song WITH HIS NAME IN IT). Can you imagine John Wall in Kentucky just walking around doing his dance, making bank roll because of it.
I know this argument has more holes than the Cleveland Browns roster. But when breaking it down, I think it makes sense. Some people may think it’s not fair and that everyone should be paid, but that’s not how this works. Not every sport makes money. If you hate me and want to tell me how bad of an idea this is, tweet at me (@bobbybishop72) and/or leave a comment.