First of all, let me say this:
CFB and CBB are not equivalent to any other sport. The reason why they differ from LaCrosse or Women's Volleyball is due to the fact that these 2 sports are not really just your typical sport from the standpoint of the way they generate revenue. It could even be said that they generate so much money, they transcend the basic idea of the spartan game where amateurism underlies the fabric of competition. NO! Both sports (Football and Basketball) have risen in stature to be regarded as high level entertainment -- so high in fact that TV networks are willing to pay billions of Dollars for the rights to air these events. Not all sports are equal in this regard and to treat them the same is a ridiculous position to take. (My biggest argument against the legitimacy of Title IX which probably of little consequence anyway.)
Even at that, there are already pre-existing pay scales in effect in the entertainment industry, and it is my feeling that this would be an appropriate way to judge and to value an event featuring college students as participants for broadcast or rebroadcast through commercial broadcasters and their sponsors. Law students are allowed to work for Law Firms. Drama Students are permitted to work for theater production companies during the semester break, etc. Why is it that students of athletics ought to be governed by a different standard?
Do you realize that football players can apply for and get student loans to cover their additional expenses? Do you realize that ANY of these kids that come from "poor" families get Pell Grants? That's around $6,000/year if free money that they do not have to pay back.
I have no problem with that. Even if there were some kind of compensation made available through commercial sponsorship of a college football or basketball team, there will likely still be a need to make up for the additional burden of being from an impoverished family or neighborhood back home. I'm all for players beginning and continuing on with their college careers with a level playing field beneath them in every possible situation.
Students should also regard any free grants available provided by Pell Grant Committees or Commissions as a necessary safety net to defray their costs where a specific student doesn't make the cut or fails to meet whatever other criteria that would keep him off the "payroll."
This system has worked for more than 100 years. Why does it need to change now?
Many hundreds of millions of dollars that wasn't there before recent years. It's not that colleges and their football/basketball departments and administrators don't need the money, rather now for the first time with as much money as there is today jacking school budgets into the stratosphere, paying the players upon whom the entire activity is based is actually doable. Another angle how Title IX can be circumvented, aside from classifying the athletic students as entertainers who are paid according to their market value as such, all sports as a whole are considered irrelevant insofar as revenue generating entertainment event productions go. Only some sporting activities carry with them significant entertainment value. Either that or they are scaled according to how much their entertainment value factors into a revenue generating activity based upon its entertainment value. Let every program give it its best shot and then let the conferences establish a pool that determines minimum pay etc. But to keep things copacetic in terms of schools controlling any disbursements, let each conference appoint a citizens committee that runs the players associations that receive money directly from sponsoring companies and TV networks and let them mail out the checks. This provision is there just to ensure that no college institution ever touches payroll and the NCAA backs off of their improper benefits bylaws. It's either that or Title IX would need to be amended to exclude payroll to compensate for entertainment value per sport to make this play for pay idea more market driven. That's the only thing that makes sense.
Now...where do we draw the line? ESPN shows 1AA football. In fact, the first game this year on ESPN is a 1AA game. I just watched the NCAA D2 basketball championship on regular network TV on Saturday. Do we pay those kids? They "work" just as many hours as their D1 counterparts.
And just like the 1-A divisional sports of basketball and football, let the sponsors and TV networks foot the bill. The 1-AA players won't be compensated on the same level as the bigger programs. Play for pay doesn't need to be an equal share of the pie for every player in every sport at every school. There's no harm in this as long as everything is kept out front. I do however feel that there is a need for minimum "stipends" and maximum salary caps. Why not allow local businesses and business associations that desire to sponsor their local players get into the act too? I strongly feel that "deregulation" will solve many if not every problem. How about the local NFL franchise footing some of the bill? What could possibly be more appropriate?
Go read NAFTA. It's far less restrictive and much more supportive of private business, which by the way is what pays for college football as we know it today. Title IX is your government saying thank you on behalf of special interest lesbians that hate men to begin with and still seek reparations for denying them the vote for most of the last 300 years. Title IX is written very much like a witches bane designed to be force fed to every man that has it in him to excel the way only (mostly) he can do... according to the laws of mother nature and of course in this case, the laws of Hollywood, the entertainment capitol of the world.
This isn't to say that I don't adore our female Olympians and what they recently did for us beyond representing us well beyond the "hotness" factor. Their only real problem is that there isn't much money to be made in (e.g.) ladies downhill racing. What we really need is a Title X instead of a Title IX. Come up with something in women's sports that I wouldn't miss for the world once a week and you can count me in.
Once again, our government may have successfully regulated an exciting potential business boom right out of existence. You know in your heart that I am right. Coach, I hear you loud and clear about your Title IX reservations which is at least partially responsible for my attempts at beating my way around it through private means. And by the way, it's mostly the doings of private enterprise and both big and small business sponsorships that put college football in everyone's living room as it now stands. (even though DirecTV refuses to air the Pac-12 conference and charges you literally hundreds to put the NFL on TV.)
