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Big Ten Conference Considering Paying Athletes
Ben Kercheval Metronews
With each passing year, college football becomes less and less an amateur sport and more of a multi-billion dollar business. Subsequently, the debate as to whether to compensate student-athletes for their talents has become a polarizing topic.
The growing number of NCAA violations involving illegal agent-related contact with student-athletes, as well as players receiving impermissible benefits, has led some to believe – including current NCAA president Mark Emmert – that players should be paid more than what their athletic scholarship covers.
The Big Ten conference discussed that possibility this week during league meetings in Chicago. League experts believe the gap between what an athletic scholarship pays and the average cost of living for a college student to be about $3,000.
An athletic scholarship pays for tuition, fees, room and board and books, but does not pay for other costs such as transportation, clothing and food.
That’s just not acceptable for Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany.
"Forty years ago, you had a scholarship plus $15 a month laundry money," Delany told ESPN.com. "Today, you have the same scholarship, but not with the $15 laundry money.
"How do we get back to the collegiate model (and a regulatory system that is based more on student-athlete welfare than it is on a level playing field), where everything is about a cost issue and whether or not everybody can afford to do everything everybody else can do?"
Initial ideas point to the Big Ten Network as a source for the student “income”. The network reportedly pulls in $20-$22 million per member each year, although those numbers were likely calculated before the addition of new conference member, Nebraska.
Still, the math suggests an increase in payout to student-athletes in the Big Ten is feasible. Take 85 scholarship football players and 13 scholarship men’s basketball players – the two most lucrative revenue sports for most schools – and multiply that number by $3,000 per year. The costs come out to just under $300,000 annually.
But not all conferences in college football have that kind of money.
Take the Big East, for example, whose current primary and secondary television rights with ESPN and CBS amount to a paltry – relatively speaking -- $ 42 million annually (businessofcollegesports.com). That number does not include any additional third-tier revenue from the Big East Network.
To suggest a soon-to-be 17-school Big East could shoulder the additional everyday living costs for a student-athlete under the current revenue model is absurd. Private donations are out of the discussion as those would constitute impermissible benefits under current NCAA bylaws.
If the Big Ten followed through and paid their student-athletes more money, it would give the conference and its members a significant recruiting advantage – one that many conferences, including the Big East, just couldn’t match.
And that goes for all sports.
Imagine the outrage, the potential lawsuits, of paying student-athletes in football, but not in women’s track and field. Big Ten schools would have to compensate athletes in all university-sponsored sports, increasing the $300,000 projected annual cost.
The Big East would fall further behind. Conference commissioner John Marinatto would scramble to find ways to bring the Big East up to snuff with other, more powerful conferences.
And as other conferences dissolve or prosper with the new payouts to student-athletes, it could mean the end of amateur athletics as we know it.
Ben Kercheval Metronews
With each passing year, college football becomes less and less an amateur sport and more of a multi-billion dollar business. Subsequently, the debate as to whether to compensate student-athletes for their talents has become a polarizing topic.
The growing number of NCAA violations involving illegal agent-related contact with student-athletes, as well as players receiving impermissible benefits, has led some to believe – including current NCAA president Mark Emmert – that players should be paid more than what their athletic scholarship covers.
The Big Ten conference discussed that possibility this week during league meetings in Chicago. League experts believe the gap between what an athletic scholarship pays and the average cost of living for a college student to be about $3,000.
An athletic scholarship pays for tuition, fees, room and board and books, but does not pay for other costs such as transportation, clothing and food.
That’s just not acceptable for Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany.
"Forty years ago, you had a scholarship plus $15 a month laundry money," Delany told ESPN.com. "Today, you have the same scholarship, but not with the $15 laundry money.
"How do we get back to the collegiate model (and a regulatory system that is based more on student-athlete welfare than it is on a level playing field), where everything is about a cost issue and whether or not everybody can afford to do everything everybody else can do?"
Initial ideas point to the Big Ten Network as a source for the student “income”. The network reportedly pulls in $20-$22 million per member each year, although those numbers were likely calculated before the addition of new conference member, Nebraska.
Still, the math suggests an increase in payout to student-athletes in the Big Ten is feasible. Take 85 scholarship football players and 13 scholarship men’s basketball players – the two most lucrative revenue sports for most schools – and multiply that number by $3,000 per year. The costs come out to just under $300,000 annually.
But not all conferences in college football have that kind of money.
Take the Big East, for example, whose current primary and secondary television rights with ESPN and CBS amount to a paltry – relatively speaking -- $ 42 million annually (businessofcollegesports.com). That number does not include any additional third-tier revenue from the Big East Network.
To suggest a soon-to-be 17-school Big East could shoulder the additional everyday living costs for a student-athlete under the current revenue model is absurd. Private donations are out of the discussion as those would constitute impermissible benefits under current NCAA bylaws.
If the Big Ten followed through and paid their student-athletes more money, it would give the conference and its members a significant recruiting advantage – one that many conferences, including the Big East, just couldn’t match.
And that goes for all sports.
Imagine the outrage, the potential lawsuits, of paying student-athletes in football, but not in women’s track and field. Big Ten schools would have to compensate athletes in all university-sponsored sports, increasing the $300,000 projected annual cost.
The Big East would fall further behind. Conference commissioner John Marinatto would scramble to find ways to bring the Big East up to snuff with other, more powerful conferences.
And as other conferences dissolve or prosper with the new payouts to student-athletes, it could mean the end of amateur athletics as we know it.
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