[jalgos_eminator]

I think the point of all this is that my opinion of how much college athletes should be compensated isn't relevant. My opinion on how much a software developer should be paid isn't relevant either, because the market sets the rate of compensation for software developers.

The problem right now with college athletics (at least football and basketball) is that the schools found a cash cow and the pro leagues found a free farm league that produces top talent. Its a symbiotic relationship and neither one wants to rock the boat. There's a reason the NFL players have their own union after all.

Regarding your second question, West Nowhere State is an ant in an elephants world. There are plenty of D3 programs (that give no aid or preferred admission) that have football programs that lose hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. They'll keep doing it even if Alabama is able to pay their players above the table.

As far as under the table money, I'm not sure. I never saw nor heard about those things, and with the way athletes like to boast it would surprise me if they were all able to keep their mouths shut. I think its less money going to less athletes than people would like to think.

[moate]

My first point was less of a "200K/year" and more of a "whatever the market dictates the value of their skills would be" vs "a tiered set scale". Basically, do you think that Bama should be able to drop 2 million a year in player salaries while West Nowhere can only offer partial coverage scholarships.

And the under the table money is real, but less secret bags of cash left in their dorm and more "the AD bought a new car but realized he doesn't like the interior, do you want it?" IDK where you went to college, but several high profile programs lost championships and got sanctions for creative ways they "recruited" players. The ruling opens up more levers for schools to use to funnel goods and services towards players, even if they can't give them actually currency.

[jalgos_eminator]

Yes, I think that players should be offered what they are worth. At this point the cat is out of the bag. College head coaches are getting paid millions per year (look it up, its all public), the assistants are getting paid 200k-800k. The athletic directors get paid $400k-$800k. Strength and conditioning coaches are getting $150k. Every year coaches leverage the public nature of their salaries to get better offers. Apparently the free market works great for everyone except the athletes. Strange how that works.

For some reason, the schools don't complain about how much money they are paying the coaches. They don't complain about how much money they are spending on facilities. They don't complain about how much money they spend on marketing. But for some reason, when the public starts talking about paying players, they start complaining and making excuses. If you want them to play for the love of the game, then get rid of scholarships. If you want them to be professionals, then pay them.

And yes, that will create inequity among players. That's fine. I wasn't worth the same to my team as our star quarterback (who now is a backup in the NFL). Its the way the world works, especially the world of sports.

edit: grammar