Russ, please grant me permission to use your last sentence, over and over and over again ....
Twila
· 7 months ago
Yeah, I wish they'd get so bogged down with BCS matters that they wouldn't have time for "healthcare reform," card check labor union issues, additional "fiscal stimulus," etc.
Slocum
· 7 months ago
Words fail me. Except to note that when Congress spends time doing stupid things it shouldn't be doing, it is not doing even stupider things it shouldn't be doing.
So we got that going for us...
The most obvious thing that's wrong with college football is that the NCAA restrains its members from paying players, maintaining the illusion that they are student-athletes and enriching the universities.
This is no endorsement of congressional meddling or the NCAA, but I really don't think that college athletes are being unfairly cheated out of potential riches to anything like the extent people imagine. College football and basketball teams are, effectively, minor league teams run by universities. Are minor league teams that are not affiliated with universities lucrative enterprises that pay their players high wages? No -- minor league teams are shoestring operations that draw small crowds charge low ticket prices and pay low wages.
Why can universities fill 100,000 seat football stadiums at NFL-level ticket prices? Because of the athletic prowess of the 19-year-olds on the field? Or because of fan affiliation with their alma mater (or at least with their home-state university)? Seems clear that it's the latter.
Consider that there's no obstacle to a new football or basketball minor league starting up and outbidding universities for players. Nor is there any reason why a group of elite football schools might not leave the NCAA and start paying players (and outbidding NCAA schools). But neither has happened (nor seems likely to). If minor league teams of the best 18-22 year old basketball and football players are a lucrative opportunity -- why not?
Jason O
· 7 months ago
Indeed!
And, I personally feel the BCS is perfect! It is a perfect example of the reasons Edmund Burke used to justify conservatism many years ago. I also believe it is the best and most equitable model based upon consumer preference, and the constraints of suppliers. Likely, it is profit maximizing as well. Although, I have no idea where to begin with this analysis.
Good points, Russ.
Ike Pigott
· 7 months ago
I, for one, do NOT want Congress to reform the system.
It has NO BUSINESS developing an algorithm or playoff system.
Instead, it should convene every year for several weeks, and legislate schedules to ensure non-BCS conferences don't get shafted by strength of schedule.
It should come back for a mid-season session, and call in various coaches to question them about whether their selections for starting skill positions reflect diversity, and whether they are wasting resources with a costly aerial game when ground is more reliable.
Then, at the end of the year, both houses of Congress should spend weeks debating the national champion, which should be passed with a Supermajority, and the declaration of the title should go to the President, who must post it on his website for five days before signing the champions into law.
Think of all the jobs this would create!
Cheers
· 7 months ago
Actually a close friend of mine for whom football is something of an obsession related his thoughts on the change. It went something like this:
The reason college football is such an enormous venue is because team rivalries and local bowls hold relevance for EVERY team in the country. If there was a playoff system, this would be totally overshadowed, and 99% of the institutions would become disinterested.
I told him that he'd never run a country with that attitude.
Lee Kelly
· 7 months ago
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, regulate sporting events, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Steve
· 7 months ago
I think that paying players in a non-uniform manner, or paying them a substantial sum might ruin college football and basketball.
It might turn them into minor league sports, which aren't nearly as popular (at least at the top-end) as NCAA football and basketball.
I might be wrong, but I think a lot of the appeal of college athletics is the illusion that they're student-athletes at YOUR school, live in YOUR old dorm, etc. makes it compelling. I know I view minor league sports as an excuse to sit in the sun, drink beer, etc., whereas in college athletics, the competition itself is compelling.
Maybe I'm wrong -- but I really think that a minor league system of affiliates of major league teams would out-compete and replace college athletics if colleges started paying players (and competing for players based on pay).
This is not to justify the current system. I think that the top HS prospects should be getting million dollar deals, as in baseball, I'm just not sure that college athletics as we know it would survive if colleges competed for players based on wages paid.
Seth
· 7 months ago
"Except to note that when Congress spends time doing stupid things it shouldn't be doing, it is not doing even stupider things it shouldn't be doing."
Rather, I see this as evidence that Congress has already exhausted the stupider things queue.
Mark T
· 7 months ago
This is a great post and great comments, especially the one from Ike. I am only surprised you didn't have a progressive visitor suggest we should tax the winners just because they are winners.
Reginald Musgrave
· 7 months ago
They do get paid: They receive tuition scholarships, books, clothes, food, housing, free tutoring services, free access to state of the art training facilities, preference in class registration, and are treated like royalty on campus. People may disagree as to the adequacy of payment, but the claim that college athletes (especially football players) do not get paid is factually wrong.
Russ Roberts
· 7 months ago
Reginald Musgrave,
I should have said, "a competitive salary." Yes, they get in-kind compensation. So do slaves. The system exploits most of the players, who in hope of a mega-payday, accept compensation that is much less than they would receive in a more competitive market.
DKH
· 7 months ago
We're also seeing in recent years that sufficiently skilled players take routes other than college to professional sports. Brandon Jennings went and played a year of basketball in Europe rather than go to college. There's some talk of the NBDL taking players out of high school on their way to the NBA.
There are other issues here out of the colleges' control. The professional leagues have age limits or rules about entry. To some extent, this might preserve the monopoly (of the leagues or the colleges). In football, though, there is a better argument for safety than in other sports for keeping players out of the league until they are more physically developed.
At any rate, I'm not sure if there are similar opportunities in football, but basketball has some paid routes as alternatives to college:
[from the link] The concept is presented in C. Northcote Parkinson's spoof of management, "Parkinson's Law" (1957).
Parkinson dramatises his Law of Triviality with the example of a committee deliberating on a nuclear power plant. A nuclear reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. Even those with strong opinions might withhold them for fear of being shown to be uninformed.
The committee next deliberates on a new bicycle shed. Everyone understands a bicycle shed (or thinks he does), so building one can result in endless discussions: everyone involved wants to add his touch and show that he is there. Debate emerges over whether the best choice of roofing is aluminium, asbestos, or galvanised iron. Then, whether the shed is a good idea or not.
Next, the committee considers coffee purchasing, a discussion that results in the biggest waste of time and the most acrimony.
+ + + +
It is tough to be a congressman or senator. Most go along to get along, making deals and handing out money. Then, real issues are presented to them that make a difference. They are clueless.
It is a great relief to talk about football.
vidyohs
· 7 months ago
What is wrong with this country is people who assign some sort of significant deep rooted moral, emotional, and personal value to a kid's game played by overgrown kids, and those people try to push their misguided viewpoints off on people like myself, who don't give s sh.t.
If HS and College sports ceased tomorrow, my would change only in that I would suddenly be surrounded by vast hordes of fools that no longer have a damn thing to talk about.
vidyohs
· 7 months ago
That would be, last paragraph, "my life would change only in that..."
The Marginalist
· 7 months ago
Hey, the more time they spend on this, the less time they have to screw up other parts of our lives... I say we all write to our congressmen and ask them to put this on high priority.
Dr. T
· 7 months ago
What's truly pathetic isn't that Congress feels it should regulate college football bowls, but that a big percentage of the public thinks this would be a good idea.
Too many people believe that government is the answer to any problem. They want Daddy and Mommy government to fix everything. They are anti-libertarian children: spoiled bratitarians.
Tom
· 7 months ago
I think there is someone here who was always picked last in gym class.
vidyohs
· 7 months ago
In this country for a long long time now, so many watch and so few do.
And, there is a question about why we are a degenerating society?
Why is there a question?
Get off your ass and go do.
Slocum
· 7 months ago
"The system exploits most of the players, who in hope of a mega-payday, accept compensation that is much less than they would receive in a more competitive market."
Actually, I think the system rewards rather than exploits most of the players the majority of whom have no hope of ever turning pro and would be paid less than the value of a college education as minor-leaguers.
The vast majority of college football and basketball players receive more for their athletic talents from universities than they could from any other organization (which is obviously also true of all the athletes in non-revenue sports). It's really only the relative few who might command sizable signing bonuses out of high-school that are disadvantaged under the current system.
But note, too, that more and more baseball players are skipping the minor-league route (with signing bonus and salary) in favor of the 'unpaid' college route. Why? Maybe because a college degree plus 4 years of being a big man on campus sounds a hell of a lot more attractive than years of riding the bus from one podunk minor-league town to the next?
Putting myself in that position, how big would the signing bonus have to be for me to choose minor-league life and no degree over college life (as a big time athlete)? Pretty big. Especially because a lot of the athletes who don't go pro seem to achieve a lot of local name recognition make valuable contacts in the alumni network that pay off later.
richard
· 7 months ago
I would hope our beloved politicians spend an enormous amount of time on regulating the fascinating world of football.
I hope they will spend 10 hrs/day, 6 days/week and 50 weeks/year on it.
And if possible, not finish the job before 2050.
That, to me, would show that our beloved leaders take their jobs and their responsibility seriously.
Or do I expect too much?
Dave
· 7 months ago
Russ,
I agree completely and hope they tackle the tough issues surrounding T-Ball next and dodge ball after that.By the time they come to a resolution some time next year the recovery will be well on it's way. Lord knows investors and the markets need the cover that the college sports CRISIS is providing.
Mark LeBar
· 7 months ago
I couldn't agree more about the stupidity of having Congress weigh in on this. But I'm surprised at Russ's claim that players would earn more in a "competitive" market. What keeps the market from being competitive? True, the NCAA prevents its member institutions from paying players, but that association itself is voluntary. There is an alternative system for baseball players; that there is not for football and basketball players shows something, but surely not that there is any legal barrier to entry to trying to establish a minor league.
Moreover, as a number of folks have pointed out, college football and basketball players are compensated. What they are compensated is not just a function of their individual talents, but of the college athletics system in which they compete. This includes not only lots of athletes less talented (who get far more than they could get as professionals), but athletes in other sports. Somehow this all plays into the interest people have in collegiate athletics overall, which is where the big bucks come from. Where is the evidence that the benefits of cooperation are not being divided fairly? What are the relevant counterfactuals here? As I say, I'm somewhat surprised that an advocate of free markets would end up standing in judgment of a system that functions (until now) in a relatively legally-unconstrained way. If the system is exploitative, why are there not less exploitative alternatives?
Hammer
· 7 months ago
I have to agree with both Slocum and Russ here. College athletes in the big sports (football and basketball where I went to school)get quite a bit in "payment", however it is all somewhat under the table except for the scholarships and the like, which are a joke. Russ is correct that this system just corrupts the university, creating a filthy system of perks and bonuses for the athletes while officially leaving them unpaid. The universities need to just own up and admit that they all pay their players, and actually do it.Then the players's job can be playing football for the school instead of "sweeping the gym" or whatever other silly labor the school claims they do to excuse giving them money.
AMATI NONYMUS
· 7 months ago
"
when Congress spends time doing stupid things it shouldn't be doing, it is not doing even stupider things it shouldn't be doing.
"
When Congress is not mired in gridlock no American is safe
!
Let the bowl games begin
!
Steve
· 7 months ago
I think most of the value of athletics is as pure entertainment (watching great athletes do amazing things + the drama of competition) plus an outlet for instinct for tribalism (Packers = us, Bears = them, go us!).
The players bring something to the table in the entertainment aspect (watching me play basketball isn't as (intentionally) entertaining as watching Michael Jordan), but the schools bring the tribal brand.
I don't know that the players aren't getting their "fair share" of the pie. I suspect that the wage scale is much flatter than if the NCAA allowed wages.
Russ, how do you see resources being reallocated in the absence of the NCAA, aside from higher wages for (some/most/all?) players? Do universities need to show losses or only small profits on their athletic programs, so they plow back too much into facilities and management?
Kent Gatewood
· 7 months ago
Would compensation only be given in revenue generating sports? Would cross country be cut since it produces no revenue? Title nine? Would an equal number of women have to be paid men's rates?
I went to an NAIA school; don't think we had any revenue positive sports.
All Comments
Russ, please grant me permission to use your last sentence, over and over and over again ....
Yeah, I wish they'd get so bogged down with BCS matters that they wouldn't have time for "healthcare reform," card check labor union issues, additional "fiscal stimulus," etc.
Words fail me. Except to note that when Congress spends time doing stupid things it shouldn't be doing, it is not doing even stupider things it shouldn't be doing.
So we got that going for us...
The most obvious thing that's wrong with college football is that the NCAA restrains its members from paying players, maintaining the illusion that they are student-athletes and enriching the universities.
This is no endorsement of congressional meddling or the NCAA, but I really don't think that college athletes are being unfairly cheated out of potential riches to anything like the extent people imagine. College football and basketball teams are, effectively, minor league teams run by universities. Are minor league teams that are not affiliated with universities lucrative enterprises that pay their players high wages? No -- minor league teams are shoestring operations that draw small crowds charge low ticket prices and pay low wages.
Why can universities fill 100,000 seat football stadiums at NFL-level ticket prices? Because of the athletic prowess of the 19-year-olds on the field? Or because of fan affiliation with their alma mater (or at least with their home-state university)? Seems clear that it's the latter.
Consider that there's no obstacle to a new football or basketball minor league starting up and outbidding universities for players. Nor is there any reason why a group of elite football schools might not leave the NCAA and start paying players (and outbidding NCAA schools). But neither has happened (nor seems likely to). If minor league teams of the best 18-22 year old basketball and football players are a lucrative opportunity -- why not?
Indeed!
And, I personally feel the BCS is perfect! It is a perfect example of the reasons Edmund Burke used to justify conservatism many years ago. I also believe it is the best and most equitable model based upon consumer preference, and the constraints of suppliers. Likely, it is profit maximizing as well. Although, I have no idea where to begin with this analysis.
Good points, Russ.
I, for one, do NOT want Congress to reform the system.
It has NO BUSINESS developing an algorithm or playoff system.
Instead, it should convene every year for several weeks, and legislate schedules to ensure non-BCS conferences don't get shafted by strength of schedule.
It should come back for a mid-season session, and call in various coaches to question them about whether their selections for starting skill positions reflect diversity, and whether they are wasting resources with a costly aerial game when ground is more reliable.
Then, at the end of the year, both houses of Congress should spend weeks debating the national champion, which should be passed with a Supermajority, and the declaration of the title should go to the President, who must post it on his website for five days before signing the champions into law.
Think of all the jobs this would create!
Actually a close friend of mine for whom football is something of an obsession related his thoughts on the change. It went something like this:
The reason college football is such an enormous venue is because team rivalries and local bowls hold relevance for EVERY team in the country. If there was a playoff system, this would be totally overshadowed, and 99% of the institutions would become disinterested.
I told him that he'd never run a country with that attitude.
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, regulate sporting events, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I think that paying players in a non-uniform manner, or paying them a substantial sum might ruin college football and basketball.
It might turn them into minor league sports, which aren't nearly as popular (at least at the top-end) as NCAA football and basketball.
I might be wrong, but I think a lot of the appeal of college athletics is the illusion that they're student-athletes at YOUR school, live in YOUR old dorm, etc. makes it compelling. I know I view minor league sports as an excuse to sit in the sun, drink beer, etc., whereas in college athletics, the competition itself is compelling.
Maybe I'm wrong -- but I really think that a minor league system of affiliates of major league teams would out-compete and replace college athletics if colleges started paying players (and competing for players based on pay).
This is not to justify the current system. I think that the top HS prospects should be getting million dollar deals, as in baseball, I'm just not sure that college athletics as we know it would survive if colleges competed for players based on wages paid.
"Except to note that when Congress spends time doing stupid things it shouldn't be doing, it is not doing even stupider things it shouldn't be doing."
Rather, I see this as evidence that Congress has already exhausted the stupider things queue.
This is a great post and great comments, especially the one from Ike. I am only surprised you didn't have a progressive visitor suggest we should tax the winners just because they are winners.
They do get paid: They receive tuition scholarships, books, clothes, food, housing, free tutoring services, free access to state of the art training facilities, preference in class registration, and are treated like royalty on campus. People may disagree as to the adequacy of payment, but the claim that college athletes (especially football players) do not get paid is factually wrong.
Reginald Musgrave,
I should have said, "a competitive salary." Yes, they get in-kind compensation. So do slaves. The system exploits most of the players, who in hope of a mega-payday, accept compensation that is much less than they would receive in a more competitive market.
We're also seeing in recent years that sufficiently skilled players take routes other than college to professional sports. Brandon Jennings went and played a year of basketball in Europe rather than go to college. There's some talk of the NBDL taking players out of high school on their way to the NBA.
There are other issues here out of the colleges' control. The professional leagues have age limits or rules about entry. To some extent, this might preserve the monopoly (of the leagues or the colleges). In football, though, there is a better argument for safety than in other sports for keeping players out of the league until they are more physically developed.
At any rate, I'm not sure if there are similar opportunities in football, but basketball has some paid routes as alternatives to college:
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-39-146/Jeremy-Tyler-is-the-Talk.html
Parkinson's Law of Triviality
[from the link] The concept is presented in C. Northcote Parkinson's spoof of management, "Parkinson's Law" (1957).
Parkinson dramatises his Law of Triviality with the example of a committee deliberating on a nuclear power plant. A nuclear reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. Even those with strong opinions might withhold them for fear of being shown to be uninformed.
The committee next deliberates on a new bicycle shed. Everyone understands a bicycle shed (or thinks he does), so building one can result in endless discussions: everyone involved wants to add his touch and show that he is there. Debate emerges over whether the best choice of roofing is aluminium, asbestos, or galvanised iron. Then, whether the shed is a good idea or not.
Next, the committee considers coffee purchasing, a discussion that results in the biggest waste of time and the most acrimony.
+ + + +
It is tough to be a congressman or senator. Most go along to get along, making deals and handing out money. Then, real issues are presented to them that make a difference. They are clueless.
It is a great relief to talk about football.
What is wrong with this country is people who assign some sort of significant deep rooted moral, emotional, and personal value to a kid's game played by overgrown kids, and those people try to push their misguided viewpoints off on people like myself, who don't give s sh.t.
If HS and College sports ceased tomorrow, my would change only in that I would suddenly be surrounded by vast hordes of fools that no longer have a damn thing to talk about.
That would be, last paragraph, "my life would change only in that..."
Hey, the more time they spend on this, the less time they have to screw up other parts of our lives... I say we all write to our congressmen and ask them to put this on high priority.
What's truly pathetic isn't that Congress feels it should regulate college football bowls, but that a big percentage of the public thinks this would be a good idea.
Too many people believe that government is the answer to any problem. They want Daddy and Mommy government to fix everything. They are anti-libertarian children: spoiled bratitarians.
I think there is someone here who was always picked last in gym class.
In this country for a long long time now, so many watch and so few do.
And, there is a question about why we are a degenerating society?
Why is there a question?
Get off your ass and go do.
"The system exploits most of the players, who in hope of a mega-payday, accept compensation that is much less than they would receive in a more competitive market."
Actually, I think the system rewards rather than exploits most of the players the majority of whom have no hope of ever turning pro and would be paid less than the value of a college education as minor-leaguers.
The vast majority of college football and basketball players receive more for their athletic talents from universities than they could from any other organization (which is obviously also true of all the athletes in non-revenue sports). It's really only the relative few who might command sizable signing bonuses out of high-school that are disadvantaged under the current system.
But note, too, that more and more baseball players are skipping the minor-league route (with signing bonus and salary) in favor of the 'unpaid' college route. Why? Maybe because a college degree plus 4 years of being a big man on campus sounds a hell of a lot more attractive than years of riding the bus from one podunk minor-league town to the next?
Putting myself in that position, how big would the signing bonus have to be for me to choose minor-league life and no degree over college life (as a big time athlete)? Pretty big. Especially because a lot of the athletes who don't go pro seem to achieve a lot of local name recognition make valuable contacts in the alumni network that pay off later.
I would hope our beloved politicians spend an enormous amount of time on regulating the fascinating world of football.
I hope they will spend 10 hrs/day, 6 days/week and 50 weeks/year on it.
And if possible, not finish the job before 2050.
That, to me, would show that our beloved leaders take their jobs and their responsibility seriously.
Or do I expect too much?
Russ,
I agree completely and hope they tackle the tough issues surrounding T-Ball next and dodge ball after that.By the time they come to a resolution some time next year the recovery will be well on it's way. Lord knows investors and the markets need the cover that the college sports CRISIS is providing.
I couldn't agree more about the stupidity of having Congress weigh in on this. But I'm surprised at Russ's claim that players would earn more in a "competitive" market. What keeps the market from being competitive? True, the NCAA prevents its member institutions from paying players, but that association itself is voluntary. There is an alternative system for baseball players; that there is not for football and basketball players shows something, but surely not that there is any legal barrier to entry to trying to establish a minor league.
Moreover, as a number of folks have pointed out, college football and basketball players are compensated. What they are compensated is not just a function of their individual talents, but of the college athletics system in which they compete. This includes not only lots of athletes less talented (who get far more than they could get as professionals), but athletes in other sports. Somehow this all plays into the interest people have in collegiate athletics overall, which is where the big bucks come from. Where is the evidence that the benefits of cooperation are not being divided fairly? What are the relevant counterfactuals here? As I say, I'm somewhat surprised that an advocate of free markets would end up standing in judgment of a system that functions (until now) in a relatively legally-unconstrained way. If the system is exploitative, why are there not less exploitative alternatives?
I have to agree with both Slocum and Russ here. College athletes in the big sports (football and basketball where I went to school)get quite a bit in "payment", however it is all somewhat under the table except for the scholarships and the like, which are a joke. Russ is correct that this system just corrupts the university, creating a filthy system of perks and bonuses for the athletes while officially leaving them unpaid. The universities need to just own up and admit that they all pay their players, and actually do it.Then the players's job can be playing football for the school instead of "sweeping the gym" or whatever other silly labor the school claims they do to excuse giving them money.
"
when Congress spends time doing stupid things it shouldn't be doing, it is not doing even stupider things it shouldn't be doing.
"
When Congress is not mired in gridlock no American is safe
!
Let the bowl games begin
!
I think most of the value of athletics is as pure entertainment (watching great athletes do amazing things + the drama of competition) plus an outlet for instinct for tribalism (Packers = us, Bears = them, go us!).
The players bring something to the table in the entertainment aspect (watching me play basketball isn't as (intentionally) entertaining as watching Michael Jordan), but the schools bring the tribal brand.
I don't know that the players aren't getting their "fair share" of the pie. I suspect that the wage scale is much flatter than if the NCAA allowed wages.
Russ, how do you see resources being reallocated in the absence of the NCAA, aside from higher wages for (some/most/all?) players? Do universities need to show losses or only small profits on their athletic programs, so they plow back too much into facilities and management?
Would compensation only be given in revenue generating sports? Would cross country be cut since it produces no revenue? Title nine? Would an equal number of women have to be paid men's rates?
I went to an NAIA school; don't think we had any revenue positive sports.