JdPat04 wrote:Can UAB afford to pay all of their athletes? Troy, southern miss, south Alabama? Hell even Miami? Can Miami afford to pay every athlete that they have?
Alabama has men and women’s wheelchair basketball teams (we win championships in that :chewy)
Hockey, golf, gymnastics, baseball, softball, football, wrestling, and pretty much any other sport.... we could afford to pay them something. Texas, UGA, Auburn, osu, UM, ND, UT, UF, LSU
There won’t be any problems for those schools
The NCAA would have to treat college ball as the entity it already does and further break it down by sports and then by level.
Football, by far, is the biggest revenue stream for the NCAA. Next is basketball. The NCAA should only rule those two bodies and force the colleges to support whatever the other sports they want. This guarantees that the money is shared amongst the readers and not as a socialist construct. Meaning, those persons that believe tuition is worth its weight won't object to women's sports being the burden of the school solely.
Now that we have an agreeable grouping of two major sports, its important to be broken down, as it basically is today, into three distinct levels. And these levels are fluid. Meaning, what we deem the power 5 can have members drop levels and then next tiers move up levels based on competitive teams.
As an example, Miami should not have been a power 5 school the last decade. It could be argued that a team like UCF that played in a BCS game a few years ago and played above their current level should have had an opportunity to play up.
But back to the money, this is just a rough draft, but due to the monies paid by networks for the conferences and total bowls, that can be all divvied up through the leagues. Let's say 80% of the total revenue split as 40, 25, 15. That pays the players, the coaches and their Athletic Departments are still allowed to raise funding. The difference being that the 80% has to spent on the players. Both in salary and assets to their future.
What that incurs is that if they so choose, they can use their salaries to pay for college and classes in concert with their prepping for the pros. Their time is theirs and since there's no need for a job to make money, they can actually focus on getting ready for life and living.
There's a million ways to do it. It should be done. It's pathetic that the NFL has this free farm system that destroys the living conditions for these kids for free. Forever. It's shown that the average life expectancy of former players is shorter than others. Not to mention the comfort of life after all the breaks, bruises, tears, collisions etc has made worse.
And to further the dumb retorts by those say "but but tuition". Colleges, are no different than any other business/corporation. Some are better than others overall simply by degree type. Which also means that standards are different. Remove the standards and allow for students to play for the school they are fans of up front.