VICE: Does racial resentment fuel opposition to paying college athletes?

[Remote]

Of course it's definitely part racial resentment but it's also part envy and contempt toward people they feel have not earned their station in life somehow. "Ordinary" people (a group of which I consider myself a member so no offense intended) have a tendency to look with envy and contempt only toward others they deem as "ordinary" because that's who they can relate to. They can't relate to billionaires, the 1%, so they don't even talk about those people. Even though, if anyone is responsible for ordinary people being stuck where they are, it's the 1%

I think back to Immortal Technique's analogy about how we are all trying to kick each other out of the little boats while the bougie motherfukkers ride on a luxury liner. Why are we so mad at college athletes, or welfare recipients, or whoever for wanting a better life and chastising them for not "earning it" while nobody questions the people who truly control the flow of wealth in this country? What, every fukking rich guy out there clawed and scratched his way to the top, right? There are those people who decide things like executive compensation vs compensation for lower level employees, who write policies/laws that allow for costs of vital things like education and healthcare to skyrocket, rising real estate/rent, for Wall Street to run roughshod over the country while the middle and working classes struggle. All those people earned it right? All those people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and were never helped by inheritances, nepotism, or anything else?

But no, we're just mad at insanely poor people who collectively take up a small fraction of government spending just to keep them alive/afloat, and we're angry at college athletes whose special talents and abilities (that "ordinary people" do not possess) provide immense value to their institutions. Granted I will say that, given the cost of education, the value of a scholarship is huge and much greater than it once was. But why do we have so much contempt for folks like this when we don't even question why a small group of humans own so much wealth that they'd never be able to spend in their lifetimes are the ones keeping us all fighting each other for the scraps to begin with? If you can honestly look me in the eye and tell me that other poor and/or working class and/or middle class people are more responsible for your station in life than politicians and corporate greed, then I don't know what to fukking tell you. It's just contempt and envy for others coming up when that should be the goal for us all. Success is not a zero sum game, people. Other peoples' gain doesn't have to be your loss.

These clowns don't hear you tho.

Solutions are hard. So status quo it is...

 

[RammerJammer]

Yeah, I think so. For some reason white people get so up in arms when the topic comes up.

College Players should get paid, but I don't know solution to getting that done for all teams and players so I'll leave that to the experts. On the other hand, if College Players aren't gonna get paid by the University, they should at least people able to make money off of their name (endorsements, jerseys, use of name etc...). DeShaun Watson and Lamar Jackson would've made big money last year with endorsements etc...

 

[Walt]

its actually more than that...a lot more if you count div 2 and 3...more like almost 1100 schools....

it could be done...there just no incentive to do it

the ncaa makes almost a billion a year of the basket ball tournament alone

they signed a contract for 11 billion over 14 years a couple years ago

There is no reason for Division II or III student athletes to be in this conversation whatsoever.

 

[Hacksaw Jim Thuggin]

There is no reason for Division II or III student athletes to be in this conversation whatsoever.

why not?

how is it justifiable to pay one and not the other?

 

[Hacksaw Jim Thuggin]

All it would do is raise inflation across the board it wouldn't solve the root problem

breh...inflation rises on tuition no matter what every year....

 

[Walt]

why not?

how is it justifiable to pay one and not the other?

Division III schools don't give athletic scholarships and don't produce any revenue whatsoever off their games. What exactly do you think is going on at the Division III level? Or D II?

 

[Texas2step]

Wouldn't paying athletes for autograph jerseys ect.. open up a gateway for a lot of corruption? for example: a booster or the mafia paying an athlete to throw games and paying them by purchasing their autographed jersey for a lot of money. They will find a way to funnel money to these athletes for the wrong purposes.

 

[BelowTheMasonDixon]

Wouldn't paying athletes for autograph jerseys ect.. open up a gateway for a lot of corruption? for example: a booster or the mafia paying an athlete to throw games and paying them by purchasing their autographed jersey for a lot of money. They will find a way to funnel money to these athletes for the wrong purposes.

They've already stopped selling Jerseys with specific numbers on them. Just mostly generic now.

 

[Texas2step]

They've already stopped selling Jerseys with specific numbers on them. Just mostly generic now.

Im speaking on the argument that they should be allowed to sell themselves. Like charging money to sign autographs on hats, shirts, jerseys ect...

 

[BelowTheMasonDixon]

breh...inflation rises on tuition no matter what every year....

The High Cost of College Athletics and Your Tuition | The Huffington Post

Are college athletic programs responsible for tuition hikes?

College sports may be a culprit for the student debt crisis.

A new documentary short is highlighting the exorbitant amount of money colleges and universities are spending on athletics while tuition continuously grows for students and faculty positions slowly diminish.

Titled “The Big Game: College Football Stealing Your Education,” the 2-minute video cites that contrary to popular conception, 82 percent of college football programs lose an average of $11 million per year, and that universities spend nearly seven times as much on athletes as on educating students. Meanwhile, the average cost for tuition and fees has almost doubled since 2000.

“There’s this common consensus that athletics bring money to the school, and its manifestation in the public keeps us from actually doing the math,” Vanessa Baden Kelly, a spokeswoman for Brave New Films, tells The Christian Science Monitor.


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For instance, the documentary researchers found that Utah State University spent $25 million on sports last year, but only earned $11 million from its own athletic departments. The rest of the $14 million, the narrator says, came from tuition and tax subsidies. Likewise for Kent State University, where 54 percent of the school's athletic budget comes from students.

The top schools do have profitable sports programs, Ms. Baden Kelly says, but after the top 20 or 30, people forget about the thousands of schools with football teams that aren’t making money.

Especially compared to the dismal work climate for adjunct professors, the money poured into sports can seem egregious. In an opinion piece for the Huffington Post, Brave New Foundation filmmaker Robert Greenwald explains that in order to fund expensive athletic programs, schools must rebudget elsewhere.

“At many universities, this means cutting faculty and entire degree programs,” Greenwald writes. “University of Akron recently cut 215 jobs and $40 million dollars from their budget. But their tuition did not go down. Instead, they signed Terry Bowden, head coach of their football program, to a $2 million dollar contract.”

 

[BelowTheMasonDixon]

Colleges Game the System to Offer Athletes More Money

Colleges want to sweeten athletic scholarships. So they inflate the cost of attendance to give more money to athletes but not others.

some colleges and universities that play big-time intercollegiate sports are sharply increasing the federally defined cost of attendance for students at their institutions this year—letting them provide several thousand more dollars in stipends for scholarship athletes, but resulting in little if any additional funds for other students.

The maneuvering is an outgrowth of the January vote by the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s five wealthiest sports conferences to increase the value of athletic scholarships to include the full cost of attendance. Athletes receiving a full scholarship to play on a college team can now also receive a stipend to cover the difference between that scholarship and the various other expenses that accompany being a college student, such as paying for food, laundry, and travel.

This summer, some institutions adjusted their cost of attendance figures just as those estimates suddenly became useful as a recruiting tool. And financial aid analysts are worried that athletics departments are now improperly influencing those numbers to the benefit of revenue sport athletes, but the detriment of other students.


Are you all implying the average student should be ok with this?

 

[Texas2step]

I think student athletes should get paid but everyone needs to be equal otherwise it will cause problems. If you are on the OL and you are getting paid less while the RB gets more because he is seen as star because of the big holes you are opening up for him, then jealousy and envy will come into play. Hell they might even protest or refuse to block

 

[BelowTheMasonDixon]

I think student athletes should get paid but everyone needs to be equal otherwise it will cause problems. If you are on the OL and you are getting paid less while the RB gets more because he is seen as star because of the big holes you are opening up for him, then jealousy and envy will come into play. Hell they might even protest or refuse to block

Shhh, stuff like that wouldn't come into the equation. I mean they all play for free now right and that doesn't happen.

 

[NYC Rebel]

I don't want to hear any buts. At the end of th day, it comes down to racial resentment.

The fact that Manziel for all of his shortcomings as well his wealth could at a moment in time redirect the nation's feelings towards paying college athlete because he was housed in a white hue, then revert BACK to hating the idea after he left says everything that need to be said.

 

[BelowTheMasonDixon]

I don't want to hear any buts. At the end of th day, it comes down to racial resentment.

The fact that Manziel for all of his shortcomings as well his wealth could at a moment in time redirect the nation's feelings towards paying college athlete because he was housed in a white hue, then revert BACK to hating the idea after he left says everything that need to be said.

You don't have to disagree with this. To disagree on why players shouldn't be paid though.