tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338200031275376565.post6623325242170331195..comments2023-11-02T07:38:56.988-04:00Comments on John Lunn's Basically Economics Blog: Alabama and LSU Football, and the NCAA as a CartelJohn Lunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07770147825287832691noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338200031275376565.post-59995017069916949052012-08-27T08:47:41.460-04:002012-08-27T08:47:41.460-04:00Tim:
I agree that the atheletes do get some pay in...Tim:<br />I agree that the atheletes do get some pay in the form of scholarships. This is especially true for atheletes in non-revenue generating sports, which is almost all sports except football and basketball. But the football players are not receiving their marginal value product, which means they are being exploited in the economic (rather than Marxian) sense.<br />Division III sports is much closer to the ideal of being amateur and having student-atheletes.John Lunnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07770147825287832691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338200031275376565.post-19090979330589924442012-08-27T08:39:42.833-04:002012-08-27T08:39:42.833-04:00Prof. Lunn, I mainly agree with your points, espec...Prof. Lunn, I mainly agree with your points, especially about the NCAA being hypocritical. It is insane for the college football community to point only to Penn St. Most (all?) D-1 football programs (or at some places basketball) put way too much emphasis on winning. That is not a sin of only the folks in State College. <br /><br />However, I had to add something on stating that colleges "pay players nothing." Pay in the sense of a salary, no. Pay in the sense of value, including scholarships, housing, small living expenses, clothes, etc., yes. It may not be enough. And it may be taking advantage of athletes. But it is not nothing. Would have loved an equivalent nothing.<br /><br />That said, there are a number of programs that do things with scholarships that I find reprehensible and immoral. The SEC still allows oversigning (although some schools—Georgia and Vanderbilt for sure), which is the practice of using the NCAA rules capping scholarships total for football at 85 with annual limits that would allow way more than 85 players on a team. So at schools in the SEC, especially LSU and Alabama (under Nick Saban) and also Auburn under their former coach, teams sign their full annual amounts and then dismiss 10–15 guys before the next season. They cite things like medical or academic. But it looks to the outside world like they are just "firing" scholarship athletes weeks before the fall term begins. Rules are changing (and the Big 10 is now doing 4 year scholarships) but the hypocrisy of locking student-athletes into a school that can then turn around and dismiss so they can sign the next best thing is just sad.Tim Fryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04963727019607333526noreply@blogger.com