For my third Civic Issues Blog, I have chosen to focus on the often discussed and disputed issue of college athletes receiving compensation or stipend in addition to scholarships. While athletic scholarships can take the large burden of paying for college off of the shoulders of the student, it is often argued that scholarships do not put food on the table. Many student-athletes come from low-income and middle-income families who rely on scholarships to put their children through college and ensure an education.

Another argument comes from the idea that college athletics are almost like a full-time job. Between the weight room, classes, film studies and practices, these students spend majority of their time (especially during the season) living, breathing, sleeping and thinking about their sport. In addition to the hectic life their athletic schedule poses, some students have to work jobs late at night just to have a little extra spending money for things not covered by the university. For example, extra money to see a movie or buy clothing not affiliated with the university.

The point is that a college scholarship does not equal money in the pocket (Huffington Post).

Even with any kind of scholarship, most college athletes are considered what we call broke. The top NCAA executives make close to $1 million a year, and the average coach makes around $100,000 a year; and what do the athletes make? Nothing. The coaches will receive bonuses for their teams making the playoffs, winning championships and breaking school records. What will the athletes receive? Nothing. The athletes are what ultimately bring in the money. So shouldn’t they be the ones receiving the compensation?

Unfortunately it is just not the case.

The NCAA also makes an absurd amount of money off of college athletics. Recently, the NCAA and CBS signed a $10.8 billion television agreement over ten years.

The NCAA is considered a non-profit organization. Let that sink in.

The athletic department also makes a sizable profit off of the achievements of their athletic teams. The department might be mentioned once after a championship run, but the team itself will be in the paper for the entire year.

The team will receive nothing in compensation.

The flip side, of course, is that not all teams make the same amount of profit, so it would be hard to pay each athlete the same. While I understand that, the money that the university makes from television agreements and licensing deals could be easily allocated towards their athletes.

Another argument is that these athletes are worth millions, so start paying them like it (Forbes). Universities expect a certain amount of professionalism from their athletes, however, they do not pay them like professional athletes. For example, Stanford’s star tailback and 2017 Heisman Trophy runner-up Bryce Love missed the Pac-12 media day in order to go to the extra classes he signed up for. Love, a human biology major, decided to take extra classes to graduate early. His absence at the pro-day was frowned upon, and he was criticized for his lack of professionalism as a star athlete. But he is, in fact, a student-athlete, and a prestigious university like Stanford should be applauding his efforts to go to class.

The truth is, athletes like Bryce Love bring in millions to their universities.

And coaches like Nick Saban are great, but the reason he gets paid millions of dollars is because of his ability to recruit athletes to play football at his university for almost free (Forbes).

Hopefully in the years to come there will be a solution to come out of all this debate. But until then, we can only hope that these student-athletes are able to juggle it all.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2018/07/26/college-athletes-are-worth-millions-they-should-be-paid-like-it/#504a09a2452e

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tyson-hartnett/college-athletes-should-be-paid_b_4133847.html

For my Civic Issues Blog this week, I have chosen to focus on the amount of money college sports generate for their university, which sport generates the most money, and how the money is used by the university. As I stated in my previous blog post, the topic of my paradigm shift paper was football as a big business. In that paper I focused a portion of it on the big business of college football and how it works. I will be using aspects of that paper, seeing as though football on college campuses is often the most recognizable thing associated with a university. To start off, I would like to provide the statistics for our very own university. As stated by Business Insider in 2016, Penn State generated a three year average of $66 million in football revenue. After football was men’s basketball, which generated an average $10.7 million over three years. Coming in third was women’s basketball, which had a much smaller average of $0.9 million over three years. On a list with twenty-four other schools, Penn State came in tenth place. All of the schools on the list had football as the top revenue generator among the sports teams on their campus. Football is easily the most easily recognized sports when it comes to collegiate athletics. For example, In 2016 at the University of Texas, which was the school that generated the most money from athletics ($182 million), 70% of that revenue comes from football. The gap between football and the other sports is absolutely astonishing. The average school generates $31.9 million in football revenue each year, while the next 35 sports generate $31.7 million combined. In 2018, Texas A&M dethroned Texas for the top spot of revenue generators. But the question is, where does the money go?In some cases, the revenue goes towards building better facilities. For example, the Clemson Tigers recently opened a brand-new $55 million facility exclusively for their football players. Of course, their team did win the National Championship twice in the past three years, but this is often where the issue arises.

Should collegiate football players be receiving more perks and benefits because their sport generates the most public interest and the most revenue? Should revenue be allocated to other sport facilities and other student athletes? Many argue that just because football players generate the most amount of money, it does not mean that they should be treated any differently than the other student athletes on campus. However, others argue the exact opposite. Others just have a general curiosity about revenue in college athletics: Where does all the money go?

In the case of the University of Michigan, many of the money profited from football goes to support other student athletes. To be exact, roughly 800 athletes. A lot of the money does go to about two dozen other sports teams. Although that revenue is not being used to build these teams $55 million facilities, some of the money is allocated towards these other teams. A lot of the debate surrounding revenue comes about with the general public awareness of college football. It is the most recognizable, most watched, and most sought after in terms of tickets. The average college football ticket is often altered to meet the public interest in the matchup, making college football a business tactic for many universities. People may argue that universities should not treat their athletes and their athletics as a business, seeing as though the main focus of these universities should be academics. The Issue will always be there when it comes to college football, and it will only get worse as more generations attend college and the public interest increases with the technology.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2018/09/11/college-footballs-most-valuable-teams/#22c95e036c64

https://www.businessinsider.com/college-sports-football-revenue-2017-10

https://smartycents.com/articles/college-football-revenue/

https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-clemsons-football-facility-2017-10

https://www.businessinsider.com/schools-most-revenue-college-sports-2016-10

For my Civic Issues Blog, I have chosen to focus on college sports on campus. This topic sparked my interest due to the topic of my paradigm shift paper, which was football as a big business. I think that this topic will be interesting to analyze and become more informed about.

Often times, a university is associated heavily with its athletic programs rather than its academic offerings, with the exceptions to this association obviously being Ivy League schools and the so-called “baby ivies”. I know personally when I was looking at colleges, I wanted a school that was considered a big “football school.” Thus, I applied to schools down south, which are notorious for being football powerhouses, but not always at the top of the list for academics. I ultimately chose a school that has a nice balance of both, hence why I am writing this blog. The issue comes into play when universities are associated with their athletics, and how this affects current students and prospective applicants. There are definitely benefits and consequences with this association. For example, after the Villanova men’s basketball team won the National Championship in 2016, the number of applicants increased by 22 percent from the previous year. The reason behind this? Exposure (US News).When a university wins a National Championship, especially one that is heavily televised, interest from the general public increases. In a one month period, Villanova received more than 50,000 media mentions (US News). This is especially eye-opening to prospective students. It’s easy for a high-school student to say, “wow they just won a national championship, I want to go there”, and franky, many do. This phenomenon is called “the Flutie effect”. In a 1984 game against the University of Miami, Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie threw a hail mary pass that was miraculously caught for a game-winning touchdown. The even better catch? The number of applicants to Boston College increased 30 percent in two years (Forbes).

However, this effect can have disadvantages. The school often has to lower its tuition by 3.8 percent, and increase the quality of its education by hiring professors that are paid 5 percent more than their peers in their field. The reasoning behind this comes from the findings that students with higher SAT scores preferred a university with better academic quality, so the university must raise its expectations for their applicants. The students with lower SAT scores preferred athletic power-houses over academic ones, meaning that the intelligence of the incoming class of applicants could be less than what the university is used to (Forbes).

The success in athletics is almost like a kind of brand representation for these universities. Success generates general public awareness, which is extremely beneficial in the sports-heavy American culture. However, it is not entirely correct to say that colleges invest money into athletic programs for the rise in applicants. Enter Chung argues that it is probably the tertiary reason (Forbes). A primary reason to invest money in athletics would be to boost diversity and morale, two of the NCAA’s core missions. Another reason would be that athletics bring in an enormous amount of money for universities. It is estimated that sporting events generated $2 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profit in 2010.

But how far is too far when it comes to brand representation? The universities need to have a healthy balance of academics and athletics. Although athletic achievements are worthy of public praise, it is really the academics that the college is centered around.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/04/29/the-flutie-effect-how-athletic-success-boosts-college-applications/#625428996e96

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-03-14/college-basketball-championship-bonus-more-applications