It’s never surprising to me when league commissioners or Athletic Director’s are against paying college players. Simply put, they stand to lose money because their high salaries would probably be redistributed to the players in a pay-for-play system. What I am surprised by, is Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany coming out and talking so freely about players being able to go straight from High School to the pros in both basketball and football:
“Maybe in football and basketball, it would work better if more kids had a chance to go directly into the professional ranks,” Delany said. “If they’re not comfortable and want to monetize, let the minor leagues flourish. Train at IMG, get agents to invest in your body, get agents to invest in your likeness and establish it on your own. But don’t come here and say, ‘We want to be paid $25,000 or $50,000.’ Go to the D-League and get it, go to the NBA and get it, go to the NFL and get it. Don’t ask us what we’ve been doing.
“If an athlete wants to professionalize themselves, professionalize themselves. We’ve been training kids for professional sports. I argue it’s the color, I argue it’s the institution. If you think it’s about you, then talk to John Havlicek about that, you’ve got to talk to Michael Jordan about that. These brands have been built over 100 years.”
If the brands of the school is what truly matters, then why did Texas A&M get $700+ million in donations last year versus $100 million the year before? Also why does study after study show that enrollment increases when schools sports teams are doing well? He went on to say:
“You don’t have to play for the Redskins or the Bears at 17, but you could develop IMG,” Delany said. “My gosh, there are lots of trainers out there. There are quarterback coaches teaching passing skills, guys lifting weights, guys training and running. They can get as strong and as fast in that environment as they can in this environment. Plus, they don’t have to go to school. Plus, they can sell their likeness and do whatever they want to do. We don’t want to do that. What we want to do is do what we’ve been doing for 100 years. …
“I think we ought to work awful hard with the NFL and the NBA to create an opportunity for those folks. We have it in baseball, we have it in golf, works pretty good, we have it in golf, we have it in hockey. Why don’t we have it in football, basketball? Why is it our job to be minor leagues for professional sports?”
If the 75 of the top 100 recruits every year skipped college football to train for the NFL, college football would be weakened much more than if they simply worked out a way to pay the real assets in this equation. You know that the momentum for change is coming when important people are standing up to defend their way of doing things for 100 years. Just because you have been doing things this way for 100 years doesn’t make it right, unless the change will result in your pockets getting lighter right?