Fun fact; University of Kentucky has, in total, less than 300 students on their various sports teams. One coach is making 7 million dollars a year. If you dropped that to 2 million dollars you could split the 5 million remaining among 300 students and each of them would get just under 17k a year. Oh but tell us again how you can't afford to pay them....
Taranizs. Seriously, 7 mil$? Who pays for it? The university, the state? I'm not American, and I don't know anything about your school sports system . All these athletes that I see and that clearly without the sport that they practice who knows what profession they would have had and that do not seem to have a great culture, but only dance "cool" on doubtful music come to an end school just because they are a bit good at sports? What kind of coaches are there, I'm not surprised that athletes / students know so little about the world around them. There are many like Cristiano Ronaldo or Cassano (on you don't know that, but he's a '' genius '') ?
@@ap-hm5lt The point is the annual expense still contains enough money to pay the kids. And if you've handled money before you'll know 2 million is much more than enough for a homeowner with a larger than modest lifestyle. The wage gap doesn't justify itself based on effort here.
If you took half the salary of a coach of a sport team, and gave it to the team you could get a lot more than that per player. Capitalism can really suck.
I was a student athlete. I was a walk on who got a starting spot because the first-stringer tore his acl; poor guy lost his scholarship because of it by the way. Because I was a walk on, I wasn't on scholarship. I was a starter for a division-1 school who wasn't even getting my education payed for. Our coach always made us promise not to tell anybody when he bought us food after a game because it was an NCAA violation. I was also pressured to play through several injuries. Fast forward toward the end of our season and I got another injury when I tore my RCL in my hand. The university informed me that as a walk on I had exhausted my annual limit for medical expenses, and that I would have to pay for my RCL treatment out of pocket. I forewent a necessary surgery to repair my hand because I couldn't afford the procedure. My mobility in my left hand will never be the same. And even after I went through all of that, I was informed that I was welcome to rejoin the team the next year as a walk on. I started almost a full season, and they still refused to put me on scholarship the next season. College athletics are just another soulless American corporate cesspit.
I always wanted to play football but never did. I have the build for it but looking back now I am glad that I didn't tear my body up doing it. If I had made it pro, I would be retirement age with a thrashed body now. Still wish I had a shot to see what I could have done, but stuff gets sore enough from working already!
hi rich. its fucking horrible to say the least what happened to you. i am a rugby man myself and i actually feel lucky i tore my acl. i did that in grade 10. namibia. thats about 2years before senior year. rugby was god at our school,but we were very rural. i wanted to go pro and was earmarked. (namibia is the size of texas with only 2 million people). recent years have fucked up sports badly. good luck man
True story - a friend of mine was a VP at Werner ladders. He saw that I had a base model aluminum Werner ladder, smiled, and said "Ah, the widowmaker."
As a college student myself I COULD NOT COMPREHEND doing a sport AND classes. I'm dying as it is. Kudos to all student athletes and I hope this situation gets better for you all.
They could just quit the sports and take out loans or get an academic scholarship like most people (myself included). The importance that college athletics are given in the US is ridiculous. And it isn't necessary. Just look at most European countries - sports teams are more like clubs, and that is how it should be since universities are supposed to be institutions of higher education, not athletics. Colleges should have sports teams, but only as a side activity for students who are interested.
I tutored a lot of football players in high school, and they'd always get chided as being lazy when they'd skip the learning center, the writing lab or just flat out ditch a free one-on-one tutoring sesh with myself and other tutors. and i always remember coming to their defense with, "what time did you wake up this morning? oh? 6 am? take a nice jog too? that's great!! what next? classes? hey, i'm impressed. now? you're sitting around and making fun of them for not showing up? some of them are either at meetings, at practice, fitting in time to relax and oh, by the way... i'm pretty sure some of them are back in the weight room tonight. all while getting over their jet lag to play a team in the SEC... 1000 miles away. think about that when you're sitting in the stands this weekend drunk off your ass and in the stands.... because guess what? some of them have a test to cram for too on monday."
Except so many of us do know -- we too WORKed and went to school … That' wasn't easy either, but we did it for the education and we needed the money to pay for our education -- your room, board and food were all covered (Rightfully so) by the scholarship …. But, I do think there could be a medium here -- like allowing students to work a regular job on campus during the sports off-season, workmans comp if they get hurt -- and still be able to go to college, etc.
@@heinzguderian9980 this......ive been preachi g this for so long. But idk of well ever see that sort of seperation of univerisities and serious athletics that they have in europe. It would be much better for the athlete doe.
@@heinzguderian9980 No they really couldnt their education has already been hijacked to the point they will require a redo and the cant afford that loans
As a college student, I worked at my schools rec. center and library and got paid for it. I would have never expected to not be compensated for my work. So the idea that students can't be converted to "paid employees" is bullshit. And all the more for athletes. Either the NCAA completely eschews paid sponsorships and converts to a model more like high school athletics in which the coach is also a teacher who only draws a teachers salary, or they pay their student athletes a wage for all the work they do for the school.They should not be able to have it both ways, as they do now.
+Geoffrey Zoref If someone works at their college/university's library or rec centre or office or coffee shop or whatever, that's a job, so they get paid. On the other hand, school sports are an extracurricular hobby, like the chess club or improv acting club.
+BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH474 Actually, no. You, sir, are a blathering idiot. The idea that these people aren't getting paid is nonsensical. Do you think that these people don't graduate? That they just stay shackled to the university forever? No. They get a degree, and they get national recognition. This means that recruiters in fancy suits come and watch them play and then offer them lots and lots of money to go put on a different jersey and do the same thing they've been doing. If not, they have a degree in whatever they chose to pursue that just about every other student in America had to pay for through the nose.
+KAKADOUJACK Yeah... unless they get sick or injured and can't play, then that scholarship vanishes into thin air and they get zero compensation whatsoever and are stuck trying to pay off college AND hospital bills... you know, like we saw IN THE VIDEO. Also the chances of getting to play professionally are absolutely minuscule. Also they can be booted out for things as minor as accepting free food from a fan. Also until recently the NCAA could still be making bank on them years down the line without their knowledge or input. Also the demands of the sport makes actually GETTING their education pretty difficult, and some schools go against the very spirit of an educational institution by giving them easy A's to bump up their GPAs. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons to want to be a student athlete even with the downsides and it's true they do get compensated in some important ways, but don't pretend that means they've got some kind of easy ride.
So let me get this straight: if I go to college on a scholarship that's provided to me because I'm a comm science major and then I fail my comm science courses and lose that scholarship, then that's not fair? Because the whole Idea that it's unfair for an athlete to lose their scholarships if they can no longer play is pretty damn similar. And don't you DARE deign to tell me that "sports make it hard to get an education," because that, sir, is bullshit. Read an article or two (or twenty, there's no shortage of them) on the special tracks that athletes get to their majors. Also, since you decided to bring up the whole "they can be booted out for things as minor as..." argument, I call bullshit on that as well because how many times have we seen scandals in just the past year over athletes whose coaches KNEW they had problems with drugs or who knew about pending rape/assault allegations yet chose to turn a blind eye because the athlete was making money for the university.
+KAKADOUJACK the point is billions are made because of their work their training their swet and tears and everybody profit financialy from it (the NCAA the networks the coachs and the school ) except them how is that fair it's like if you do a job and somebody else get paid for it and the guy profiting form your work give you a service that does'nt even represent 1% of the money you earned him this isn't fair no matter how you twist it
“ In a 9-0 unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision that NCAA restrictions on “education-related benefits” for college athletes violated antitrust law.”
BUT…..the NCAA gets to keep all the money they make for games including tournaments and bowl games. Student athletes can only make money from likeness rights.
I believe taking away a scholarship from an injury player should be outlawed. The schools even for those with career ending injuries should do whatever they can to keep the kid in school until he/she graduates or drops out on their own or transfers.
you know this bad when the most recent nba 2k game includes a scene of Idris Elba telling a college player he has no more scholarship after getting injured, and your created player can just leave the college altogether
Most scholarships for athletes also help kids coming from poverty, a college degree would be invaluable to those students to break the cycle of poverty regardless of if they get a pro contract. Taking that away is downright cruel and shows how little they care about the well-being of the athletes.
2:23 John: “There is something slightly troubling about a billion-dollar sports enterprise where the athletes are not paid a penny. Because they aren’t!” Random person in the crowd: “Whoo!”
The worst part about this is how easy it is to fix. Student Athletes should get health insurance and workman's comp as part of their scholarships. And all licencing and enforcement deal profits based on their likeness should go into a trust for after they graduate. And, you know, give them a real education if they want one. Bing bang boom, your students aren't in perpetual fear losing everything to happenstance and you're not a giant shitstain of an embarrassment.
James Purcell Right, insurance and comp is a must. Athletes cant be put in perpetual fear of losing everything. They are not slave gladiators but fucking humans.
Very well put, the problem is the greediest fucks on the planet are the ones hiding millions (and in some case billions), and when you affect their bottom line, suddenly they turn into Emmert. They find any reason not to pay the players, and the NFL/NBA protect the interest of the NCAA because its a free minor league system for them.
Okay so people are complaining about "professionalizing college athletics" when literally everything about it is professional minus salaries. The intensity of the training, the lack of position stability, the name recognition, and the fact that you as a player are a human billboard for whatever brand gave your team the jerseys
aside from a few rules, length of schedule and game..... college basketball these days is literally ALL THE EXCITEMENT of the pros... only there are 6 times the teams and every single player gets paid dick. it's preposterous... and sad.... PAY THE STUDENTS!!!
You don't get paid to study in Norway. Sure, you get a student loan, which is a really good loan with low interested and the government will write off 50% if you finish on time, but you don't get paid. But you're not saddled with life crippling financial problems either, so i like it this way.
I am not sure there is something wrong in that statement. His job is to coach and like all employment you get paid based on market rates and your ability and CV. That is different to being a student playing sports, hence his comfort in saying it. Am I missing something here? Genuine question.
TheRadFactor ....again, without the slightest bit of irony, witt, or having watched the video for himself to draw the same obvious conclusion, that literally has to be spelled out. (twice.)
TheRadFactor Let me try to clarify: When colleges argue that they shouldn't pay their student athletes, they pretend that they can't afford to by hiding and spending any profits they make. Sometimes they do this by siphoning money into the coach's paycheck. Dabo Swinney is paid $3,000,000 a year as part of his university's argument against paying his student-athletes even a little bit. Not only that, but his contract states that he can make even more money by trademarking his name, since he's "entitled" to do that.
Uh... I don't have the best track record with kickstarter... I'd need a producer or something, and someone to handle the financial aspects. I am a good designer, not so much a good businessman.
Lets just say, I lead an international team for the largest anti-bullying video game in history and despite having people from franchises like Halo, the Lego Movie, and such... Even we couldn't get kickstarted... So... Yeah...
I can picture the game already: Manager mode could be kind of like GTA, just bullying everyone and getting paid. It doesn't hurt to start a kickstarter campaign. I played with Unity3D sometime ago and am a programmer so understand the technical stuff. I'm working on starting a company in a different but if you want we can throw it on kickstarter and see what happens. We can tweet Jon Oliver and Last Week Tonight as well and they might retweet the campaign. You can lead the engineering team.
Well... To be honest Mubhij, I wouldn't go GTA route. If I were designing this... And... Okay, if we had the team and the money to do it... I'd go with an actual story mode... Yes... You are laughing... But hear me out... So, you play a guy who has to manage the team. He's got to get the players, he has to deal with crisis (such as low GPAs) but we use it as an educational platform... So... You can choose to do nothing, and let the student who's GPA has failed... Or you can create the classes... The players who don't make, can't play, thus you lose the game as your team is unsuccessful. Things of that nature. Now, that is just one idea, but through the game you have to set up your team so that they succeed. Such as scheduling them for training, despite it hurting their educational performance. You are forced to make paper classes, to keep your players eligible. You also have to make deals for money from sponsors because the school will fire you if you don't bring in enough revenue. Occasionally players will come to you with problems. You choose how to deal with them... Usually by screaming at them... Threatening them... Etc. Basically, use it as a launch platform to show that if you try to do it nicely, your team suffers in performance. Showing the player, from an in-universe perspective, the horrible choices these guys make and more importantly *why* they make them... I dunno. Maybe I have worked in edutainment and social issues gaming for too many years.
ssevf you get around that by driving the point home through narrative. So you have people act as the voice of conscience, and you make the player care about those people, only to effectively kill them off when they act on their conscience...
I FELT that. And I never went into sports. I just had to raise me and my sister from the time I was 15 cause our mom didn't want to involve us in her dangerous job. And honestly around the time I started going to college and my sis started going to high school, it was all ramen bowls.
"Schools can't afford to pay athletes"...Texas A&M just agreed to pay Jimbo Fischer $75 MILLION over 10 years to coach football at a sub-par SEC East football program. They can afford to pay their students. I promise.
Sure, but they shouldn't. They shouldn't be pay exorbitant amounts of money for coaches either. In many states, the highest-paid public employee is the football coach of one of the universities - universities that are supposed to be considered institutions of "higher education" are paying their highest salary to an employee who has nothing to do with academics...
As a poor college student, I did not believe student athletes should get paid. I was jealous of their scholarships. But there's a group of football players living in my dorm, underneath us. And there are a couple of student athletes in my class. These are students at a Big Ten university. Seriously, all they get is the tuition, room and board. Books? Nope. Hygienic products? Nope. Literally anything you can't put on a student account? Nope. All they do besides classes is football and basketball.They literally cannot do anything else. Jobs are almost out of the question. One guy I met, who has twins, cannot get help paying for daycare for his kids - and he can't work because of the sports season. We have a daycare on campus, but it's only discounted for faculty only AND all the spaces are full. The university screws me over on a regular basis, but I don't necessarily make them much money (I sure as hell ain't donating after I leave). These men and women are literal CASH COWS and they get jack shit compared to what they earned for the university and the NCAA (nonprofit my ass). And by the end of the day, a lot of these people might end up with debilitating injuries that won't heal (like one of the football players that lives in my dorm), and it's not like a college degree does anything for you in this economy except make you overqualified for a retail job. So yeah, they deserve to get paid. They are providing a form of labor and are not being properly compensated for it. Never mind the blatant racism. Seriously, SWAHILI? African American Studies? Lemme guess, they are only allowed to eat watermelon, grape soda and fried chicken too, right? That was so fucking gross.
bordy217 so because someone is in college they can't have kids? I was PREGNANT with twins and had to drop out a year from school to take care of them and work then came back to finish my degree. If I had been an athlete I would have lost my scholarship because I had a family. How fair is that? Hint, it isn't fair nor right. It's downright unethical to treat student athletes that wat
April R That's not what I said. If you are pregnant, you can't play. Why should they honor your scholarship? You didn't honor your commitment to play the sport. It's not the NCAA's job to support your kids. If you have a kid and have to support him/her, you have to quit sports and get a job.
Ed O’Bannon is such a legend that it’s just hard for me (real hard) to even understand how he isn’t doing very well, and I realize that life surprises us all with problems and issues and compromises, but O’Bannon is truly a gifted athlete.
what they should do is tell the coaches that they arent going to be paid in cash but with the experience and oppertunites to go coach in the nfl. then see if they still dont want to pay those college kids
Dabo Swinney should win the BS artist of the year award. He would give up his now, 9.5 million a year, yes it has tripled since then? He is full of shit. What a douche. I hate his fucking guts. The man makes 180k a week year around and has the balls to say he would quit if students got paid. Not that he would. I am sure he would take a job paying 50K a year, seeing as he has no qualifications for anything else.
What the colleges should do (and never will) is to create actual majors in sports that are actually good majors. They could include education classes, classes in contract law, sports management, coaching, psychology, and of course, they would get course credit for being on their sports team, just like Drama majors get course credit for learning acting, and dancing, etc. Both are entertainment majors which rarely result in making it to the top level of the profession. Why is it OK to have a major in Drama, but not in Football? If their major is the sport they play, then they would not have as large a class load outside of their sport, but they could learn skills that could allow them to easily go into other aspects of the sports industry, such as being an agent, coach, personnel manager, scout, broadcaster etc. It's a big industry - why not create majors to prepare students to succeed in it?
Nice, you need to go big time to spread this great idea. Easy transition from college or pros to get a job in the field you've been around all your life.
Jay TS I am actually trying to do this. My ex-wife's uncle (I am still on friendly terms with her and him, though I do not know him extremely well) works for Tom Izzo as a scout, and video coordinator. He retired from coaching at one of Lansing's largest High Schools, and Tom asked him to come and help out at MSU. I hope to flesh out this idea into a serious proposal and get it before him in hopes of getting it to the athletic director and university president. I don't think any AD in college has shown himself to be a better "out-of-the-box" thinker than Mark Hollis, and I think that honest coaches like Izzo would appreciate ending the hypocrisy that now rules the "student athlete" paradigm.
jjr04001 Right. Or at very least teach them money management skills so that if they do get to the next level, they don't end up broke. The minimum salary for anyone who makes an active NFL roster is $420,000/yr. So even if all you manage is to make a team and hang on for 3 or 4 years, you should be set for life, yet many are not. But no matter what, if we reduce the non-sports class load, it is not unreasonable to expect them to actually be able to take and pass some tough subjects and get valuable skills. But it is the rare kid with the brains and the discipline, and the academic background to be able to put in the huge hours required of them for the sport and also handle a serious college major. But make the sport the major, and they can be trained to be successful in a huge industry.
***** I am familiar with it, but that is like calling mathematics an engineering degree. A grounding in it could be a part of a major in sports, or a minor that an athlete could have. But that major solves none of the athlete's problems, nor does it prepare them for their chosen profession, any more than learning to operate a camera prepares one to be an actor, director, producer, or film critic. It does not help reduce the non-sports workload of the athlete (effectively giving them a very difficult double major) and it does reflect the actual career goals of most of them.
"This whole system seems fundamentally flawed." I'm learning about a distressingly large number of fundamentally-flawed systems in our country from this show...
I am getting the impression that everything is fucked up in America from this show and I am sure they are not saying lies because I sometimes double check the things they say. At least it makes me feel good that I am living in Europe.
@@tsvetelin6556 While the US is fundamentally flawed, every time I see a comment like "i'm glad I'm living somewhere else" it makes me roll my eyes honestly. Brexit, Boris Johnson, the Italian elections? Come on man, EVERYWHERE is fucked up. The US just seems moreso because John Oliver reveals a ton of it that definitely should be changed. But if a show like his ever came to where you live I'm sure he'd turn up just as much crap. It's like Putin's What Aboutism. "Oh you think my country is dumb? What about yours?". While it is true, that doesn't mean the US is in any way worse than Russia. While I have NO idea if the place you live can compare in any way, the fact of the matter is you're being highly presumptuous and assuming the US is a hell hole. Fact of the matter is, the US may operate like a museum Giftshop, Football stadium or a Tourist Trap where everything looks cool, but is also freaking overpriced to the max, that doesn't mean its the worst place on Earth. I'm sure its nice to live in Europe, it's also nice to live in the US. It's also nice to live in Japan, and its nice to live in Taiwan. I know that, cause I lived in all those places. The US has the best fast food, and safest places to drive. Taiwan is safe and healthcare is the best in the world, plus you can live on eating out because everything is cheap (but that's only cause I get paid a US salary while working here). Japan's got tons of wonderful shrines, and anime and I was born here. Europe has tons of places to visit, plus I love the mythologies that came from this place. Now there's also this. The US's corrupt systematic racism towards asians and blacks alike. Taiwan's current president, and its dirty air pollution, and having to deal with China. Japan's immense sexism that those of my gender must always be submissive to be attractive, and overworking their citizens to the point that they have a suicide forest now.. plus their inherent bigotry towards same sex couples like me and my fiance. And lets not unload about Brexit shall we? And yes I already mentioned Boris Johnson, who had his very own John Oliver episode, oh goodie! Oh did I forget to mention that the Royal Family's treatment of Meghan and Harry is kind of BS? So my counterargument here is that any time one says "Oh the US is crap, glad I live here." It only qualifies if the US is a third world country, North Korea, or Turkmenistan, some other dictatorship, or you're a qualified expert in world affairs and anthropology. And that's the other way around too. A US citizen can't legit say "Oh that other country's shit, I'm glad I'm in America' unless its uber glaring obvious the other country is shit or they are an expert in the matter.
As a college student who works part time and goes to school and does extra curriculars and barely gets time to eat or sleep, I cannot imagine being an athlete and surviving college. It's so pathetic, this is slavery and exploitation. Idk if this applies to my basketball but in my school, squash athletes get free housing, ab free meal plan and free tuition.
Graham Strouse yeeep. One of their best players even got kicked out for not maintaining the minimum GPA of 1.0 (2.0 is needed for any student to stay in school) and they took him back after he improved his grades after one term...so ya.
From my understanding, the top players get those scholarships. Bench players get partial scholarships mostly. I’m totally behind not paying college athletes, because that is the whole concept of student athletes. However, there needs to be non-monetary compensation. The athletes should have all their food paid for by the athletic department. They should have their housing paid for by the athletic department. They should have their whole education guaranteed, so if they get hurt they can finish college as if they were still on the team. Either that, or treating training and games as jobs and all student athletes from the top down get paid the same salary. That way the money they’re getting isn’t related to their skill level, and can’t be used as a recruiting tool. It doesn’t even have to be large, like $20 an hour or something.
my brother is playing d1 football in college and he gets fined for literally anything. late to practice? $15 fine. wearing nike when our sponsor is adidas? $15 fine. shaved your head? $15 fine. college makes a fortune off him, i dont get why he cant make a couple bucks off college.
anonwa. So they, the players while they are in high school, they do not receive money ?? Is this happening in America, the land of capitalism? But with what money should they pay the fines? Interesting, and if we add the fact that, if you are in prison, you can become something similar to a slave, because for your work, you will receive 10 cents per hour, it becomes super interesting. Tragic.: ((((((
@@bigotutbigotescu4723 unfortunately, the "slavery in prison" issue is _super_ complicated because of community service. You can't just amend the 13th Amendment to get rid of the clause authorizing slavery as a punishment for a crime because that would outlaw community service in lieu of prison (technically speaking, community service is slavery). That means we'd have _even more_ people in prison who don't deserve to be there.
Does it? It seems to me very much like the benefactors are the trainers, sponsors etc. at the cost of the players' well-being. Kind of textbook lawful evil. It's not like the nCAA destroys itself.
UltimateVegetto Fair point. I will note that Chaotic Evil isn't necessarily self destructive or aimless, it merely puts causing as much destruction above all else. Causing harm even when it isn't directly beneficial, as opposed to a lawful evil which only causes harm where it benefits them. Perhaps Neutral Evil is the best option?
I think its un-conscienceable that you can get put out of school for inability to pay tuition when you literally gave them the best of yourself and got injured. They need to have some sort of fund for that. Its disgusting. That would be like someone working for you, they get hurt and you fire them. YOU are the reason they got injured.
pixpusha No them choosing to play the sport is why they are hurt. No one forces them to play THEY CHOOSE TO. Your saying that I need to be paid because I want to play basketball? How dumb is that. Shpuld i pay you because you like to cook or go fishing?
That's not the point. You are essentially working for the school in exchange for an education. If you get hurt they can just take your scholarship without any further notice, leaving you with nothing. Imagine if you were injured at your job and they fired you without any compensation whatsoever. This is why college athletes who are injured should get to keep their scholarship, or at least be compensated.
As much as SmithN' Wesson is obviously a college basketball coach looking at half of his posts here...there is a point underlying the stupidity of his comment. You enter an agreement that you are exchanging your ability to play sports, for their ability to teach you. BUT...where this agreement falls apart, is in the level of control and balance. You get a "paper degree" and they get a multi-million dollar enterprise. These kids are expected to have the same amount of output as professional athletes, on *top* of maintaining grades (as laughable as they may be) *and* trying to establish their own futures. For millionaire coaches and team owners who insist beyond reproach, that the students are "amateurs". The *only* way to level the playing field is to remove exterior endorsement. There simply is no way to balance that much money with one-way control. "Amateurs" simply should not pull in more money than the highest level of professionals...this I mean in regards to March Madness making more than the Superbowl almost twice over. If you are a *student*-athlete competing in something of that magnitude...your quality of education should be *fucking incredible*...not this current "oh yeah, you know Swahili now" bullshit.
Yes, it's true they entered voluntarily, but so does every other employee in the US! Why should literally everyone else in the country be able to receive compensation for injuries on the job, OR at school, EXCEPT these guys? Who work 80 hours a week, and give their whole bodies to their sport, & drive a shitton of money to the school?
If you watch the documentary "Schooled", you'll see that the amateur status also makes students not being able to make money by themselves through sponsors or commercials. Imagine a math student that isn't able to have a paid job where he can use his math skills because he's "only a student"....
+Nils Lager Thats what I thought, the NCAA makes a billion dollar revenue and not only do they not pay the students anything, they also have the audacity to ruin these people's careers if they get money from anywhere else.
+Nils Lager Oddly enough that is exactly what happens to postdocs in Italy. They get low wages and no maternity leaves or unemployment help because it's not considered a job. Even though you can't have another job while you are a postdoc. Which is the reason why most Italian researchers leave Italy to reach other European countries.
Seems like everything needs a tighter restriction on what can be defined as a necessary business expense. Especially for colleges that pulls this crap and other non-profits.
Here is something to consider: Not all athletes get full scholarships, or even scholarships at all. Only 85 scholarships are available for a football team of 120 men. Only 9.9 scholarships are available for a wrestling team of 30+ men (I typed that correctly, 9.9). Some sports don't have scholarships at all. But people are quick to say these athletes are whiners and don't do anything in class or for the school in general. Go figure.
Exactly, in D3, there is literally a rule that athletic scholarships CAN'T be given. It was great tacking on 5 hours a day for basketball on top of the other rigors of school simply for the love of the sport. Our choice I suppose but I find it a little crazy that the kids who have ZERO chance of playing professionally and NEED the degree, get stuck with a lifetime of student loan debt...too late for me but some things really need to change.
As a former student athlete myself... I'm glad someone put this out there. It was suffering I was unfamiliar with and didn't know I could speak up about it or even how to do it. As a result, I have a wrecked shoulder from it and was forced to give up my scholarship. My level will never reach the same again.
We'll give you free trumpet lessons which you'll be too busy to do, but if you don't learn to play the trumpet you're fired. Lol oh man that's accurate and fucked up.
Dallas Farmer But dont college kida on scholarship have to maintain good grades and get kicked out if they dont? Are these guys special? They CHOOSE to do this. CHOOSE is the key word. Stop bitching.
SmithN’ Wesson True but even the most fucked up jobs in the country has some benefits to their workers, especially when injured to the point of not being able to do that job anymore
The right athletes will get the right grades regardless. Hence the paper classes. In essence it should have been "You are going to be a nurse for us, and in return, rather than money, we're going to give you trumpet lessons...we don't give a shit whether or not you actually learn how to play the trumpet, we just want 4 years of 'technically compensated' nursing from you. But if you suck as a nurse, or in any way can't continue to do that (technically not a) job, then you lose both the nursing position, and the trumpet lessons."
yea bro, it hurt so much watching that poor guy at 3:15..! you could see the pain in his eyes, that poor young man is literally starving and this is his cry for help, i just wish i knew how i could help him and everyone else in that situation, i don't even live in the U.S(thank god!!).. the U.S have never care about the 99% people, the 1% elite are the only ones that matter.. -.- that's truly fucking messed up!!!!
Swahili. That language that Americans seem certain is very useful in Africa, yet in all my years spent on the continent I have never heard anyone here actually acknowledge its existence. Basically, I'm sure people speak it but I don't have any idea what it actually sounds like.
de broy Make that millions of square kilometres. And it's spoken by just 10% of Africans according to your figure. I'm sure it's a great language, but if you wanted to learn a language people would speak throughout Africa English would be a better option. Learning both would obviously be great too.
+Greg. Sym. Swahili is an official language in Kenya, Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo although it is be second language for millions of people in these countries. It is also widely spoken in Uganda, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. If you are in West Africa or Southern Africa you will never hear it spoken. Unfortunately Americans think of Africa as a single country but there are over 1500 languages spoken throughout Africa and all these different languages belong to several different language groups.
These college athletes don't get paid for all their hard work, meanwhile I get paid as a staff writer at my college's science fiction and fantasy literary magazine.
As a sales men of ladders and ladder accessories I resent your Warner bashing. Warner's are toughest and most reliable ladders available on the retail market.
Jay Flemming LOL I'm not that worried about UVA. Despite my wife and mother-in-law working there I have little attachment to their sports. I proudly wear my VA Tech gear around this town, haha.
LimeyTarts I go to the school where BMS was filmed and funny enough, the show helped pay the school for a new football field which in turn was used in the show.
Do not use the word literally to add emphasis literally almost everything has changed every person depicted has aged new contracts have been signed new sponsorships the crowds are different
This topic has been talked about for decades, and nothing has really changed. Many people who deliberately break the rules by paying athletes the $500.00 handshake and such believe that the colleges owe them something more than just an education. To make matters worse, there are honest fan just trying to help, but don't know the rules and still gets their favorite college in trouble. The rulebook was once over 1000 pages long until this most recent edition. Still...
John oliver from the tiny island comes to US and rips apart every flaw in system in detail. Americans have never learned their shit for thousands of years.
Joshua Harris I know, everybody got shit of their own. No country is shit free, but john has done remarkable job in skinning the american systems and culture for the world to see in a witty sarcastic style. Nobody is perfect, I accept that, but we can learn from each others mistakes and evolve. No disrespect for US or anything, its the most free country by all standards but it has some serious shit to deal with.
I am in graduate school for a degree in healthcare and we work in a hospital at least 6 months OUT OF STATE (requiring us to pay housing and bills on top of tuition) paying $25,000 to work 40-50 hours a week to get "clinical experience" and $0 in compensation. Plus the school has rules that a job outside of clinicals result in automatically failing the course.
As a student athlete going into NCAA div 1 this fall, they didn't mention that schools get paid from NCAA from broadcasting and that the money from broadcasting gets put into scholarships
awateilrahc They did mention that the schools get money from this. Where do you think the money for the giant stadiums and hot tubs comes from? And they did mention the students are compensated by scholarships. None of that matters. You're getting ripped off buddy. As they said, the person in the student store gets $10 an hour to sell your jersey - they don't get compensated in scholarships - but you can't accept a sandwich.
Ortheos you have to get caught up in all this, John uses extremes to make things sound bad, yes all of this is true, but he didn't say that scholarships come from broadcasting from. NCAA and there are millions of dollars worth of scholarships at each school, It makes my education become literally half the price and the guy who wasn't eating food was clearly not living on campus as they give you lunch and dinner meals, also, most of this whole thing is directed at the huge schools that everyone knows of which cost and are broadcasted on TV heaps, I'd say 95% of college athletes don't see any TV coverage time in their student athlete career
The Dragon of the Weast it's cheaper for me who isn't from America to study and still play the sport that I like, USA is basically the only country that has this sort of programme with the depth in competition that it has, otherwise I gotta try turn pro as soon as I leave high school which is next to impossible unless you have the most athletic physique in the world
What I hate about this is that professors are allowed to take college classes at the school they work at for absolutely free in most schools. In a way, that is a paid employee and a student. Yet the idea of paying a student for playing a sport that is making money for a school is outrageous. What the fuck, man?
People saying that the scholarships are fair compensation: That makes no SENSE when the coaches are getting paid millions. If the coaches get such huge compensations then so should the players b/c if salary ruins the integrity of the game then that should apply to the coaches as much as the players.
Charles Xavior Yeah, the coaches should be professors who teach classes and coach part-time for the love of the game. Then the administration will have even more money to spend! Oh wait a minute... Dammit!
As a lifetime gamer, I agree. And they aren't just bad for gamers, but for anyone who works there that actually works on games too. They make the entire industry look bad.
they don't have to be employees, they can just be student workers like some other students are. they work on campus and technically so do the athletes.
It doesn't count as slavery because it's an official signed contract, unfortunately. And one of the biggest way to actually go pro. And the small percentage that do go pro from college sports just shows it's almost impossible without starting in college.
So if i have a part time college job as a desk worker, does that make me a professional? No, it makes me a student worker. Make NCAA athletes student workers, and pay them what they deserve
Here's a painful graph: Out of 50 states, the highest paid state employee in ELEVEN of them are NOT coaches. i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--xeKPpMFq--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/ykdkqhstdm1ptubyuct2.jpg
How many state employees generate $100 million dollars a year like Nick Saban does for his school? Learn the law of supply and demand and learn the difference between assets and liabilities.
Greendude33 Let's set your smarminess aside for a moment, douchebag. It's not this ONE guy who generates this money, it's the entire team. Should the athletes get paid as much as the coaches? No. But since the entire job of student-athletes is to help generate that money, they at least deserve their food and medical bills paid for. And multi-million dollar coaches who refer to their unpaid players as "entitled" can go f themselves in the ear with a dildo made of sandpaper and lubed with lemon juice.
Gunman610 No the entire team is paid with a full-ride scholarship which pays for tuition, books, housing, meals, tutoring and healthcare. You want athletes to be paid on top of all this? You're out of your mind. Not only that but you're delusional if you think it would be economically feasible or equitable to pay a Heisman QB the same as a back up female swimmer or a freshman lacrosse player. The only two college sports pulling in revenue is football and men's basketball. Forcing them to take lower wages to help pay for the other sports wouldn't sit well.
Greendude33 I didn't mention other sports at all and swimming coaches don't make $3m a year, thus making that particular argument what is known as a "straw man". Also, if you saw the video, you would have seen that the reason they're called student-athletes is so that they can avoid paying health care. Also, again on the video, one of the students talks about how he doesn't get a proper food allowance, which he'd need more of than the average student because he's, you know, an athlete. And you might have seen that the education student-athletes get is woefully inadequate and even if it weren't, they'd have no time to study. So they're screwed if they break their ankle in their senior year. How about, instead of paying a football coach $3m a year, pay him $2.5m a year and distribute the other $500k among the 50 or so football players, allowing them to eat healthy, take care of bare essentials, and still be able to play football without getting screwed by the university that depends on them for their revenue stream?
ZeppoJR The NCAA argues this comes out of their bottom line and will kill them as they know it. The schools and the NCAA won’t need to pay a penny to them, the law states students can get paid other ways, from endorsements to outside vendors. This is the same model of how the Olympics work for athletes, the committee won’t give them shit, but they allow outside vendors to pay them. Why does the NCAA denies this? Well, they claim it kills their bottom line. No, it doesn’t damn it.
***** These schools hold student-athletes hostage essentially. They trick high schoolers into signing a contract only breakable if they get injured. Then they give them a sub-par education and don't allow them to get their own job to ensure they spend all their time training. They hold their 1.6% chance of a future in sports over them to make them work harder and harder. Sounds an awful lot like a slaver telling his slaves he'll free them one day if they work hard. Which is what a lot of masters told their slaves.
I thought paying for their education, room, and board, were payment enough. I mean considering the amount of debt most leave college with that many of these athletes won't be saddled with. Hardly slavery.
And yet most of the Americans will ignore what they just heared and simply enjoy the matches not spending one thought or at least a word on that failure in the system. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT Open twitter and start a campaign or simply boycott the NCAA. But if you are going to ignore everything and enjoy the matches you are not better than anyone of those disgusting coaches.
I agree that something should be done, but fuck off with the whole, "If you watch the matches you're no better than blah, blah, blah" bullshit. That's like a slippery slope fallacy on crack. If watching the games makes you as bad as the coaches, then being friends with someone who watches should be just as bad as watching the games right? It's still a tacit endorsement. And going the other way, those coaches are really no better than third world warlords right? Therefore, knowing anyone who watches the NCAA championships makes you a Somali war criminal. Now I may have made some jumps here, but I think over all the logic is consistent.
bill withers The coaches don't exploit their players. It's the schools but the coaches still don't try to help their players. When you watch the sports anyway you also refuse to help and therefore you are not better than they are. Seems logic to me ;)
FreakStormer I'm not from the U.S. and I don't enjoy basketball so I can't stop watching it since I never did. Besides I don't have twitter so I tried convince people on youtube so they do something about it. What else should I do? I care about those players since they are actually my age and I happen to have a healthy mother and a decent livestyle and an ensured education. However those players don't have that and that's what I hate about this system. And btw: Do you really think it's always enough to point at others and say that they also don't do anything about it? That's a coward move
So let me get this straight? you can afford stadiums so large they can constitute small cities in sheer population, and can afford to pay your couches millions of dollars, but you can't afford to pay your "student athletes" which we all know is code for slaves. Edit: why is everyone talking about sofas and couches? *rereads comment* OH that's why, I typed Couches instead of Coaches. Edit: 2 god damn it I didn't again. Typed not tipe
Sometimes i wonder how people can even get that fucked up... Give the fucking athletes the same salary as a lower middle class job and shut up the critics in one swoop. Hell if you're the first to do it you might even get an enormous PR-boost.
What is the point of that? No one is watching these sports for the players, they are watching it for the platform. Even if they did pay them a mid class job people would still complain.
What a great funny way to see why our college system is so messed up. To think with all that revenue, the universities can help pay for tuition or even just pay it all with extra compensation for every player
Soooo, a participant in a work-study program can file papers and send emails for 10-20 hours a week and be considered an employee and a student, but a student who is helping contribute to a large source of the school's revenue *absolutely cannot* be an employee and a student at the same time? Uh, what?
Ok guys, what's the maximum sentence you can give for exploitation of minors? 'cos no matter how I look it, what the pricks are currently doing very much resembles a fancier form of child labour.
Even if you don't want to pay them, the LEAST these schools should be required to do is not revoke their scholarship if they get injured, and pay for any medical expenses. At the very least.
***** So, how can these same schools then claim such laborers are student-athletes if by your own admission they received full scholarships "ONLY for their athletic talents"? Colleges and the NCAA can't have it both ways. If colleges won't keep injured college athletes aboard because they're not academically fit to continue studying then the NCAA shouldn't be able to argue against paying them compensation for their athletic work because they were students "receiving an education" to begin with. Its hypocrisy of the highest sort.
A large part of the problem is that not every scholarship is created equal. 40 years ago, the average cost of tuition was just $1000 for public schools and $4000 for private. Now the average is $11,000 for public and about $34,000 for private. Tuition alone can range from just $6800 (Cal State Fullerton) to over $61,000 (Columbia University). Now add in room and board and you see the discrepancy. Why not just put a dollar amount on scholarships and pay the players the difference??? The highest paid state employee in every state is a college sports coach. If they can afford to pay multi-million dollar contracts to coaches, they can at least feed their students.
I struggle with classes and a job. I get paid for my job at least. These poor souls are working more than I am and will never see a cent from it. Truly heart breaking.
Sometimes I'm glad I'm European. Here we have pro clubs with their youth academies (sometimes including networks of amateur teams) and a whole lot of amateur teams for each age range. Btw, I was told by a former NCAA player, now pro in Europe, that some Universities make some "tweaks" to the scholarships given to top athletes, with some money going into their pockets anyway... To conclude: the wrong thing is that the "youth academy" system is delegated to schools and colleges, and that is where everything fails, if it were up to clubs and franchises to build up their academies from the grassroots, things would had been different. I'm not saying fair, but different.
That's very interesting. I'm an American who also happens to be a die-hard sports fan, but I hate when it corrupts academic performance as much as anyone else. I personally would be curious to see what it would be like if we here in the USA had our own version of La Masia and let the schools worry about educating the kids as their top priority.
I am a huge Football fan and here, our Soccer clubs are the same. Does UK basketball and Am Football have U21 and U18 teams and leagues like U21and U18 Prem?
when u're playing in a "league" that makes more money then Superbowl and you're playing in front of millions of people and you get paid 0 dollars for it and you're essentially broke
Echodemic Actually that's not the case. The athletes are sponsored by Nike since it's University of Oregon Ducks. They have top gear and training facilities and also one of the top football teams in the nation.
