re: On Paying College Football Players.

quote:

---

Or, you know, just let them make money off their name.

---

While I'm certainly for the principle behind this, the actual practice would be a colossal clusterfrick. Most athletes come from poverty (as the link in the OP states) and have little to no financial literacy of their own, let alone the ability to locate a trustworthy financial manager and/or agaent to deal with Nike, EA, Under Armour, Gatorade, etc. in their stead. Add to the equation the fact that these students have absolutely 0 time to deal with all of that on top of schedules that have them working from 5AM to 10PM throughout the week and it would cause a lot more harm than good.

Hence, I say let the schools continue to deal with those brands but compensate the athletes accordingly: everyone gets a base cut and guys like Gurley or Amari Cooper or Jameis who are the so-called figureheads of a program (or whose numbers appear on Nike jersies, for example) get an additional cut added. I say pay it out as a trust to reduce distraction during the college years but I also understand that a lot of these guys have families they want to help out right now so I could certainly see paying it out as a quarterly or bi-annual payment.