re: Since when is a free ride through college not enough?

it is amazing how some cannot understand this concept.

Don’t we already pay kids that are receiving academic scholarships for any other work they do on campus? Why can we cover all of their tuition/classes and books yet still pay them for doing jobs on campus...however trivial... and we can’t cover an athlete’s school as well as their HOURS of practice, travel, etc?

The academic gets school plus pay if they work, but the athlete gets school only, despite earning the university millions that the academic doesn’t.

So...it’s good enough for one group, but not those in the other group.

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Why can we cover all of their tuition/classes and books yet still pay them for doing jobs on campus...however trivial... and we can’t cover an athlete’s school as well as their HOURS of practice, travel, etc?

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Because their tuition, books, food, raining, doctors, insurance etc is their pay for their practice hours.

Let me ask you this. In all seriousness, if the football players and basketball players get paid, how long do you think it would be before the baseball players, equestrian team etc demand to get paid? And, of course with Title IX you can bet your bottom dollar that the women are going to demand to be paid, and demand to be paid as much as the men. If you think I am wrong you had better look up the crap the women's soccer team stirred up over equal pay even though they did not bring in nearly the same amount of money.

Simple solution is if they want to get paid, then skip college and go straight to the pros.

That would open up scholarships for students who want to earn an education while playing a sport in college. Which is about 99+% of them currently. Let the others shop themselves out to the pros when they complete high school.

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Simple solution is if they want to get paid, then skip college and go straight to the pros.

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I think the sticking point to that is the NFL rules prohibit that. A player cannot enter the NFL until their HS class finishes their thrid year of college. I am pretty sure this is correct. But the reasoning behind this is because most players bodies would not be sufficiently developed straight out of high school to stand up under the pounding the NFL dishes out.

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Let the others shop themselves out to the pros when they complete high school.

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Which would work for baseball and to a lesser degree basketball. Think about it. Very, very, very few basketball players go straight to the pros. It would be much fewer football players.

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Since they started supporting entire athletic programs.

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Well, they can go find investors and start their own frickin' league and stay away from the colleges and see how that works out for them.

There are plenty of twenty something people walking around in this country with football talent equal to what you would find at the Power 5 level. Players who are only a year or two removed from playing college ball themselves that weren't good enough for the NFL (or too stupid for college in the first place). The athleticism of those guys is as useless as tits on a bull because without a built-in fan base no one cares what they do.

The recently defunct AAF had several well known former college players and coaches and didn't even last a damn season before folding.

It's the programs, not the players.

When coaches started getting paid ridiculous amounts of money, your “entitled” argument went out the window.

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Honestly, the key is to separate college from NFL prep. Build an NFL prep D-League, pay them, and if they want a degree they can get it on their own time.

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Easier said than done. Universities are monetarily invested to keep the system as is. So, you can't expect them to just dismantle their sports programs. In this case, any league started would then have to go in direct competition with the University system that is set up. they would have to get stadium leases, coaches, workout facilities, insurance, in short somebody with very deep pockets would have to step in to do this.

Now, lets say they do this and are successful. Basketball at the University level is a breakeven proposition at best. Most lose money, but some do breakeven. So, the Universities would pretty much be left with a bunch of sports with no way of paying for them, and would probably disband all athletics except maybe some intramural sports.

Keep in mind that there have been several attempts to go head to head with the NFL and only one was successful. The ole AFL, and they were absorbed by the existing structure. That would not be a viable option in this case.

I mean, what you are proposing sounds great, but it would not be an easy task, and would probably turn out to be impossible for anyone to pull off, even if you had people willing to take the monetary risk necessary to get it started.

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They get more monetary value from playing college football than I did at my full time job.

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Take no offense, but at the level of profit LSU football generates, these players are more valuable to their employer than you likely were to yours.

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Take no offense, but at the level of profit LSU football generates, these players are more valuable to their employer than you likely were to yours.

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I don't know. I worked for a billion dollar business. And, no. I am not offended. I understand what you meant.

I retired from Delta Air Lines, btw. Delta had a gross of 47 Billion dollars in 2019.

LINK

Granted Delta has about 70,000, but I would be willing to bet LSU did not take in anywhere near $47 Billion.

ETA
I should have made my point a bit clearer....in that the athletes are al;ready getting far above compensation compared to most people.

To get a good idea, you have to figure out what their scholarships are actually worth.

Room, Board, tuition, books is worth something like $200,000 over 4 years. that is not taking into account, trainers, coaches, tutors etc, so that number would go up exponentially. how many college students do you think are making somewhere around $75,000 a year working? If they go to a private school like GT, ND, Stanford that number goes way, WAY up.