Pay for play?

Should college athletes be paid more than just a scholarship? How should they be paid? Based on merit or just based on membership on the team? When should they be paid, on a per game basis or on a monthly salary? Where should the money come from? Should it come out of the coaches paycheck as Steve Spurrier proposed, or directly from the institution itself? What should we pay them? Should we pay them $10,000 or $100,000? Then, after you solve all of the logistical problems, you have to have solve all the ethical problems that follow. Should all scholarship sports be paid the same or just the money-making ones?

I think that most avid college football fans would agree with me that they would like to see college players play through all of their college eligibility, although i think there would be a disagreement as to how much of an incentive we are willing to let them receive. Some don't care how much they earn as long as they'll play college football, while others are much more worried about the integrity of the game, and like the fact that the players aren't in it for the money.

I am somewhat concerned for the integrity of the game and would therefore like to avoid paying players too much, but i am also aware of just how hard it is to live without much of an income as many college players do. I think a need-based system would be perfect, any college athletes who come from poorer circumstances would receive a stipend that would cover what experts call the "full cost of attendance," roughly $3,000. This would cover most of the yearly living costs for low income individuals and hopefully prevent early excursions into the Pros.

One of the biggest problems with a pay for play system is the economic feasibility. Most programs just can't afford to play players because most schools only have 2 money-making sports (usually Football and Men's Basketball) and the revenue from those sports usually covers the losses on all the other sports. Many university presidents have said that they are not opposed to players getting paid and in fact, several are very supportive of the idea but very few can find the revenue to actually implement such a program, even if just for the profitable sports.

Finding enough money to pay the annual average of 98 scholarship athletes for the profitable sports pales in comparison to finding enough money to pay all the athletes in every sport equally. You may be able to justify paying a football players a $10,000 a year, because they'll make it back for you but how about volleyball players?

So you may be saying, "OK, i understand, colleges can't afford to pay all the athletes, but who cares lets just pay the profitable ones." Which would be good and fine if not for Title IX, a law that says "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance..." In other words, female athletes must make as much as male athletes.

So, as much as i would like to see a pay for play system be implemented, because it would keep college athletes in college longer, I just can't see a way that such a system could get past all the economic hurdles that inevitably will stop, or at least delay such a system, many, many years. Barring an amendment to Title IX and an improbable influx of revenue to college sports, of course.