Pay For Play? Not For This Fan

So college players want to be paid for playing sports and someone else benefitting financially. I get it, and I don’t fault them for that. But I think there has to be a better way to set this whole thing up that somehow avoids the entire college sports arena becoming a “pay for play” operation. I have some thoughts, and one alternative idea:

First of all, there needs to be a limitation on how much a player can earn, or “benefit” from his/her likeness. Without limitations, what would stop schools with the wealthiest boosters (I know the Ivy League tops the list, but let’s face it…they don’t really play football with the big boys) like Texas, Notre Dame, Michigan, Southern California, and Northwestern from simply throwing more money at recruits than other? Or what would stop a major college program from partnering with a major company (Nike Jodan, UA, Adidas, McDonalds, Burger King, Verizon, etc) and getting an agreement to place certain recruits in commercials in exchange for attending a particular school? The majority of the recruiting process would come down to which school can promise a high-school kid the biggest bag of money. This is a slippery slope, so as a result there needs to be some sort of calculation or scale on which these players can “benefit”.

Secondly, this entire new-fangled system seems focused on football, but don’t forget, there are 460,000 NCAA student athletes…not all of whom would necessarily be able to benefit from their likeness, but realistically every division 1 athlete would be able to do so. Easily one of the most interesting sports would be collegiate golf, which is centered around amateurism. The USGA, and its tournaments, are very clear about keeping amateur status while competing in events.

My suggestion for changing up the system? A trust fund. This is particularly pertinent for football and basketball players. When a player attends a school to play football/basketball, a trust fund is created for that student-athlete. In the event that the athlete leaves the school early for the NFL or NBA (drafted or undrafted), he would then forfeit his trust fund (very interesting in the NBA “One and Done” era. Those players that stay and earn a degree will receive their allotted trust fund upon graduation. Fund amounts would be based on the revenue created by the program (merchandising, TV deals, bowl/tournament money, and conference revenue). While this would seem to give an advantage to those schools that generate larger revenues than others, ONLY players earning a degree would have access to their trust fund money. The reasoning behind this is simple: those players that are leaving college early to play football professionally, have most likely been graded high enough that they are going to play football at the next level. These players would likely make more in a signing bonus than their trust fund would be. Want your money guaranteed? Stay and earn a degree.

“Scholarships” would still exist, and would include room & board, meal stipends, and tuition…much the same as they exist right now. This is the least a college/university can do with the amount of money that they are making off of student athletes.