Pay the Players More

The predictable whining has begun. Don’t be fooled, there’s plenty of money in big time college sports to pay the players. 

Last month, in an historic settlement of an antitrust case, college sports programs agreed to pay their athletes up to $21 million a year going forward. They also agreed to pay damages of $2.8 billion to athletes who had played between 2016 and 2021, but could not benefit from their name, image and likeness before those rules were changed. 

The first thing to be said about the settlement is that it’s a good start, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. That $21 million amounts to only 22% of revenues. Professional athletes capture closer to 50% of the revenues of their leagues, and I would argue that even that is too little. The players make the sport happen. Do you really want to watch the owners and front office staff try to hit a fastball? 

Nonetheless, some schools are bellyaching about how this is going to cramp their style, force them to layoff staff or shelve fancy facilities projects. That’s pretty hard to take when you contemplate Texas A&M paying their failed coach, Jimbo Fisher, $76.8 million just to walk away. Closer to home Wisconsin paid football coach Paul Chryst $11 million to leave. If programs have that kind of cash to incinerate on coaches it sort of undercuts their complaints about paying their players to actually stay and perform. 

And as for the plush training facilities, imagine the situation in reverse. What if your employer told you that they would no longer pay you, but wait ‘til you see the new lunch room!

Sticking with the UW for a bit, there’s more evidence that the athletic department has had more money then it knows what to do with. For example, they’re replacing the turf at Camp Randall, which is only two years old, to place heating coils under it. So, they’re spending $5.5 million to replace a practically new carpet and for something that might be used a few times a year and is far from a necessity. The department is also spending $2.5 million to narrow the hockey rink at the Kohl Center. 

And every year the department rewards its coaches with bonuses. This year the winter sports coaches alone received $375,000 in extra payments above and beyond their salaries and benefits. That was 54% more than last year. 

There’s also been a proliferation of assistant coaching positions in college sports. When I attend UW men’s basketball games I count nine guys in suits along the bench, almost as many as there are guys in shorts. And that same trend has been happening in athletic department front offices. Between coaches and department staff some school athletic departments have between 250 and 300 people on salary. 

There are plenty of details still to be worked out. The way to do that in an orderly way is to encourage, not just allow, the players to form a union, so that agreements can be worked out between representatives of the players and the schools. We also need contracts for individual players who are the most sought after so that the revolving door of the transfer portal can be slowed. And somehow Title IX issues will have to be resolved. 

But overall this is a huge victory for the players and for simple fairness. And don’t let anybody tell you that justice is too expensive. 

A version of this piece originally appeared in Isthmus.