Low-Level Blogger Fixes the NCAA

Feb 6, 2012; Indianapolis, IN, USA; General view of the NCAA headquarters and Hall of Champions and the White River. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-USA TODAY Sports

If you have followed me — or any sane college sports personality — in the past then you know how I feel about the NCAA. Inept, hypocritical, similar to pedophiles doing clown shows for kids, are all just a few things that immediately come to mind. Folks like Jay Bilas, Marc Isenberg and Patrick Hruby have all done their best to point out these flaws and dismantle the governing body. Unfortunately that has come with little to no tangible success. Complaining about the problem is just no longer good enough. Now we need solutions.

Some have offered a few different formulas for fixing. That, however, has only ended with people who defend the NCAA to announce the forthcoming apocalypse which would happen if the NCAA did pay players. To be realistic, though, a few new problems would arise, although, it would be nothing worse than what is going on right now. As I have pointed out in the past, having problems is bad but refusing to attempt to get better because you are afraid of the news ones and prefer the old ones is as insane as a person building a popsicle mansion.

I’ve talked about my ‘plan’ briefly in the past. Since it is fairly easy to discuss, though, we will do it in a little more detail here. It all centers around sharing revenue and capping players’ ability to make money.

The What, What

I like the Olympic model to some degree. Let players capitalize off their likeness. Things like autographs, jerseys and video game appearances would all be for sale. So would the university’s new ability to pimp the players out even more than they currently do. This time, however, splitting the profits.

Some of the biggest things that would immediately stand out would be the uneven playing field that may happen because of this, how some players’ market values are far and away higher than others and what about the third-string center on The Club State Pool Cleaners — how much coin does he get?

There is No Such Thing as an Even Playing Field

This is something the NCAA — and those who support their ineptness — use to protect the governing body from paying student-athletes. If they were to pay players through their likeness, well, zombies would eat brains or something — likely something.

The truth of the matter is that there hasn’t been an even playing field in a very long time. Between conferences getting network TV deals, while others wallow on channel 405390485 of your satellite (even if that), to premiere coaches having national commercials, all the way to certain schools having boosters willing to shill out eleventy-billion dollars — the playing field isn’t even now. The argument is moot.

Heck, the BCS was the embodiment of an uneven playing field. The BCS Conferences were allotted automatic bids while the smaller, not on the same playing field conferences had to earn an at-large spot to get in — and there was no guarantee of that happening either. Not only is that an uneven playing field, but it actually creates a major helping hand to those in the BCS Conferences. They can make more money easily and faster, using the BCS as a recruiting pitch and all of that (plus so much more) made it easier to bring in top coaches. Top coaches, mind you, who would then, in turn, bring in even better recruits and add to the cycle. That is all while my Club State Pool Cleaners can’t hang on to coaches, battle in a realistic way for a BCS bowl and can’t recruit nationally because of the lack of money brought in by football.

Is that uneven enough for you?

Market Value/Capping Worth (Math!)

This is definitely more tricky, but certainly a workable formula. It also ONLY applies to money sports (college football, men’s basketball).The schools shouldn’t directly pay the student-athletes. They can, however, share certain profits which they only take for themselves now. The previously mentioned profit off player likeness thing.

Here is the thing. We get it. Johnny Manziel is worth far more than some dude who is a redshirt freshman, playing backup left guard. That doesn’t mean giving Manziel a portion of what he is worth, won’t work. It works for the Olympics to some degree. A problem does arise out of this, though. Someone like Manziel could potentially make millions of dollars while in college. I am all for capitalism, but even I think student-athletes shouldn’t be millionaires. It would just create a new level of hatred from the people who don’t think they should get paid as it is. Because, you know, “they get free schoolin.'” Baby steps, my friend. Baby steps.

Cap what someone like Manziel can make. Even if his potential market value is estimated at 10 million bones, only let him keep 30k of it. Yeah, that’s right. A lousy thirty thousand (remember, I said baby steps). Share the other, now nearly (still) 10 million, with the rest of the student-athletes around the NCAA. No minimum should be set as to what they earn until the end of the season. That way they can see how much was brought in by players who drive the revenue and it then can be allocated properly.

It might only end up being a few hundred — even if it is that — to each player in the nation. Is that going to cripple the NCAA because (maybe) five players a year earn a couple-tens-of-thousands while everyone else is getting a few hundred to a thousand dollars a year? Of course it won’t. Let the market dictate how much the players earn throughout the season, cap the players worth, then share with the rest of the unmarketable players.

Seriously, it would even work out for the NCAA. They would no longer have to hear the scorn from people talking about them profiting off players’ likeness. Now they can be in on the gig. Throw names on the jerseys, make video games and put players on a signing spree like he just wrote a novel that rivals On The Road — it wouldn’t matter as long as they shared the profits with the players. The NCAA — unlike the players — would not be capped as to how much they can make. In this new business model, well, they acknowledge they are a business and not a non-profit as they try to pass themselves off as now. Businesses are allowed to make lots of loot.

Kill Amateurism

Banish the word. It has no place in a billion-dollar industry. It might have had a place back when folks from Harvard were trying to keep the poor from keeping up with them in kayak races, but it doesn’t work today. Scholarships, stipends and real money are the way to go and amateurism just needs to go the way of Denver the Last Dinosaur. Keeping the faced of the meaning of the word around has hurt the NCAA grow and progress into something bigger than it even is now — much in the same way the BCS kept the NCAA from making millions more from a playoff system.

NCAA Brings in Outside Help (Endgame)

Here is the thing. I am not as smart as some of the folks trying to fix this. Heck, I will even acknowledge that I am nowhere near as smart as any of people I call dumb at the NCAA. Here is the thing, though, the NCAA has had decades to “look into things” and to “try to make things better” and nothing has worked. Not just with the paying players deal, but as far as sanctioning college sports. Now that they would be a business and not a non-profit, however, they can bring in some big-time talent to help fix the issues at hand. I mean, run it like the business it is.

Get some of the same guys who rip the NCAA to shreds on a daily basis and employee them. Put some in a think-tank, others in managerial roles and even some on some form of rules committee. Review every rule currently in the books, throw some out, add some new, and avoid looking like a dope while investigating a university in the future.

Would this Actually Work?

Of course not, man. I am a low-level blogger. Math is hard.

Joseph is the editor of Chop Chat. For the love of Sam Cassell, follow him on the mean streets of Twitter @JosephNardoe