Episode 246： Should College Athletes Get Paid？
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
186.71193
Summary
Should college athletes get paid? Should the NCAA pay for college athletes to play college football, basketball, or softball? Is this a good idea or a bad idea? What are the best ways to pay college athletes?
Transcript
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30 seconds, one time for the underdog, ignition sequence start.
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Let me see you put them up, reach the sky, turn the stars up above, cause it's one time
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I'm Patrick Bedevi, host of Valuetainment, and today we're going to talk a little bit
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about sports, and that is, should these college athletes who work their tails off and make
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billions of dollars for the NCAA actually get paid?
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One side, they shouldn't, because the scholarship is already a way of them getting paid, right?
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And so if we do pay them, they're going to be spoiled, they won't put as much effort
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If the NCAA is making money, they should as well.
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I got four points to cover with you, then an idea at the end.
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Point number one, the NCAA last year generated $11 billion in revenues.
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According to Mark Edelman, $11 billion, only two sports made more money than the NCAA.
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The president of NCAA made $1.7 million last year, which he should, because he generated
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The purpose of Title IX is to not discriminate against different sports.
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So if I'm playing college football or basketball or tennis or gymnastics or track, I should,
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one, get more scholarship because football is more important than tennis.
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And it's also a discrimination against men and women.
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But here's the thing, that in 1972, when that law passed, a lot of things have changed
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A company came out in 1979 that completely revolutionized everything.
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It turned a college football coach making $65,000 a year into a celebrity now getting paid $5 million
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It turned viewers into college football fans, college basketball fans.
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It turned them into these fans of these sports.
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And on the other side is back in 1972 when Title IX came out.
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When you think about NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL, NFL, you got to know that most professional
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athletes back then had a full-time job on the side.
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You don't hear athletes today that play professional sports that have part-time jobs on the side.
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Point number two is the fact that Title IX maybe needs to be re-looked at.
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Number three, there's a big contradiction between Title IX and point number three because
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You know, point number three, when you think about academic scholarship and athletic scholarship
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Because I could have gotten an academic scholarship.
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Maxim contacts me and says, we want to do a photo shoot with you because you submitted your
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That person can get paid, yet an athletic scholarship, they can't.
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So what's academic is more important than athletic?
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So why should not a collegiate athlete get paid on an endorsement they're getting with
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Why can't an athlete that plays for a university go make $500 in a day doing autographs?
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They should as well because that's their brand to help generate some kind of revenue to them.
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Point number four, if the NCAA doesn't figure out a way to pay them, they're going to pay
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I've spoken to some people in the business that said this is not a big deal to college
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coaches or universities because they find ways to get the athletes money.
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They'll tell the kid to go do a security job or go do a waiting, you know, whatever it
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They'll do something on the side here and they'll send somebody to go work that valet and that
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You can't discriminate against giving somebody a tip.
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We've heard it many times, long list of athletes that that's happened to.
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So unless if they figure out a way to stop that, this law is going to constantly be broken
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because these kids are going to find ways to get monies and other people are going to
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find ways to pay them to stick around with that university.
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One, let's figure out a way where these athletic scholarships can get money on the side with
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their endorsements or autograph signing and different kind of things that they do.
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And on top of that is if you're at a university, you get a student that decides to come to your
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Tell me in three years after being with you, if I hit XYZ numbers, you're going to give me
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$800,000 at the end or million eight because of the company made this much money and you're
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going to give me a million eight on that or $300,000 or $100,000 or some kind of money
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that maybe I'm not getting that money early on at 18, 19 years old when I'm playing for
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So if I'm college basketball, I'm willing to stay four years and get my four-year degree
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But there are ways to still incentivize the players of wanting to stick around.
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