College basketball is going through a lot of drama currently and I'm not talking about on the court. At this point you already know about Rick Pitino in Louisville and the incident that happened there that came out in October of 2017. You probably already heard about Sean Miller at Arizona who reportedly payed potential #1 overall pick Deandre Ayton $100,000 to come play at Arizona. The FBI apparently has more names and college basketball as we know it could be very different in a few weeks once all of this information comes out.
I have seen so many people argue over the years about how schools or the NCAA should pay athletes for playing but honestly that is never going to happen and never will be able to happen. Despite popular belief the NCAA and especially these college athletic programs don't have the money to pay players and I will show you how here in a second. There is no question that college athletes deserve to make money for playing and for bringing in revenue for the NCAA and colleges but it won't come from the schools or the NCAA and here's why.
Let's start from the NCAA level. For this argument I am going to use 2016 statistics because those are the most up to date numbers I can find. First off, lets look at the numbers. The NCAA has 1,281 schools which you can google if you don't believe me (could fluctuate a few depending on the year). Take that into consideration when in 2016 the NCAA brought in $995.94 Million, just 5 million short of a billion which you can see here. So lets do a little simple math. Lets assume that the NCAA divided that evenly between every school, that would come out to $777,470.73 per school which means each school could pay each athlete about $2,165.08. Well that would be if the NCAA had no expenses and could take all of the money they make to pay athletes.
Ok now I know what you are saying, the D3 field hockey player shouldn't make money because they don't bring in revenue so lets just cut to the chase. Let's assume that the NCAA only pays Men's Basketball players from D1 and Football players from the FBS which are really the only two revenue generating sports across the board. There are currently 130 FBS teams which lets say 85 players per team which I believe are the number of scholarships allowed by the NCAA for an FBS program that would come out to 11,050 football players and lets say of the 347 NCAA D1 basketball programs we have 14 players on scholarship per school, another 4,858 athletes.
So lets break this down, once again assuming that the NCAA has no expenses and every dollar they earn can go to athletes of these sports. That would come out to yes $62,606.24 per player which isn't bad for a college kid, but once again that is only if the NCAA had no expenses. So you are probably wondering what the NCAA expenses are? How much do they actually have left over to pay athletes? Well if you look at the 2016 numbers where once again they brought in $995.94 Million they would have enough to pay those D1 football and basketball players an average of yes -$25,399.80 per player and yes that is a negative sign in front of the number. In 2016 the NCAA had $1.4 Billion in expenses which are $404.06 million more than what they brought it on their own which you can verify here.
Now here is another argument I have heard, "well, the schools can pay the players." No they cant. in the 2015-2016 season, Texas A&M led the way bringing in just over $194,000,000 in revenue. While that seems like a lot many schools have to allocate money from students which pretty much is a fancy way of saying that they aren't going to make enough money to cover expenses so they have to charge students an "athletics fee" to help balance their budget. As a matter of fact there were only 13 schools out of the 340+ Division 1 schools that did not need extra money to help their budget. So unless you go to one of the 7 SEC schools, 2 Big 12 schools, or 4 Big Ten Schools on that list you won't have a chance of getting paid. Oh, and you can see all of the numbers for yourself here.
Now that you realize how impossible it will be for the schools or NCAA to pay athletes here is my solution. Obviously the big time athletes in college sports deserve to make money for bringing in so much attention and publicity for the schools but how can that happen? Simple, let the athletes be businessmen and businesswomen. Allow them to do commercials and have sponsors and be able to do autograph signings. I mean why not? This allows the athletes with the biggest impacts on the game to make the most money which is fair. Imagine if Baker Mayfield or Johnny Manziel, or Grayson Allen were allowed to sign autographs for money, they would make so much at no cost to the NCAA.
Now with that we need to be careful. I don't think the NCAA should allow agents for the players at this point but what if each school had 1-3 agents depending on how big of a school to help the players sign deals and local ads. Now I know some of these smaller schools players wouldn't bring in money but if a local business wanted an athlete to do a commercial then why not? As long as the athlete isn't spending 40 hours a week signing autographs and making appearances they should be able to make money. My suggestion is that during the season the players should be able to spend 3-4 hours a week as long as they aren't on game days to make money either by signing autographs or shooting a commercial or making a public appearance. Out of the season, the players should be allowed 8 hours a week to make such appearance.
Now I know players aren't going to be making 6 figures unless you are one of the biggest names in the sport. But if a player needs or even wants money then let them sell an autograph or get a free meal from someone. Now I know it can be risky because some of these bigger schools have fans and boosters who could slip a kid a million dollars to come to their school which I don't think should happen. Maybe even regulate it to where a player cannot make money until their second year of school.
I don't know but I don't think that paying players to come to a school should not happen because it would ruin the game. I am not sure exactly what the rules in place would have to be but if you just allowed the players to earn their own money on their own time based on how good and how popular they are then there would be almost no corruption if it is done right and properly regulated by the NCAA. I know why this is difficult because while it is a good thing in the eyes of players and fans if something like this was allowed then there could be corruption in a whole new way. Odds are the NCAA won't be able to get it right and they probably won't allow this but I think this is the most plausible way for athletes to get paid.
With that being said, let me know your thoughts on this and suggestions on rules that the NCAA should put in place to regulate this to help the schools and players without it getting out of hand.