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$10.8 Billion. But none for the players. #ncaa

In 2010 CBS signed a deal with the NCAA for the rights to broadcast the NCAA tournament for 14 seasons from 2011-2024.  According to the NCAA, the deal is worth 10.8 BILLION dollars.

Let’s do some fun quick math, shall we:

There are 347 NCAA division 1 NCAA basketball teams and they each offer 13 scholarships.  That’s a total of 4,511 spots.  If you paid every single one of these players $50,000 per year, that would cost about 225 million dollars ($225,550,000).  Let’s assume salaries go up 3 percent a year for inflations, which would mean that in 2024 you are paying players around $73K per year.  The grand total over 14 years for this plan would cost about 3.8 BILLION dollars ($3,853,820,415).  That’s a ton of money.  BUT it’s dwarfed by how much money this deal is worth.  If you took this money out of this deal to pay the players, you’d still have almost $7 BILLION left over  ($6,946,179,585).  And keep in mind, this is just for the tournament.  That’s 67 games over three weeks in march.  There is more money than this for regular season TV contracts not to mention the money schools make for selling tickets and merchandise.  Merchandise, some of which, has players’ names on it!!!! The school can make money off of a player’s name, but the player can’t! (Well the player can, he just then can’t play in the NCAA).  Think about that.  Screw you NCAA.  Screw you.

The NCAA is a cartel that makes billions of dollars off of the back of labor that has absolutely no representation.  I don’t know why as a society we put up with this.  In literally every other area of life, if you are good enough at something to get paid for it, someone can pay you for it.  The exception is sports.  Why do we value amateurism in sports?  I have no idea.  But I’ll continue to call out the hypocrisy of the NCAA until they pay the players who actually make this stuff worth watching.  Coaches get to negotiate a salary and can come and go as they please.  Hell, some coaches get huge contract buy out to NOT COACH.  But players have basically no rights.  So until the NCAA changes it’s ways, I hope they get sued from every direction until they have no choice but to pay the players.

Cheers.

 

 

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5 responses to “$10.8 Billion. But none for the players. #ncaa”

  1. DS Avatar
    DS

    Apparently, you think that:

    1) Producing a TV broadcast of a sporting event costs nothing.

    2) People who do things other people would do for free should get paid.

    Should movie production studios be forced to pay interns a high pct. of gross revenues?

    Reply
  2. statsinthewild Avatar
    statsinthewild

    These are all foolish arguments.

    1) Of course it costs money to produce a sporting event. But what’s the most important part of a sporting event? It’s the players. Without the players the NCAA has no product. They are the most important. Literally everyone involved makes money. Except the players. Are you really ok with that?

    2) This is foolish too. I think people who do work that generates revenue should be able to negotiate a fair wage. How can you possibly argue with that? Sure, I’d play basketball for free, but no one will pay to come see me play. As soon as someone is willing to pay to see you play, you should be able to get paid. That’s how it should work. It’s capitalism. The NCAA actively prevents these athletes from getting their market value. That’s the definition of a cartel.

    The movie intern argument also makes no sense. No, the movie production studios shouldn’t be forced to pay the interns. But the movie studios also aren’t part of a massive organization that prevents the interns from getting paid. If an intern was good enough at something, they would get paid for it.

    Reply
  3. DS Avatar
    DS

    Astoundingly bad on all three points.

    How exactly do movie studios not have a monopoly on big movie productions?

    If you’re seriously arguing players should be paid on the basis of how good they are, about 25-50 players would be making a few hundred thousand to a few million a year, and literally everyone else would get zero dollars — because they are replaceable. The non-star players are not important, as much as I’m sure you hate to hear that.

    But you want to dole out money to people who are not generating excess profit to be paid for their services. If you force that, about 200 D-1 programs would immediately drop out. But hey, at least the unpaid Division II tourney (slogan: “where amateurs compete”) would become more interesting.

    Reply
  4. statsinthewild Avatar
    statsinthewild

    Interns are a silly example. Let’s frame this in terms of actors. Can you imagine if an actor was making millions for a movie studio but wasn’t able to get paid? No one would stand for that. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

    That’s exactly what I am arguing. Players should be able to negotiate their own contracts. A handful of superstars would get the money they deserved because they are generating MILLIONS of dollars for the school. Many many many more athletes would just get a scholarship which is commensurate with their ability. That’s exactly what I am arguing. Players would get paid what they are worth. To go back to the actor example, there are tons of actors who don’t get paid and a handful who make millions of dollars. That’s how it should work. There shouldn’t be an organization artificially capping player’s compensation. Again, that’s what cartels do.

    I don’t want to do that at all. I want to give money to the players who are earning it. Which is a handful of players at the top programs. I was merely pointing out in this post that if you paid every single division 1 basketball player $50K (and remember that top coaches are making millions), you could do that with just the money from the NCAA tournament contract and have $7 BILLION dollars to spare. The only reason the players aren’t paid is pure greed.

    Players should be able to negotiate their own contracts. Some will make a lot of money, most will just get a scholarship. I mean this already happens behind closed doors. Players get benefits of all kinds and then we all pretend to be outraged when we find out a school was :::gasp::: paying a player based on their market value……

    Reply
  5. Scott Turner Avatar
    Scott Turner

    There are actually 351 NCAA Division 1 mens basketball teams these days. Although I suspect there’d be more if you started paying salaries 🙂

    Reply

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