May be time to get rid of all this shamateurism then? Hopefully California chipping away at it is just the start.
Shamateurism has a different meaning depending what side of the Atlantic you live on. In the UK shamateurism involves amateurs getting paid. In the US it involves amateurs not getting paid.
The reason college sports is an example of shamateurism is, as the article says and I even quoted for you before: “It’s morally bankrupt,” Garthwaite said. “The NCAA wants it to be ‘amateur’ for the athletes, but none of the rules of amateurism to apply to all the other people in the system.”"
The pandemic might just be the impetus to push this cart over the edge of the cliff. Adam Silver has been vocal of his vision to move the NBA towards a player development model more similar with European Basketball and Football. Not to mention the NBA will be shifting its' season to start in December/January, which would push the NBA Draft into late summer. With the FBI scandal in the NCAA, the NBA would love to put more distance between itself and college basketball. Moving towards an academy setup would also potentially help solve the issue of the Knicks, Bulls, Pistons and Wizards being god awful every season. The biggest hurdle to this currently is the amount of money to get it off the ground, and to do it at a high standard (both basketball wise and academically). As for college football and the NFL? That's a marriage that's not heading to divorce or separation anytime soon. NFL teams has zero desire currently to shell out the billions of dollars it would cost to build a proper development system that would be better than what College Football currently provides. Baseball doesn't rely on College Baseball for players. Most are drafted out of high school and then spend some time in college and playing summer ball within the organization that drafted them. Allowing the athletes to make money off of their image rights is a good first step. All non athlete students are allowed to do this, why shouldn't athletes be allowed to as well?
I read somewhere an issue with compensating players is that the IRS could take away tax breaks from donating to the athletic departments since it is a professional endeavor. Colleges often have fairly inexpensive tickets, all things considered, for very good seats at a college football game. However, the donation required to sit in them is the spendy part. 15 years ago I had tickets to a small power 5 school and a single ticket for 5 or 6 home games was about $125 for a seat at the 45 yard line 35 rows up. However, the $500 dollar donation to get those upped the price much more. People may not be able to claim that deduction on taxes. Also, do people want to donate to professionals. Nobody donates to NFL teams, they just buy tickets and gear. Nobody donates extra to other businesses. There could be side effects associated with professionalizing college football and basketball. Would more schools drop those sports thus limiting academic opportunity for athletes. I would not be against athletes being paid but also see the downside of it as well.
I completely agree. I also assume they'd never walk right into the surefire class action lawsuit that these CTE academies would eventually run afoul of. They're probably on the right side of liability with "adults being able to make decisions for themselves", but that defense erodes with minors.
That's been the case with amateur sports and some professional sports everywhere. Officials flying first- class and staying in 5 star hotels while athletes fly economy and staying in dorms.
See: Olympic Sports Again, none of this is news and it by and large isn't a US issue either. It's almost like there's a pattern, a broken record playing from a certain poster ...
They are professional. They just claim not to be by hiding behind the bushel of purportedly not playing players. So getting rid of donation tax deductions would be progress. Those people can still donate to the college instead if they so wish.
Indeed. That's why the England abolished the distinction between amateur and professional players in the 70's and why the Olympics removed its objections to professionals competing. So some bastions of shamateurism have fallen; hopefully the "professional" college sports will be the next.
This may look weird in the future without context, but I’m really happy for you @kinznk - you must be chuffed!
Congratulations to your son. You must be (rightly) very proud of him and happy for him. If you miss the deadline for deleting that post and still want it removed, feel free to let me know. I'll leave that up to you. You and I should meet and have a beer sometime; we've watched our sons go through somewhat similar journeys (which hopefully have a long way to go).
Could you take it down. I tried to edit it but I couldn't figure it out. Thanks. Id love to meet sometime.
The soon to be relegated and doomed epl canon fodder Leeds United gave the epl champs a run for their money.
Well Leeds isn't wolverhampton, first Leeds coach is Bielsa who is a world class coach and secondly he prepared the team for the prem as much as he could. That's a far cry from I believe Wolves saying "we're not going to spend much and are prepared to go down". Also it's really early days so let's wait until the end of the season to pay yourself on the back.
Early days, of course, but the ease with which they cut up Liverpool's back line was very interesting.
Good to see that Mrs Harrison's plan paid off. Pull your kid out of the Manchester United academy, send him to an American boarding school, get a college scholarship, win the MLS draft, back to Manchester, play in the Premier League, man of the match (Sky Sports) performance at Anfield.
Kinda feel that Liverpool's gonna fall off quite a bit in the very near future. Team seems built to win now--and they did so in magnificent fashion--but a lot of high-dollar players will start to slow down all at the same time.
How'd Fulham and West Brom do? Also, any team with Bielsa at the helm is going to look good. I'm a fan. They've been building a Prem level team for several years now but kept tripping themselves at the cusp of promotion. Now they've finally won it and that steady build showed off. Hopefully they can keep it up.
Fulham seems to be shaping up to be a real yo-yo team. Hard to believe they were in the Europa League a little over a decade ago. My only live Premier League game ever (to date) was Charleton Athletic @ Craven Cottage. Wonderful day. While I'm an Arsenal fan of sorts, Fulham are my 'second' English team. Seeing the Gunners tear them apart this weekend was a mixed blessing for me.
Likewise in some ways Fulham is my second English team after Blackburn, mainly because of their Fulham USA days and I have a good friend in the Rapids fanbase who's a die-hard fan (hasn't missed a game on TV in like 10 years, and was at their promotion final at Wembley 2 years ago, and would have been at this years if it weren't for COVID).