Behold! The Semi-Professional
Last Saturday, many student-athletes took the field.
Some are starting out their careers. Others are approaching make or break seasons where they have to make a decision about their future. Many are entering their last season of high level semi-professional competition and will move on to other endeavors.
These student-athletes perform for us week after week. Some (although this number is diminishing) are able to compete in multiple sports at the semi-professional level.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Yes?
Why are you using that term?
You mean "student-athletes"?
Yeah. Is there a problem?
Uh...I'm just confused. Why aren't you calling them semi-professionals?
Well...they don't get paid for athletic performance, right?
I mean, 85 players per team (maximum) are receiving a scholarship.They aren't receiving actual money in hand.
Compensation is compensation, though. They receive payment for services rendered that has an approximate retail value of thousands of dollars. And that's just for the education. Think of all of the other things they receive:
Training table (now with unlimited snacks!)
Shoes, shorts, shirts and other gear
Championship rings if your team is good enough to win something
Medical care and rehabilitation
Tutoring assistance
And of course, now they can receive a little bit of stipend.
It's not a bad deal if you can get it.
Well, most school athletic departments don't turn a profit.
How? Some of these schools have so much money rolling in. The football (and sometimes basketball) coaches make upwards of $3 million. Some schools are building these opulent football lockerrooms; there are waterfalls and barbershops. 43 inch television screens personalized for each player above their locker. DJ Booths.
That is not the case everywhere.
But isn't the arms race of locker rooms and training facilities simply a way to spend the money to keep an illusion of no profit being made? If you spend everything you bring in, then you can't be making a profit, right?
Well, yes. There is that.
Let's circle back to my point, though. Why are we not calling these athletes "semi-professionals?"
Because they are engaged in an athletic endeavor in a part-time capacity and receive payment for said endeavor.
Are they really engaged in it in a part-time capacity though?
They cannot officially practice more than 20 hours a week. Max time is four hours a day.
Come on, man. We all know that that number is bullshit. There are plenty of ways around those rules. And do you really think most of these coaches, given how obsessed they are with winning, are really going to say, "You know, Chuck. You've put in the max time today that you should. Stop what you're doing and call it a day."?
Let's be honest: The men playing college football literally EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK are risking the actual quality of their future lives for our own amusement. Hell, an ESPN analyst just walked away from calling games because of concerns about brain trauma and how players are affected. They receive nothing close to the remuneration that they deserve.
A facile approach to the problem would be simple deregulation; stop with the charade that the myth of the student-athlete still exists and allow for players in all sports to make whatever kind of arrangements they can for additional income.
Wouldn't that make it a free-for-all? Wouldn't unscrupulous boosters just lure players to top programs with promises of thousands of dollars?
So you mean places like Alabama and Ohio State would get the best players...oh wait. They already do under the current setup. Why would this change?
Additionally, many would probably say that most 17-22 year olds are bad investments anyway. How many of them are really going to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?
What about Title IX? Schools would be in violation of that law, wouldn't they?
Nope. That has been debunked several times over.
I am far from a revolutionary; hell, I will admit that in the past, I was part of the "education is compensation" crowd.
But that is not the case anymore. The restrictions placed on the people on the fields and courts is archaic at best; an anachronistic approach to a modern world. Tommy Football isn't walking across campus in his letter jacket with his books under his arm headed to the library.
That is dead and buried, relegated to the dustbin of history.
Like it or not, this is a business. And from a common law perspective, it appears that football players at the Bowl Subdivision level are employees in the broadest sense of the word.
But they are not compensated at the same level that a professional athlete in football is.
They are semi-professionals; putting in the physical labor and taking the physical toils that professionals are while receiving lower compensation.
I would not expect this term to catch on, and I don't even know how often I will use that term in my own writings.
For me, though, that is the prism through which I will view them.
<silence>
So who's going to beat 'Bama this year?
Some are starting out their careers. Others are approaching make or break seasons where they have to make a decision about their future. Many are entering their last season of high level semi-professional competition and will move on to other endeavors.
These student-athletes perform for us week after week. Some (although this number is diminishing) are able to compete in multiple sports at the semi-professional level.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Yes?
Why are you using that term?
You mean "student-athletes"?
Yeah. Is there a problem?
Uh...I'm just confused. Why aren't you calling them semi-professionals?
Well...they don't get paid for athletic performance, right?
I mean, 85 players per team (maximum) are receiving a scholarship.They aren't receiving actual money in hand.
Compensation is compensation, though. They receive payment for services rendered that has an approximate retail value of thousands of dollars. And that's just for the education. Think of all of the other things they receive:
Training table (now with unlimited snacks!)
Shoes, shorts, shirts and other gear
Championship rings if your team is good enough to win something
Medical care and rehabilitation
Tutoring assistance
And of course, now they can receive a little bit of stipend.
It's not a bad deal if you can get it.
Well, most school athletic departments don't turn a profit.
How? Some of these schools have so much money rolling in. The football (and sometimes basketball) coaches make upwards of $3 million. Some schools are building these opulent football lockerrooms; there are waterfalls and barbershops. 43 inch television screens personalized for each player above their locker. DJ Booths.
That is not the case everywhere.
But isn't the arms race of locker rooms and training facilities simply a way to spend the money to keep an illusion of no profit being made? If you spend everything you bring in, then you can't be making a profit, right?
Well, yes. There is that.
Let's circle back to my point, though. Why are we not calling these athletes "semi-professionals?"
Because they are engaged in an athletic endeavor in a part-time capacity and receive payment for said endeavor.
Are they really engaged in it in a part-time capacity though?
They cannot officially practice more than 20 hours a week. Max time is four hours a day.
Come on, man. We all know that that number is bullshit. There are plenty of ways around those rules. And do you really think most of these coaches, given how obsessed they are with winning, are really going to say, "You know, Chuck. You've put in the max time today that you should. Stop what you're doing and call it a day."?
Let's be honest: The men playing college football literally EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK are risking the actual quality of their future lives for our own amusement. Hell, an ESPN analyst just walked away from calling games because of concerns about brain trauma and how players are affected. They receive nothing close to the remuneration that they deserve.
A facile approach to the problem would be simple deregulation; stop with the charade that the myth of the student-athlete still exists and allow for players in all sports to make whatever kind of arrangements they can for additional income.
Wouldn't that make it a free-for-all? Wouldn't unscrupulous boosters just lure players to top programs with promises of thousands of dollars?
So you mean places like Alabama and Ohio State would get the best players...oh wait. They already do under the current setup. Why would this change?
Additionally, many would probably say that most 17-22 year olds are bad investments anyway. How many of them are really going to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?
What about Title IX? Schools would be in violation of that law, wouldn't they?
Nope. That has been debunked several times over.
I am far from a revolutionary; hell, I will admit that in the past, I was part of the "education is compensation" crowd.
But that is not the case anymore. The restrictions placed on the people on the fields and courts is archaic at best; an anachronistic approach to a modern world. Tommy Football isn't walking across campus in his letter jacket with his books under his arm headed to the library.
That is dead and buried, relegated to the dustbin of history.
Like it or not, this is a business. And from a common law perspective, it appears that football players at the Bowl Subdivision level are employees in the broadest sense of the word.
But they are not compensated at the same level that a professional athlete in football is.
They are semi-professionals; putting in the physical labor and taking the physical toils that professionals are while receiving lower compensation.
I would not expect this term to catch on, and I don't even know how often I will use that term in my own writings.
For me, though, that is the prism through which I will view them.
<silence>
So who's going to beat 'Bama this year?
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