Football Players Deserve Pay Over Other College Athletes

Jan 7, 2014; Newport Beach, CA, USA; General view of the Associated Press college football national champion trophy at 2014 BCS National Championship press conference at Newport Beach Marriott. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The raging debate about whether or not college athletes should be paid took another twist this week when Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby made his comments about how “cheating pays.” On the surface what he meant was unclear, because he also talked about coaches bending the rules, but when you look deeper, it’s obvious what he was doing.

Bowlsby was clearly attacking the idea of taking care of college football players by saying it’s hard to justify paying them. Never mind the fact that coaches bend the rules all the time to mistreat the players, like Nick Saban with the way he oversigns and breaks promises. Or

Jul 21, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby speaks to the media during the Big 12 Media Day at the Omni Dallas. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

how Bill O’Brien can publicly shame players into committing to a program for four year that will be on probation the entire time, while he bolts for the NFL after only two years at the same program.

No, let’s attack the extra support given to players, who generate the billions in profit for the NCAA. This is just evidence of Bowlsby being part of the NCAA establishment.

But what’s most annoying about all this is the reasoning Bowlsby had behind his stance against paying players. It’s not like this is anything new, but he tried to bring up the fact that if football players get paid, so should players in other sports.

"“It is hard to justify paying student-athletes in football and men’s basketball and not recognizing the significant effort that swimmers and wrestlers and lacrosse players and track athletes all put in. Football and basketball players don’t work any harder than anybody else; they just happen to have the blessing of an adoring public who is willing to pay for the tickets and willing to buy the products on television that come with the high visibility. We have both a legal obligation and a moral obligation to do for female student-athletes and male Olympic sports athletes just exactly what we do for football and basketball student-athletes. I don’t think it’s even debatable.”"

Forgive me, but this is the most annoying argument I always hear from people, and it needs to stop. I’m sorry, but football and basketball players deserve to be paid over players in other sports.

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In fact, football players deserve the most pay.

Can we stop all the populist talk about how all sports are equal and we should respect the hard work of all athletes? No, the swimming team at Florida State does not deserve the same benefits the football team gets. Not even a bit.

Do you have a problem with that? Well, those sports should make the same profit college football makes.

Whether or not a player deserves to be paid should not be based on the hard work they put in. I think I put in harder work as a reporter and sports columnist than most, so does that mean I get to complain and say I deserve to be paid like guys on ESPN or Fox Sports who I don’t think work that hard? No.

I think I work harder than some people in business. But I’m not going to complain that my salary is not the same as somebody working on Wall Street. Fact is, they’re in a more profitable industry.

And if you don’t feel sorry for me, why on Earth should you feel sorry for the athlete who swims or plays lacrosse at your school if that player might be left out of the revenue sharing that college football players are fighting for? Did the swimmer or lacrosse player generate millions of dollars for your university and billions of dollars for the NCAA?

Ask Bowslby which sports generate the largest chunk of his salary. Do you honestly think it’s field hockey and softball? If he is going to be the moral guy standing up in support of all sports being treated equally, I’m sure the revenue given back to the schools from the Big 12 goes to all the sports equally, right? And I’m sure he would agree to some sort of clause that requires coaches in every sport at a school be paid on an even scale, right? Of course not. And he shouldn’t.

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Ask officials at the University of Alabama if the gymnastics team or the football team is more responsible for last year being the highest enrollment year in school history. You don’t think many of the academic departments there are getting new resources, equipment, and buildings paid for thanks to the success of the football program? And do you think any other sport is generating that for the school?

I’m sorry but this is reason alone that football players deserve some sort of stipend since they generate billions of dollars in profit. Plenty of that money is distributed back to the conferences and back to the schools.

We see it all the time, how football is the driving force behind decisions. Why do you think Maryland, a basketball school, decided to jump ship and move from a basketball conference to a football conference? Because the payout is better in a football conference. College football owns every other sport in that regard, and if you think it isn’t fair, well, there’s a chance that it’s paying for your unimportant sports team.

Go back to Maryland for a minute. The school had to cut seven sports because the football and basketball programs weren’t generating enough revenue to keep those programs afloat. And in typical, elitist, all sports are equal East Coast fashion, many Terps fans complained that it was unfair and blamed the two programs that were actually turning a profit. Then, when the Terps made the Big Ten move, fans said that it’s not fair for some athletes to be screwed because the main sport, football, can’t hold up its end,

Hold up its end? Football and basketball were being attacked there because they couldn’t hold up the other sports’ ends along with theirs. If we’re going to talk about holding up ends, then the Terps should’ve made every sport for itself and removed all responsibility from the football and basketball program from financing other sports. But of course, then those other athletes would scream even louder, because they demand to be taken care of by sports that generate revenue for the sole fact that they can’t generate it.

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Why should football players be punished because they generate revenue for their program, other sports programs, and academics on campus? People that resent football programs should take a look at how pathetic their school would become without the football program’s money.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not speaking out against athletes in other sports getting paid. If the sport as a whole is generating some revenue for the NCAA, then by all means, they deserve a piece of the pie. But don’t complain that a player in an unimportant sport is not getting the same leverage at the negotiating table as football players, or even basketball players.

The NCAA should give out an across the board equal stipend to every player in sports that generate profits for NCAA officials. Make the amount of the stipend revenue-based.

But I don’t want to hear a soccer player who contributes nothing to his or her university complaining about not getting the same rights as football, basketball, and women’s basketball players who actually do generate money for their school.

That’s a complete waste of everybody’s time.