(01-31-2018 02:57 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-31-2018 02:38 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-31-2018 12:33 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-31-2018 12:50 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  It would be sad to have all women’s sports go away, but some of those figures are really ghastly. I personally would keep women’s basketball, and other women’s sports that actually made $$, but women’s country club sports I would bring to an end unless a booster wanted to spare them along with sports just added solely for the purpose of Title IX, and just tax the profitable programs.

The law, namely Title IX, doesn't care about profits. Does Alabama want its football team that makes $100m a year and wins national titles? And do you want to give out the 85 football scholarships? Then the law, as interpreted by basically all the courts, says you have to give out about 85 scholarships to female athletes as well, period, whether you make money or lose money.

And Title IX has strong bi-partisan support. No tax change that has the effect of doing away with Title IX, such that Alabama can have its football team while not having an equal # of female athletes also on scholarship, will pass.

That's the bottom line here, not profits. The only way to get rid of all those money-losing women's sports is if you get rid of a roughly equal number of men's scholarships as well.

And that is where you are dead wrong. It is not likely that the non profit status would be lifted for tax purposes. And the reason would be the defense of Title IX. But if we move to paying players there won't be any scholarships. Their earnings will be taxed, and any goods and services (like education) that they receive will be taxed. If there are no scholarships then there is no need to reciprocate them with women's sports. Therein lies the issue.

So if we move to a pay for play of any kind, the word scholarship will not be a part of it. So take away 85 scholarships offered in football and replace them with paid players who are taxed and you take away the need to offset those 85 scholarships with those offered for women.

The removal of tax exempt status for the donations made in connection with ticket priorities is the first step in the direction of taking away non-profit status. You can't have it both ways. Either donations that are ultimately in support of non profit athletes are deductible, or they are not. And if they are not then the Athletic structure that procures those donations is a for profit and should be taxed.

But given that the government would be involved either way anything is possible. But there is an obvious conflict arising between what is taxable and non profit status in college athletics.

Title IX would be operative for swimming and diving and track & field because those are non profit sports. But lose the 85 scholarships for football to a different taxable status and those would not be counted toward Title IX. That you can't have both ways.

So what is going to happen, either way, is that many smaller schools are going to be forced (by red ink) to drop athletic programs altogether. The NET effect is the same.

Look you have players at Northwestern wanting to collectivize. You have the push for stipends to offset this by many P5 schools and some G5 schools. Now you have donations losing their tax deductible status, but obviously those donations go toward the athletes. We are a schizophrenic culture which can't figure out the difference between non profit and for profit, between scholarships and pay, and what constitutes player care and what constitutes extraneous benefits. And in the meantime we have lots of athletic departments operating in the red in the face of falling donations.

Something has to give. Either scholarships include a cost of living that is reasonable, or we pay and tax the players and treat them like a student worker. We either tax them or we don't. And depending upon how that is resolved contributions to the A.D. are either tax deductible or they are not. We can't keep confusing this process or everyone will lose.

I didnt think it had anything to really do with tax status---I always thought it was basically one of the strings that was attached to receiving state/federal funds or being eligible for the Federally funded student loan program.

It's both. If you receive federal funding then offering equal opportunities is essentially the issue. But we are talking about scholarships. So there is a ratio for how many scholarships for women have to be offered versus those taken by men. And that ratio extends to the number of sports programs offered to each.

The reason football has remained tax exempt is because everyone understands that it has the been the financial support for the programs that will operate in the red. And for women's sports that's all of them with the exception of some Softball programs.

In men's sports it is true for all sports outside of the Big 3.

The Tax issue strikes at this matter from another perspective. If football players receive pay that pay will be taxable. Scholarships will cease and a Student Worker type situation would arise. Their income beyond certain levels then becomes taxable.

Student workers, like all workers, change the definition of equality from equal funding of scholarships for men and women, to one of equal opportunity for employment of men and women. If a Sport becomes for profit it cannot be bound to exist if it can't turn a profit. That include most women's sports and all men's sports beyond Football, Basketball, and Baseball with Hockey in parts of the North.

I was merely making the point that if we head into a for profit pay for play taxable relationship for profit sports, why would any University want to even keep those which lose money? I pointed out that IOC might help to fund the Olympic non profit sports because of their self interest in doing so. But other than private contributions to cover the cost, and agency funding like that potentially of the USOC and IOC, I don't see the reason any University would want to keep non revenue sports which are a liability to the tune of 10's of millions of dollars each year.

And to that point removing the tax deductible nature of athletic contributions is a step in that direction and the Tax Bill that just past does exactly that.

The up-shoot of the FBI probe into Nike and Adidas will be that if free goods are given and money exchanges hands for future endorsements the easiest way to clean this up is to make it for profit and tax it. Then there is no fraud and no foul.

If a sport is an employment relationship as opposed to a scholarship relationship the implications of Title IX shift from equal assistance to equal opportunity and the lack of scholarship status due to employment negates the need to counter those former 85 scholarships with those offered for women's sports.

I was pointing out the coming conflict over these matters and merely cautioning about the unintended consequences of monkeying around with nomenclature and tax status. The current Tax Bill which declares donations for ticket priorities to be non deductible is going to impact what those revenues fund, mainly the overhead of Athletic Departments which obviously is in large part represented by the funding of Title IX programs.

You really shouldn't tax any contributions that ultimately go to support non revenue sports. If it stands we are one step closer to taxing the for profit sports at which point an employer / employee relationship resolves the issues for players and schools, but negatively impacts the non revenue sports and their Title IX implications in that any money losing programs would be subject for equal cuts of men's and women's scholarships provided they were not funded by an extraneous source.