(03-31-2013 07:45 AM)Sactowndog Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 12:44 AM)ilovegymnast Wrote:  Im surprised the NCAA hasn't stepped in and put a cap on coaching salaries yet. It would be easy to make an across the board for all divisions cap with a cost of living increase each year. I would hope they would include incentives in the cap as well. It would be a step in the right direction.

It might happen due to the OBannon case. Congress might step in and grant colleges a limited antitrust exemption in exchange for an expense cap in mens revenue sports. It can't just be coaches salaries however.

Hopefully such a model will bring back mens minor sports which have been getting crushed between title IX and the arms race. It should also put money aside for football athletes healthcare post playing.

Why is the answer an anticompetitive cap on salaries and expenses (which is what antitrust law is in place to prevent)? What the O'Bannon case is about has very little to do with leveling the playing field between big schools and small schools. Instead, it's about whether players should be garnering revenue from what the big schools are creating a via TV, ticket sales, video game licensing, etc. I agree that money needs to be put aside for health care and, from a personal standpoint, I think athletes should get paid, too (although I know the schools will fight that to the death), but that should be separated from the differences in revenue and expenses for the big schools and small schools (which is simply the free market and reflects supply and demand).

(03-31-2013 09:41 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Why is the answer an anticompetitive cap on salaries and expenses (which is what antitrust law is in place to prevent)?

Antitrust law is more in place to prevent excess profit price gouging of customers of firms with market power.

Surely the top salary coaches are among the gougers rather than among the gougees.

Prices for the MAC games are still very reasonable. I guess I should feel fortunate that I can afford to go to the games. At a lot of the AQ schools I wouldn't consider the cost to be worth it.

(03-31-2013 08:17 AM)Caltex2 Wrote:  

(03-29-2013 09:32 PM)billings Wrote:  Prices are driving many fans away and joe six pack has been priced out of many leagues and games. The answer is hey they can watch it on TV but that is a sorry second to being there. Personally I think attendance will drop as prices keep climbing

And now many teams and, in college, conferences are creating their own networks, so watching on TV isn't even necessarily an option.

Not to get off topic but I have never seen your signature before.I am not a fan of Sarah Palin at all as a card carrying Libertarian but I did live in Alaska for 4yrs and what she said was you can see Russia from land in Alaska. Any kid who took Alaskan geography knows Big Diomede and Little Diomede are the closest point that the U.S. and Russia come to each other and you can practically spit from one island and hit the other. Her hometown also has old Russian cemeteries as a lot of the original towns along the Kenai Peninsula where many Russian communities existed before the U.S. purchased Alaska.

(03-30-2013 12:30 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 11:26 AM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 10:20 AM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  Maybe there will be a correction at some point but I don't see how salaries will equal the death of Pro/College Sports.

When a trip to a game for a family becomes a $1000 day it will.

It all ready costs that much for fans that don't live local.

I was at the Virginia Tech-Miami football game a couple years ago. I met a father who was happy his daughter was graduating because he couldn't afford the $6,000 he budgeted each year to attend the home Hokie games.

Hotel room, dinners, tickets, fuel, etc... add up.

(03-31-2013 02:26 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(03-31-2013 09:41 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Why is the answer an anticompetitive cap on salaries and expenses (which is what antitrust law is in place to prevent)?

Antitrust law is more in place to prevent excess profit price gouging of customers of firms with market power.

Surely the top salary coaches are among the gougers rather than among the gougees.

Completely disagree. Top salary coaches aren't gouging at all. Top coaches are in short supply and high demand, so the best ones deservedly get a premium (just as is the case in any other profession that is subject to the free market). I find an attempt to cap salaries and try to say that Tom Izzo or Coach K (as much as I loathe that guy) should be limited in earning power over Joe Blow coach from Podunk U as much more unfair. Artificial equality is a worse cure to the supposed disease of a world where there are winners and losers (which is spun as "inequality").

(03-31-2013 10:05 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Completely disagree. Top salary coaches aren't gouging at all. Top coaches are in short supply and high demand, so the best ones deservedly get a premium (just as is the case in any other profession that is subject to the free market).

And having sufficient money to pay those high salaries (but not to pay a modest wage to the minor league athletes that people are coming to see) ... that comes from a set of commercial arrangements that are anything but competitive markets.

"Supply and Demand" in the real world are not like the law of gravity, they are always based on real world institutions. Change the rules under which the game is played and you change demand and/or supply.

(03-31-2013 11:11 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(03-31-2013 10:05 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Completely disagree. Top salary coaches aren't gouging at all. Top coaches are in short supply and high demand, so the best ones deservedly get a premium (just as is the case in any other profession that is subject to the free market).

And having sufficient money to pay those high salaries (but not to pay a modest wage to the minor league athletes that people are coming to see) ... that comes from a set of commercial arrangements that are anything but competitive markets.

"Supply and Demand" in the real world are not like the law of gravity, they are always based on real world institutions. Change the rules under which the game is played and you change demand and/or supply.

I agree with you with respect the players. It's just that I approach it from the perspective that the revenue being generated should flow through to them as opposed to trying to cap revenue and expenses. I'm all for letting the players profit from their college playing days. The question is not so much about antitrust law as it's about whether that's possible under Title IX (as the revenue generators are playing football and men's basketball). Can a university pay a star basketball player a salary while not providing one to a women's field hockey player? That's where the colleges are truly scared. If they could only pay football and men's basketball players, it would actually be pretty simple (and let's face it - they already do via shady boosters in recruiting practices). It's having to pay every athlete in the athletic department because that's what Title IX would possibly mandate that's worrisome.

I just find it crazy that a coach can make 10x the amount of the university president.

(04-01-2013 08:18 AM)ilovegymnast Wrote:  I just find it crazy that a coach can make 10x the amount of the university president.

And whose fault is that? How many discussion boards are out there discussing the attributes of university presidents compared to ones like this about sports? How many of us here can name all of the university presidents in your favorite school's conference compared to being able to name all of the coaches? People have voted with their own pocketbooks and eyeballs as to why coaches (or pro athletes) make as much money as they do. They wouldn't be making that money if there weren't millions of people like us watching games (whether it's buying tickets or watching on TV).

Also, Division I sports schools constitute a minority of colleges in this country overall, and power conference schools are a minority of that minority group. At the vast majority of colleges, the university president does make a lot more money than the football and basketball coaches. We're just focusing on the very highest profile people at the highest profile schools, which isn't really the norm across the entire spectrum of higher education.

(04-01-2013 07:43 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I agree with you with respect the players. It's just that I approach it from the perspective that the revenue being generated should flow through to them as opposed to trying to cap revenue and expenses.

But tracking the "should" back to normal freely competitive markets doesn't work just because I would prefer Big Time College Football to be free-standing commercial enterprises with a franchise relationship with their college, paying for the use of the name and an allowance (rather than requirement) for the associated players to take classes, either then or at some future date.

Tracking the justification back to normal freely competitive market institutions only kicks in if that reform is instituted. Then, surely, they would be profit-seeking organizations, rather than cost-seeking organizations as they frequently are at present, and the checks and balances of a freely competitive market could be brought to bear by policing collusive behavior without a public interest benefit.

So long as we are under the current interlocking structures of collusive arrangements and captive markets, then given that the coaches salary arms races lead to increases in student activity fees and the cost of education for hundreds of thousands if not millions of students nationwide, I'm in favor of some form of negotiated cease fire in the arms race.