In the NCAA, Coaches Rake In Millions, Players Get Pizza
By Ken Reed
Washington Post columnist Barry Svriuga started a recent column about the college football national championship game this way:
”[LSU and Clemson] boast coaching staffs that will be paid more than $27 million for this season alone. Even if you’re used to the largesse of college sports, chew on that number a bit. Then add up the amount earned by the opposing quarterbacks — marquee attractions Joe Burrow of LSU and Trevor Lawrence of Clemson — which would be $0 plus $0.”
Of course, LSU and Oregon players get a full scholarship, including tuition and room and board. That’s certainly nothing to sneeze at, although nowhere near their true market value. These days, players in the Power Five conferences also receive a “cost-of-attendance” stipend, which provides a little spending money. It’s been popularly dubbed “the pizza stipend,” because it can cover a couple pizzas a week for the athletes for who give their blood, sweat and tears for ol’ State U.
The College Football Playoff, made up of just four teams, annually generates approximately $450 million. A lot of that money ends up in the pockets of coaches. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is taking in $9.3 million this year. LSU head coach Ed Orgeron is getting by on $4 million this year, although I’m sure a big raise is coming his way after his team won the national title. Many coaches also earn bonuses for certain accomplishments. For example, every LSU assistant coach received at least a $60,000 bonus for winning the national championship. Three LSU assistants earned $100,000 each in bonus money.
Yes, the coaches are part of the product on the field, but they aren’t nearly as important as the players that put on the show. Anyone with a basic sense of justice and fairness knows the players that are primarily responsible for producing the product in this humongous enterprise (yes, big-time college football is big-time business, not education) knows the players deserve more than a seat in a classroom, a bed in a dorm and some food in the campus cafeteria.
The NCAA, via its amateurism myth, is perpetrating a classic case of economic and social injustice bred of a plantation mentality disguised by the term “student-athlete.”
Under the current model, as the NCAA takes in more and more money from its growing TV deals, the inequities in big-time college sports continue to worsen, not improve.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #30 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The State of College Athletics with Dr. David Ridpath: Problems and Potential Solutions – Ridpath is a sports administration professor at Ohio University and a long-time member of The Drake Group, a college sports reform think tank.
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Episode #29 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The Honorable Tom McMillen Visits League of Fans’ Sports Forum – McMillen is a former All-American basketball player, Olympian, Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Congressman. We discuss the state of college athletics today.
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world. We discuss problems in youth sports today.
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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