Pollard's Latest on Athlete Compensation

[CYdTracked]

This is a topic that is a fine line to toe for any AD. If you look at this from a realistic point of view any athlete at a D1 school in any sport that gets a scholarship is getting a 6 digit benefit along with other academic perks that most students do not get. The top athletes in FB and BB leave before graduating and eventually earn millions after having basically no expenses while attending college. Meanwhile other professions spend 4-8 years in school and spend their prime years trying to pay off massive student loans while providing services that are valued in our society like being health care workers and public servants or other job that may pay well for their industry but they are so far in debt all their earnings are going towards paying off student loans with ridiculously high interest rates.

If we start paying college athletes then I would like to see a clause in the scholarship terms that if they decide to leave school before graduating that they are required to repay their school every dollar spent on them while they attended. This should not be a big deal to the athletes that get drafted high but this may deter the marginal athletes from leaving early that don't get drafted or drafted high enough to meet the financial obligations.

 

[Cycsk]

I find the "gear" cost funny as Iowa State has a good sized deal with Nike:

View attachment 82473


Made of money: Huge payouts in recent apparel deals good news for Iowa, Iowa State (desmoinesregister.com)

How can a contract with ISU be worth $11.9 million for Nike? Do the rest of us schmucks really buy several millions of dollars worth of Nike stuff each year? That's some serious gear sales.

 

[BryceC]

I am very pro Jamie Pollard and appreciate everything he's done to enhance Iowa State Athletics. But he continues to completely misfire on the athlete compensation debate. I know in the past he's been very vocally against athlete compensation. Here's his latest on Twitter claiming an Iowa State scholarship is somehow worth $500,000:

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You have to be kidding me with this graphic. Counting "sports medicine" and "travel to and from games" as includable in the value of a scholarship? So a player blows out his knee playing football and we are treating the cost of their surgery and rehab as "value"? A Tuesday night plane trip to and from Morgantown is "value"?

If he's trying to say each athlete costs the school $500,000 over the course of their career then maybe he's on to something, but trying to equate that to the "value of a scholarship" is silly.

Something tells me Pollard would not want to go back in time to take the salary AD's made 30 years ago.

 

[VeloClone]

There are only about 100 scholarship players at ISU that create revenue above their cost of their scholarship. When we agree to pay, will those 100 after a few years ask that it get divided by sport, because shouldn’t they earn what they bring in?

Should those athletes be mad at the universities for them not getting what they earn or mad at the athletes of non-revenue generating sports who are eating up their profits?

 

[BCClone]

Should those athletes be mad at the universities for them not getting what they earn or mad at the athletes of non-revenue generating sports who are eating up their profits?

Like a job. If your division is earning a couple millions off your groups hard work and a couple are losing 1.8MM combined, will you be happy that you can’t grow or get better bonuses because your pay is tied to total profits?

 

[JM4CY]

Like a job. If your division is earning a couple millions off your groups hard work and a couple are losing 1.8MM combined, will you be happy that you can’t grow or get better bonuses because your pay is tied to total profits?

The NCAA has demonstrated itself to be a fine and sound governing body. I’m sure it is more than capable to handle all of these tough questions and make logical and fair decisions that make sense to all.

 

[Clonefan32]

Theyre welcome to. Just not while playing for a university at the same time.

Pollard knows, rightly, that this NIL garbage and the demands to pay players will take a bad parity situation and put it on rockets. It will destroy schools like Iowa State.

Again, that's fine. Make that argument. But trying to completely conflate the value of a scholarship with a graphic like this doesn't help his cause.

 

[knowlesjam]

Regardless of your stance on Pollard, athlete compensation will only further the gap between the sports machines (Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, etc.) and those on the other side (Iowa State, Kansas State, even MIssouri and Colorado). Heck, the gap between Iowa and Iowa State will become a canyon.

 

[Halincandenza]

I am very pro Jamie Pollard and appreciate everything he's done to enhance Iowa State Athletics. But he continues to completely misfire on the athlete compensation debate. I know in the past he's been very vocally against athlete compensation. Here's his latest on Twitter claiming an Iowa State scholarship is somehow worth $500,000:

View attachment 82468

You have to be kidding me with this graphic. Counting "sports medicine" and "travel to and from games" as includable in the value of a scholarship? So a player blows out his knee playing football and we are treating the cost of their surgery and rehab as "value"? A Tuesday night plane trip to and from Morgantown is "value"?

If he's trying to say each athlete costs the school $500,000 over the course of their career then maybe he's on to something, but trying to equate that to the "value of a scholarship" is silly.

Yeah, on athlete issues he is typically behind the curve. Just look at the transfer issue for one.

 

[joefrog]

You people realize that collegiate athletic compensation means the end of women's sports at the college level, right? And most Olympic sports as well. Amazing how today, when a college degree has never cost more, now is the time to pay athletes. When my dad was on scholarship at ISU, they had to actually work a job as part of their full athletic scholarship. The NFL should simply start a feeder league like the G League and that would fix many of these issues. I know a top recruit that visited one of the elite football programs. They didn't even bother with anything related to academics when he visited. Why not end the charade?

 

[BryceC]

You people realize that collegiate athletic compensation means the end of women's sports at the college level, right? And most Olympic sports as well. Amazing how today, when a college degree has never cost more, now is the time to pay athletes. When my dad was on scholarship at ISU, they had to actually work a job as part of their full athletic scholarship. The NFL should simply start a feeder league like the G League and that would fix many of these issues. I know a top recruit that visited one of the elite football programs. They didn't even bother with anything related to academics when he visited. Why not end the charade?

Pollard, Prohm, Campbell, and Fennelly make a combined 7,425,000.00 per year just in their salaries. I'm guessing those four positions paid a lot less when your dad played at ISU. It's not just the cost of tuition that's gone up.

As far as ending the charade goes, it won't end because people don't want it to.