My Venture concept is
a service to Student Athletes across America. As someone who is a student
athlete, I think that there should be a method in place to protect the athletes
and their personal brand. I believe that they are being used by the NCAA and their
universities to bring n money for them and they do not get a chance to receive
any form of compensation. I am bringing forth the idea that student athletes
should be able to market themselves and make money off their own likeness.
After an NCAA championship, the first thing shown is a quick video of the team
and then an advertisement to go buy the championship merchandise. They use the
athletes as the main source of their ads to bring in revenue from their
performances. In professional sports, athletes are given a percentage of their
jersey sales. Why can't a college athlete who arguably has a more rigorous
schedule than a pro, make money off their own likeness.
Pro athletes have an
off season that lasts months. College athletes do not have an off season. Many
sports have workout programs, and basically two seasons a year. Baseball plays
approximately 70 games including postseason in the spring and will go through a
two month fall season. Football goes from august until early January in their
main season. they have a spring football season that requires the same amount
of time and grind while they are on the field. The Athletes do not receive
compensation for their time they give to the universities.
Athletes on college
campuses are required to take at least 12 credits to be eligible with most of
them taking 15 a semester. These 5 classes can be challenging and hard to
manage on their own. A regular student takes around the same amount but for the
most part besides jobs or other issues, the classes are their main focus. Being
a student athlete, you have to deal with all of the class work and be at their
sport for over 30 hours a week a lot of times. It is difficult to manage and
that is why it is so hard and rare to be able to balance both. It does not give
the athletes enough time to go get a job or find a source of income.
Now, people may say
that the athletes are being compensated by the scholarships, the food they are
given by the team, or that they get to be professional athletes after they
graduate. Not every sport is a full scholarship sport. Baseball for example, is
given 11.7 scholarships to field a team of 35 guys. Most baseball players are
on partial scholarships and many are not getting athletic money. Softball gets
12 scholarships at a fully funded university. Football and basketball are
sports that are full scholarships as is women’s volleyball and tennis. These
athletes that are not given full scholarships have to find ways to pay for
rent, schooling, books, and food.
The target audience
for this idea is the NCAA and the local businesses who will be able to use the
the athletes for marketing purposes. I believe that the opportunities are to be
controlled with what kind of companies can the athlete be endorsing or how much
can they earn. Some may think that recruiting would change and it would but at
the end of the day, the best programs will get the best players if they can
provide these business opportunities or not. Alabama will get the best football
players and it is because of their rich history of winning and tradition and
not because they can give someone an opportunity to work with a local restaurant
to make a little more money.
I think that there
would be many people who would support my initiative and help push this
forward. The media exposure would be the most important piece of the puzzle to
getting this out in the open more and more. National media outlets like ESPN
have already been talking about this debate and it is something that is needed
to be talked about to ensure that the athletes are being taken care of. With
what is next on this issue is to get more to the media and get-well known
people to talk about this. If there are prominent business people who are not
athletes that feel strongly about this, and keep pushing it forward, then it
will help the cause. This is an opportunity that while it must be controlled, has
the ability to be a drastic change to college sports. To me it is important to
fight for this an continue to get exposure out there so that there s no more
debate just fairness and justice being brought to the athletes.
Hey Tyler,
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job of laying out the entire situation at hand here for college athletes. I think one of the biggest things you will need to focus on in your efforts is to make sure that this privilege does not get abused if it is implemented. I think your passion and drive are there, and it is a huge asset to your idea that you are on the baseball team, because that adds personal experiences to the idea.
Hi Tyler,
ReplyDeleteI think that you are correct when you mentioned that there are many people that would get on board in support of your changing the way student athletes are treated. I know that there would be many more details that you would have to sort out along the process, but I think that given your background and passion for making things better with change, you will find great success. Lastly, I think that it is important that more people recognize how not all student athletes get scholarships to go to different colleges like the media perceives it.