Former All-American athlete Len Elmore makes the case against paying college athletes and argues that money would corrupt the spirit of collegiate games.
When in the 1960’s and 1970’s when baseball with players were fighting for free agency curt flood basically lost his career for this reason other players fought marvin miller the union had fought people said owners said fans said this will destroy baseball this will be the worst thing that ever happens to baseball if players get free agency and they can go from
One team in another and they could they could they could argue for their own money for their own paycheck it was the best thing that ever happened to baseball baseball is much more prosperous today it’s a much better sport than it was back that said the i he has they have no way of knowing that people will be turned off i really have no way of knowing i think
They’d be fine with it in about five minutes but the fact of the matter is you won’t know until you do it you just don’t know all right fair enough we don’t know the future but we’re having a debate so it’s a fair enough point but i want to hear how you would argue against it take it light now well look it comes down to the fact that one you’re talking about
Professionals and people have one concept of what professionals are about they have another concept of what college athletes and athletics is all about now you know i will also concede that the concept of amateurism a classic concept is an anachronism you know we need to change it’s not professional but it’s not purely amateur and that’s one of the problems the
Ncaa has had in being able to redefine that the olympics is not amateur because they’re getting paid as well but it’s certainly not professional as you’re playing basketball the bottom line is you know you have the galvanization of communities around college sports because their attitudes are about college sports but why would that change if they’re paid what
I was gonna say that then it comes down to if people understood that these were pros again what this is a minor league now how many people have minor leagues getting right because mine only the the other thing again is balance what we’re certainly i think probably all agreeing on is some schools will not be able to pay as much as others in the idea of paying
Athletes and some might not want to pay them at all so andy if i may continue and so for example you’ve got you guys are sec fans or big ten fans or whatever and you know there’s a league and you feel like it’s all pretty much on the sum equal footing in some way or other right and there’s they’re going for bowl games and they’re doing whatever they’re doing in
Men’s hoops women’s hoops same thing well say goodbye to that say goodbye to that because no there’s no way my alma mater northwestern is going to be able to pay what ohio state pays women’s hoops let’s go with the idea that you guys are gonna pay women athletes all women athletes which is great i’ll be cheering for it when it happens in ain’t happening but if
I’ll be i’d love to see it happen so okay so what who could pay women’s basketball we know tennessee probably could uconn so now you’re a high school girl and you play basketball well you’re probably want to get paid right so maybe there’s two or three schools that are going to pay their female basketball players so then the rest of them will get go so the best
Ones will go there so say goodbye folks to competitive balance for ever it will change everything you’ve thought about college football country look basketball
Transcribed from video
The End of Amateurism? || Debate Clip || Pay College Athletes By IntelligenceSquared Debates