rgbilliken

Good call. Children of the forest stand to gain a lot from the extinction of humans for sure.

Coming here to propagate the fan theory that Bran is actually the Night King (he went back in time and warged into one of the First Men to try to save the world and it backfired).

Agree with @billikenfan05that it seems like the biggest sticking point that some view scholarship, room and board, etc. as sufficient payment and some don't. I think part of it is that a college degree is worth a varying amount to various people. For example...To Jayson Tatum, a college degree is not worth much (money wise...though one could argue that an education has inherent value, regardless of the return on investment) and would have negatively impacted him financially, if anything, had he stayed longer than a year in school. To someone like..idk, Welmer (i.e. someone who will never play professional sports of any kind), a college degree is worth a great deal. Actually agree with @billiken_roythat a lot of this would be solved by getting kids for whom a college education is of very little value out of college sports. I still think it is unacceptable that the NCAA tournament brings in close to a billion dollars each year and players don't see financial compensation. Someone on here brought up giving the players the full value of their scholarship and room and board, etc, in cash and then let them pay it back and have it taxed as income. I actually like that idea as a thought experiment: It would be interesting to give kids a choice of the value of their scholarship and all of that in cash, but have it taxed as income, and maybe you have to take out a loan vs. having everything paid for and you don't get paid. If you're a lottery pick you take the cash and pay back your loan next year when you get your signing bonus. If you're the majority of athletes who won't ever play pro, you take the scholarship. Obviously that would never happen but interesting to think about.

My problem with the first question is as follows: The NCAA tournament brought in $1bn in 2017 in revenue (the last year for which I could find data). Coaches of big programs make mid six figures per year at the very least. AAU coaches, schools, players' families, and shoe companies are all exchanging money and taking their cuts. My problem isn't that the players of revenue sports are practicing and playing in games without pay, as the rest of college athletes do...My problem is that they are doing so, and not getting paid, while generating profit for so many other people. And to top it all off, they're not even allowed to make one cent when the school sells jerseys with their numbers on them, or endorse a shoe brand, or a local restaurant, or sell their autographs, etc. As to the second question, hard to argue with that. But the questions are two sides of the same coin: (1) what's best for the NCAA? and (2) what's best for the players? Answers to each of the above questions are very different.

Anyone remember Ben McLemore who was from STL, ended up at Kansas, had to sit for academic reasons, played a year, then was drafted by the Kings 7th overall? My sister in law was good friends with him when she was at KU and I remember her telling me about his mom's heat getting turned off while he was playing for one of the highest grossing NCAA programs, for one of the highest-paid coaches in america--and not getting paid himself--at Kansas. Oh yeah, and his AAU coach was paid $10,000 by a "sports mentoring organization" to "steer McLemore" toward them. This is like, just my opinion, man, but I just...think that's wrong. Ben was generating revenue for KU, and not getting paid for it; meanwhile, the NCAA, Bill Self, KU as an institution, and his AAU coach are all making profit off of his free labor. Articles below about the level of poverty that Ben grew up in, and about his AAU coach getting paid: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/big12/2013/02/27/big-12-mens-college-basketball-kansas-jayhawks-ben-mclemore/1947401/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/big12/2013/05/04/kansas-jayhawks-ben-mclemore-darius-cobb/2131775/

Lmao this is the exact type of Content billikens.com needs more of. (I was thinking more along the lines of Evans, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.)

Mine is simple: Always been a fan of Jesuit teams who wear blue (grew up going to Creighton games during the Dana Altman/Kyle Korver era). I went to SLU during one of the best times to be a Billiken fan (Fall 2008 to Spring 2012). Also, since I've been following them, there's always been some eye candy on the team, which doesn't hurt. Am I right guys???

Why not? They’re providing a service and I think they should be paid...in money. I don’t see why this is controversial and don’t understand why people have so much emotional investment in them not being compensated financially. As to the exact amount? I guess that could be argued. But generally I think that payment in money for doing a job is good. My criteria for pay would be that it should be equitable and not prohibitive from most serious basketball programs affording it. Anything would be better than the current situation where it’s all behind closed doors. Players are still getting paid...we just aren’t aware of it. Let the players be paid outright and in the open instead of through some back channel with a bunch of people who aren’t the players themselves take their cuts.

Oh. My original post said 25k. I stand by that.

Sorry, what? I’m using it here to say I personally did get paid enough

Agree with this. It’s bizarre that they don’t make money off their likenesses. Zion has the Zion cam following him around and didn’t see a cent. How many #22 jerseys did KU sell when Wiggins was there? Ridiculous.

But why? Who cares that I wasn’t in undergrad? The stipend is a living wage to make it viable to attend graduate school instead of going into industry. It’s not a handout; it’s because the school would have to pay a ton of money to pay an actual worker to work in the lab for 60-80 hours a week, which is very common among grad students. I did it too. Similarly, the school and the NCAA are profiting off of unpaid labor on the part of athletes. Did I advocate a wild salary? No...last I checked the only thing my post mentions is a modest stipend in exchange for the service they provide, similar to what graduate students get.

When I was in graduate school I received a tuition waiver and a stipend of ~23 to 25k per year, depending on my advisor’s funding situation in any particular year. It is beyond me why NCAA players don’t receive the same. The service they provide for the school is at least as valuable as the research and teaching I did.

Same and I'm only a poor young alumni level season ticket holder.

I'm basically 2 close losses away from going Beautiful Mind and/or Carrie Matheson in Homeland level on this sh!t and turning our office into a mess of pictures of refs and red string FOLLOWING THE MONEY.