The Experts Are Wrong About Players Generating Revenue

So if they sucked you'd still go to every game? bullshite.

Yeah this is a horrible argument. You may disagree with mine, but at least my argument has some merit.

Well I did sit through the Curly Hallman era. Not bullshite at all. Also,

The prestige of LSU football can literally be traced back to a single player, and that player got paid, in all likelihood.

Its an illusion. Lots of money comes in from donations not revenue.

If this were a horrible argument, what do you think would happen if the following occured? Take all the players from LSU and Florida (or any major teams) Put them in semi-pro league uniforms with La. Steam vs Fla. Sun playing on a Saturday afternoon. How many people do you think would be in attendance? Maybe a couple of thousand? Certainly not enough to maintain a league. That is the point I am making.

And, when we didn't have "good" players suiting up in that Tiger uniform back in the '90's, season ticket sales dropped below 30,000 and LSU was one of the worst traveling teams in the country.

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You are the exception, not the rule

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really? i think there are a buttload of exceptions out there then, including me.

LSU football was tremendously popular before Saban showed up, fwiw.

btw, if we started paying athletes, and then go into another Archer-Hallman-like depression on the football, should we then *stop* paying the athletes?

let's be consistent here.

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If this were a horrible argument, what do you think would happen if the following occured? Take all the players from LSU and Florida (or any major teams) Put them in semi-pro league uniforms with La. Steam vs Fla. Sun playing on a Saturday afternoon. How many people do you think would be in attendance? Maybe a couple of thousand? Certainly not enough to maintain a league. That is the point I am making.

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And what would happen to the revenue generated by LSU and UF? They would plummet. It would not go to zero, but it certainly wouldn't be where it was before the players left. Certainly not all of the revenue can attributed to the players, but it's hard to deny that a significant portion comes from the players.

The point is that millions of dollars are made every year from a non-professional sport. The organizations that make all of this money, the schools, conferences and bowls... Nike, Reebok, Under Armour, make hundreds of millions from college atheletics... ESPN makes millions... not from airing TCU, but Andy Dalton, not OSU, but TP, not LSU, but PP7... etc. Stars are what generate revenue, period. In every other level of sports, the players are compensated for their efforts... in the NCAA, they work for free. If you're an in-state football player at LSU, what do you get from a full ride that TOPS doesn't already provide most other students? Some students at this university recieve food stamps, pell grants, tuition discounts and TOPS. Atheletes spend more time practicing for their sports than normal students do working part time jobs.

At the end of the day, atheletic scholarships hardly provide anything that normal students don't already get.