Ep. 62: Exploring the Commercialization of College Sports - An Ethical and Socioeconomic Debate

Imagine a world where the term 'student athlete' is irrelevant and college sports have been commercialized. Is it a utopia where athletes, like their professional counterparts, are fairly compensated for their skills and effort? Or is it a dystopia where values and education take a back seat to monetary gains? Our producer, Taylor Brown, joins us as we traverse through this fascinating landscape of 'what ifs'.

We begin by scrutinizing the origins of the 'student athlete' term and the NCAA's NIL regulations. The recent Supreme Court ruling opens a Pandora's box of arguments and counterarguments, backed by the harsh reality that over half a million college athletes may never benefit from this shift. Our debate then steers towards the monetization of college sports, and we ponder on its possible implications for the players. Could paying college athletes potentially upend their focus and resilience? How does this conversation fit within the larger discourse of rising college costs and free education? These are just a few of the questions we tackle in our discussion.

Finally, we take a detour and delve into the seldom-explored intersection of college sports and mindfulness. Challenging ourselves and you, our listeners, to question our wants versus our needs in the capitalist framework of college sports. We also explore how compassion and interconnectedness can be a tool in supporting those less fortunate in this landscape. This episode isn't just about debating the pay structure for college athletes. It's about understanding the ethical, emotional, and socio-economic facets of this complex issue, from a perspective of mindfulness and generosity. Join us on this journey of discovery as we untangle this enigma that is college sports.

Social Media Mentioned:

Twitter: @mindfulsportdoc

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Websites Mentioned:

www.mindfulsportperformance.org

www.enduromind.com

Books Mentioned

Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement

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Very much appreciated, 

Keith, Tim, and Taylor (our producer!) 

Chapters

• 0:03 Should College Athletes Get Paid?
• 8:20 Debating the Payment of College Athletes
• 21:45 Governance in College Athletics
• 36:33 Mindfulness and our Capitalist System
• 43:59 Shifting our Own Perspectives?

Transcript

Keith: 0:03

Hi and welcome back to the Mindful Sport Performance Podcast. I'm Dr Keith Kaufman, I'm Dr Tim Fanone and I'm Taylor Brown. We're excited to have Taylor with us today. We're going to be discussing a very interesting topic. Should college athletes get paid? Yeah, yeah.

Taylor: 0:20

I'm excited, I'm excited to talk about this today.

Taylor: 0:23

Yeah, this is a really interesting question that I think my views on have really evolved over the course of the last 10 years, because I think this question really started getting traction when Northwestern football players, a while ago, gotten news for wanting to unionize and essentially be able to have that leverage over the university. And when I was an athlete, I remember thinking why the heck would somebody who was a college athlete want to get paid? Like, I look at what I'm doing as kind of a privilege and something that I get to do, something that not a lot of people get to do, something that's really fun, something that really helped with my admission into an Ivy League university, something that was just really a great experience. So why would you need to get paid for this?

Keith: 1:39

And then, as I Can, I ask a question real quick about that how much of that do you think was being an Olympic sport as opposed to a revenue sport? And that's what I was just about to ask. Oh, I jumped you. I'm sorry, Taylor.

Taylor: 1:51

Okay.

Keith: 1:52

I'll set that up now.

Taylor: 1:53

Okay, I think, as I Well, I went through a sport management master's program and we had a class on sports ethics, so we had a lot of conversations about this, but I think I gained valuable perspective of you know, obviously, rowing is not a revenue-generating sport. We're lucky if 100 people come out and watch a race and I realized that there are college football players and college basketball players and college I guess you could say you know track and field athletes who bring in millions in revenue for the university and they were never seeing. They were never seeing a dime. And now, of course, we have NIL and we're in. You know there's a lot of discussions about how that's supposed to be regulated.

Keith: 2:51

But, yeah, we almost can't have this conversation too without talking about conference realignment, which is very much in the news right now, and of course that's being driven largely by football, but how the remaking, the reshaping of these conferences affects NIL, affects revenue and money and equity right. So I don't mean to overcomplicate things, but maybe this is something we can also kind of throw in the mix as we discuss this, because it feels like it's happening, whether we want it to or not. We can sit here and debate should college athletes get paid, but there's a lot happening right now that I don't know that we fully understand the implications of.

Tim: 3:32

Yet Well, and I mean, I'm always like trying to take this like this systemic viewpoint and so, like knowing that we were going to talk about this today, I was like I want to research this a little bit Because I remember this is like three years ago, like 2020, but there's a bunch of articles about the term student athlete and whether it should be used, whether it could be used, whether it was a mischaracterization. Actually, the Tar Heels, the student newspaper, like this is one of the things that kind of got the ball rolling but like publish it out, so the.

Tim: 4:08

DTH, like we shouldn't use this term anymore, and that kind of made sense to me from a semantic perspective, but even more so now that I look at the history a little bit. So in 1953, a football player at the University of Denver got injured and sued the university because he wanted a worker's compensation he's like I'm practically an employee right and he won. The Colorado Supreme Court sided with the football player. Shortly thereafter the NCAA coined the term student athlete, specifically to counter the narrative that athletes were employees. And then in 1955-ish maybe, there was another case like this a player, ray Denison. He played for Fort Lewis A&M, he's a football player, his skull got shattered in a game in 1955. And his wife, his widow, sued for death benefits. But in those intervening two years they had coined this term, they had NCAA had had put forward the narrative like no, no, no, these are amateurs, these are athletes, these are student athletes, they are not employees. And that had gained so much sway that her claim for death benefits was denied, even though just two years later or two years before, excuse me there was a decision essentially going the other way. And so we kind of I was a student athlete, I had no qualms about the term.

Tim: 5:50

I still kind of, when I'm not being intentional, still use it today, but it's there's something icky about knowing it was coined specifically to take away rights, right, specifically to promote a narrative of like we don't want to actually compensate these people for work that they do, at least not in the way that labor regulations would require us to. Right, if you get injured, we want to be able to take your scholarship away. We don't want to have to pay you workers compensation, right, and so like. That narrative has been the dominant narrative up until 2021, when you got the Supreme Court decision saying like, no, actually, you cannot deny athletes the ability to make money off of their name, image and likeness, right. So now boosters are allowed to give gifts, athletes are allowed to have contracts to sponsor things, all right.

Tim: 6:45

But you know, when I think about like, does that make things more fair? Right, it opens the door to compensation, sure, but colleges still aren't paying, universities still aren't paying their athletes, right. So when you've got, you know, a recent statistic about 520,000 college athletes, well, 519,000 of those athletes don't make anything off of name, image and likeness, right, but you need to be like in this less than 2% of athletes that might go pro to benefit at all from this theoretical open door to compensation. So, even though there now is the ability for some of these athletes to be compensated, I would argue fairly right, it's still only like a tiny, tiny fraction of all the athletes who are still putting in their 20 plus hours a week training, right? Well, even if they're not revenue generating sports the NCAA brings in billions of dollars every year, right? Even if they're not, you know, part of Mark Madness or some bowl game, right?

Tim: 7:52

Think about all the donors, right? I get contacted from my university all the time because I was a former athlete. But don't you want to give us money? And I know I am more inclined to right? So I feel like universities are still kind of taking in revenue in this way because they have all these sports teams, and yet, you know, these athletes are just yeah, not compensated for their work, not compensated for their time.

Keith: 8:20

Well, isn't what you're getting at and the reason why I brought up conference realignment. It's almost impossible and I think every time this debate comes up I have this thought it's almost impossible to have this discussion unilaterally or universally, because the sports are so different and because it feels like what we're really talking about is such a small group of athletes from one, maybe two sports for the most part. There are some exceptions, of course, for other sports, but that is far from the norm, right, and so this feels like such a deep. I mean it's fascinating to hear the history that you're providing to him. I wasn't aware of all of that, so that's I'm glad you did your homework a little bit. That was very cool to kind of hear the context. It doesn't surprise me at all when you kind of see how things have evolved with the NCAA over the years. That kind of is the playbook, what you're describing for so many things.

Keith: 9:14

But it feels so hard to have this discussion. Should College Athletes get paid and not make the distinction between the different sports and what we're really talking about? And what does fairness even look like? Can we even begin to parse that? How could this work? And so I don't know. I mean again, I'm not trying to muddy the waters here I wonder what your thoughts are on that, both of you guys. How, if we said yes or if we said no? How do we make these distinctions?

Taylor: 9:44

I feel like, with the sports that are revenue generating, this is going to be a hot take that people don't, that people don't agree with. A lot of those athletes are already getting free education. There's 20 plus scholarships for division one football teams at least, and so they're already there and they would not. They would not be getting that education from that university without the sport that they're playing, without the football team or without the basketball team or without the you know what are other teams that have revenue?

Keith: 10:30

I feel like it's mostly football and basketball honestly, those are generally regarded as the and specifically men's basketball, right I mean. I think that's right or wrong, good or bad. Those are considered the revenue sports.

Taylor: 10:42

Right, and so I kind of I look at this whole conversation like I get that the universities are making a lot of money off the athletes. If the athletes wouldn't be there unless that university had provided that opportunity for them to be there, I get the sense sometimes they're like, oh, what can this team do for me? I get a little bit upset about that sometimes, because it's not about you, it's about the team and it's about the success of the team and the success of the program, is it?

Keith: 11:22

Could you spend that for a?

Taylor: 11:23

sec. I mean, I think, is it? Yes, because the program has been around a lot, you know, for since 1917, and it's gonna be around for another hundreds of years. And this is not about what we can do for you, it's about what you do for the team.

Keith: 11:47

And it kind of depends on the sport a little bit, doesn't it? I mean that I hate to keep saying this, but I get. I mean recognizing. You're coming from a university situation. You work for Penn, you're coaching in an Olympic sport and rowing, I mean, it's not an uncommon argument that NCAA football is kind of regarded as a minor league for the NFL. Is that the same thing? Do you? Would you have the same level of pride? Would you have the same allegiance to the university? Is the university necessarily seen as benevolent? In this? I think there's an idealism, taylor, that you're getting at here with the programs themselves, you know, with the schools that I don't know. I mean, I see what you're saying, but I think you could make the argument that there's kind of using on both sides.

Taylor: 12:42

I think that argument could be made, but I guess what I'm getting at is like the core values of being an athlete, right? I think a lot of times athletes have a kind of a me, me, me mentality and in order to win on a team, it has to be about we, and I get athletes all the time who are saying you know, they're upset with where they are, they're not in the first boat, you know they're not where they think they should be, and it all of a sudden becomes a problem for them because they're not getting the recognition they should have, or they're not getting the playing time and it's you know, or, in this case, they're not getting the money they think they deserve, and so it's a little bit selfish, honestly.

Keith: 13:32

We're a mindfulness podcast, ultimately, right. So we're talking about this and, just to take them all like something that we talk about all the time, is the process over the outcome right? And I feel there's an element of that in what you're saying, taylor. That is even bigger than college sport, of course, is the push toward what I should get, what the results should be, what my reward ought to be, which, I guess, to me feeds right back to the central question of this episode, which is the monetization of college sports, which directly pulls you toward outcome right, which directly pulls you toward this sort of focus that I think we as a mindfulness group are trying to shift the paradigm away from. So I think there is an interesting debate here to be had too, just from a mental health perspective, from a wellness perspective, from a mindfulness perspective. What does paying athletes, what does the monetization of sport do to attention of these athletes, or do to their resilience, or do to their patience, to their priorities, to their values? I think there's so much that we could go into with that.

Tim: 14:47

A few points. So one, the kind of the idealism in that idea of like oh, but the free education, right. So everything is contextual, right, everything is dependent on all of these different factors, right. And so part of that is actually bringing in like well, how much does college cost these days? And our people? Is anyone getting a return on their investment, right? So you think, oh, we're giving you this insanely valuable thing, but are we just overpricing that thing that we're giving you? And then the other layer, I mean all the stories of, and particularly in these high revenue generating sports, right Of, like the quote, unquote education that these students are being given, right, where their professors are pressured to give them the grades that they need, regardless of how they do, that they're allowed to take courses that don't actually contribute to what would be like a long-term fulfilling career once they're done with their sport, right. So it's like okay, what are they actually being given?

Keith: 15:45

And then and thank you for not bringing Carolina up in that context, because you could have, and I appreciate you.

Tim: 15:53

And then it's like I mean, I've got my own thoughts and feelings about capitalism. You know, like the, what that does to us. But these insanely high revenue generating sports that you're seeing right. It's like, well, you know, a D1 college football thing got 20 scholarships. You know no-transcript.

Tim: 16:13

But I would argue that a university still substantially benefits from having all of the other sports right. You were just saying poor start recording about recruiting, right. I would bet most of the kids that you are recruiting to your team pay full price. Right, or, if not pay full price, are paying the university something, right. So it benefits a university to have all of these non-revenue generating sports, because the revenue they're generating is from the students that they are recruiting right, not just the donations they'll give, but the actual money that their families are paying for that student to be there to play that sport right. And so when you're saying, all right, you're going to come and you are required to take this certain number of credits, right, in order to get the degree that you're paying for. And on top of that you need to work, right, you need to train, you need to be with your team 20 hours a week, right, and that's a statistic from the NCAA. They're saying, yeah, the average athlete probably spends 20 hours a week. I bet it's probably more. I mean, I was a D3 athlete and I spent 20 hours a week training. So it's like the amount of pressure what they're asking of these students so that you can have a team like Penn that's been around 100 years, that wins a lot of stuff. Right, that is going to be a source of recruitment, right? Like, yeah, I think those athletes are giving some are working for the university, are giving the university benefit that ought to be compensated.

Tim: 17:40

Now, in terms of what that potential, like what that compensation might potentially do, I don't think this ought to be like a way to make millions of dollars, right, I think that's how it gets toxic, right, and I guess, maybe as a side note, I feel like any article on like kids these days is describing what you're talking about, taylor, not just athletes, but this self-focus, this over sensitivity, this me, me, me, mindset, like I think it's not just applicable to athletes, but of course, we see it come up in athletes, and the other coaches that I work with, I mean, say some of the same stuff that you're saying and how it's toxic for a team mentality.

Tim: 18:19

But it's like, yeah, I think you know, making these kids and maybe even making their families' lives a little bit easier so that they can do the work that the university is asking them to do for free, like that just makes sense to me. But, yeah, but I don't think it should be like a student could go whether you're a football player or a rower, right, and make a million dollars. Like that doesn't make a ton of sense to me. But some compensation for the time you spend doing the work, that makes sense to me.

Keith: 18:48

What do you think, tim, about what I was saying about the mindfulness piece? I'm curious about that. Like I'm not saying I'm surprised to hear you take that step, but if you're a student athlete, I appreciate where you're coming from and I think your points make sense. I guess, knowing you as long as I have, you're not someone who typically advocates for things that are extrinsic motivators.

Tim: 19:13

Yeah, well, and so I think maybe the key to my response is that idea of like this makes, potentially makes an athlete's life easier. Right, because I had friends, you know, on the crew team who were training just as much as me and needed a part-time job because school is crazy expensive. Right, like we are crushing a generation under student debt that some of them might never be able to pay off, you know. And so in some ways, this systematic viewpoint like that to me helps, like, balance the scale on this other kind of injustice that I think is happening. So that's part of my thinking around it.

Tim: 19:55

But in the same way that, like, I would really advocate for spaciousness, because I think when our lives are more spacious, we are more clear-headed and we can think more clearly and make wise choices.

Tim: 20:06

You know, almost a similar parallel to the idea of, like why go on a meditation retreat, why you can just sit in your house and meditate, right, well, because when you actually create externally spaciousness, it allows your mind to be more mindful. And so I'm saying, if you compensate these athletes for all of this extra time, for the lack of spaciousness in their lives, right, and they also think about well, I got to buy books and I got to find some study and you know like we live in a capitalist society where money means opportunity. Money helps us create spaciousness. I actually think compensating athletes might help in reducing the me, me, me focus. It might create enough space, it might kind of create some ease in their lives to actually slow things down so they could like be fully present in their studies, be fully present in their sport, like and get a lot of that personal, not reward but satisfaction, intrinsic motivation.

Keith: 21:02

So and I know you mentioned capitalism a couple of times like are you proposing something more socialist? Are you proposing that the way this would work in what you're saying Because I hear you, I hear what you're saying is that there have to be a standard rate that every student athlete would get, across sport, across gender, that this is what it would be, because if you start introducing discrepancies now, all of a sudden, all that spaciousness gets blown up.

Tim: 21:30

Yes, that is exactly what I would advocate, because I think it's so broken. I mean this general system, like that a professional athlete gets paid millions and millions of dollars and a teacher makes $35,000 a year. That's insane to me, right? If we're going to talk about, like, what a particular job is, like worth to society, right, like, I think we have it all backwards and upside down, you know. And so as soon as we start pegging like, oh well, actually you generate this much, and by virtue of the fact that you generate that much, it must mean you are deserving more.

Tim: 22:02

I don't think that connection actually makes sense, right, it just so happens that people love football, right, and like, and so that makes more money than rowing. But like, like. I don't think a football player is worth more than a rower. I don't think a male athlete is worth more than a female athlete. Absolutely. I think we need to disentangle this idea of like. Oh, because you're in this sport that makes so much money, of course, then you deserve more, and so I think we want to take that form of deserving out of it. So I would advocate for a much more socialist approach.

Keith: 22:32

And Natalia, I know this last thing. I was saying you were going to say something a moment ago, but then we are in a capitalist society. So if you do that, and the reality is that the football player brings in more than the rower, who keeps all that money?

Tim: 22:52

Oh yeah, I think it's probably given to charity. No, it's not.

Keith: 22:54

You know what I? Mean Like I mean like this is why we're a mic from the podcast right.

Tim: 22:59

There's so much growth in the system. Like it's insane to me that the NCAA brings in billions of dollars and that, and to my mind, it is wasted by accumulating wealth and the 1% of people who already have it. Like, yeah, like let's use that money and distribute it. Oh my God, yeah, let's compensate these athletes fairly. And then all the rest, let's make sure that no one is unhoused in this country, cause guess what, if the NCAA took all of their income, they could do that Right. It is insane, insane that pro sports teams at the NCAA has all this money and all they do is just give it back for themselves. It's disgusting to me, which maybe is a little too judgmental, but like huh, yeah, that's what we should do with all that extra money.

Taylor: 23:43

I agree in principle. That I mean having heard about athletes who were on a division, one basketball team, and they were having issues buying meals. I think that's crazy. You know I wasn't getting paid, I never had issues. You know, I was on a meal plan and I could go to the cafeteria. Now I know I worked at a large university for a long time and every athlete I think was given two meals a day in their own athlete dining hall. And you know, I think the cost, what do they call them? The cost of attendance checks, stipends. Now the athletes, a lot of athletes get I think there is this they do get a monthly stipend of some amount of money.

Taylor: 24:42

I'm not sure if it's in all sports, I don't know a lot about it. But then we get to this subject of NIL and these athletes getting these enormous NIL deals. I mean, I heard of an athlete getting a $13 million NIL deal and I think that one might have actually fallen through and I think that's why I heard about it. But you know, and this isn't coming, these aren't coming from the universities themselves. You know, in fact, when we were briefed on how to negotiate anything NIL, you know rowers aren't really getting any NIL deals.

Taylor: 25:25

It's you know, coaches, can you know? If a company or a brand approaches me about one of my athletes, I am only allowed to make the connection between the brand and the athlete and then I am not allowed to do anything more. I can't advise the athlete on if it's a good deal. I can't talk to the brand about anything. You to do this now and I have to completely step away, and so that's kind of a power advice to do things. And you know there's been some cases. You know my understanding is that athletes cannot do NIL deals before they officially become a student athlete at a university. So if an athlete is a prospective athlete or a recruit, they can't accept an NIL deal from a brand or somebody or a booster that says, if you know, you're going to get this deal if you go to this university.

Taylor: 26:25

Yeah yeah, and that's how, like a lot of universities are trying to figure out how to monitor that, how to police that. Now I feel like another thing that is just making the playing field less level. Universities that have a bigger presence of boosters or universities that have had athletes that have received these big deals are now going to have even more pull for the biggest recruits.

Keith: 27:01

And so I think, that's why the conference realignment piece is actually so relevant, because what you're going to see if these kind of super conflict right now right, it's the Big 10 and the SEC. We even called the Big 10, I think there's like 18 schools in the Big 10 right now. You know, as they become more of a draw, as those become the marquee matchups, as there's more of a high profile going to those universities, you're going to see the better NIL deals. You're going to see a consolidation right Of the top athletes going to a select pod of schools. And now you see this whole jockeying of other schools, like Carolina right in the ACC, which is one of those like what is the ACC going to do? How are they going to be able to compete on a recruiting level with a Florida?

Keith: 27:50

And even Florida State you know I was just hearing has engaged JP Morgan to see how they could break their over a hundred million dollar contracts with the ACC to get out of their deal early and see if they could jump to the presumably the SEC right, so that they they're making the argument we can't be a competitive football program with recruits because we're not able to offer what these SEC programs are and on top of that, what you're seeing is the blowing up of geographical alliances, and so you know. I just was reading, seeing today like Stanford has approached the ACC. Stanford, obviously, is based on the West Coast, the ACC by its very name, the Atlantic Coast Conference. We're talking about volleyball players from Stanford having to fly over and play all their conference games and the East Coast right Like. What does that mean for them as students? What does that mean for their budget? It's a program right In terms of like, like if a school from California is having to play all of their road games right Across the country.

Tim: 28:57

Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's as if they don't care about athlete well-being, you know. But like, yeah, I was reading the same thing about that like these, these realignments, right, and you've got now having to to not just take a bus ride a few hours, right, but to to across three time zones, you know, and it's like the athletes are the ones that are gonna suffer and then not get compensated, right, Because those volleyball players aren't getting paid.

Keith: 29:26

Well, not all the athletes. That's the thing, right, Not?

Tim: 29:30

all the athletes, the volleyball players, right, they're non-revenue athletes, the vast majority of the athletes right Are not benefiting and yet paying this cost and not getting compensated, right, like, and it's also just like, I think this broader example of like the rich get richer, right. It's like it's this too big to fail system, like, oh well, I guess this is how it works now, so we can't be competitive in this league, so we got to go to this bigger league, regardless of what it does to the athletes right. But because we just need to be able to make more money, because money gets the recruitment and makes the wins, you know. And it's like, oh, when we center and maybe this was part of your point before, Keith like when we center money as the primary incentive, like we are willing to sacrifice everything else.

Taylor: 30:13

The revenue generating sports get completely taken out of the NCAA and they are their own thing and we should just call a spade a spade and say these are what did you call them, keith? These are a minor league of NBA, a minor league of the NFL, and they are under a different governance than non-revenue generating sports.

Keith: 30:50

I think that's literally under discussion for football. There are people who bring that up. I have not heard that as a viable idea for basketball. It doesn't mean it hasn't been tossed around, but yeah, I mean, what do you guys think that would do? If we split football off and just said, hey, it's essentially a minor league system that goes under a different umbrella, what then?

Tim: 31:15

I mean, I think there's some real appeal to that idea If part of what we want to do is return to the idea, not as it was coined by the NCAA, but to this idea of student athlete, of like. Yeah, this is like a person whose primary identity is a student who is also an athlete, and we want to be able to honor the hard work that they do but also keep it within this amateurism. Yeah, I think we would need to remove these revenue generating sports. I think it could increase the health and wellbeing of the athletes potentially who are there primarily as students, but who are also competing. I would worry about all of the human beings who are still playing football and basketball under these other conferences, Cause I just I don't imagine that their wellbeing is going to be a priority in that change.

Taylor: 32:06

Even if they're being paid many millions of dollars.

Tim: 32:11

Well, cause in some ways it exacerbates. I mean, the problem already exists. What we were talking about before is like, okay, they get this education right, but if they're just being given passing grades, they don't actually learn anything. They don't actually get a degree that they can then go on and do something with, they don't make the pros, or they do make the pros and that career ends, you know.

Keith: 32:29

We have to be a little bit careful and not over generalize, right? I mean, that's not the way it is for everyone everywhere, but that, yes, that happens.

Tim: 32:36

Yeah, yeah, I think it happens and I think it happens enough to be like a very significant problem for the athletes who intentionally go into college thinking they're going to go pro, you know, for the universities whose football coaches make more than the university presidents. Right Like, I think it is a substantial problem because, with the incentive being the money, right Like, the pressure is there.

Tim: 33:01

I was actually just listening to like a comedy podcast like love it or leave it. But they had a former pro football player on who was also former division one football player, who actually is now out of the closet and is bisexual. But yeah, he was talking exactly about this, about him and his classmates, just like didn't matter the class, you know, it's like you were going to pass, no matter what you did, no matter what you turned in, because that's what the university needed so you could play the game, so you could make the revenue. And so even we have, like, this veneer of the education. I think if we were to remove it and say like no, this is now like a minor league, there would be no even faint towards giving them an education Like, oh yeah now you're purely just a football player.

Tim: 33:50

That's what you do. You just go from high school into this. You don't even need a college degree, right. So we're making them even less prepare. I think that particular problem would get even worse, right, because there are some students who still absolutely avail themselves of the opportunity that education, who work their butts off to be able to, like, put all that time into their sport and still learn what's there in front of them, to be able to learn, and I think if we were to actually remove this out of the college atmosphere entirely, then the education piece totally disappears.

Taylor: 34:20

Here's an idea that I think I've heard before I can't remember. High school athletes go and play for a college for four years, whatever sport. We'll say it's a revenue generating sport, and maybe this is just for revenue generating sports. They play for the college for four years and then when they graduate, if they go into a professional sport and they go play their professional sport, the average career in the NFL is three years. Then after that they have a education voucher for four years at that university and they can go back to that university, get their degree, graduate and go on to their encore career. Yeah, like the GI Bill.

Tim: 35:10

I mean it's similar.

Taylor: 35:11

It's just like okay, you put your time in here, you fully concentrate on that. We're not gonna do this BS of like you can do both, because you can't when you're doing football or basketball or whatever 30 plus hours a week and then come back and get your degree in engineering and then go do your thing.

Tim: 35:33

I kinda like that idea.

Taylor: 35:34

Yeah, I mean, what's you know, that you know, and then you know what's wrong with that. Are you saying every?

Keith: 35:41

athlete would do that, or you're saying just the revenue sports would do that.

Tim: 35:45

Oh no I think we froze, I think you froze. Maybe his computer died, yeah, because yeah, I don't know what he was meaning specifically, but I would guess he was talking about just the revenue generating. But this idea of you know, like, short of saying like, okay, so college football isn't gonna be its own totally separate thing, but it's like a pseudo separate thing. We're like, yeah, you get recruited to this particular university, but you're not actually a student at the university.

Tim: 36:10

You play football for that university, right, and then once you're done playing football, you know and not have to worry about classes, not have to worry about grades right, like once you're done playing football, even if you go on to play pro, like yeah, then you can always come back whenever, whenever it's right for you and like focus on your education. That's an interesting idea it is an interesting idea.

Keith: 36:31

Well, here and actually. So, while we're waiting for Taylor to rejoin us, I guess a question I would have for you, you know, just going back, like again trying to stay true to our roots here. So we're ultimately a mindfulness podcast, right? And so, you know, you were saying before, like what you'd like to see is the profits donated to charity, which is you know what a mindful idea, right, in terms of the interconnectivity, in terms of helping your fellow man doing what's good for humanity in general, for the world in general.

Keith: 37:05

Something that I think about a lot and I try to do a lot in the work that we do is marry the ideal to the reality.

Keith: 37:16

And I wonder where, if anywhere, you think I'm just asking you and I'm putting you on the spot for this you see a space for that interface here, right, like we're saying, okay, we are in this capitalist system, money is here. You know, maybe if we did what Taylor was just proposing, like this idea of just calling us bait-as-bait and you know you're here to play football and then come back, you know, maybe that's the best we can do from a mindfulness perspective in terms of taking just taking that off the table for right now and just focus on one thing at a time. Focus on that process, and this is an investment that you're making in being a complete human being right that you get this voucher and you can come back and complete your education. Do you have any thoughts about how to marry these ideas? Is it just that they are polar opposites, like there's just no way to bring a mindfulness perspective into the way that college sports are right now, or do you think there's any practical lessons that people could implement to make this quote unquote better?

Tim: 38:22

Does that make sense? What I'm asking? I think so. I'll answer and we'll see if it's an answer that actually answers the question, if I understood it.

Tim: 38:31

But of course, I mean, in some ways I feel like there has to be a way to like bring those apparent poles, you know, closer and closer together. You know, and I think part of it is. I mean, this is a very like Buddhist perspective, but like recognizing, kind of the root of greed and attachment, right, and I don't necessarily mean greed in a pejorative way, but just the natural human inclination of feeling like I need to feel safe, I want my family to feel safe, and so I want more. Oh, okay, and this feels good, oh, and so even more would be more safety, right. So I know it's not coming from a bad place, right, but I do think it distorts our perception of what we actually need, how much we actually need, you know. And so it's like that's what feels so, one of the things that feels so off about, I mean anyone. I don't mean to single out professional athletes, I mean hedge fund managers, tech investors, whoever who are pulling in, you know, bob Iger, you know, like $27 million a year. No one needs that much money, no one, you know. And so I think it's about like helping people to understand that reality of like, oh, this is so much more than I need, and there are so many people out there that have less than they need, right. And so really tapping into, yes, the interconnectedness, the, the, the, the, the, our roots of compassion, of like over all just human beings, like trying to feel safe, trying to get what we need and to recognize some of the mistakes that we make, it's like, well, yeah, sometimes I take more than I need, you know, and like to challenge ourselves to like actually figure out, like what is the difference between what I want and what I need and where that line is, cause most of us, myself included, I have so much more than I need. I know that and I know that, even though I actively push the boundary, I'm still not even close to like only using, only taking what it is that I need.

Tim: 40:33

I actually had this interaction with my dad around vacation last week and, and we were, we were at this, we were at a resort, we were at a resort and, and I brought a whole bunch of $5 bills for tips and at one point, my dad which, for his context, his parents grew up in the depression, he grew up very poor, him and his four siblings, for a good chunk of his life lived in a I think it was like a two bedroom apartment until they were able to afford a house and it was only through joining the military that he was able to actually get an education and get out of the town he grew up in. So he'd come from a particular mindset of. He's worked so hard to create some wealth and safety for his family. But he saw me. You're sitting at a buffet table, so you're like very minimal service, right, I put a $5 bill down.

Tim: 41:36

It's like well, actually I think you only put one or $2 down, or someone comes, interacts with you, gives you a drink, even $5. And he's like I think you could just give him like $1.

Tim: 41:46

And I was like why wouldn't I wanna give them more if I can't? And he's like well, I don't want you to impoverish yourself. And I was like I can appreciate that, I could appreciate that fear, but I'm so lucky, right, I could just give $5 to literally every single person I interacted with the whole trip, but I still wouldn't empower myself. So the idea that I would do it in these limited circumstances that would come even close to putting me personally at risk is just not reality, right? Even though there's that fear, there's that aversion of like no, I can't really give all this up, right, I think we'd all do better to challenge ourselves, to look at that reality more. And like, when you look at the billions capital B, billions of dollars like I would challenge anyone, any administrator at the NCAA, to explain to me why they need all that money. Right.

Taylor: 42:40

I'm just rejoining this after my computer shut off. Make it come with me.

Keith: 42:46

Well, you weren't just. A can happen, taylor, so you were already. I didn't warn the audience.

Taylor: 42:50

I'm very sorry.

Keith: 42:52

Well, the question I had asked him was how do we marry the idealism that he was saying before, like a sort of a giving back, giving to charity, right, like a sort of a more mindful way of being, to the realities of this monetized system? And so he, no, it was a very thought-provoking, very good answer, and it's a hard question to ask, and I do appreciate your answer. I'll just say really quick, and then, taylor, I want to hear what you have to say. I think it's still a tough sell, even though I agree with everything that you said, the actual implementation of it, but I guess that's the reality, right? That's the challenge of the work that we do is there's so many things that you said that would make for a healthier system, healthier people, healthier system, healthier planet, and yet it sounds pie in the sky when you put it next to the forces that we're actually up against here, so sorry. So, taylor, what were your thoughts?

Taylor: 43:52

Well, just as you were talking, tim, it just made me think about why. I guess maybe why I had, and continue to have, some of the opinions and views I do about paying college athletes and just about this idea of what you need, what you actually need, which is what you want, and if your needs are being met. And I think in my experience as a college athlete, I never felt like my needs weren't met. I never felt like I was struggling to eat. I never felt like I was always very grateful to be a part of what I was a part of and I never felt like I was being taken advantage of. I felt like I was part of something that not a lot of people were a part of. I was part of not only a team but of a community, a large community, and that was meeting all of the needs.

Taylor: 44:55

I didn't feel like I mean, there was one time that I knew that there were some sweatsuits in the closet and I knew our coach was withholding them from us and we got kind of angry about it. We eventually got the sweatsuits, but if I put myself in the shoes of somebody who feels like one their basic needs as a person, we're not being that monetarily, of like I'm at this university making all of this money for this team and I have trouble putting food on my table. Or I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, or I'm feeling like I'm being underappreciated, or I feel like, for whatever reason, that I am not being seen, even though I'm being seen by millions of people. I could see how that could be a problem for somebody, and I guess it just takes getting a little bit out of my experience as an individual and trying to understand a little bit more about what somebody who is in a revenue generating sport must feel like of like what the hell I'm totally getting taken advantage of here.

Tim: 46:11

Yeah, and I just and I want to echo that too I mean, I was a D3 athlete but I never felt taken advantage of. I never had the thought in college like why should I be getting paid for this? Like it was always like I was so happy to be doing it. I loved rowing, it was amazing, and I looked back on it and it was like and we had to purchase with our own money all of our uniforms, or rather with my parents' money, like we had to fundraise for our equipment. The university didn't buy any of it.

Tim: 46:40

So it was like, and so I never felt taken advantage of and I'd certainly I was very lucky, I'd say it was you. I felt like I had all my needs met and like, looking back at it now, I still recognize like the existence of my crew team at my university was giving the university. They now have this beautiful boathouse. It was built, completed, at the end of my senior year. It's the toughest university boathouse that was funded primarily by donations from members of the crew team. Right, thank you. The university was getting a lot from us and still asking me to like pay more to give them back this thing.

Keith: 47:27

Like I didn't feel taken advantage of taken advantage of, but I see now that the imbalance yeah Well, I mean, this is such a rich topic and there's obviously so many layers to it. I guess I'm mindful of our time. Did you guys have any final thoughts on this? I know obviously we're not gonna reach a consensus from the debate about whether we should pay athletes or not, but I think there's a lot here to consider in terms of different people's experiences, different sports, sort of the impact, as we said, of alignment and the NCAA.

Keith: 48:09

You know, I guess you know I'm gonna sit a little bit longer with this idea of what forces are there realistically that can counteract the direction things seem to be going, because it feels almost like a runaway train at this point and it's hard. I mean, I think it's hard in our profession, where we are trying to teach the whole person, where we are trying to teach process not outcome. You know this is one of the prime examples when we talk about how the system is biased against that approach, and you know where so much of this anxiety, this pressure, this jealousy, this insecurity comes from. I think it's a lot of the things that we're talking about today and yet you can have a totally separate conversation about fairness and value and how, like Tim, you were saying earlier, the space, you know, to remove some of the pressure that athletes might face. It's a very complicated topic.

Tim: 49:22

Yeah, and yeah. It's like when I think about it from the system perspective, it feels so hopeless, like there's no way this could possibly change. But then when I think about on the individual level, like oh, that's where change feels possible.

Tim: 49:42

you know, and it's like whether it's the athletes, the administrators, the coaches, right, like if they can start to embrace this mindset and see the importance of generosity right, not because it's like, oh, I should do that, or I'm ashamed of being pointed out that I have more than I need, and so, yeah, I guess I'll give way more, but like no, to actually see the ways that generosity benefits us right, the interconnected piece. I think that is just a mindset in our very kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, individualistic culture, like, is not emphasized, is not taught, right, and the implications of that worldview are not sufficiently taught, and so we all have this like myth of self-sufficiency and so it locks us in this be mine, I need more safety when realized like no true safety and comfort and ease right Is when everyone is well right, and so I think the system can't change, you know, but the people inside the system can, and that's, I think that's our only option.

Keith: 50:55

I like that. That's a good note to wrap up on that. You know it may not be rapid change, but it gives us maybe a focus, you know, a little note of optimism that maybe we can move the needle Fingers crossed. Yeah, taylor, did you have any final thoughts?

Taylor: 51:12

I think I'm just walking away from this conversation with new perspective on the debate and going into a school year where I'm coaching athletes and coaching college athletes and, yeah, maybe I'll ask them what they think.

Keith: 51:37

I have a suspicion and might have some opinions on this. Yeah, that's the message. Oh, we're back. Yeah, keep us posted. Well, we wanna thank everybody who listened and thank you, taylor, for joining us today and for all of the amazing work you do for our podcast. We love you. We appreciate you so much, and thanks to our colleague, Dr Carol Glass, for all of her support for our podcast as well.

Keith: 52:01

If you wanna connect with us with our podcast, we do have a social media presence. We are on Instagram at at mindful underscore sport underscore podcast. We also have a YouTube channel where we have a large and growing collection of exercises that various guests that we've had on have led and that we've led over the years. So definitely check that out. Our Institute, the MSP Institute, also has an online presence. Our website is wwwmindfulsportperformanceorg and you can find us as well on Instagram and on Facebook. You can connect with me, dr Keith Kaufman, on Instagram and X slash Twitter at mindful sport doc, and our book is still out there If you are interested in reading more about our work in mindfulness and MSP.

Keith: 52:45

Mindful sport performance enhancement, mental training for athletes and coaches, and we very much welcome your reviews, your ratings of our book as well as for our podcast. So we're so grateful to you for listening, and we are doing a new feature this year where we've been doing this for a while now and but I've been doing it for free and just we've now made it available that if you are willing to support our podcast, to make donations to help us continue to provide this, we'd be most grateful for that as well, and so a link for that would be available in our show notes. Taylor, anything that you wanted to mention.

Taylor: 53:32

I think our next show topic should be should podcast host get paid? I mean, that's a question.

Keith: 53:39

Wow, wow, yes, go do it. I love that. That's awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time guys. We'll see you next time guys.