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Intercollegiate Forum

Tagliabue Suggests Financial Awards For College Players Upon Graduation

Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue called for academic scholarships that would pay college football and basketball players if they meet certain educational goals. Speaking yesterday to the '16 Learfield Intercollegiate Athletic Forum, Tagliabue, who serves on the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, warned that college athletics risked separating from academics and needed to think outside the box to get back on track. “College sports from a business standpoint, maybe overall, is at a real crossroad,” he said. “You can either go down a path that involves continuing commercialization -- and the way I see it, it is a path that has begun to lead to a separation of the academic experience from the athletic experience. The other path is integration.” An example of that integration is what he called an “academic achievement award.” While he said he is against paying college players, he said this award could pay a football or basketball player a lump sum at the end of their college career for meeting academic goals. He used the figure $75,000 as an example. Tagliabue, a board member at Georgetown, also said athletes’ scholarships should extend another two years so they can focus on academics after their four years of eligibility are exhausted. College athletics is where leagues like the NFL and NBA were 30 years ago, he said -- in the midst of a revenue explosion that necessitated a changing business model. “You have to rethink the athlete experience,” he said. However, while revenues may be exploding, so are costs. At his alma mater Georgetown, where Tagliabue held the rebounding record until Patrick Ewing arrived, revenue is $20M but costs are $40M for the athletic departments’ 29 sports. “That is not a sustainable model,” he said.

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