DEBATE: Should college athletes be fined for missing class?

Mike Johnson brought up an article from national college sports reporter for 24/7 Sports and CBS Sports John Talty that talked about Georgia Head Football Coach Kirby Smart revealing during day two of SEC Media Days that they are fining players for driving citations, fines that take money away from the players’ NIL deal. Also, in the article Talty talked about how other programs are giving players fines for other things as well, including missing class, and that sparked a debate between Tiffany, Mike, and Beau earlier today on The Morning Shift.

“You can’t hold contracted employees to task about some of these things they’re trying to.”

Mike also makes the case that missing class doesn’t always lead to bad grades, and while Beau and Tiffany don’t disagree with that sentiment they do believe if having a certain attendance rate is a part of the NIL contract the player signed then the player has to honor that, or get fined if they don’t.

“This is not a birthright to get paid millions of dollars as a college athlete, in fact, you’re groundbreaking, so with great privilege becomes great responsibility.”

At the end of the day the debate and the conversation boils down to one, does handing out fines to players and having it affect their NIL deals cross the line into the athletes being considered employees of the collective, since the collective is controlling their behavior. Two, is that fair to college athletes, and three is that even legal.

These are murky waters in college football right now, but the fact of the matter is that conversations like this help clear things up.