The debate over whether college athletes should be paid, and if so how much, has been picking up steam. I’m in favor of doing so if the particular sport an athlete plays generates “meaningful revenues” for the university. In practice this means football, basketball, baseball, maybe a handful of others. Of course, there are many questions to be answered (how is the money shared amongst players? do non-revenue generating sports get a cut? and so forth), but the current system is economically and morally untenable.
I recently watched a solid, if not spectacular, documentary on the topic, Schooled: The Price of College Sports (you can stream it on Netflix; here’s the IMDB link).
I wanted to share my notes with y’all. I’ve bolded points of particular agreement :)
- the current system is an effective monopoly – as a high school athlete, you can no longer go straight to pros, and there’s no other legitimate farm system (maybe baseball?)
- the NCAA is a tax-exempt nonprofit that makes almost a billion dollars
- sponsors, brands, TV networks also make billions
- most college athletes come from poor, single-parent households
college athletes have many obligations – jersey signings, commercial appearances, media interviews, autograph sessions, promotion events, even video game appearances – all while being paid nothing for their labor (beyond the standard scholarship) - UCLA football and basketball alone generate $70M in revenues, and coaches and admin are paid very well ($100s of thousands to millions in salaries)
- the US is the only country where big money sports are played at institutions of higher learning; for example, you don’t see a big collegiate soccer market in Europe
- people think amateur athletics goes back to the Greek Olympics, but in reality
those guys were paid, professional athletes who got all sorts of benefits including war deferments! - amateur sports started in the Ivy Leagues; the concept was borrowed from England where amateur unpaid sports was a method to keep poor people from competing (this needs further research…unsure to what extent I believe this)
- in the early 1900s, some college athletes were paid under table, often recruited by universities
- to combat this, universities came up with the idea of offering free room + board, and thus began the current arrangement
the irony is that many other voluntary student positions – e.g., student body presidents – are paid and receive benefits that would violate athlete contracts no other scholarship students have as many rules and constraints – english majors can publish books, CS majors can take consulting gigs - quote from a college athlete: “it’s funny because i looked up the definition of indentured servant…food, board, training…but not paid”
- quote from a sports administrator: “you can’t have animals running the zoo” (wow)
- quote from an analyst: “some would argue…the NCAA has the best salary cap in sports”
- scholarships can be terminated at any time
- early on, states made an effort to classify college athletes as employees since they made money for school athletic programs, but were rebuffed by the NCAA,
which invented the term “student athlete” to make it seem like they were students first and athletes second (we know the reality is anything but) - NCAA power grew enormously because its leader Walter Byers convinced colleges to license TV rights as a single package
- Nike started paying coaches up to $100s of thousands to have their players wear Nike shoes; eventually school administrators were being paid, too (but players still aren’t!); the man most responsible for this, Sonny Vaccaro, said the following:
“I’ve watched this grow and grow and grow..the one thing was constant: the kids never got anything” - 98% of college athletes don’t go pro – they’re counting on that degree, despite a clear de-prioritization of their studies
- at UNC, athletes took many “paper classes” that were guaranteed As and Bs
Walter Byers, the man most responsible for the NCAA’s growth and the current “student-athlete” structure, now believes rules against paying college athletes can no longer stand the test of law - the Olympics is a great model for how to treat college athletes — 20% of its governing body is made up of current athletes; because of this,
the Olympics eventually abandoned the idea of amateurism ; professional athletes now compete in most (or all?) Olympic sports (like the ’92 Dream Team!) - “it’s too complicated” is an easy and frequently used defense (e.g., which sports get paid, how much does each player get), but universities answer more complicated questions every day
Hope you found these notes useful. Thanks for reading!