The bright lights. The big games. The star players.The millions of fans that pack the stands. Everything from the College Football Playoffs to March Madness. College sports are great for colleges… but is it all great for the student athletes?
Yes it’s true that the NCAA is a good opportunity for many athletes. But none of them saw a penny of that 1 billion dollars last year. In fact, none of them have made any money since the NCAA was founded way back in 1910. Not only have they not made money directly from the NCAA, student athletes have also been prohibited from profiting off of their talent, name, image or likeness.
Why has the NCAA has been able to profit off of student athletes for so long?
This is an issue that has been debated for many years, and one that is (finally) gaining significant momentum. In years past, the NCAA has had a few main points defending their position on paying athletes. The first is that allowing athletes to be paid for athletic performance would undermine the balance between athletics and academics. The second is that the rules furthered the popularity of college sports. Finally, the association argues that there is no viable alternative that meets all of the legal requirements.
However, in recent years the NCAA has been facing more pressure regarding this issue. Many former collegiate athletes have begun speaking out on the issue, encouraging emerging starts to look elsewhere as they prepare for the NBA or NFL drafts. Some people have taken the issue one step further such as Kylie Carter, the mother of former Duke basketball player and current Chicago Bull Center, Wendell Carter Jr. In 2018, Kylie Carter compared the NCAA to slave labor saying that “the labor is black and the profit is white.”
Since the NBA and NFL have rules in place that prevent players from declaring for the draft directly after high school. Some people argue about the leagues rules while others like Lamelo Ball and RJ Hampton take actions into their own hands by playing in leagues other than the NCAA. Lamelo Ball is the projected number one pick for the 2020 draft and currently plays in the Australian National Basketball League along with projected top 10 pick RJ Hampton. Instead of going through the messy NCAA process, these two players chose to get paid for a year before going to the NBA. Unfortunately, there is no other realistic option for highschoolers looking to play football. This means that football players who are looking to play professionally basically have to go to the NCAA. Backlash from great players leaving, along with many who share opinions with Kylie carter as well as the lack of other football leagues have finally begun to influence change.
On September 30th 2019, Governor of California Gavin Newsom signed a bill allowing student athletes in California to be paid starting in 2023. This bill accelerated conversation among the NCAA board members who did not wait long before taking action. Not even one month later, the 1,100 members of the NCAA board came to a unanimous decision. The NCAA board voted on October 29th to allow student athletes may profit from their name, image and likeness.
This decision changes a lot for many involved with collegiate sports. While players are still unable to be paid as direct employees of the college, this ruling opens up the door to endorsements. Yet the majority of players are not good enough to make money off of endorsements. This leads to many people remaining upset with the new ruling due to the inability of players to receive direct payment from colleges. Sadly, isn’t necessarily likely that players will begin making a direct salary in the near future, but it is likely that we will see more changes regarding players rights to seek money from different areas.
A Side Note
With the new ability of players to profit, many nostalgic fans are hopeful for a return of the NCAA sports video game series. The popular video game was cancelled after 2014 when players filed lawsuits against the NCAA. Many student athletes were upset that they were not making any money from the game, but with the associations rules that was unable to change so the game was cancelled. One of the players who tried to sue the NCAA for the video game was former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon.
Since the game clearly used many players facial buildup, number and talent (leaving out only their names) Ed may have a slim shot at getting some money from the NCAA. As you can see from this picture showing Ed in real life and video game, the producers clearly do not try to hide the fact that they were using student athletes as a model. Going forward hopefully the NCAA can come to an agreement with student athletes to recreate the game.
Works Cited
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/07/former-villanova-football-player-sues-ncaa-for-minimum-wage-violations.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/us/ncaa-athletes-compensation/index.htmlhttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/ncaa-athletes-getting-paid-thousands-could-be-in-their-future/
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/feature/ncaa-defends-scholarships-college-athletes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/05/08/the-labor-is-black-and-the-profit-is-white-mother-of-former-duke-player-compares-ncaa-to-slavery/
kzhou1 November 11, 2019
Though I don’t follow college sports that closely, I saw this in the news the other day which drew me to your post. On one hand, it’s such a sticky situation for athletes who want to go pro but are stuck having to play for a huge corporation that is profiting off of their name and hard work while receiving zero percent of the paycheck. But also, there is always the argument that someone is going to take advantage of the system if NCAA athletes were allowed to be paid. I was reading the other day about Katelyn Ohashi, an Olympic gynmast who went viral on Youtube last year, but didn’t make a single cent even though that it was her hard work and talent that made NCAA gymnastics go viral. The list goes on with the athletes in the NCAA being treated so poorly especially recently with the case of Chase Young with the whole loan fiasco which wouldn’t have happened in the first place if he had even a sliver of how much money his name brings in for NCAA football. I think it’s interesting how you bring up that, though prospective NBA players have an outlet of avoiding the NCAA, football players don’t, which is unfortunate for high schoolers looking to make money instead of blowing it on a year of college. I definitely agree with you, NCAA athletics, in a sense, is becoming awfully close to slave labor but with California’s new legislation, it’ll be interesting to see who takes the next step.