It is not surprising that college athletes were traditionally unpaid. If one looks at the amateur status athletes competed under, as well as the fact that college sports were traditionally considered extracurricular activities, before the advent of high performance training schedules and one-percenters, paint a pretty straightforward historical picture as to the origins of unpaid athletes. The NCAA idealises the ‘amateur’, the student playing for the love of the game, and in press releases, interviews and statements, the direct beneficiaries: from coaches to administrators, all repeat the company line: they’re students, not workers. In an age where seemingly every week a new underground payment scandal seemingly breaks out, it would be remiss to not evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of paying student athletes, as well as analyse the possible solutions for the inequities of the current system. Looking at the problem through a social, financial and sporting lens, and understanding the viewpoints of each of the stakeholders, the essay summarises and deliberates on the issue that has plagued college athletics since its inception: should college athletes be compensated better?
Those that believe that paying college athletes better is a step in the wrong direction feel that the athletic scholarship that athletes are entitled to, which can include food, housing, tuition, flights and a stipend, is more than enough. There is the belief that the education that is provided at these colleges is more than sufficient, coupled with the supplement to education that sports is. The league commissioners Tom Burnett and Craig Thompson point out the fact that on average, the college athlete earns $800,000 more than the average high-school graduate, proof that without their weighty scholarship, they would be nowhere as well off (Burnett, Thompson, 2017). It has also been pointed out that the Pell Grant affords the poorest of athletes over $5000 a year to use as discretionary funds. One coach went as far as to question how players could be so entitled as to ask for more, after receiving food, housing, tuition and even transportation.
To these arguments there has been a recent wave of criticism. The journalist John Oliver, in his weekly show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” pointed to interviews with players that were forced to go hungry because they had no money for food (ibid, 2017). It was pointed out that players, who often come from impoverished conditions, often find it difficult to maintain a decent standard of living, and often have parents and family members to take care of. Furthermore, athletes often face a poor education standard and paper classes they have to sit through to get the base GPA needed to continue to play. A notable example is at the University of North Carolina, where athletes in an African American Studies class passed despite an appalling quality of work (Martines, 2016). There is also a shocking lack of time for athletes to work. Most shockingly is the absence of protection for athletes that get injured. A single injury could end a student athlete’s career, and thus terminate their scholarship, halfway through their education. Lastly, it was pointed out that these decisions were coming from a place of racial bias. Most student athletes are African American; just 27% of caucasians felt supportive of paying athletes, while 52% of African-Americans did, according to an article by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Since the inception of college sports, the sporting landscape in America has changed beyond recognition. Gone are the innocent days of sports as a college extra-curricular, of limited broadcast and minimal coverage. With over $11 billion coming in every year in media rights deals for college athletics, it’s become a big business. And while people, most of them being NCAA officials, drone incessantly about the strong culture of amateurism, and the ideal of student-athletes being “students, not employees”, it is impossible to ignore the cultural shift in front of our eyes. Firstly, the romantic idea of ‘student athletes’ and the beauty of amateurism is a myth: it was a term invented to avoid paying compensation when student-athletes got injured. And more importantly, if the coaches, administrators and colleges themselves are profiting from the athletes’ efforts, isn’t it but fair that they earn a slice? Considering that less than 2% of college football and basketball players go pro, earnings in college would help set up the remaining 98% for the rest of their lives. Journalists and pundits have demonstrated fear that if they are paid, there would be no controlling college athletes, but surely when a sport is run as commercially as a professional league, as college sports are nowadays, that isn’t an issue. Lastly, as the USC basketball scandal unfolds, it’s becoming more and more obvious that student athletes across the board are finding ways to be paid. This is a practice that is rife with illegalities and can be unsafe for a high school student that doesn’t know any better. It is the NCAA’s responsibility to put this to an end, either by making payments legal, or finding better ways to control their member organisations.
In an article detailing the economic impacts of paying athletes, the researcher found that if the athletes were paid their worth, they would be making less than their scholarship in certain cases (Marcus, 2017). However, critics say that this study is one, too simplistic, and two, operates assuming the assumption that the top athletes earn much more than the less-known ones, offsetting the balance that a university would most likely implement. Furthermore, it was shown that poorer institutions that anyway make a loss off their athletic programs could not nearly be able to afford salaries for their student-athletes, an extremely legitimate concern. However, it was found that most college athletic programs, in order to maintain their non-profit status spend millions of dollars on luxuries for their coaches and players. Coaches, in particular, are paid millions of dollars a year from the school, and are permitted several streams of income outside their annual contracts with schools, while student athletes are forced to get by without earning from their names, likenesses or brands.
Another strong opposition to student-athlete payment comes in the form of asking whether those dedicated to activities such as musical instruments, dance and organisations on campus should also be remunerated. While this argument holds water, it is also worth noting that often, those that work for organisations on campus often are paid, like the Recreational Club Council at USC, and those playing musical instruments or dancing at a high level are most likely also pursuing those passions academically. This brings us to the argument proposed by Sally Jenkins that posited that sport majors should be offered at institutions much like artistic ones are. While this may eventuate, in the interim, it is important to remember that athletes work, on average, 43.5 hours a week on their craft, more than the average US work week, which means that any other activity, such as schoolwork, takes a back-burner as compared to the rigorous athletic schedule. In fact, players are forced to miss school on occasions to compete. If the NCAA and its member schools pride themselves on the education they provide to student-athletes, how can they justify ripping them from the classroom to play games, and allowing so little time to study that they can barely get through in school?
Another worry that the NCAA and universities have is the potential for choosing schools to become like a business, with athletes following the money, rather than the college they want to learn at. The worry is that they won’t take their schoolwork seriously if they are paid, as schoolwork becomes a secondary focus. While these are valid concerns, it ignores the fact that currently, the NCAA and its members act as a monopsony. If an athlete wants to go pro, or play high-level sports, he or she has to go to college, as the chances of them making it otherwise are slim to non-existent. It also shrouds the fact that student-athletes anyway find it nigh on impossible to focus on college, and paying them for their real focus wouldn’t be unfair, it would just be honest. It is not as if colleges are not acting as businesses in the current environment. Competing against each other with hefty financial aid packages, choosing a college is often a monetary decision for non student-athletes.
In terms of solutions, it would be irresponsible to suggest that student-athletes should be earning six or seven figure amounts for their work in college. Using the suggestions from articles, papers and videos, I have synthesised the possible solutions to three basic options, excluding the ‘do nothing’ option:
Pay the athletes the ‘campus job’ wage on top of their scholarships, with an added extra for merchandising: If athletes earn the standard wage of about $10-$15 an hour for their forty plus weekly work-hours, that becomes more than a tidy stipend to send home or use for food, clothes and the like. This, with a little kickback from the royalties, allows them to save up as well.
The 401k solution: Putting a small stipend, or alternatively, their merchandising revenues, in a tax-free 401k, so that on graduation, the student can claim his earnings, that have been kept secure for him for four years.
The capitalist method: treat the students like employees; scrap the scholarship and pay them whatever their marginal value to the team is, while also allowing players to unionise.
In my opinion, the NCAA is running a broken system, where athletes, particularly if they are from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, lead miserable lives for little compensation or education. I personally advocate for solution number one in the list above. It allows players to be paid in accordance to their peers for their service to the university, while also taking care of the inherent exploitation that occurs when student-athletes don’t earn off their own names and likenesses. The NCAA laws, which currently are far too complicated and stringent, must also be relaxed on rules such as food and favours to student athletes. In addition, the current NCAA cap on practice hours is far too high. One cannot expect a full-time worker to be able to excel in school: if one is considering college athletics as a campus job (except it is far more physically taxing), one must also expect the students to work by those standards. Lastly, it is also expected that the college athletes be afforded work compensation in the form of their scholarships in the case of an injury during practice or games. This solution is financially viable: paying 500 athletes around minimum wage is not terribly expensive. The drawbacks to this solution is that it negatively affects the smaller schools that cannot afford such an expenditure. While they would need to make cuts in the flamboyance of their athletic programs’ to be able to afford wages, it would still be preferable to running a giant unpaid labour racket. The NCAA, and indirectly the courts that rule on the dozens of cases related to this clear labour violation, must realise that to break this monopsony, only better regulation and fixed wages will help the cause of student-athletes.
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