What if I told you there was a system which generated billions of dollars each year, and this system consolidates and distributes the billions it generates to the upper levels of executives, management and institutions? The elements of labor within this system, who're primarily responsible for creating the money being shared among those overseeing things, are compensated with only a fraction of the profits, usually with no concern for their future after the experience. In fact, if they get some non-approved money, meal, a coat, a pair of shoes, or plane ticket to go home for the holidays from anyone the system doesn't approve of, these people will be punished.
Some may disagree with the above characterization of the NCAA’s relationship with its student athletes. In fact, Northwestern University fought the unionization of its football team and designation of student athletes as “workers” under the National Labor Relations Act—defined as “an individual who performs services for another, under the control of another, for compensation or payment”—in order to avoid some of the uncomfortable conversations which come when discussing what is fair compensation. The NCAA’s official position is the players “are not employees, but students.” And the response of many to questions about this sort of thing is to argue college athletes are already “compensated” with a scholarship, education and college degree, with the purity of amateur athletics and an institution’s primary mission of education necessitating restrictions on money and goods within the system. However, a 2011 study found more than 80 percent of college players on a “full scholarship” were living below the poverty line, and if revenue was shared in a similar worker-employer manner as to how it’s done in the NFL or NBA, each Division I player would be making six figures or more each year.
Usually around the time of March Madness and the College Football Playoff, this issue flares up. But the FBI’s ongoing corruption probe of college basketball has brought many of the old arguments about paying college players back into the news. The corruption probe has implicated many of the biggest basketball schools, including Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State and USC, led to felony charges against assistant coaches across the country, and the evidence of payoffs reportedly include some big names thought to be potential star players of the NBA in the years to come.
If one has followed college athletics over the past three or four decades, much of this will not be surprising, nor will the NCAA’s response. NCAA president Mark Emmert issued a statement decrying the behavior alleged in the reports, while also pointing to an independent commission, to be led by Condoleezza Rice, which will study the issue and make recommendations. Since commissions studying issues usually leads to nothing or more commissions and more study, others seem to think things might need to go a bit further in alleviating the problems.
So far, there are multiple federal cases against 10 defendants involving either college coaches taking bribes to steer athletes toward certain agents and businesses, which includes info indicating Adidas attempted to push players toward Adidas-sponsored schools in order to secure future relationships if and when these athletes turned pro. The coaches who’ve been charged are Book Richardson (Arizona), Lamont Evans (Oklahoma State), Tony Bland (USC), and Chuck Person (Auburn).
All have been fired. The newest allegations, which made a splash at the end of last week, will probably lead to more charges and firings.
From Pat Forde and Pete Thamel at Yahoo! Sports:
Documents show an underground recruiting operation that could create NCAA rules issues – both current and retroactive – for at least 20 Division I basketball programs and more than 25 players.
The documents tie some of the biggest names and programs in the sport to activity that appears to violate the NCAA’s amateurism rules. This could end up casting a pall over the NCAA tournament because of eligibility issues. There’s potential impermissible benefits and preferential treatment for players and families of players at Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Michigan State, USC, Alabama and a host of other schools. The documents link some of the sport’s biggest current stars – Michigan State’s Miles Bridges, Alabama’s Collin Sexton and Duke’s Wendell Carter – to specific potential extra benefits for either the athletes or their family members. The amounts tied to players in the case range from basic meals to tens of thousands of dollars.
During the early 1980’s, Southern Methodist University became a major college football powerhouse. From 1980 to 1985, they had one of the best records in Division I (55-14-1) and played to sell out crowds at Texas Stadium. However, it all came crashing down once the NCAA figured out that it had all been paid for by boosters. In fact, it was a situation in which boosters had a "payroll"—with some of the players having contractual agreements with university boosters—in order to gain commitments from top talent to attend S.M.U., and the payoffs even involved the governor of Texas.
As an example of just how brazen S.M.U. was, the assistant athletic director mailed a bribe to a player using university stationary.
The situation at S.M.U. is the only time in the past forty years the NCAA has used the "death penalty" on a college athletic program, and one of only three times it’s ever been used. So what's changed since the hammer came down on S.M.U. in 1987?
Not a goddamn thing.
And why should it? Who wants to kill the billion dollar golden goose? Sure, every few years there’s a scandal somewhere where everyone is oh so shocked, but in the end everything returns to the status quo. For example, even before the latest revelations about the University of Louisville, it was already known the basketball program had used parties with strippers and prostitutes in order to entice recruits. This is not something totally unheard of, since the University of Colorado, Arizona State University, the University of Oregon, and the University of Tennessee have all made headlines for using “hostesses,” or female students who show the potential recruits a “good time” while touring campus and afterwards. This sort of thing has led to allegations of gang rape.
Only seven weeks after the NCAA put Louisville on probation for the sex party scheme run by head coach Rick Pitino’s assistant, FBI agents secretly videotaped a meeting in a Las Vegas hotel room that involved another Pitino assistant discussing an Adidas-backed plan to funnel money to the family of a recruit, who would then agree to sign with Adidas-sponsored Louisville.
So why weren’t the hookers enough to put Pitino to the curb before the latest revelations?
Because there’s broadcasting rights, merchandising, and alumni donations to consider. Coaches are making millions, and university and NCAA officials are making bank. At the end of the day, whether or not one wants to call the athletes involved in college sports “workers,” it’s hard to argue that college athletics itself is not a product being sold that benefits an elite within college athletics.
The notion college sports is an extension of the education experience that needs to be protected from the corrupting influences of money is unmitigated bullshit. And it’s been bullshit for a very long time, since the pursuit of revenue has always been there.
From Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss at Sports Illustrated:
When Ramogi Huma was a freshman at UCLA, in 1995, one of his teammates, All-America linebacker Donnie Edwards, told a local radio station that he didn’t have enough money to buy food. A few days later an agent left a bag of groceries worth about $150 on Edwards’s doorstep. When the NCAA found out, Edwards, who would go on to have a long and successful pro career, was suspended for one game. The suspension had a profound impact on Huma: UCLA could sell Edwards’s jersey in the campus bookstore for $50, but he couldn’t afford dinner?
The summer after Huma’s freshman year, his coaches recommended that he participate in summer workouts with the team but also told him that because the workouts were voluntary and didn’t occur during the school year, NCAA rules prohibited UCLA from providing health insurance. Huma was stunned. “It was very clear that something wasn’t right,” he says.
The NCAA and apologists from the amateur system claim this is necessary because most schools lose money on their athletic programs. That’s not exactly true, since the problem is not one of revenue but spending. And the spending can be on things that might not have dick to do with playing football and basketball. Also, depending on how the accounting is done, the “loss” on the spreadsheet might not actually be a true loss, since some colleges can find ways to not show a profit if they don’t want one on the books otherwise they look like they might be making too much money. For example, a public university whose budget is susceptible to the whims of politicians might not want to show an out-sized profit if that budget can be cut because of someone pointing at football or basketball revenue.
The lengths to which the NCAA and universities have gone to exploit their marketing advantages can be breathtaking in scope.
Former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon as well as other former college football and basketball players filed a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA some years back over the use of their image. The NCAA has licensed the likeness of current and former players for apparel, TV ads, and video games. Until the lawsuit, players saw not one dime from any of it. As part of their eligibility, universities and the NCAA required student athletes to forgo their identity rights in perpetuity. The exact language handed to teenagers to sign states likeness rights will be forfeited “forever and throughout the universe.”
The former Nets forward noticed in 2009 that his UCLA likeness was being used on a college basketball video game, and wondered how the NCAA could reap profits without compensating those whose talent actually generates those profits — not only on the field and on the court, but in licensed products.
To this day, the school and the NCAA maintain that they own his likeness in perpetuity ("forever and throughout the universe," the standard clause reads), because O’Bannon signed a legal release at age 17 that granted such license.
"A 17-year-old kid doesn’t know what he’s doing, and to sign something of that magnitude without legal representation is manipulation the second you’re handed the pen," O’Bannon said. "When you sign a letter of intent, you just want to play ball — that’s where my mind-set was.
So what is the solution? ... What if we discarded the notion of amateurism? Why would it be so bad for a “student athlete” to be represented by an agent? If the coach of the team can make sponsorship deals, why shouldn’t a college player be able to go to Nike or Adidas himself and make a deal to wear a pair of shoes and appear in an ad?
Someone explain that me.
In any other situation, having someone to look out for the interests of the individual is what is common. No one would begrudge someone with singing or acting talent from having an adviser on how best to go about monetizing their gifts. But, in this instance, it’s punished.
The NCAA and universities proceed from a “trust us” position in which they assert the amateur system is there as nurturer and protector of these students. But, as the above examples show, that’s a load of crap. The amateur system provides too many of these athletes a substandard education, exploits their time, and disposes of them when they are either no longer necessary or unable to perform in ways that were hoped.
From Gary Parrish at CBS Sports:
The fix really is simple. What the NCAA should do is eliminate the black market by allowing student-athletes to secure representation and accept fair-market value in this billion-dollar industry where just about everybody connected to the biggest sports in the biggest conferences are legally getting rich but them.
Want agents to stop paying players illegally?
Cool.
Then make it legal.
Just change the rules so that any student-athlete can sign a legal and binding agreement with an agent, at which point the agent is free to provide whatever he wants to the student-athlete. Suddenly, literally overnight, the days of agents and financial advisors working through assistant coaches at places like Auburn and USC would be over because it would be unnecessary. Agents could instead work openly and directly with players and their families just like they do in the entertainment world when teenagers worth millions of dollars emerge.
If everybody agrees it was smart for 14-year-old "America's Got Talent" winner Grace VanderWaal to have an agent the moment it was clear she was a future multimillionaire, can't we also agree 19-year-old Collin Sexton should be allowed to have one, if he wants, the moment it's also clear he's a future multimillionaire? Of course we can. Or at least we should. Because that rule-change alone would eliminate much of this "scandal" that's dominated headlines for months, which is among the reasons the NCAA would be wise to adopt it.