College athlete compensation has been a controversial issue in the United States for a long time. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has made a point of refusing to pay players because they are amateur athletes; they argue that the education and opportunities they receive in the long term is more than enough.  However, with billions of dollars of revenue now being made, we must put to question the definition of amateurism. The NCAA defines amateurism as crucial to their mission statement, which states that education is the first priority. We must ask why are more and more athletes leaving early for the pros instead of obtaining a degree first?  If we look at the statistics, articles from the popular press, and hear from the athletes themselves, we can see that many critics and players believe they should be compensated more for their play. The topic of college athlete compensation is important because billions of dollars are at stake and it brings up the question of how we define amateur sports.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association was originally formed in 1906, but it didn’t conduct the first national championship until 15 years later in 1921.  They are a nonprofit organization that overlooks all college athletics and ensures fair play.  It gained substantial powers in the 1940s and 1950s because they needed to regulate television coverage to protect game attendance in the stadiums.  The NCAA today is now separated into three divisions, where each one represents a different level of competition. They supervise and conduct over 90 national championships every year, the most well-known ones being the March Madness Tournament for basketball, and college football (NCAA).

The NCAA is opposed to paying college athletes because they strongly believe that they are students first, athletes second.  They argue that athletes should be playing for their love of the game, not for monetary benefit.  They want to make sure that all students are first and foremost obtaining a quality education.  If an athlete violates any NCAA violation, they will no longer be able to play college sports. A few of the main banned procedures include: receiving a salary, playing or having contracts with professional teams, having an agent to represent them, and not taking full credit hours for their respective school (“Amateurism”). 

The argument is in no way one sided, well educated professors and journalists have debated the topic for hours. Ekow N. Yankah, a professor at the Cardozo school of Law is heavily against it. She argues that it would take away from important things such as school pride.  She argues that talented students would no longer pick schools for academic quality, beautiful state of the art campuses, or even school traditions; but rather for what monetary value it has to offer them.  Ekow claims that would take away from the whole atmosphere because students and alumni would no longer feel the same connectedness to their athletes. She compares the Michigan Wolverines stadium to the Detroit Lions stadium and how the Wolverines stadium is way larger and more crowded then the Lions stadium.  Ekow argues that the reason is because we feel a deeper connection to amateur athletes because of things like: walking the same halls, taking the same classes, or even studying for the same midterms (Yankah).  I disagree with Ekows’ claims because athletes would still be representing their respective schools.  I don’t believe it would take away from that deep connection we feel towards athletes. Ekow described them walking the halls, taking the same classes, and studying for the same finals. That point is invalid because regardless of compensation, they will still be doing that. Also, the compensation offered is not going to vary that much from school to school, it is just going to be enough money to make sure that athletes are financially stable throughout the schoolyear.  

However, many players and sports analysts have argued that players are no longer being treated as amateurs.  In 2014, Northwestern University’s football team attempted a petition for union status.  The quarterback Kain Colter argued that everything they do is scheduled around football. He even suggested that his advisors deviated him away from classes that would be too challenging during football season.  Colter estimated that he spent about 60 hours a week every summer in training camps, and that even during the season is was still about 40 to 50 hours a week (Iaconangelo).  Which is absurd because that’s more than most people’s full-time jobs, and it’s not even supposed to be their young adults’ main focus.  How can one be successful in school when they are spending a great deal of time and effort on something they don’t even get paid for?  If they come from a low-income family, how are they supposed to pay for expenses? The scholarships just aren’t enough for many of the athletes.  They literally don’t have enough time to get a part time job. George Willis, a sports columnist for the New York Post agrees with Iaconangelo by saying, “I’ve seen plenty of college athletes struggle to buy basic necessities while in school” (Willis).  He supports his claim by arguing that a normal student can just get a job to meet ends meet, athletes, who represent the school, should be able to feed and clothe themselves just as easily. His suggestion on how to resolve the issue is by giving them a weekly stipend of $100 dollars a week.  I personally don’t think that would be enough, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. 

The current NCAA system needs to be and more than likely will be changed within the next 10 years. There has already been a lot of progress throughout the court system. The most notorious case that’s made legal headway was one from University of California, Los Angeles’s old basketball star Ed O’Bannon. He filed the lawsuit originally in 2009 and claimed that the NCAA was violating antitrust laws by not granting athletes compensation even though they used their names, image, and popularity.  The case is interesting because a little over two years ago, a federal judge ruled in O’Bannon’s favor, and declared a system where the NCAA could set a yearly cap space of about $5,000. However, the case was quickly appealed and was upheld in the NCAA’s favor.  For now, the Supreme Court refuses to hear similar court cases because they want to preserve the status quo. The Supreme Court can’t do this forever because more and more of the antitrust cases are happening throughout the country. The O’Bannon case is important because it shows that athletes can use antitrust cases to go against the NCAA. Marc Edelman, a law professor at Baruch College and an antitrust expert supported how antitrust laws will help change the NCAA by saying, “Future cases will be decided on the facts of the case and on whether the payment of athletes would or would not harm consumer demand. The legal burden has already been met.” (Iaconangelo)

Change will happen sooner than many people realize, and that is because of young famous athletes such as Lamelo Ball.  Lamelo is a 16-year old high school basketball just released a shoe with his family’s company, the Big Baller Brand for $395. Which puts into question whether or not he will be eligible for the NCAA, because of Article 12 in the NCAA Division 1 Manual. The article states that “an individual loses amateur status and thus shall not be eligible for intercollegiate competition in a particular sport if the individual uses his or her athletic skill for pay in any form in that sport or accepts a promise of pay...received following completion of intercollegiate athletics participation” (Sharp).  However, what is especially interesting about the potential case is Ball can fight it with some good arguments.  Ball can be considered an actor because he stars in a reality TV series on Facebook. He can also claim that he was not modeling the shoe athletically but rather advertising more of the California lifestyle. What is going to decide his eligibility is whether he can claim his shoes as a part of his celebrity and not his athletic ability.  Lastly, he can claim he is simply just helping his dad, and that he is receiving none of the profit. Since it’s a private company, the NCAA wouldn’t necessarily be able to prove him of not upholding to the rules. If denied, Ball could file a lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming that they denied him rights of being able to show his identity which goes against the federal antitrust law. The case would also be seen in the same federal court in California as the O’Bannon case that originally won; Lamelo could potentially advance the issue of more forms of compensation (Sharp).

The NCAA is contradicting itself by calling great athletes amateurs. Collegiate athletes sign contracts for their given schools, but if they get hurt or don’t perform well, the scholarships can be revoked. The first time this issue occurred was in 1983, Fred Rensing, a football player on scholarship at Indiana State University, made a hard hit in practice that lead to him becoming 95 to 100 percent disabled.  He originally was suing for workers’ compensation because his injury was conditioned upon his team participation, which made the scholarship technically an employee-employer relationship. Unfortunately, he eventually lost the case on the grounds of the actual NCAA rule stating “an athlete’s financial benefits cannot be reduced or withdrawn during the period of their award because of his athletic ability or his contribution to team success” (Sack 114).  However, in 1973, the NCAA changed the period of the award to one year which essentially allowed schools to drop an athlete if they didn’t live up to expectations.  The coach gets to decide whether the athlete met performance expectations or was a recruiting mistake.  Allen L. Sack, an outspoken activist for athletic reform and a once highly recruited athlete at the University of Notre Dame argues that the policy is not fair to the athletes.  Sack argues against the policy by claiming the university is essentially firing that athlete, and in order to fire them, they would have to be employed (Sack 112-114). I think Sack argues a valid point because the scholarships given to athletes is not guaranteed. It all depends on their performance, but it is not fair to drop them if they have a career ending injury attempting to represent the school to the best of their ability.  Sack also demonstrates that when the Universities took the NCAA to court, the Supreme Court agreed that college football was a business and that the Universities did have a right to sell their games in the open market (Sack).  However, the Universities wouldn’t be making the millions of dollars that they do, if their teams are not filled with talented athletes.  If the sole purpose of people paying to watch the game is to see the athletes, how come they make no money even though they are producing millions and sometimes even billions of dollars in revenue for their schools?

Andy Schwarz, a leading antitrust economist explains in an interview why it is not fair that the NCAA is not already paying athletes.  He explains how people often assume it would violate the Title IX clause. The common misconception is that men and women’s sports have to be equally funded, but instead, the money being spent has to be proportional to the ratio of the athlete’s genders.   He also explains how college athletics is a free labor market for coaches and how the best coaches are demanding as much money as they want.  Schwarz claims that coaches are abusing the system and making ridiculously large amounts of money. He then compares college athletics to the professional sports like the NBA and NFL, where coaches make about five percent of total payroll.  Schwarz declares that even if you count the values of an athlete’s scholarship as a salary, many coaches in sports like football can make up to two times as much as their team’s scholarships combined, and for basketball it can be as high as seven times (Zirin). Which is outrageous, yes, the coaches do a lot of the work.  However, at the end of the day it all depends on how the athletes play on the field or court.  That’s the only thing that will win the game.

I am fortunate enough to have a few close friends that play Division 1 sports, who were more than comfortable with sharing their thoughts on the topic. They told me that they spent about 27 to 35 hours on average every week in-season and about 15 to 25 hours out of season.  When asked about the possibility of a part time job, they both instantly said there was no way it would be possible Both young women complained that it was already difficult to balance sports with school work and even more challenging to try to add a social life to the mix. One of them claimed it was extremely difficult to balance her budget since she lives in such an expensive city and there is no way for her to bring in money during the school year.  They both agreed that with all the hours they put in, they should definitely be granted some more forms of compensation because the amenities they received now were not enough. They said their equipment was outdated and all the extra money given for food and other services was given to sports like men’s basketball. (Manzaratos and Rosburg)

I think that the whole NCAA system needs to be modified. I don’t believe that the athletes should be making millions or even thousands of dollars, but I do support the idea that since they help generate millions of dollars in revenue, they should earn at least a portion.  The NCAA is 50 to 60 years outdated, in the sense that back in the 1950s and 1960s not nearly the same amount of money was being made through advertising and ticket sales. The statistics show how unequal the distribution of money is between college and professionals, and they justly demonstrate how bad the system currently is.  College coaches are some of the highest paid public workers in many states.  Athletes and critics all over are calling for reform and it is only a matter of time before the structure changes.  If we look at the statistics, articles from the popular press, and hear from the athletes themselves; we can see that many critics and players believe they should be compensated more for their play.  College athlete compensation is important because billions of dollars are at stake and it brings up the question of how we define amateurism sports. College players can no longer fully be considered amateurs; the majority have state-of-the-art facilities and spend more than 40 hours a week on their craft. It is time for the NCAA to change its beliefs. I believe a fair compromise would be a monthly stipend between $400 to $1,000, that way athletes will have a little bit of spending money and will not have to worry about basic necessities like food.
