College athletics are a multi-billion-dollar industry that has an immense effect on not only the revenues of America’s colleges and universities, but on the national economy. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, the non-profit governing body that regulates college athletics, pulls in nearly a billion dollars annually. This amount of money is astronomical and once you factor in the amount of revenue college athletics pull in, along with television contracts, merchandise sale, sponsorships, and other revenue streams the total income is well into tens of billions of dollars. There is so much money exchanging hands between the NCAA, universities, school presidents, coaches, sponsors, and television networks that it becomes easy to get lost in the business model. Yet it is obvious to even the common eye the one group who is missing out on the money, and that is the student-athletes themselves. Why? Why does seemingly everyone get a piece of the pie that the student-athletes produced themselves, when even they are not allowed to receive the monetary benefits that result from their labor. This essay takes a deep dive into that question, looking at the NCAA’s system today and the events that have gotten us to this point today, while also advocating for a change, so that college athletes can bear witness to the fruits of their labor and enjoy the monetary benefits that stem from the blood, sweat, and tears that they laid out in their sport.

 As previously mentioned, the NCAA is the governing body of college athletics that makes and enforces the rules and regulations. But who are they really? They self-describe themselves as a “member-led organization dedicated to the well-being and lifelong success of college athletes” (NCAA). The term “member-led” means that the colleges and universities that participate in college athletics make up the NCAA. Additionally, coaches, athletic directors, and school presidents are all considered members of the organization, basically meaning they are employees in it. Within the organization there is a committee that proposes, votes on, and enforces rules and regulations adopted across college athletics. These rules include but are not limited to recruiting, benefits for student-athletes, rules on academics for student-athletes, etc. For comparison, look at the contracts of professional athletes compared to the book of rules and regulations the NCAA enforces upon the student-athletes, which is a four hundred and fourteen-page manual, the length of which is utterly terrifying and speaks to the number of rules college athletes are held accountable to. The length of the manual is ironic because the NCAA Student Athletes’ Bill of Rights is only about a page and a half, and lists only ten rights. To put that in perspective the NCAA Division 1 manual is 276 times the length of the Bill of Rights, which is utterly insane. Of course, with these rules come penalties for breaking them, some of which are ridiculously intense. For example, some of the violations the NCAA has imposed have included an athlete accepting a discounted ballroom from a hotel for his 21st birthday, and a coach buying his player lunch after the player’s father died. These are both cases that have happened and both the players and the schools have faced penalties for this, which is unbelievable that something as petty as that is considered a violation. Subjectively, these rules and the penalties enforced are unfair to athletes, and treat them like property rather than employees, which is a term that the NCAA rebuts and rather calls them “student-athletes”. The term student athlete, which has been used in this work, was created by the NCAA in the 1950s, and the story of its formation is truly remarkable. 

"We crafted the term student-athlete," [NCAA president] Walter Byers himself wrote, "and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations." The term came into play in the 1950s, when the widow of Ray Dennison, who had died from a head injury received while playing football in Colorado for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggies, filed for workmen’s-compensation death benefits. Did his football scholarship make the fatal collision a "work-related" accident? Was he a school employee, like his peers who worked part-time as teaching assistants and bookstore cashiers? Or was he a fluke victim of extracurricular pursuits? Given the hundreds of incapacitating injuries to college athletes each year, the answers to these questions had enormous consequences. The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the school’s contention that he was not eligible for benefits, since the college was "not in the foot’ was football business." (The Atlantic).

Basically, the term “student-athlete” was created as a way around paying a large amount of money to the family of a man killed playing a college sport. From a legal perspective, this was a genius defense by the NCAA, and one they have used in multiple cases since then and each time the defense holds up, as the claim that student-athletes are not employees of the NCAA has somehow held up. This is ironic as even the NCAA president at the time has pointed out the ridiculous of the term, and it’s simply amazing that a legally technical term like this one is one of the driving points the NCAA uses to advocate against paying college athletes.

There has been legal action to attempt to change the current system for college athletics to where college athletes can receive monetary benefits. Most recently, the Northwestern football team attempted to unionize, or organizing into a labor union that can negotiate for rights from their employer. If they successfully unionized, the NCAA would have virtually no choice in viewing college athletes as an employee and giving them the rights that come along with that title. The regional National Labor Relations Board voted in favor of the Northwestern football team, but then the National committee chose not to assert jurisdiction in this case, fearing that doing so would disrupt the NCAA has a whole and ruin the competitive balance. In effect, the board chose to not get involved in something that could turn into a media storm that would be at the forefront of every news show and headline. Although the movement did not accomplish what was intended, it re-opened and enhanced the conversation about the treatment of college athletes.

Aside from withholding wages and refusing to look at college athletes as employees in their organization, the NCAA has found even more ways to exploit and profit off college athletes, without sharing a dime of it with the athletes. Beginning in 1995, a video game was created that featured college football, and a college basketball video game was created in 1998. Both games were published by EA Sports, the leader in sports video games, but were licensed by the NCAA. Where the NCAA messed up was the game featured the likeness of current and former players on their respected teams, which would not be an issue if the NCAA treated athletes like employees which as we all know, they do not. For example, the popular Madden video game franchise is a professional football video game, featuring the 32 NFL teams and their players. Each player featured in that game receives a check from Madden, a contract that was negotiated between EA Sports, the NFL, and the NFLPA, which is the players’ union. If college athletic teams were able to unionize, they could receive similar benefits to the members of the NFLPA. One former player, UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon, decided to sue the NCAA when he saw a player who resembled him playing for his alma mater. As a result, the NCAA had to pay O’Bannon and others for using their likeness. As the lawsuit was presented the NCAA made the decision to discontinue the video games, a very smart move given the legal repercussions of making another mistake, and you would think that the NCAA would realize how lucky they got that this decision did not affect them even worse, but EA Sports along with the NCAA is reportedly planning on releasing a new college football video game. Being under the microscope already, it will be difficult for the NCAA to exploit any of the college athletes in this game as they did in the last, but the cash grab the NCAA has proved to be shows the organizations’ true colors, that they will squeeze every cent they can out of the 18-22-year-old kids that do not get any of the money they make you.

The claim has already been made here that the NCAA is restricting the rights of and exploiting college athletes, but for that to be proven it must first be identified what benefits college athletes receive today. They are given a scholarship, which in sports like basketball and football is usually a full scholarship that pays for a student’s tuition while they are playing the sport for which the scholarship is for, room and board, books, and meals. On the surface, this is not a bad deal at all as it is commonly known how expensive attending college is today. But the issue is greater than this, and revolves around two central points; the quality of education given to the athlete, and the actual time an athlete must complete their studies adequately.

First, let us look at the quality of education given to the athlete. Obviously, America’s colleges and universities are second to none and their history and schools today are all well-respected. Unfortunately, when it comes to educating their premier athletes many universities balk at the chance to provide them with an actual education, worrying more about a player maintaining their eligibility than receiving a college education. This epidemic came to the forefront of the public eye when a scandal erupted around the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where it was alleged that athletes in football and basketball were being placed in fraudulent “paper classes” in African American studies and Swahili where students were practically handed passing grades to boost grade-point average and retain a player’s eligibility. This was going on for years, much longer than anyone probably realized and similar systems are more than likely in place at other schools. So, the NCAA tells the public that student-athletes are not employees and are given the chance to attend the greatest schools in America, but a lot of times that opportunity is not as great as first anticipated.

Even if the quality of education was pristine at every college and university across America, it has been argued that college athletes simply do not have the time to successfully make use of their education, as playing a college sport takes up the time of a full-time job and requires the commitment of one as well. 

Current NFL player and Stanford alumnus Richard Sherman was asked about the time college athletes have compared to non-athlete students and the insight is truly remarkable;

"Show me how you would schedule your classes when you can’t schedule classes from 2-to-6 o’clock on any given day. Show me how you’re going to get all your work done when after you get out at 7:30 or so, you’ve got a test the next day, you’re dead tired from practice and you still must study just as hard as everybody else every day and get all the same work done. Most of these kids are done with school, done with class by 3 o’clock, you’ve got the rest of the day to do as you please. You’re may spend a few hours studying, then you may spend a few hours at the library checking out books and doing casual reading, and then you may go hang out with friends and have a coffee. When you’re a student-athlete, you don’t have that kind of time.” 

Sherman is right, when you are playing a high-level college sport a student-athlete is at a supreme disadvantage compared to other students. This dilemma is what led to scandals at places like the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, because students did not have the time to adequately do their schoolwork, practice and prepare for competition, and even enjoy five minutes of being a college student. This fact is eye-opening, because it shows that a college athlete does not have the time to use the education they have been so graciously given by the NCAA, and rather than attempt to fix the problem at hand universities would rather work their way around the problem and place their student in, for lack of a better term, bullshit classes so that they can stay eligible. This is a concept that goes against what is now viewed as the ironic self-proclaimed goal of the NCAA, which is, “dedicated to safeguarding the well-being of student-athletes and equipping them with the skills to succeed on the playing field, in the classroom and throughout life” (NCAA). The most ironic part of that statement is the second half, where the NCAA claims to equip student-athletes with the skills to succeed on the playing field, in the classroom and throughout life, which as its been mentioned in a lot of cases this is simply not true. That being said, there are countless professors at universities that demand the highest level of work and dedication from all its students, athlete or non-athlete, but the problem of giving a student-athlete ample time for classwork remains and is a problem that needs to be addressed and fixed, and not by placing the athlete in easy classes so that they can play, but by solving the problem.

So, what is the goal? What was the goal of Northwestern’s football team in their attempt to unionize? What is the goal of this essay? The goal is to enhance the conversation that college athletes deserve rights, and more than ten rights that could be listed on a single sheet of paper. A student-athlete should be subject to insurance for if they get hurt and lose their scholarship, an unfortunate problem that has happened to a countless number of college athletes. A student-athlete should be allowed to profit off not only their likeness, but off their name. If a video game is being made and the video game company wants to use a player’s likeness, that should be subject to the approval of each athlete and if accepted that athlete should be paid a royalty. Furthermore, petty violations such as the ones presented here should cease to exist, as a player receiving a lunch from his consoling coach or an athlete being given a discount because of who he is should not even be a problem on the NCAA’s radar. An athlete should also be able to profit off their own success in college. If a local company wants to pay a college’s star quarterback to make an appearance, they should be able to. If a national brand like Coca-Cola wants to pay the Heisman trophy winner to be a spokesman for their product, they should be able to. College athletes should be given the same basic rights of a college student and not held to a higher standard and not be able to take advantage of certain opportunities in fear of breaking NCAA rules. In conclusion, the current system of college athletics is broken and in desperate need of reform. The public and the court systems need to hold the NCAA to a higher standard, and not accept the “student-athlete” or “amateurism” defense and push the NCAA into changing the system. When you restrict the rights of the people who are making you money, there is backlash and uproar, but with reform to the organization change for the better is possible, and with change the system can be fixed for the individuals here who are the ones responsible for bringing in the money.
