How would you feel if you contributed to making billions of dollars for an organization, but were never compensated for doing so?  This is what the NCAA is doing to college athletes and the programs that they play for.  It is all made possible because of how the NCAA labels themselves as an amateur organization, meaning that is has no duty to redistribute any of its revenues.  Although the NCAA once resembled an amateur organization, it has evolved into a shadow of one over the past few decades.  As it continues to grow and more money is becoming involved, the NCAA is showing the likeness of a professional organization.  This is a prevalent issue because not only is the NCAA basically committing fraud, but countless student-athletes are being harmed in the process.  Therefore, due to the way that the NCAA has changed, it can no longer call itself an amateur organization.

The most common reason discussed for why the NCAA is unsuitable to be called an amateur organization is that as interest in college athletics continues to grow, the money coming in from things like advertisements, sponsorships, and television deals is also growing.  In this age of technology, these sporting events can reach millions of viewers, resulting in huge television deals.  According to Stanton Wheeler, an expert on the subject of amateurism in college athletics, “Since 1984… the television audience for college athletics has skyrocketed” (Wheeler).  It has grown so large that, “These activities [regular season/postseason matches] generate billions of dollars in television revenue” (Wheeler).  These are numbers similar to those of professional leagues such as the NFL and the NBA who hold television deals with networks for anywhere between three and eight billion dollars.  This massive money circulation allows for improvement in all aspects of the college game giving assets held by the NCAA a striking similarity to those of professional leagues.  Wheeler says, “Compared to half a century ago, there are more contests, more coaches, more advertisements, and stronger support systems like weight rooms and trainers” (Wheeler).  As the NCAA evolves through its growth and becomes almost as profitable as professional sports, it seems unreasonable that it would continue to label itself with the same titles as before the expansion.  This phenomena is not slowing or hitting a plateau, but rather growing more than ever as, “surpluses, revenues, and net assets all grew by record levels over the past year” (Berkowitz).  The money involved in collegiate athletics over the past few decades has skyrocketed and there looks to be no slowing it in the future.  This means that the NCAA is not the amateur organization it once was and should take on a more fitting title.  The NCAA has funds that in previous years it never had to deal with and instead of fairly distributing these funds, the NCAA keeps the majority.  The way to solve this money crisis is to label the NCAA professional so it can no longer retain most of the revenues from college athletics.  

Another example of how the NCAA is outstepping its bounds in terms of the economics associated with collegiate athletics is evident through lawsuits regarding the rule changes it is making.  In his law review, Daniel Lazaroff, a lawyer who specializes in cases regarding sports and the law, divides the types of rules made by the NCAA into two broad categories: “Rules designed to promote and preserve the eligibility and amateur status of student-athletes and other forms of regulation with a more economic purpose” (Lazaroff).  The problem with this is that the NCAA really has no right to deal with the economic side of collegiate athletics as it has always been an organization whose simple goal is to promote the well-being of student athletes and protect their eligibility.  This grey area that the NCAA is working in has been questioned by many and in some cases leads to court disputes.  Lazaroff says, “There have been numerous suits challenging various aspects of NCAA rulemaking” (Lazaroff).  The review later says that, “Courts tend to routinely validate restrictions allegedly designed to promote the goal of amateurism, while other NCAA rules and regulations are subject to closer judicial scrutiny” (Lazaroff).  The courts do not defend the NCAA in its financial dealings because they are not technically within the bounds that it has set for itself.  According to the NCAA, its “purpose is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable, and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount” (NCAA.org).  Nowhere does this speak about the money involved.  Years ago, this would be a perfect mission, but now with the growing money circulation a new set of rules must be made to match the times.  If the NCAA wants to continue governing finances the way that it is now, then it must turn into a professional organization to oblige.  Under its current amateur status, the NCAA is not entitled to deal with the economic side of collegiate athletics. 

Similarly, there are other examples of how the NCAA’s outdated constitution fails to match up with what is really happening present day.  The two main issues with the NCAA’s constitution are its reasoning for why collegiate athletes are participating and how these athletes will be protected from exploitation.  Once again, the growing sums of money have made the NCAA’s claim to amateur status obsolete.  The NCAA claims that, “Student-athletes shall be amateurs in an intercollegiate sport, and their participation should be motivated by… the physical, mental, and social benefits to be derived” (NCAA.org).  It may still be partially true that student-athletes play for the love of the game, but these days there are many other reasons that student-athletes did not have decades ago.  Many use the NCAA as a method to receive scholarship money for an education that they might not have been able to afford.  Some use the NCAA as a platform so that they can go pro as soon as possible.  Some aspire to be on TV in front of millions or even in a stadium filled with 100,000 people.  In any case, the NCAA’s amateur status does not allow it to change with the times and realize the other reasons why athletes play college sports, making it impossible for the NCAA to properly aid student-athletes in whatever way benefits the athlete the most.  The NCAA also claims that, “Student-athletes should be protected from exploitation by professional and commercial interests” (NCAA.org).  In other words, the NCAA is the only group with the rights to student-athletes and all their commercial appeal.  Chad Pekron, an advocate for student athletes, responds to this particular sentence of the constitution by saying, “All professional and commercial interests, that is, except the NCAA itself” (Pekron). This is very ironic because now the NCAA is making huge profits off of the commercial appeal of student-athletes.  The NCAA is doing to its student-athletes exactly what it vows to protect them from.  “Far from acting as a benevolent dictator, the NCAA has played the role of money-hungry tyrant, with athletes serving as the indentured servants” (Pekron).  By labelling itself as amateur, the NCAA can continue to exploit student-athletes.  As times change, the NCAA is attaining great benefits from not changing simultaneously.   

The NCAA rebuts these points by claiming that amateurism is “crucial to preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority” (NCAA.org).  On its official site, the NCAA reasons that it has, “adopted amateur rules to ensure the students’ priority remains on obtaining a quality educational experience and that all of student-athletes are competing equitably” (NCAA.org).  If there is so much emphasis on the education that the athletes receive and the goal is to protect student-athletes from the professional landscape, then why has the NCAA implemented rules allowing for athletes to leave college years early to join the pros.  This is a huge issue, especially in college basketball with one-and-done’s (when a player leaves for the NBA draft after only one year of college), because athletes receive little or no education and do not end with a degree.  This concept is contrary to everything that the NCAA claims about the importance of education.  The other faulty part of the NCAA’s stance on amateurism is its claim for equitability.  The NCAA is basically saying that because some schools or players produce more revenue than others, that nobody should get their fair share of the revenues they produce.  This is like saying that because people in a company have different values to that company that everyone working there should receive the same salary.  It is not how our society works and makes no sense in terms of principle.  The NCAA is trying to give everyone the same benefits or rewards when in reality there are some schools and players that deserve more than others based on their value.  The NCAA is using these false claims to cover up its real reason for adopting amateurism, which is to retain as much of college sports revenues as possible.  “While the NCAA maintains as one of its goals the protection of ‘amateur athletics,’ it has amassed a multibillion dollar empire on the backs of those amateur athletes” (Pekron).  The NCAA is not protecting equality, it is stealing money from the programs and the players that have earned it.

The biggest reason that some still think the NCAA is just for keeping its amateur title is that college sports simply would not work without it.  Turning from an amateur to a professional organization would force players to be paid for participating in collegiate athletics.  This means that technically the student-athletes would become employees of the school.  On this topic, the president of the NCAA, Mark Emmert says, “If we move toward a pay-for-play model—if we were to convert our student-athletes to employees of the university—that would be the death of college athletics.  Then they are subcontractors.  Why would you even want them to be students? Why would you even care about their graduation rates?  Why would you care about their behavior?” (Emmert).  As employees of the university, education would take a back seat to the athletes’ job, which is his/her sport.  The other large problem with dropping amateurism and proceeding to pay college athletes is that there is no fair way to do it.  The big programs with the most money would be able to pay the most to the best players.  This would result in a huge gap between the upper tier teams and those beneath them.  In addition to a very lopsided and unfair league, paying players ruins the spirit of the game by adding the incentive of money.  Lastly, many smaller programs cannot afford to pay any players anything.  This means that these programs would cease to exist all together.  Even some that think the NCAA is unjust in their handling of revenues refuse to do anything about it because of a lack for a better solution.  It is a conundrum that has fueled the argument about paying college athletes for years.

Although it may completely reshape collegiate athletics as we know them, there are ways to change the title of amateur and still avoid these aforementioned problems.  By paying college athletes, there is no way to avoid calling them employees of the university, however this does not mean that the athletes’ education is unimportant.  The NCAA is correct in saying that education should be a student-athletes’ focus and this can be achieved through more strict rules regarding grades.  If an athlete does not meet the requirements, then they will no longer be able to play and will no longer be paid.  In regards to the issue of fairness, it is hard to say that an NCAA where players are paid would be more lopsided than it already is.  In every sport there are perennial powerhouses who always recruit the best players and then there are the smaller schools who struggle to entice any of the high profile recruits.  This is an issue that the NCAA has dealt with for years and would be nothing new if players were paid for their participation in college athletics.  To address the last point about some of the smaller programs not being able to afford paying players, they would simply have to drop down a division to where players are not paid.  There is already a system somewhat like this in place, but instead of paying players it is in terms of scholarships.  Some of the smaller schools that cannot afford giving out a full team of scholarships play in lower divisions against teams with similar means.  This is exactly what would happen with paying players.  All of the issues previously mentioned are fixable and would allow for the NCAA to finally take back its false title of amateurism.

  Under the current rules of amateurism many student-athletes are harmed rather than helped like the NCAA says.  Due to how strict the rules are about receiving payments, many players often receive suspensions or even bans for accepting things as small as a cheap meal.  Just last year a, “formerly homeless Baylor University running back had purportedly accepted food and shelter from a mere acquaintance” (Edelman).  Stories like this come up all too often and it really is no surprise because even a full-ride scholarship is on average $3,500 short of what it actually costs to attend a university.  Shabazz Napier, a hero of the 2014 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship, said that he was, “forced to go hungry on many nights” (Edelman) because of the NCAA’s strict rules.  Some of these players are suffering and their schools are not even allowed to give them some of the money that they earned to help out.  There has been backlash in the form of lawsuits.  Many courts are upholding that the NCAA is violating antitrust laws by not fairly sharing its revenues.  A very memorable example of this is when EA Sports was forced to stop making college sports video games because they were no longer allowed to use the names or likenesses of the players.  Some of the NCAA’s amateurism rules are absurd and not only are the athletes now seeing it, but so too are the courts.  The NCAA continuing to call itself an amateur organization is simply unfair.

The NCAA can no longer call itself an amateur organization based on how it has evolved over the last few decades.  Most of the problems with amateurism stem from money and recently more and more is being injected into the collegiate athletics landscape.  This is exemplified by the billions of dollars coming in from advertisements, sponsorships, and television deals.  It can be seen that the NCAA is now more preoccupied with the economic side of college sports rather than the eligibility and well-being of the student-athlete.  The evolution of the NCAA is also evident through how misaligned its constitution is with reality.  This is a massive issue that affects the players, schools, and fans.  The NCAA needs to be stopped from stealing money by only calling itself amateur. 
