Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Is it time to let college athletes earn money from their image and likeness?
A few weeks ago, Gavin Newsome, governor of California, signed into law the “Fair Pay to Play Act” that will allow college athletes to use their name and likeness to get paid for the first time ever.
As a former Division I player, a walk-on-turned-scholarship athlete and professional athlete, I believe this legislation is long overdue. As we all know, college sports is a billion-dollar industry, with men’s football and basketball being the highest revenue-generating sports. That players are cut out of the revenue model of a product they produce is simply senseless, and yet, is something the NCAA has been able to get away with for more than a century.
What’s worse is that players cannot even create their own business opportunities from the press they generate. A disproportionate number of athletes, and more specifically, a disproportionate number of minority athletes, come from low-income neighborhoods and families and already do not have the funds to make ends meet. In my case, I was a walk-on my first two years and my parents barely scraped together the funds to get me through. I was lucky enough to win a scholarship, only after I told my coaches I was going to have to leave for financial reasons. My situation, however, is only a microcosm of a macro-issue.
We need not look any further than the likes of Shabazz Napier, who, while on a title run in 2014 with UConn, said, “There’s hungry nights where I’m not able to eat.”
Cardale Jones, a former Ohio State quarterback, said on Twitter a while back, “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”
Athletes have been recruited to play a sport. They spend countless hours honing their craft. They are also expected to maintain their school’s academic standards. Yet many cannot afford even the most basic of life’s necessities. They are sapped of their time, both academic and personal. They are worked like mules with nothing to show for it but a degree that will take four years to be delivered. They are creating value in the product they create, yet are unable to see any benefit.
It’s indentured servitude in a nutshell.
The opposition will scream about how much of an “honor” it is to have your college tuition paid for, but it’s not enough. And there is another reason that not allowing athletes to be paid is so wrong: It is hypocritical.
The NCAA profits off players’ jerseys, names and likenesses while reprimanding players who attempt to do the same. It’s monopolistic. It’s corrupt. These athletes deserve to be paid. They put in more than 40 hours a week. They show up on time. They put their hearts in it. And they generate revenue.
They are employees of the NCAA for all intents and purposes. And the most amazing part of this whole debate is that no one is actually trying to make the NCAA pay student-athletes anymore.
The number of lives that could be changed by giving student-athletes the opportunity to profit off their own name and likeness is unquestionable. And yet, for some reason, the NCAA seems to be intimidated by the idea that anyone other than itself would be able to profit off the student-athletes’ product.
If the NCAA will not pay athletes, they at least deserve the opportunity to earn income from business opportunities they can generate on their own.•
__________
Brackett, a former player for the Indianapolis Colts and Rutgers University, is CEO of Brackett Restaurant Group.
Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
Click here for more Forefront columns.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
Quoting Cardale Jones blows Gary’s whole argument (which isn’t that strong to begin with). “…we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.” (Ironically, in Mr. Jones’ case, probably more true than most!) There is nothing that says that Cardale had to play football at Ohio State; he could have played football anywhere. Playing football isn’t confined to the colleges or to the NFL; there are other places one could play. Of course, one wouldn’t get the exposure, or the education (should one choose to “play SCHOOL”) or the paycheck, should one be good enough to play professionally. The problem that Gary and others like him fail to see is what about others on the team that support the star players that might be good enough to profit from “business opportunities they can generate on their own”? How do these deals affect them? Will they be as willing to block for the star RB or QB knowing that they might be raking in thousands (many thousands?) while they, doing the grunt work, get nothing? What people like Gary fail to realize is that this Fair Pay to Play Act will probably only benefit just a select few athletes but in the process destroy the scholarship program for those that need it.
I’m conflicted on this issue though I lean heavily toward the “don’t take the job if you don’t like the pay” argument. If playing on NCAA teams is such a bad deal, then don’t do it. There are many jobs in the business world where the company make far more money off your efforts than you receive, but you would also struggle to bring those benefits on your own without the company. If it gets too out of whack, people quit and find a better company. However, the argument above pushed me to take the other side a bit. You could argue that in the NFL or NBA the lower paid players might not be willing to do their job in support of the high paid star players. I’m not sure I buy the argument. You do your job on the team, or your not on the team, whether by your own choice or by getting benched. Same rule applies, do your job or not. For those that don’t, the process is generally self-correcting.
Perhaps the real issue here is that our higher education system is enmeshed with professional sports. I think initially, college (and university, I’m using college broadly) sports teams were just an extension of high school sports. That is, a way to promote team-work and health. Over time, it became a profit center for the colleges and that started to corrupt things to the point that rules were bent to allow otherwise non-college oriented people to nonetheless be enrolled. It would be difficult to undo this history and just separate colleges from minor league sports, nor desirable perhaps for those who do want to be educated and get the experience of getting to play even if they are ultimately skilled enough for the pros.
So, while I’m still in the “if it so bad, why do it” camp, if it is changed to where payment is required, maybe it will lead to change where colleges effectively create a separate sports organization that compensates its players while still incorporating those that want it into the college life. It may be more honest and may even drive some colleges to decide between being an educational entity versus a minor league sports organization, while others with find a way to maintain the balance. I fear unintended consequences that might actually make things worse for players, but maybe we have to experiment in order to prove that out one way or the other.