As one who has never experienced the emotional ties that are so unique to college sports, I have a tendency to overlook how they skew one’s perspective. Yet I believe two things: (1) that most of those fans with ties to the schools will continue their affiliation to the athletic teams if the kids are making a few shekels from outside sources and (2) that a growing percentage of television viewers are made up of fans of neither of the two teams on the field and will care even less about it.
My disillusion with the football power schools remains such that I don’t think this is really about money except in the way that power equals money in college sports. This is about the maintenance of power first.
Jay Bilas will debate Oliver Luck tonight on the subject “College athletes should be allowed to be paid,” a precise wording that pleased Bilas (and me) very much. How many times have you read the comments section and some goober says that some schools “can’t afford to pay their football players! All the smaller sports will have to be cut!” Which is a complete misunderstanding of the issue at hand.
The debate is being streamed at eight on something called thefire.org.
Is that the issue at hand? I suggested that boosters should be allowed to pay players early on in this thread, but as far as I know the lawsuits are not about that issue; those players seem to want to be paid directly.
The O’Bannon lawsuit was about using likenesses without compensation. The Kessler lawsuit is about ending the schools’ agreements to strictly limit athletes’ compensation. I’m not sure if there is any ongoing court battle where the athletes are directly trying to force the schools to pay them for their routine services, though the athletes would probably like this to happen.
Basically, the schools are being asked to step back. They are being asked to defend their assumed power to enforce student earnings. They are being asked to allow an open market for the athletes’ services. If they don’t want to pay the third string tight end while the QB is making $100 thousand, that’s too bad for the TE.
I hope that there will be a transcript of this debate available later, because Oliver Luck seems to be undercutting his (and the NCAA’s) position nearly every time he speaks; a transcript would allow his own words to be used against him without inaccurate paraphrasing.
That was an excellent debate and I’d like to thank you again Red Wiggler for bringing it to my attention.
I did think, tho, that Mr. Bilas destroyed the opposing position. One of my favorite moments was when Mr. Luck said it was okay that coaches were being paid because they were adults, while the “student-athletes” should not be paid and Mr. Bilas interrupted him to point out that college students are also adults. Mr. Luck was never able to deflect or minimize the damage because his argument(s) are, IMO, stupid.
By all accounts a decent and intelligent man, Luck did a pretty skillful job IMO at presenting the schools’ illogical arguments. But his primary argument had the inevitable glaring flaw in it – that college football and basketball players, alone in the American landscape, are exploited by being compensated for their skills.
Nobody tries to stop rich parents from sending their kids money for expenses. Nobody tries to stop students from slinging hash at the local diner or even from dancing around poles to earn book money. The federal government even reimburses schools up to 75% of students’ pay on the work study program and colleges bust ass to get internships for their undergrads. *Because money isn’t exploitation. *
They pay Coach K $10 million a year and he’s a god in Durham. They put up a statue to that awful man in Tuscaloosa and pay him $7 million annually. And keep adding on to the stadiums because so many fans are turned off by the commercialism. “We’re special” is a pretty weird argument and I don’t think it’ll convince the courts when Jeffrey Kessler gets a couple of weeks to make his case.
Overturning that restriction would severely limit the leverage a coach and school have over a recruit after he has accepted a football or basketball scholarship.
The lawsuit claims that the NCAA claimed the rule exists so that a transfer can get used to the new school, but I always thought the rule was there to prevent athletes from using college sports as a minor league for the pros (which is why every sport except baseball, basketball (men’s and women’s), men’s ice hockey, and football allows an athlete one transfer without the sit-out, provided the university from which the athlete is leaving does not object).
AIUI football players may transfer without sitting out so long as the departure team doesn’t object. But they nearly always do. There was a palaver over Wisconsin’s coach adopting a hypocritical posture on this when he objected to a departing player playing for his new school immediately, but demanded a waiver from another school (Michigan?) for a player coming to his team.
The NCAA bylaws say that a waiver to the one-year sit-out rule cannot be given in the sports of FBS football or Division I basketball (both men’s and women’s), baseball, or men’s ice hockey, nor for FCS football if the athlete has only one year of eligibility left (if leaving FBS) or is transferring from an FCS school with football scholarships to one without them.
There are exceptions; for example, the oft-quoted “Graduate School exception,” which apparently (I can’t find this exact wording in the bylaws) lets someone who graduates from a school transfer to another school if he wants a masters degree in something in which his current school does not offer one (although I think that means “the new school creates some major that the old school doesn’t have solely for purposes of the transfer” - technically, the athlete can transfer anyway if the old school announces that it is cutting the athlete’s scholarship), and one where someone can transfer from a school that has a postseason ban in that sport for the remainder of the athlete’s eligibility.
Last week the 129 FBS athletic directors formed a PAC. Does anyone doubt that there is but one end game in mind for this lobbying association? They will never find a more sympathetic congress than the current one for passing legislation that permanently restricts college athletes’ commercial rights.
The way the NCAA sees it, it’s not that he’s “profiting off his own likeness,” but that he’s “profiting off his football ability,” since that is what the videos are mainly about (and, presumably, why people are watching them) - in other words, he makes money from his football ability, which, in the NCAA’s eyes, makes him a “football professional.”
That’s not how the NCAA sees it. The NCAA’s bylaws prohibit an athlete from profiting from his own likeness whether or not the profits are related to his football ability. That’s why college athletes can’t get jobs at Target earning more than annual “incidental expenses,” even if they’re paid minimum wage and work just like everyone else.