Four Years a Student-Athlete

April 6, 2016 1:27 PM

On the racial injustice of big-time college sports: "Amateurism rules restrain campus athletes—and only campus athletes, not campus musicians or campus writers—from earning a free-market income, accepting whatever money, goods, or services someone else wants to give them. And guess what? In the revenue sports of Division I football and men's basketball, where most of the fan interest and television dollars are, the athletes are disproportionately black."
posted by ChuraChura (50 comments total)

It seems that college athletics is overwhelmingly broken, and no one in power has the will to fix it.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:00 PM on April 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

My list of who goes up against the wall come the revolution still stands:

1. Various political leaders and titans of industry, including retirees like Cheney and Kissinger
2. The bastards at Fox that cancelled Firefly
3. Anyone in positions of power in professional and amateur sports. I'm looking real hard at you, NCAA. (not as bad as the IOC or FIFA but damn, they really really need to go).
posted by Ber at 2:12 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is an interesting article, but it's conceit requires it to completely ignore other big-earning sports, just because they're not the Most Popular. Until recently the Olympics required you to be an amateur, as do many other sports that contain less racially disparate impact. (Golf, boxing, etc)

But the biggest argument I've heard is that Title IX may prevent colleges from offering different salaries to members of different teams - even if one team is more profitable than the other. Far easier to pay them all nothing.
posted by corb at 2:17 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

The entire higher education system from top to bottom is overwhelmingly broken.

1) College tuition manages to beat even healthcare costs at beating inflation.

2) College textbooks manage to beat even college tuition at beating inflation.

3) Academia as a career is basically dead, day to day teaching being replaced with part time TAs and grad students.

4) Most states are ripping the guts out of higher education funding.

5) Predatory student loans are basically destroying a generation.
posted by Talez at 2:23 PM on April 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

But the biggest argument I've heard is that Title IX may prevent colleges from offering different salaries to members of different teams - even if one team is more profitable than the other. Far easier to pay them all nothing.

That's a bullshit argument that gets dragged out in a rather offensive attempt to pit left leaning arguments against each other.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:27 PM on April 6, 2016 [25 favorites]

Amateurism in athletics was originally a tool to ensure the medals and the glory went to the upper and middle classes rather than the factory worker who could throw a shot put pretty darn far, but was too busy working to train. It was intended to maintain a classist system that fit the British elite, not a racist one. Of course, here in America in 2016, where race and class share a phenomenally complicated relationship nobody is good at talking about, it's not surprising that the burdens of that system fall disproportionately on black athletes.
posted by zachlipton at 2:30 PM on April 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

If your defense of the NCAA requires pointing to the Olympics you are merely choosing a larger petard for your hoisting.
posted by srboisvert at 2:32 PM on April 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Obligatory Dave Zirin* article on the fecklessness of the NLRB ruling against Northwestern football players attempt to form a union

*One of the few sports writers who always and without fail has something thoughtful to say about the larger world of sports culture
posted by mostly vowels at 2:32 PM on April 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

My list of who goes up against the wall come the revolution still stands:

1. Various political leaders and titans of industry, including retirees like Cheney and Kissinger
2. The bastards at Fox that cancelled Firefly
3. Anyone in positions of power in professional and amateur sports. I'm looking real hard at you, NCAA. (not as bad as the IOC or FIFA but damn, they really really need to go).

We're gonna need a bigger wall.
posted by emjaybee at 2:35 PM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Next year, he'll be making millions. But now, he's making nothing.

Probably won't be paying back student loans, either.

That's a bullshit argument that gets dragged out in a rather offensive attempt to pit left leaning arguments against each other.

So how do you answer it?
posted by IndigoJones at 2:43 PM on April 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't get why the bastards at Fox that cancelled Firefly come in second.
posted by parki at 2:44 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

See also O'Bannon v. NCAA, which I believe in effect killed EA Sports' college videogame offerings. At the heart of the case is whether or not the NCAA can keep the profits from commercial use of the likenesses of (former) collegiate athletes. It stands to reason that, even if 'amateurism' rules the day when an athlete is in college, there should be no reason that the NCAA should stand to profit from their likeness after the athlete graduates.

It's an interesting question. Revenue sport athletes (namely football and basketball) do benefit from their athletic endeavors (tuition, living stipend, training table/food, professional level facilities and training, educational assistance). They are simply prevented from earning a market-rate salary from their labors, and the athletic departments (and NCAA) live high on the hog from the income their labor provides. A good start would be lifetime health care for injuries incurred while playing the sport. Beyond that I don't know what the answer is.

As long as the NFL and NBA use college athletics as their D-league/talent scouting, the athletes, money, and power will remain in college athletics. And my sense is if you divorce these teams from their universities/alumni/locality, you'll probably see the fanbase evaporate. The basis for most of these fanbases is, at its heart, tribalism; our team/region/tribe is better than yours.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:50 PM on April 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

That's a bullshit argument that gets dragged out in a rather offensive attempt to pit left leaning arguments against each other.

So how do you answer it?

You can start by pointing at the budgets for men's vs. women's athletics at colleges today, for one. Or coach salaries. Or you can point to the fact that the people promoting the argument are the ones benefitting from the system as is.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:53 PM on April 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

which I believe in effect killed EA Sports' college videogame offerings.

Nope. Sam Keller's lawsuit against EA did, because EA, despite their misgivings, agreed with the NCAA that they didn't have to license the athletes name and likeness rights, and were forced to pay a multimillion dollar settlement. EA would love to bring back the games, but they won't without proper licensing.

Oh, and EA just got ruled against over not reaching a deal with the retired players in the All-Madden teams on the same grounds as well.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:59 PM on April 6, 2016

Beyond that I don't know what the answer is.
The answer is simple.

The NCAA and the Power 5 are an illegal wage fixing cartel.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:15 PM on April 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

I wonder what would happen if someone created a youth professional league, aimed at 18-23 year olds in college, with the funding to hire some quality coaching and media clout to make them appealing to pro teams. I guess the NCAA would lobby the Major leagues hard to refuse admittance for those players, but the only good thing about the pro teams at-all-costs drive to win is that they'd challenge that the minute one of them saw a good player available.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:21 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

The NCAA and the Power 5 are an illegal wage fixing cartel.

I would agree; I don't agree that the answer is simple. It's not clear how you would go about setting wages. For 'revenue' sports (football and basketball) players are eligible to play four years out of five. Some come in with significant hype, similar to rookies in the NFL or NBA; some do not. Some live up to the hype, some don't, some come on extremely strong later. How do wages for a Johnny Manziel vs. a high-performing walk-on (e.g. Ryan Glasgow at Michigan) vs. a scholarship backup running back at Purdue get set? What is the value of Jim Harbaugh/Nick Saban/Urban Meyer versus the players I sketched out above? What happens with non-revenue sports? They are currently being subsidized by the revenue sports at the biggest universities, or subsidized by student fees at smaller ones.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:28 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just want to push back a little on the idea that free college tuition makes up for not earning money while playing a demanding schedule with a bunch of priorities other than classes. My football playing students miss and have to make up a lot of class over the course of the semester; there are a bunch of examples of students being shifted into less demanding majors that will likely feed into less earning potential (the guy who had to drop his pre-med for psychology?); and if a student is injured too badly they take away his scholarship and he probably loses his chance to play professionally and earn money in that capacity.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:30 PM on April 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

What is the value of Jim Harbaugh/Nick Saban/Urban Meyer versus the players I sketched out above?

The answer to that is in the NFL, where "process" coaches are more or less dead, in large part because they don't deal well with the players actually having some control over their destinies.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:46 PM on April 6, 2016

ChuraChura: Well stated. If I could re-edit my comment from above, I would change it to

They are simply prevented from earning a market-rate salary from their labors and from profiting from their likenesses, and while the athletic departments (and NCAA) live high on the hog from the income their labor provides.

The scholarship is a benefit, but comes with the restrictions you point out: massive time demands and sometimes athletes are redirected to less-demanding majors, which doesn't serve the athlete. It's stunning that universities aren't required to honor scholarships for athletes with career-ending injuries. Only California has a law requiring those injured students be given academic scholarships, and that only for USC, UCLA, Cal, and Stanford. Mandating that universities provide scholarship support for injured athletes should be step one.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:51 PM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

What happens with non-revenue sports? They are currently being subsidized by the revenue sports at the biggest universities, or subsidized by student fees at smaller ones.

The piece actually points out that subsidization is actually really problematic, because a lot of those non-revenue sports tend to be more white than the revenue sports, in large part because competing at the collegiate level requires investment of time and money in youth training on the family level.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:53 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's stunning that universities aren't required to honor scholarships for athletes with career-ending injuries.

You know the phrase "student-athlete" that the NCAA is enamored of? It was created specifically to dodge workman's compensation requirements when college athletes were injured.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:08 PM on April 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Is there a way for there to just be less money in the sport? Workmans comp for a college team sounds weird as hell, but so does expecting people to have the time commitments of essentially a job.
posted by corb at 4:12 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

NCAA division 1A is professional athletics, regardless of how they try to dress it up. Universities shouldn't be in the business of professional athletics. I think many of the problems with big-time college athletics could be resolved by forcing a split between the academic university and the professional sports team, and demanding that the athletes be compensated fairly for their work, and the university be compensated fairly for the use of its facilities and resources (particularly parking, which is a problem at every university I've been at).
posted by biogeo at 4:24 PM on April 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

That's a bullshit argument that gets dragged out in a rather offensive attempt to pit left leaning arguments against each other.

That you would call a position on an unsettled and unclear issue bullshit is, well, bullshit.
posted by jpe at 4:26 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I recently listened to this podcast interview with Darron Smith on race and college sports specifically at BYU that covers a little of this ground as well (mostly in part 2). Was kinda eye opening.
posted by bluefly at 4:34 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd really like to see something for these big revenue sports where colleges can use some of their earnings to pay athletes a reasonable salary to play for their schools for one or two years, with the agreement that after completing their contract, they have earned a full scholarship to the university. Then they can either matriculate full time, or go off to play professional football or basketball and when they're interested in going back to school, use their scholarship to earn their degree.
posted by ChuraChura at 4:50 PM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

many athletes have discussed how difficult they found actually trying to get an education on that free ride scholarship - and that's the ones really driven to try to obtain that education. just imagine what sort of education someone who only came to play ball ends up with? the idea that the scholarship is the payment is ridiculous and just another flimsy cover from those making money on college sports.
posted by nadawi at 5:13 PM on April 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

"I saw a small group of black faces in the stands, and they were [football] recruits," Robert says. "It was incredible. I realized all of the people being paid or getting the pleasure out of the game were white, and the vast majority of the people playing and risking their health were black."

I understand this is beyond the scope of the article, and I don't think the answer changes the question of whether college athletes at Division 1 NCAA schools should be paid, but why is it the case the the majority of players are black? What explains the continuing dominance of African Americans at the highest levels of the sports most popular with American audiences?
posted by layceepee at 5:14 PM on April 6, 2016

That you would call a position on an unsettled and unclear issue bullshit is, well, bullshit.

I'm sorry, but when an argument is consistently and repeatedly brought up as A Reason That We Can't Do The Right Thing, it tends to develop a whiff of manure. And considering that the judge who oversaw the O'Bannon case called out the argument, it comes across as less a legitimate worry and more groping for some reason to protect revenues.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:24 PM on April 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Most college athletes are there on scholarships though right? They're not being paid but they're not necessarily paying, that still has $$ value.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 5:50 PM on April 6, 2016

Most college athletes are there on scholarships though right? They're not being paid but they're not necessarily paying, that still has $$ value.

Top players in revenue sports are routinely generating revenue significantly in excess of the value of their scholarship, which they often cannot take full advantage of due to their athletic obligations. In addition, they are routinely risking severe injury, and except in a few cases can wind up out on the street if an injury makes them unable to continue competing at the collegiate level.

Yes, there's value in their scholarship. But for some of these players, it's not near what they're owed.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:59 PM on April 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Oh, and let's not forget that players can also be booted out of school not through any fault of their own, but because the coach wants a hot new recruit and needs the scholarship. Of course, if a player decides that they no longer want to play for a school because the situation there has changed - for example, the coach that recruited them has left and they don't like the new coach - they can basically be bound to the school, unable to transfer. Oh, and the NCAA prohibits players from retaining counsel on what deals are best for them - a policy that was actually found to be illegal in a court of law (the NCAA got the ruling overturned by swamping the plaintiff with paper during damages, forcing them to accept a settlement that negated the ruling.)

And that's just the tip of the shitberg that is the NCAA.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:29 PM on April 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

It starts before college. They broadcast high school games now. Most of the big high school teams around here have espn ready stadiums. It's madness what taxpayers spend on athletics so that networks can make money, not even counting all the kids donating free labor.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:37 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Where these "what about the Olympics / boxing / golf" and "the kids are getting scholarships, what's the big deal" arguments are true they're irrelevant, and where they're relevant they're untrue. The Olympics aren't nearly as big a deal as they once were, and unlike NCAA athletes, Olympians, amateur tennis players, etc. are allowed to make money off of their own likeness and endorsements. What's left is the abstract ideal of someone playing sport for the love of the game, and basically everyone has realized that shit's for suckers.

As for the scholarships, as has been mentioned, when the so-called student athlete is no longer useful as an athlete, their access to higher education, the only thing they're allowed to accept as payment for their labor, is taken away from them. What good is one quarter of one half of a four-year degree in a discipline that was probably chosen so as not to take too much time away form someone who has to devote close to full-time hours to their unpaid hobby?

Meanwhile, the coaches and administrators make six and seven figures on the backs of that labor, and god forbid the athletes so much as take a part time job or sell an autograph. If it's so important to maintain the Noble Ideals of Amateurism (tm), why doesn't it apply to them?
posted by tonycpsu at 7:38 PM on April 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Until sports fans decide to stop buying tickets and merch, and stand up for these talented people who they say they cherish and root for, nothing will change. It's on you, sports fans. You can sit back and let kids concuss their brains, be exploited, and ruin themselves for your pleasure, or you can demand better.
posted by emjaybee at 8:10 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

many athletes have discussed how difficult they found actually trying to get an education on that free ride scholarship - and that's the ones really driven to try to obtain that education.

Only a fraction of student-athletes receive full-ride scholarships - even at the D-I level scholarship limits are below standard roster sizes. It would be nice if limits were increased so more athletes could receive more compensation for representing their schools, but often efforts to increase limits have been voted down by the schools who couldn't immediately pay for additional scholarships so that the schools that could wouldn't gain a recruiting advantage.
posted by Ranucci at 9:33 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

It would be nice if limits were increased so more athletes could receive more compensation for representing their schools, but often efforts to increase limits have been voted down by the schools who couldn't immediately pay for additional scholarships so that the schools that could wouldn't gain a recruiting advantage.

That's what would normally be called an illegal conspiracy to suppress wages.
posted by zachlipton at 9:42 PM on April 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Even with scholarships, the student athletes don't receive a lot of support. As others have said,a lot of the athletes are pushed towards "easier" majors. But since most of them aren't going pro, what they're left with is a free degree that doesn't actually even help them get a good job. On top of that, though, some athletes recruited for the big sports come from poor high schools and are unprepared academically for a 4 year college. So when they inevitably get injured or don't make the draft, they can't even take advantage of their scholarship because they usually don't even graduate. Talk about exploitation and perpetuating the poverty cycle right there.
posted by bluefly at 9:45 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can anyone explain the NCAAs rules about endorsements? I understand the reasoning behind why they refuse to just pay them salaries but what does allowing them to have a shoe contract or appear in local Smoothie King ads do?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:58 AM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Allow endorsements would be an easy end-run around the rules against paying players, for one.

I'm pro-paying college players, but that's part of the reason.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:11 AM on April 7, 2016

Right so, everyone wins? The college kids get paid, the title ix excuse doesn't hold up, the contracts could include paying for college even if they get hurt, and Buddy Garrity gets to sell more Toyotas. It's like medical marijuana--a solution that fixes no causes but cures many symptoms. It's annoying that the NCAA prohibits it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:22 AM on April 7, 2016

Can anyone explain the NCAAs rules about endorsements?

It's incredibly dangerous to give workers any power at all.
posted by srboisvert at 7:44 AM on April 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can understand them wanting to prevent players to pick a school over another because one of them has boosters willing to shell out endorsements and a house and a car for every player, but there's no valid reason why the NCAA doesn't team up with their sponsors to create a NCAA-wide program with a bunch of tiered endorsement deals for players. National Championship-bound teams get more national endorsements, bowl teams get a few of those, but mostly regional deals, while the rest settles with mostly state-wide endorsements. Put some limitations to spread them around instead of being Alabama and Oregon all year long, and players might get a less shitty deal.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:59 AM on April 7, 2016

One more point about scholarships-as-compensation: let's even assume that the monetary value of a scholarship was equivalent to fair-market value -- you still can't spend it anywhere else. By way of analogy, imagine getting a job offer from Walmart where they were only going to pay your salary in Walmart gift certificates. How many people would accept that offer?
posted by obliterati at 8:26 AM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Relevant South Park content [CW: South Park.]
posted by theorique at 10:29 AM on April 7, 2016

There is certainly a "black vs. white" problem when it comes to how college athletes are treated. The bizarre part of American culture that is part and parcel and right along side of this is the "sports vs. anything that tries to interfere with sports" thing. There are people who otherwise live sane, socially well-adjusted lives that go absolutely batshit insane when _____________ season comes around. These same people, in that environment, engage in all manner of irrational behavior:

1. the shaving of body hair and application of body paint, rainbow wigs, etc.
2. drinking to excess
3. gambling to beyond excess
4. hooliganism
5. repeated phone calls to talk radio hosts without recognizing that the host simply makes an assertion contrary to the beliefs of the caller.

Schools go right along with it. Try to find a faculty or department page and it's www.university.com/school/department/building/floor/class/professor/classnumberoutofcoursecatalog/page.html.

Try to find the basketball coach's webpage and it's coachsmith.universitybasketball.com.
posted by prepmonkey at 10:51 AM on April 7, 2016

Anyone interested in the issue really needs to read Shulman and Bowen's The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values. They discuss the academic fraud and degree-devaluation effects of college sports in detail, but also make the point that elite white students (in sports like tennis, rowing, and lacrosse) are some of the greatest beneficiaries of preferential entry for college athletes. Meanwhile, anyone interested in angry click bait about fraud, wastage, and the erosion of academic values associated with college sports needs to peruse the sports tag curated by the always trenchant Margaret Soltan (GWU, English).
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:04 PM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Another book on the topic is Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Has Crippled Undergraduate Education, by Murray Sperber. This was assigned reading in the Honors program at the large state university with a successful football program where I went to undergrad (oh, alright, it was Virginia Tech, go Hokies), to encourage us to reflect on what our real goals were in attending college and understand some of the larger forces that might help or hinder us in achieving them. That was in 2002, and as far as I can tell nothing has improved since then.
posted by biogeo at 3:22 PM on April 7, 2016

I really enjoyed really this article. Going to college at a huge sports school as well, I see things like this all the time. My favorite part of the article includes this line, "college sports were a multibillion-dollar business, and here was a top talent stuck with a dilapidated two-wheel. " It's way too accurate.
posted by gatorgirl4114 at 1:34 PM on April 11, 2016