Miles Kietzer

5/15/14
Professor Bailey-Hartsel

Issues Surrounding Paying Division One Athletes

The Mens NCAA tournament is one of the most polarizing sporting events in
the world. Sixty-eight teams compete in a win or go home tournament. The favorite
can be knocked out due to one bad performance, and the most unlikely of underdogs
can rise to the top. This is why people spend countless free time and sometimes work
hours watching one of Americas best sports spectacles. In turn the tournament
generates huge revenues, and the NCAA makes literally billions off of the games the
young collegiate men play. These profits dont just pay for the players scholarships;
they finance the incredibly large salaries of athletic directors, NCAA executives, and
coaches. In the past the majority of people always saw a scholarship as fair
compensation for a students athletic services. Yet when some athletes who are
usually minorities come from such poor backgrounds that they cant afford to eat at
night if the team-dining hall is closed, maybe its time for a change in the way we treat
our amateur athletes. The issue of paying players is not simply just a battle for money,
but a battle for civil rights.
Basketball and Football are two sports dominated by African-American men,
yet they are the most impoverished and imprisoned ethnic group in our country, its
almost as if you need to make it in sports, or you may go to prison as an African-
American male. But for those who do make it to the division one level of sports they
arent getting paid to play, they are going to school to play sports and try to get their
education along the way.
Many student-athletes are given easy class schedules assigned to them by their
athletics department that works around their practices and games. How are these
young men student-athletes if sports come first? The argument can be made that the
NCAA doesnt even care about their education at all; at many division one
universities you are not guaranteed a scholarship for all four years. This means that if
you get a career ending injury due to your sport, the NCAA may not be liable to
provide you a scholarship for the remainder of your studies.
Yet as long as a star athlete is healthy the NCAA is content to make millions
off of their talents. Last year the average annual worth of a college basketball player
to the NCAA was $375,000 per player, and the average for football players was
$175,000. These numbers outweigh the cost of tuition at every college, this difference
points to a huge discrepancy in the way we compensate our beloved athletes. To
correct this discrepancy the NCAA could easily add a clause to all scholarships that
allow a student to finish his education in five years regardless of whether or not he
has suffered a career ending injury or used his four years of playing eligibility. After
all, every time these young men step on the court they risk their bodies and
livelihoods for a game to entertain us. Yet the product they provide they really have
no say in the discussion of what is best for them and what they need, want, and
deserve.

Figure 1, Distribution of money in the SEC division one conference
When the conversation of discussing NCAA rules, regulations, and treatment
of players is discussed at the regulatory meetings there is no representative for the
athletes themselves. A group of older, usually white men, come together and decides
on the standards to set for the athletes and how to administer them. The absence of a
representative from the athletes side is an issue of civil rights. We can go back to
when women werent allowed to vote, or blacks werent allowed to vote to find other
cases of forced misrepresentation. Not only do they not have a say in how they are
treated, but they have never been allowed to unionize until the Northwestern mens
football team did a few months ago in a situation where the court had to overrule the
NCAA. This unionization was a huge first step in the direction to athletes having a
seat at the table to make things right.
The Northwestern football team made a few reasonable requests in their
attempt to successfully negotiate after unionizing. They asked for guaranteed
scholarships regardless of injury, better concussion protection, as well as better
healthcare during their playing days and a small extension after their playing days are
over. If they are to achieve these rights, it would be a huge step in their quest to
receive fair benefits of playing a game that others profit so greatly off of. The next
milestone would then be acquiring a NCAA given monetary stipend of some sort.
As of right now the NCAA claims it is an amateur league that does not
endorse paying players at all, the athletes are in college to play for the love of the
game and receive an education. As we all know, a majority of these athletes are poor,
and have little to no cash to live on besides for the small amount of money the school
gives to them as living expenses. Is it too hard to shave off a billion dollars of an 11
billion dollar TV to evenly distribute as stipends to Division one athletes? It is no
excuse to say the logistics behind distributing this money are too difficult so the idea
is out of question. Currently there are few officials who endorse the idea of giving out
stipends to division one athletes, yet a few exist.
The Big Ten conference has been making progress in terms of fairer treatment
of its students. Besides for the unionization of the Northwestern football team, many
athletic directors have been endorsing the idea of handing out monetary stipends. In
particular, Michigan State head football coach and athletic director have both said
they would be completely ok with giving players an allowance to spend. The athletes
at these institutions often put in 50-hour workweeks without any significant tangible
gain. Giving them a slight boost in their weekly spending is a fair return for the
blood, sweat, and tears they put in to their craft. Stipends should not be the only way
athletes can earn money, how do we value on star player over another if they are both
getting the same amount of cash each week.
For some athletes whose only time as a star is in college and not at the
professional level, they miss out on a huge economic opportunity. By having fame
assigned to ones likeliness and name you can make a huge crop of cash. Yet the
NCAA prohibits players from using their likelinesss to accept cash. Yet in a
capitalistic society isnt it only fair that everyone be able to take advantage of the gifts
they are given in order to economically push ahead? Frank Kaminsky recently just
had one of the most outstanding NCAA tournament performances in history. So
shouldnt he be allowed to his use his fame to benefit economically? He isnt athletic
or proficient enough to be a successful professional basketball player and make a
fortune in the NBA. But if he were allowed to sell his jersey or autograph he could be
making a lot of money.

Figure 2, Frank Kaminsky, doesn't really look like he could play in the NBA.
After all, a chef in culinary school isnt prohibited from working at a local
diner, and a student journalist isnt prohibited from writing free-lance articles in his
spare time to help pay the rent. These comparisons really show how we treat
collegiate athletes in relation to the rest of students at universities. They are held on a
pedestal at such a young age and can not earn anything for their talents. This is
treatment of college athletes as if they are role-models who have no right to monetary
gain is becoming outdated.
Paying Collegiate athletes isnt just an issue of compensating hyper athletic
people; its an issue that goes deeper into social positions, economics, and civil rights.
The NCAAs position on athletes not being able to use their likeness to make
economic gains because of their position is one that denies athletes Americas gold
standard of capitalism. By holding back and not compensating these athletes properly,
it is a real exploitation of impoverished African-American men, it makes college
simply a stepping stone to the NBA where they can try to make millions. If these
athletes had adequate money to live on in college they would much more likely stay
longer and try harder in college to obtain these benefits. As it stands, not allowing
unionization makes the NCAA a hierarchy of minorities hardly earning anything
doing the grunt work, while more affluent white men sit at the top making huge
salaries. The NCAA has a real obligation to take these affairs seriously and change
the landscape of the logistics of college athletics.