I was invited this week to speak to the Stanford University NAACP about whether or not college athletes should be paid. When I am asked whether I think college athletes should be compensated for their labor, I simply respond to the question with another question: “Why shouldn’t they get paid? Did they not earn the money? Is someone else earning money from their labor? Is the labor of the athlete essential to the revenue-generating process?” Answers to these questions help us to understand how insane it is that athletes earn billions of dollars for coaches, but aren’t entitled to any of that money for themselves. I’ve seen race horses get better deals than that.
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When you answer a simple question with a simple answer, you find that the issue that once seemed so complicated is not nearly as complex as we thought. Let’s break the process down, shall we?
The NCAA earns more money during March Madness than the Super Bowl and the World Series. Tickets can be sold for the Final Four for as much as $8,000 dollars apiece. Coaches and their families get to fly to games on private jets and use their massive salaries to buy mansions, yachts and fancy cars. That money doesn’t fall out of the sky. It comes from corporations paying millions of dollars to advertise to the massive audience that shows up to view the show. Is the audience there to see the coach? Probably not. I humbly suggest that the audience watches the game to see the big, tall (typically black) athletes run up and down the floor. In fact, CBS Sports could probably still draw a big audience if the athletes showed up without the coaches. But you could never draw an audience if the coaches showed up without their athletes. Thus, it is established: watching athletes is what draws the audience, which is what draws the ad revenue. So, I ask again: Why are the families of athletes not allowed to negotiate for a fair share of this money?
RELATED: OPINION: The NCAA Destroys Both Black Families and Black People
Let’s break down some of the quick issues that come up when one discusses the NCAA and why athletes should or should not be paid:
First, the issue is actually one of labor rights. Athletes are not the ones who choose to be paid with just a scholarship. They are forced into that style of payment because the labor market has been artificially rigged to control their income and labor options. Congress allows all the universities across America to form a coalition (called the NCAA), designed to maximize revenue for the schools and their stakeholders. Member of this coalition have agreed to only pay athletes with scholarships under threat of severe punishment if they deviate from the agreement. This style of action would be illegal in nearly any other industry in America and allows universities, coaches and administrators to profit handsomely by keeping athletes from demanding a fair share of the money.
The NCAA is allowed an exemption from anti-trust laws to maintain their cartel because they’ve convinced Congress that they are focused primarily on education and nothing more. They argue that money doesn’t matter and that they exist almost solely for the well-being of the athlete. What’s even more interesting is that this professional sports league doesn’t have to pay taxes. That is why the NCAA spends millions of dollars running those commercials telling you about all the great things they do for college athletes. The contradiction is that the NCAA has no problem giving $30 million dollars to coaches like John Calipari at Kentucky, who has been found guilty of numerous NCAA violations and doesn’t have a very high graduation rate. Also, in my experience as a college professor, I’ve seen athletes pulled out of class for games, and forced to practice so much that they barely have time to study. In fact, many athletes have their scholarships taken away when they can no longer play sports or compete at the level their coaches demand. Many athletes are expected to put their athletic performances ahead of their academics.
RELATED: DR. BOYCE: NCAA Athletes Suing For Their Money
My argument is not that we should force universities to write a paycheck for athletes. I guess that would be too much for them, even though they have no problem pumping out several million dollars per year to pay a coach who doesn’t care much about academics. Instead of paying the athletes, perhaps we should simply decriminalize compensation. Why have we been convinced that a star athlete, worth $10 million dollars or more to his university every year, should be considered a terrible person because he takes $1,000 dollars from a booster to pay his mother’s rent? Do coaches have to beg for money to pay for their own rent? If not, then why have we decided that athletes and their families should be treated as second-class citizens?
Here’s the real deal on the NCAA: part of the reason they can get away with their billion dollar sweatshop is because most of the people being exploited are black. Most of the Americans watching March Madness don’t realize the billions of dollars getting passed around, and most of them don’t even care. Also, most of the audience thinks that those black kids should be happy with what they get, since a natural jealousy can rise up when people see a young black man with more resources than they feel he deserves. While they certainly have no problem watching a coach buy mansions and private jets from coaching a championship team, some have serious issues seeing a 20-year old black kid in a Bentley.
The NCAA will change when the athletes get informed on the exploitation and gain the courage to stand up against tyranny. Additionally, legal action from concerned citizens (National Black Law Student Association, did you hear that?) may help pave the way to challenge the lack of constitutional fairness of many of the NCAA’s excessive rules and regulations. This is a matter of equity and although a scholarship is nice, athletes should have the same labor rights as coaches. It’s the American thing to do.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the Athlete Liberation and Academic Reform Movement (ALARM). To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
Boyce, you’re starting to sound like a broken record with this. They shouldn’t be paid, because they’re amateur athletes. Just like you don’t pay olympic athletes. Where does it stop? Do we start paying High School players who get contracts from Nike? How about the youngsters in the little league world series. I agree the situation is exploitative, but they have options, and if they are choosing to play for free, then what can we really do?
Boy. This really isn’t hard to figure out, that is if you understand the nature of collegiate sports.
It’s about competition. It’s about teaching the value of teamwork and hardwork, to achieve goals. It’s not supposed to be about money.
Futhermore, a lot of those athletes get scholarships. If they come to that school and play, they get their educations paid for. So, they are getting paid.
Are they getting paid in proportion to others? Irrelevant. The relevant issue or question is, are they getting the education they SAY, they are persuing.
Lastly, if the people who put up the money for the scholarships and the events and promotions, get a return on their investment, who is there to complain?
Except clueless interlopers who have something to gain themselves…….
LOL
olympic athletes get endorsements…and most just play to get in the leauge so they get they money back then but what if you dont make it you get a degree and can’t get a job and you struggled 4 years for a piece of paper…_A_ were you a college athlete?
I am convinced that universities do a disservice to mostly African American male athletes (particularly in football and basketball). Many major DI colleges (who have a vested interest in athletics) create a culture of mediocrity and a false sense of entitlement for its athletes. This is damaging for the majority who do not go pro and now have to rely on their intellectual capabilities. Many (and I say many) of our athletes are not developing the skills from their course of study that will take them far in life.
While I feel that paying college athletes will ultimately lead to corruption (point shaving, etc), I feel that these athletes should be compensated for their labor and essentially being a walking billboard for the university.
@Daddystarks36. The reason why these brothers can’t get jobs after college has a lot to do with the the majors they choose. That’s not to say, if they were to pick better majors, they would get jobs either, because we all understand the current job market, but trust me, that degree in physical education, or marketing, is not going to translate to anything $ignificant after college. Most if not all of them probably feel they will eventually become a paid athlete at some point. I understand that they are being severely pimped, but can you imagine paying college players? For instance, how much would you pay John Wall this season? You gonna have a minimum for freshmen? How long before highly touted High school seniors demand significantly more money, than the dude who is going to ride the pine all four years at Harvard? Then guys like Wall are one and done anyway…Gonna get way to complicated. Too answer your question, no I wasn’t a College athlete!
_A_ tell them again…. hell you just typed everything i can here to post!!
Although I agree that college athletes should not get paid for participating sports i do agree that it is a modern day sweatshop. Colleges and universities make millions of dollars on the backs of these kids, coaches get multimillion dollar endorsement deals from the sporting goods companies and it goes on and on. Yes they get an opportunity to obtain a college education but what good is the education if the quality of it is subpar. A student athlete is suppose to be a student first and an athlete second but we all know that they are pushed to be athletes first and students second.
We spend too much money and effort being concerned about “entertainment”, oh well, I guess it’s another way to dumb the masses down!
I think that there should be a deferred compensation package for all college athletes. The rules can stay if that’s the way they want to play the game. Upon exit from the school through graduation, transfer, career ending injury or whatever circumstance comes up their should be a trust account with money for them. And it should be paid to them upon exit. And that goes for all college athletes black,latino,white, pink, purple and such and such.
If you’ve never played collegiate athletics then you don’t understand that the athletes EARN and Work for their education each and everyday. It’s not just simply paid for. Athletes make sacrifices that most non-athletes have no idea about. I believe that that college athletes should be compensated in some form or fashion, I’m just not 100% on how. It’s not hard to see sports both collegiate and professional are modern day slave factories. I wish people would stop making excuses for what’s right in their damn faces. Just look around a little bit. How many white superstars are in the NBA? How many in the NFL? Even more…How many blacks are in ownership in these “good ol’ boy networks”?
AINT NO WONDER THAT THE BALL PLAYERS COME OUT AFTER ONLY 1 YEAR TO TRY THE NBA. TALK ABOUT FROM NOTHING TO SOMETHING IN NO TIME AT ALL
Black families need to get educated.Start paying our athlete at all black colleges. I never understood by white coaches received so much money and the colleges made big money off the black men and women playing for them. Time for a change, now!!!
Well its about time someone mentioned this because i thought i was the only one…. if we start paying our athletes {just not as much as an NBA player though}, then maybe some of them may not get in trouble for doing illegal activities to make ends meet while in school… not everyone who goes to school can afford to have a family member or parent give them money to cover their basic necessities while in school… A College/University will possibly pay for tutition {through scholarships or grants}, but that’s it and this can include those who have loans… Don’t get me wrong, scholarships, grants and even loans are great to cover school costs, but what about basic necessities, such as food, clothing, hygeine products? This can be especially hard if a student is far from home, where they can’t go to a relative’s house and freeload (w/out getting caught or with permission)
I think that some people may not have a problem with this (which i disagree with) is because even though an athlete may not get paid, they will get t.v. exposure that can land the eyes of a major league coach.