The Brief
Get Up To SpeedCollege sports is a big-money business, with football and basketball programs generating millions of dollars in revenue every year. While coaches and athletic directors in Division I programs routinely score seven-figure contracts, student-athletes are currently prohibited from sharing in the profits. Is it time to rewrite the rules in college sports and allow athletes their fair share of the profits? Or would providing monetary incentives -- above and beyond existing scholarships and career supports -- spoil the sport?
View Debate PageJoe Nocera
- Columnist, Bloomberg View & Co-Author, "Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA"
In consultation with sports economists, antitrust lawyers and reformers, Nocera puts together the outlines of a plan to pay those who play football and men's basketball in college.
After six years of legal machinations and millions of dollars spent in legal fees, what did the O’Bannon case really accomplish? At first glance, it might not seem like all that much. But I would argue that O’Bannon has had an enormous effect.
Race, social justice and inequality are key factors in the push for the creation of a pay structure for college football and men’s basketball players.
The commercialization of college sports and the undercurrent of racial inequality has inspired efforts to protect the economic rights of college student-athletes.
Sports columnist Joe Nocera talks about "Indentured: The Epic Scandal of the NCAA," a book he co-authored exposing the inequities of the NCAA.
Joe Nocera explains how the NCAA takes advantage of college athletes and discusses how players can receive benefits in his book "Indentured."
A salary cap would help remedy the inequities faced by college football and men’s basketball players without bankrupting college athletic departments.
A five-element plan to challenge the commercialism of college sports and disrupt the economic discrepancy between college football and men’s basketball players, their coaches and athletic departments by paying student-athletes.
Charges of corruption and bribery in college basketball are about amateurism rules, not laws.
Andy Schwarz
- Economist & Partner, OSKR
Denying payment of college athletes, most of whom have low prospects of turning professional and whose efforts on the field and on the court generate revenue for everyone but themselves, is akin to treating them like indentured servants.
Paying student-athletes would not drive away fans, destroy competition, bankrupt college athletic departments or violate Title IX.
A rebuttal to claims that preserving college sports amateurism by refusing to pay college athletes promotes academic values.
Challenges claims that the money in college sports flows from fan interest and loyalty to their favorite schools and not from the performance of star athletes whose fair market value is negligible.
Andy Schwarz explains why the NCAA is not only morally indefensible but economically ludicrous.
Current claims that college sports are losing money and that athletic programs are financially unsustainable are false, and are part of a century-old legacy of college athletics’ vested interest in seeming poor.
Andy Schwarz has proposed a business plan to pay student athletes at HBCUs.
In this paper, Schwartz outlines the top myths associated with paying college sports – and why they don’t hold up.
Christine Brennan
- Sports Columnist, USA Today
Brennan discusses the recent FBI investigation and the future of the NCAA.
Christine Brennan and Len Elmore join a panel of experts to discuss whether or not students are employees of their universities. Note: This video is the second video listed on this website.
In a panel moderated by Van Jones and Newt Gingrich, Christine Brennan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar debate whether or not student athletes should be paid.
In a panel moderated by Van Jones and Newt Gingrich, Christine Brennan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar debate whether or not student athletes should be paid.
Len Elmore
- Attorney & Former All-American Basketball Player
Joe Nocera and Len Elmore debate whether college athletes should be paid as UHLC Professor Michael A. Olivas moderates.
Cutting costs could save college sports from a pay-for-play revolution that would destroy the idea of student athletes.
Paying college athletes will obscure the education factor and hurt students of color, who would otherwise not have access to a college education, the most.
Jeffrey Brown takes a look at the role of the student athlete on the court, in the classroom and at the negotiating table with Emmett Gill of the Student-Athletes Human Rights Project and former NBA player Len Elmore.
Background
Answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the NCAA.
NCAA Divisions I and II schools provide more than $2.9 billion in athletics scholarships annually to more than 150,000 student-athletes. Division III schools do not offer athletics scholarships.
In landmark action for major-college sports, schools and athlete representatives from the NCAA's five wealthiest conferences on Saturday voted 79-1 to expand what Division I schools can provide under an athletic scholarship.
For
The watershed article by Pulitzer Prize winning civil rights historian Taylor Branch that tracked the intersection between college athletics, race and money.
College sports are mass entertainment. It's time to fully reward players for their work.
Amateurism in college sports disproportionately impacts African American college football and men’s basketball players while benefiting predominately white stakeholders by as much as $2 billion a year.
Those who play high-profile college sports are university employees, and it's time the NCAA recognizes it.
Against
Sports Illustrated columnist points out that with few exceptions, college sports lose money and reforms should center on cost-of-attendance adjustments to athletic scholarships.
Sports economist argues that monetizing student/university relationships is a slippery slope, and reform should center not on payment, but on extending better treatment to student athletes.
NCAA president warns that paying students would undermine amateur athletics and devalue education.
The way to fix college sports isn’t to pay the players, but to eliminate commercialism altogether and put the emphasis back on education and supporting academics.
The drive to pay college athletes fails to recognize the value of sports as a part of education.
FBI Scandal
The FBI announced that it was bringing federal bribery, fraud and other corruption charges against NCAA coaches and assistants, claiming that they allegedly exploited the inability of college athletes to be compensated because of NCAA amateurism rules.
A school-by-school summary of the FBI allegations of bribery, fraud and corruption in men’s college basketball.
Members of Congress are calling for a briefing on the college basketball bribery scandal from the NCAA and companies, questioning whether or not the NCAA can actually oversee its own institutions.
Finances
Big time college sports may be taking in big money, but many college athletic departments still struggle to make a profit.
Here are the 50 best-paid public employees in the U.S. for 2016 ... and a whole lot more dollar data.
Title IX
A look at how Title IX impacts the pay-for-play debate.
The less dramatic reality is that, if forced to compensate players, colleges would need to accommodate Title IX as part of a larger budgetary reorganization.
Title IX has been both credited with and blamed for a lot of things that have happened in college athletics in the past four decades.
Relevant Court Cases
Many college athletes find that stipends fail to ensure they can cover their cost-of-living expenses, and for others the money is a way to support their families back home.
Many college athletes find that stipends fail to ensure they can cover their cost-of-living expenses, and for others the money is a way to support their families back home.
This is a good explanation of the various nuances of the decision.
Former West Virginia University running back Shawne Alston’s class action lawsuit against the NCAA has been tentatively settled. Here's what that means for affected athletes and going forward.
A summary of the ongoing class action lawsuit, Jenkins v. NCAA, which requests that men’s college basketball and football be declared in violation of federal antitrust laws so that schools and major conferences are forced to pay athletes in these two sports.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case about whether the N.C.A.A. is violating federal antitrust laws by restricting what college athletes can earn.
Athletics & Academics
Concerns about the graduation rates of African American football players in comparison to their white teammates.
The failure to cultivate a culture of learning on college sports teams leads many student athletes to underperform academically.
An investigation into allegations of academic fraud within the African and Afro-American Studies program at the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill found that for almost 20 years, for many of the school’s student athletes, part of their education was worthless as they enrolled in a “shadow curriculum” with rampant cheating and academic misconduct.
Unionization
Marc Edelman argues they are employees and entitled to certain rights; Zev J. Eigen sympathizes with their situation but says the law is clear.
The NLRB’s chief counsel issued a memo saying football players at 17 private colleges are employees and can seek better working conditions.
The NCAA president called an effort to unionize players a ''grossly inappropriate'' way to solve problems in college sports while insisting the association has plans to change the school-athlete relationship.
