The NCAA is a non-profit institution in which it serves as an organization to manage multiple universities and schools in intercollegiate athletics. This is the core values of the NCAA, or so you think? In actuality, the NCAA is current day monopoly in which they profited off unpaid skilled workers. In other works, it somewhat resembles to slavery.
It is a greedy corporation which receives over $700 million dollars a year and as corrupt as it is, decides to keep the money internally within the system. This occurs all because the money is distributed among universities, in which these funds can be used to expand facilities, and increase capacity seating at football games, in which the universities receive revenue so that they can invest more within their athletics department. Interested TV stations, athletic designers (Nike), and relative sponsors sign contracts with the NCAA to broadcast games/endorse their products, and then the whole corrupt system repeats all over again. However one common factor occurs within all of this, and it is that the athletes who work to make all this happen do not receive a penny. Not anything. Not only is it inhuman for the NCAA to do this, it is emotionally and economically fallacious to do so, and it is why Mark Emmert must own up to his responsibility and pay these "student-athletes" immediately.
One belief some pundits make if the NCAA were to give student athletes compensation is that the NCAA would not receive as much revenue as they were before. On the contrary, for this is actually incorrect. If the organization were to give players salaries, players, universities, and the NCAA institutions all will come out on the beneficiary. Beside this current topic, the biggest concern in the NCAA is university scandals. Yes, multiple universities across the nation break NCAA bylaws and regulations to receive improper benefits. It's an epidemic within collegiate sports, and it is costing billions to prestigious universities. Research shows that over $20 million dollars is lost from such scandals. These "crimes" occur because students are not rewarded for their hard work on the gridiron, so when alleged booster turns to them and offers them hundreds of dollars for their performance, its hard for a 19 year old not to accept free payment.
There is a whole list of scandals that occurred in the history of the NCAA, and their are already six this year (Ole Miss, Syracuse, Baylor, UNC, and Tennessee are the schools currently under investigation). However, there are a few that come to mind. The University of Miami athletics scandals are a clear example of my point.
In 1994, the University of Miami was charged with NCAA sanctions, which included a postseason ban, loss of 31 scholarships, and fines of over 5 million dollars were imposed because of a pay for play scandal in which illegal booster and controversial rap star Luther Campbell paid University of Miami players accordingly based on performance. If any given player were to hit an opposing player so severe it would injure him, or make a block for a player, or injure the opposing teams best player, they would win the "X" amount of dollars on that given week from the "Hit Club" Pool Money.
It affected the schools football team immediately, as they went (5-6) their probation year, and it nearly killed the football program. Fortunately, a great coach was hired, and he led the extremely talented Miami Hurricanes to undefeated national championships in 2001 and what was supposed to be 2002 (pass interference what?).
However, the same gifted team was involved in another scandal revealed in 2011. Nevin Shapiro, another illicit booster for the Hurricanes, spent over $700 MILLION DOLLARS for players in one of the biggest Ponzi Schemes in American History.
This time, Shapiro provided Hurricane players $83 million dollars in investor funds with a fraudulent grocery distribution business. Providing players with illegal money was part of the plan, so the clever minx could persuade players to join his sports agency, Axcess Sports. The scandals cost Miami billions of dollars, in which when the NCAA found out, Shapiro worked with the institution to rat out players who were breaking rules. As told by Yahoo, "All told, the length, breadth and depth of the impropriety Shapiro has alleged would potentially breach multiple parts of at least four major NCAA bylaws – and possibly many more. Shapiro described acts that could include violations of multiple parts of bylaw 11, involving impermissible compensation to coaches; multiple parts of bylaw 12, involving amateurism of athletes; multiple parts of bylaw 13, involving improper recruiting activity; and multiple parts of bylaw 16, involving extra benefits to athletes."
The scandal got players suspended for a multitude of games, and levied the University with its most serious charge, "lack of institutional control."
Overall, if a scandal is issued apon the university, then everyone cannot gain from this. Players will get suspended for breaking NCAA by laws. Universities lose money because they are banned from TV broadcasts, in which TV contracts are broken, and scholarships are lost, which mean the can't offer quality players scholarships in order to get into a better bowl games for a higher payout, or even worse lose revenue because they are banned from bowls. Meanwhile, the NCAA loses millions because it bans a school everyone would love to see watch at a bowl or on TV, but because they are on probation, they can't profit off the school. Paying players satisfies moral for players who aren't rewarded, and issues them to make better decisions because they would now be a full-time employee and wouldn't want to "get cut." Therefore, if we want to look towards economic success for all parties, the NCAA needs to the right thing and pay the players.
While these student-athletes share a love for the game, and purely play football as a desire, many actually forget that they are being abused and taken for granted. Not paying players causes physical, mental, and emotional stress to those athletes.
One hot button topic and extremely controversial issue going on within football is safety of players, and the worry of safety due to the high amount of concussions going on the the NCAA and NFL. A study shown by the College Football Assistance Fund shows that about every 1 in 10 NCAA players will receive a concussion every year. In addition, an estimated 20,000 injuries occur in Division I football every year, and about 1,000 of those are concussions. Expenses for such damages to a person range from $20,000-$140,000. Though National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) bylaws 3.2.4.8 (Certification of Insurance Coverage) and 3.2.4.8.1 (Amount of Coverage) require that student-athletes at member institutions have insurance for medical expenses related to athletic injuries, the schools are not required to cover what the insurance doesn’t, leaving it to parents, guardians, or the students themselves to take out policies and pay out-of-pocket costs. Only once treatment for an injury exceeds $90,000 does the NCAA cover the cost under their Catastrophic Injury Insurance Program.
Therefore, if humans are risking their lives out on the field for the benefit of everyone else, it should be an unalienable right to be provided with full insurance, a football is the #2 most dangerous job according to BusinessInsider. In fact, there is a supreme amount of pressure on the kids to succeed and win championships for the school, especially if they are from a football rich blue-blood school like Alabama or Notre Dame.
In an HBO interview with former Texas A&M athletic trainer Karl Kapchinski, he stated that he felt the pressure of clearing players even if they aren't 100% okay. HBO's John Frankel asked if a player needs an extra week of rest because of injury, how would the Head Coach react if he were to say that. Kapchinsky responded,
"You would be challenged on your character, your credentials. You know, maybe you were the wrong guy for the job. There’s been a lot of great quality athletic trainers that have subsequently lost their jobs because they stood up for the players or were doing the right thing."
Internally, there is a desire inside these players minds to win, but there shouldn't be the mentality of "win for your team at all costs!" A lot of causalities occur because of this and it sheds a bad image and hurts the reputation of the university and the organization for allowing this. Not paying athletes hurts them emotionally as well.
Keeping mind that these players are human beings, and that playing college football is the equivalent to a full time job, the Wisconsin Herald attempted to view to daily life of a College Football athlete, following fellow Wisconsin Badger Derek Watt. In the treacherous journey, they discovered, that he only gets 4.5 ours of sleep, works over 40 hours a week, and struggles to maintain social life, classes and football. Using all of the statistics I have found, athletes risk getting injured for the university, get pressured by coaches to play and increasing a chance of injury, and players cannot even cover the expenses because they don't get fully insured by the NCAA. The current system is inmoral to players all across the nation an change must occur.
The main argument defending the monopolization and marginalizing of NCAA athletes is because they're main priority is education, and when it comes to education, they are "students" first. As stated by the NCAA, "Amateur competition is a bedrock principle of college athletics and the NCAA. Maintaining amateurism is crucial to preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority. In the collegiate model of sports, the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second."
For one, the entire principle the NCAA has been founded on is invalid. While the NCAA is promoting amateurism among these athletes, they are not amateur players. In the same NCAA website, a statistic shows that over 1 million Senior High school players play high school football every year. However, only 71,000 have the ability to play at college, with happens to be 6.5% of High School students around America. People who have the capability to perform at the collegiate level should not be considered amateur, since they are the 6 percent of kids who can be at the position where everyone else dreams about.
Most of the players recruited find ways to make it to the professional level, whether its playing in the NFL, XFL, AFL, etc. Calling talented players who receive interest from top football universities "amateur" is appalling to the 6.5% of players who work tremendously hard to get where they are at. Moving forward, the term student-athlete has no validity in today's society, for it is commonly mistaken.
The term "student-athlete" is defined as "a participant in an organized competitive sport sponsored by the educational institution in which he or she is enrolled. Student athletes must typically balance the roles of being a full-time student and a full-time athlete." However, what many do not know is that the NCAA created the term in order to avoid workers compensation. "We crafted the term student-athlete," [NCAA president] Walter Byers himself wrote, "and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations." The term came into play in the 1950's, when the widow of Ray Dennison, who had died from a head injury received while playing football in Colorado for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggie's, filed for workmen’s-compensation death benefits. Did his football scholarship make the fatal collision a "work-related" accident? The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the school’s contention that he was not eligible for benefits, since the college was "not in the football business."'
Ever since, the NCAA predicated themselves off the founding of the student-athlete. When considering the term applies within the NCAA because collegiate football is not a business, you may consider that it is currently outdated. New head Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is restricting transfers on football players by using business tactics. Mike Greenberg states that "NCAA players are treated like students, so why aren't they allowed to transfer to a different school? The answer is simple. Its because these players are assets, assets that the coach invested in. So in an essential way, they are employees. If the NCAA say they are students, lets treat them like any other student, then let's treat them that way. Let them go wherever they want. The idea that they can't transfer at the end of the year is obscured. If we want to enforce a non-compete provision on them, like an employee, than we need to pay them like one." Clearly the term student athlete isn't being used correctly, therefore the NCAA needs to reevaluate what it stands for. It is ludicrous to ban players from transferring schools as a business approach, but not pay players like employees.
Maintaining on the subject, if the NCAA provides any sort of feasible payment, it would be through the form of scholarships. But to what extent does a scholarship offer? Back in 1994, provisions included Free Tuition, Room and Board, 3 meals every weekday, and $30 for food on weekends. Nowadays, not much has changed. Scholarships still provide for the basic necessities that student athletes need in a university, such as room and board. However, athletes display their criticism towards the scholarship system; the athletic scholarship is not considered the "golden ticket" like it was back in the day. There is a simple solution to negate any further situations, and to satisfy everyone. America has been and always will be divided over many issues. This should not be one of them. Please Mark Emmert, end the pandemonium, and don't make this an issue.
the road may look so long but when you want to get to your destiny you must find the strength within yourself.
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