March Madness Hoopsters Being Robbed By the NCAA
By Ken Reed
I love watching the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. I fill out a bracket just like millions of my fellow Americans do.
But my excitement this year is tempered by a sobering new study that reveals how much top NCAA Division I athletes in football and men’s basketball are being exploited by the NCAA and its member schools.
According to a joint study from the National College Players Association (NCPA) and the Drexel University Sport Management Department, “FBS football and men’s basketball players would receive an additional $6 billion between 2011-15 if not for the NCAA’s prohibition of a fair market.”
The study used publicly available information to determine the value of football and men’s basketball players’ full athletic scholarships relative to the money that revenue-producing football and basketball players would receive in a fair market.
The research project found that the average football and men’s basketball players from BCS conferences would receive an average of over $714,000 and $1.5 million, respectively, above and beyond the value of their full athletic scholarships over the four years between 2011-15.
Ellen Staurowsky, a Drexel University sport management professor, said, “While IMG officials applaud the increasing commercial value of football to television broadcasters and FBS coach salaries increase at rates that are double those of executives in the corporate sector, the NCAA’s principle of amateurism continues to be used as a mechanism to deny the dignity, humanity, and worth of the athletes whose hard work and commitment gives value to the product that others profit from.”
UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley, an economics major, commented, “America’s economic system is supposed to operate on free markets. This is a lesson on how damaging it can be when a cartel stifles a free market and, unfortunately, college athletes are the ones on the losing end. It’s not right.”
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
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"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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