NCAA in Midst of It’s Own Jim Crow Era
By Ken Reed
Brando Simeo Starkey has penned a very insightful piece for New Republic magazine about the state of college sports in America.
In recent years, many NCAA critics have used slavery-related language when describing how the organization treats athletes. Even the NCAA’s first executive director, Walter Byers, has used this analogy.
Writing in his memoir, Byers said the NCAA is “firmly committed to the neoplantation belief that the enormous proceeds from games belong to the overseers (the administrators) and supervisors (coaches). The plantation workers performing in the arena may receive only those benefits authorized by the overseers.”
However, Starkey, who is the author of the upcoming book Like Blacks After Slavery: The Economic Exploitation of College Athletes, believes slavery isn’t the best analogy. “The slavery analogy, however, is wrong: It overstates and misdiagnoses the problem,” writes Starkey in the New Republic.
“The NCAA’s rules don’t mirror slavery but rather the Jim Crow South’s legal restrictions on black laborers. In other words, college athletes are exploited like blacks after slavery.
“In the decades following emancipation, blacks were denied the whole value of their labor and the opportunity to fully compete in the economic marketplace. Southern legislatures enacted laws that allowed former slave owners to limit the economic opportunities available to black workers and increase their own profits. This exploitation was allowed to continue because it harmed blacks, a politically and socially disfavored people. Racism, that is, allowed this labor-market cartel to remain.
“That bears a striking resemblance to college athletics today. So-called ‘student athletes’ are likewise denied the whole value of their labor and the opportunity to fully compete in the economic marketplace. The NCAA enacted rules that allowed its member institutions to limit the economic opportunities available to college athletes and increase their own profits.”
Starkey goes on to build a well-supported case for his position. It’s definitely worth the read (as I’m sure Starkey’s book will be too.).
“Some will scoff at this comparison between the NCAA and Jim Crow South,” concludes Starkey.
“Yet the NCAA, through its methods of exploitation, is actually far more effective at snatching money out of its subjects’ pockets than even the former Confederacy. Indeed, when courts tossed out the most egregious disenfranchisement laws in the middle of the twentieth century, the NCAA took the Jim Crow South’s recipe and spent decades perfecting it. Now, college athletics need its own Civil Rights movement. Schools, coaches, television networks, and corporate sponsors have made a fortune off of college athletes’ hard work.”
With the Northwestern football players union initiative, the Ed O’Bannon case, and many more positive developments in the last couple years, we’re at least on the path toward economic justice for college athletes. It will take the work of a lot of civil rights activists, social change agents and sports reformers to keep the momentum going and increase it.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #30 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The State of College Athletics with Dr. David Ridpath: Problems and Potential Solutions – Ridpath is a sports administration professor at Ohio University and a long-time member of The Drake Group, a college sports reform think tank.
Listen on Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor and others.
Follow on Facebook: @SportsForumPodcast
More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; PocketCasts; & Anchor
Episode #29 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The Honorable Tom McMillen Visits League of Fans’ Sports Forum – McMillen is a former All-American basketball player, Olympian, Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Congressman. We discuss the state of college athletics today.
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world. We discuss problems in youth sports today.
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Media
"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.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
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.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
Books