The NCAA’s Amateurism Scam Is Slowly But Surely Dissolving
By Ken Reed
If you have any interest at all about the issue of whether college athletes should be paid or not, Jon Solomon’s long piece for the Aspen Institute is a must read.
The foundation of the whole debate is the concept of amateurism, it’s history with the NCAA, and the NCAA’s constantly evolving definition of what it is.
As Solomon writes, “Amateurism is whatever the NCAA says amateurism is at any particular moment.”
US District Judge Claudia Wilken expressed the same sentiment in her 2014 ruling in the Ed O’Bannon v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit case against the NCAA over the commercialized use of players’ names, images and likenesses (NIL):
“The association’s current rules demonstrate that, even today, the NCAA does not necessarily adhere to a single definition of amateurism.”
The NCAA’s definition of what an amateur athlete is varies by sport.
In his piece, Solomon points out that the United States is “the only country in the world to attach a highly-commercialized, multibillion-dollar industry to higher education.” The rest of the world separates elite athletics from education.
It makes no sense that such a huge commercialized entity is part of higher education. It makes even less sense that under American tax laws, this multibillion-dollar sports entity is considered a non-profit endeavor under the universities’ non-profit educational institution umbrella. On top of that, the athletes creating this multibillion dollar enterprise are considered students who just happen to want to play a little football on the side for good ol’ State U. That may be true at most Division III colleges but it certainly isn’t the case at big-time sports departments in the Power Five conferences (Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC, SEC and Big 12).
Solomon does a great job explaining how we got to this point with college athletics. He also shows how the arc of history is bending toward compensating athletes beyond access to a college education.
Public views are moving toward the players in this debate. According to a 2017 Washington Post and UMASS-Lowell poll, 66 percent of Americans now favor allowing athletes to make money from the use of their NIL.
The first step in treating college athletes more fairly seems to clearly be adopting the current Olympic model, which allows athletes to be compensated for use of their NIL.
Solomon discusses how the Olympics evolved from their once strict amateurism rules:
The Olympics once passionately believed in the evolving definition of amateurism. Paid professional athletes were not allowed. During the 1980s, the move toward professionalism gradually gained full steam sport by sport over several years. The change was aided in part by the suspicion that athletes from some Eastern Bloc nations were already professionals anyway through full-time support and training by their governments.
The public hasn’t stopped watching the Olympics with professionals. Making money through endorsements while being good at a sport doesn’t seem to hurt interest in the Olympics, which once had the most stringent definition of amateurism.
Just like the Olympics, college football and basketball fans will continue to watch their teams in large numbers if athletes are allowed to make money off their NIL.
The tough part about being a progressive is that progress is such a painfully slow process to endure.
Can’t we speed this train up a little?
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
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, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
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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.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
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.
- 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.
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
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