The Players Are Leading a College Sports Revolution
By Ken Reed
Several good pieces have come out the last couple days about how college athletes are embracing the power they inherently have to help shape college sports moving forward. Pac-12, Big Ten and Mountain West football players have presented their conferences with a list of demands that they want addressed before they move forward with this season.
“This is their call. You may not like it, but times have changed. The players are acutely aware they control both the supply and demand of college football,” wrote CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd.
“Taking a knee? How about taking charge of a sport that has exploited its players for far too long? With athletes formally organizing, history is being witnessed in real time. They have finally realized, en masse, that they are the product.”
College athletes have never had a union to represent them and voice their concerns. The NCAA, supposedly created to protect athletes, is toothless. Now, as athletes have been called back to campuses across the country in the midst of a pandemic in order to make money for universities, college football players are resisting and organizing via social media.
“Perhaps the silver lining to the atrocity of this summer of harm, then, has been the incredible burgeoning resistance movement from college athletes who are seizing power and speaking out against a system that has long denied their voices,” wrote Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Derek Silva and Johanna Mellis in a well-done long-form piece in The Guardian.
It’s very possible we’re in the midst of a perfect storm, out of which, a more just — and safer — college sports model could emerge.
“This is creating a reckoning for the plantation system of college football like we have never seen before,” wrote Dave Zirin in The Nation.
“It’s the pandemic. It’s the racism. It’s the absence of economic justice. And it’s a volatile combination that could change the system forever.”
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #33 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Ken Reed Announces His Retirement and Chats With League of Fans Founder Ralph Nader – Ken and Ralph talk about the history of League of Fans and the reasons it was created. They then move into a discussion of a variety of contemporary sports issues that League of Fans has been working on in recent years. Ken and Ralph end by talking about the need for sports fans, athletes, and other sports stakeholders to get involved in the sports reform movement and be activists and change agents on issues important to them, whether that be at the local, state, or national level.
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More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify and others.
Episode #32 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Prolific Author Joe Posnanski Joins the Show – Posnanski is one of America’s best sportswriters and has twice been named the best sports columnist in America by the Associated Press Sports Editors. We chat about his new book, “Why We Love Baseball,” his new Substack newsletter called Joe Blogs.
Episode #31 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Foul Ball Safety Is Still an Important Issue at Ballparks – Our guests are Jordan Skopp, founder of FoulBallSafety.com and Greg Wilkowski, a Chicago based attorney. We discuss the historical problem of foul balls injuring fans and why some teams are still hesitant to put up protective netting in some minor league and college baseball parks.
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 member of The Drake Group, a college sports reform think tank.
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.
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