NCAA Clinging to Amateurism Model While Heading to Its Self-Inflicted Death
By Ken Reed
The NCAA won’t let go.
In their minds, NCAA executives view the grossly outdated amateur model (one that that Olympics dropped ages ago) as the only way to conduct college athletics.
It seems the NCAA’s only strategy at this point is to beg Congress for an antitrust exemption so they can continue lining their pockets with cash while treating college athletes in an unjust manner.
In the meantime, the NCAA keeps losing case after case in the courts.
In NCAA v. Alston, the NCAA lost the ruling 9-0. Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered this opinion:
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market value.”
As Dan Wolken wrote in a recent USA Today column:
“By now, this is a familiar pattern. The NCAA’s arguments in favor of amateurism sound ridiculous to judges when they are held up against the law because they are ridiculous in any other context than the tradition of college sports.”
Meanwhile, college sports have become the Wild, Wild West where almost anything goes. The NCAA fought against name, image and likeness (NIL) rights for athletes for so long that individual states had to step in and create their own rules by which college athletes could exercise NIL rights. That was a positive development but since the NCAA failed to act proactively, states across the country implemented different sets of NIL rules for college athletes. As a result, college sports have become a chaotic mess.
One organization the NCAA should spend more time listening to is the National College Players Association (NCPA). The NCPA is a 501c3 non-profit headed by former UCLA linebacker Ramogi Huma. The organization, made up of current and former college athletes, has been a leader in the college athletes’ rights movement since 2001. They have focused on health and safety for players, Title IX enforcement, and fair compensation for athletes. They have been a key driver for NCAA reform the past couple decades.
The bottom line is, the NCAA is losing the battle over college athletes’ rights. Congress isn’t going to grant them an antitrust exemption. Momentum is definitely on the side of the players as they fight for their civil and economic rights.
“I think the Power Five and NCAA proposals are dead in the water,” says Huma. “They went to Congress and they lost, at this point, all they can do is play defense, which is what we were doing at first. Now, we’re playing offense.”
— 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.
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 #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
Books