The Road Ends Here: Hastening Economic Reform in the NCAA

The Road Ends Here
Hastening Economic Reform in the NCAA
Lance Christian Johnson
Technological Entrepreneurship and Management
Arizona State University
Field Research & Review by Cameron Miller, MSLB
(PHOTO: UMTailgate.com)

THE ROAD ENDS HERE 2
The Road Ends Here:
Hastening Economic Reform in the NCAA
Lance Christian Johnson
Arizona State University

Abstract
This paper examines how the nominally non-profit, National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) has leveraged its unique position in the global sports marketplace to
monopolize the supply and output of high-value amateur athletes and form a $10 billion-dollar
licensing cartel in the process. Central to this argument is how the NCAA-coined designation,
“student-athlete” has been used to (1) appropriate the name, image and likeness rights of college
athletes, (2) perpetuate a de facto sports cartel through the sole-capitalization of those rights and
(3) unwittingly create a black market where young and predominately underaged recruits are
regularly compromised by network of unscrupulous sports industry professionals. Briefly
explored are potential reforms to NCAA policy, governance and revenue structures, with a focus
on potential remedies precipitating from recent court challenges, legal settlements and other
industry developments and outcomes.
Keywords: ncaa, antitrust, amateurism, sports, economics

Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................... 3
The Road Ends Here........................................................................................................... 5
A Brief History.................................................................................................................... 6
Enter, “Student-Athlete” ..................................................................................................... 6
The Economics of Exploitation .......................................................................................... 8
The NCAA Cartel ............................................................................................................. 10
Riding the Money Train.....................................................................................................11
Risks ≠ Rewards ............................................................................................................... 12
The New Plantation?......................................................................................................... 13
Probing the Void................................................................................................................ 15
Studying Up ...................................................................................................................... 17
Interview: ASU Law’s Cameron Miller............................................................................ 18
Conclusions....................................................................................................................... 20
Designing a Sustainable Amateur Model.......................................................................... 21
Addressing Rebuttals ........................................................................................................ 22
References......................................................................................................................... 24

The Road Ends Here
Ramblers and Wolverines; Wildcats and Jayhawks. The Final Four. Even for those who
don’t count themselves among the throngs of nervous, nail-biting alums, office bracket-peddlers
and rabid, foam-finger wavers, avoiding the annual TV ritual of college basketball’s March
Madness has become a nearly impossible task. At the time of this writing, the NCAA’s 2018
Men’s Basketball Tournament has reached a fever pitch: Four schools, thirty-two coaches, sixty
student-athletes, millions of screaming fans and a billion-plus dollars in broadcast revenues—all
brought to you live and in multi-format, high-definition color on the backs, ankles, heads and
shoulders of young, highly-skilled and predominantly at-risk overachievers like junior Clayton
Custer (Ramblers #13), senior
Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman
(Wolverines #12), junior Jalen
Brunson (Wildcats #1) and senior
Devonte' Graham (Kansas #4).
Thanks in large part to the
hard work, skill and determination of
these highly-touted student-athletes, Cinderella-story Loyola-Chicago and perennial basketball
powerhouses Michigan, Villanova and Kansas are the last four teams standing in a field that once
stood at sixty-eight. And, thanks to its monopoly on these athletes’ labor, their talents, names and
likenesses, the NCAA has built a $10B (NCAA, 2010) sports cartel (Blair & Whitman, 2018)
whose amateurism rules have created a black market (Hines, 2017) of young, impressionable
amateurs pit against experienced, sports professionals luring them with lofty promises, flashy
merchandise and illicit cash and benefits.
Figure 1- Slick graphics, prominent promos and strong, national
branding clearly demonsrate the NCAA’s undeniable marketing
mastery. (Photo: NCAA)

A Brief History
Originally convened in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt (ironically mythologized
as the, “trust-buster”), the Intercollegiate Athletic Association (IAA) was chartered to establish
player safety and competition standards for the relatively new (and increasingly deadly) sport of
college football (Smith, 2000). By 1910, the 35-member
schools of the National Collegiate Athletics Association
(NCAA) had ratified their first charter. Over the next 40-
years, as NCAA membership ballooned to over 250-
colleges and universities (NCAA, 2014), so too did its
influence over amateur sports in general, its control over
member institutions, and its legal interpretation and
application of in loco parentis (Carter, 2003) in the lives
and careers of its athletes in particular.
Enter, “Student-Athlete”
In the early 1950’s, with efforts to curb gambling,
recruiting and other competitive violations increasingly
stymied by powerful members like Harvard, Yale and Penn, the NCAA’s agenda took a
decidedly commercial turn. First, the Sanity Code was repealed, as the practice of expelling
violators from their schools threatened to gut entire programs and the NCAA’s communal grip
on each (Smith, 2000). Second, responding to the perceived “threats” (Carter, 2006) of the
professional leagues, radio and television broadcasts, and the growing legal liabilities of its
athletes’ health and welfare, NCAA executives used their charter to appropriate the intellectual
Figure 2 – In 1906, outcry over college
football "brutality" spawned the NCAA.
(CREDIT: NY Times)

property rights of its member-institutions, their athletic programs and the athletes themselves
(Smith 2000).
Next, NCAA executives “crafted the term, student-athlete” (Branch, 2011), an in-house
designation that not only preempted any notions of employee-style, legal entitlements in the
minds of college athletes, labor associations and the courts (Littlefield, 2017), but also created a
powerful new way to leverage the nascent talent pool at its disposal. The NCAA’s crafty
injection of “student-athlete” into the sports
business lexicon also had the effect of
making what should otherwise have been the
wholly unacceptable practice of building a
billion-dollar corporation on the backs of
young, unpaid workers into a perfectly
acceptable, legal, commercial and social
myth (McCormick & McCormick, 2006).
By 1956, in a decisive pivot toward the
commercial institution we know today, the IRS granted tax-exempt status (ProPublica, 2016) to
the NCAA, giving it all the leverage it needed to build what legendary Executive Director Walter
Byers would later call, “a nationwide money laundering scheme” (Byers & Hammer, 1998). In
fact, so timely, creative and durable was the NCAA’s commercial strategy, that more than a half-
century would pass before either its tax-exempt business model (Colombo, 2009)—or the legal,
economic and social injustices of the “student-athlete” paradigm that enabled it (Baker, Maxcy,
& Thomas, 2011)—were successfully challenged in the courts. Today, one-hundred and twelve
years since its inception, the NCAA’s penetration, visibility and control over collegiate sports
Figure 3 – An apt contemplation of relations between
university academics and their athletic counterparts
(CREDIT: John Darkow)

spans so far beyond its original rule-making mandate that casual observers might easily confuse
it for an actual government agency (Carter, 2006).
Dozens of lawsuits (Associated Press, 2018),
thousands of broadcasts and billions of dollars hence,
drastic reforms are come again—this time unfolding
against a backdrop of unthinkable child, sexual and
campus assault allegations, shameful academic and
recruiting scandals and overtly unethical pay-for-play
revelations stemming from a full-blown FBI investigation
(Bean, 2018). Indeed, today’s NCAA finds its
exploitative bylaws, hypocritical business model and its very raison d'être (Treadway, 2017)
under a well-deserved legal, professional and popular assault.
The Economics of Exploitation
The hallmark of the American Dream is, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Economically speaking, no establishment is more germane to these all-American precepts than
the, “free flow of goods and services” prescribed and advanced by the principles of free-market
capitalism. Concurrently, no economic arrangement threatens the basis of the American Dream
more than fixed markets, restrained prices and outputs—the telltale signs of a “classic cartel”
(NCAA v. Board of Regents, 468 U.S. 85 (1984). Put simply, there is nothing more
fundamentally American than people trying to make money—and nothing more distinctly un-
American than stopping people from making it.
Figure 4 - The NCAA's 415-page 2017-
18 Division I Manual (Source: NCAA)

With an image steeped in the smiling faces of bright, young student-athletes
appreciatively toiling under its wholesome patronage, the NCAA has succeeded in pulling off
what many bright and studied minds now view as a full-scale commercial heist (Huma &
Staurowsky, 2012)—a $10 billion-dollar, for-profit enterprise built on the legal fallacy of non-
profit “amateurism”. That is to say, in consideration for the “free” education they receive (or so
the faulty logic goes), the NCAA promulgates a system which requires its laborers (student-
athletes) to train as much as 40-hours per week (Jacobs, 2015), for one craft (athletics) schedule
and attend dozens of hours of vitally important class and study time for another (academics),
survive without a job and/or a budget for food, fun, family-visit, insurance or retirement, and
foreswear—under pain of ineligibility—to accept no outside wages, gifts or benefits—all while
putting their bones, brains, soft and connective tissues at risk for an arbitrary and unguaranteed,
non-cash award of athletic scholarship (Gaines, 2015).
Provided they’re healthy, talented and/or eligible enough for the following season, these
incredible over-achievers put it all on the line for their schools, their teammates and families in
the hopes of a better, more stable future and, perhaps, a few fleeting moments—between
Figure 4 – A group of exuberant NCAA Student Athletes from the Division III George Fox University
Bruins. (PHOTO: GFU)

absurdly profitable, $1M commercial spots, that is (Gaines, 2015)— on cable TV. Indeed,
without an alternative system to compete in, student-athletes are being flat-out exploited by
monopoly.
The NCAA Cartel
Markets are places where buyers and sellers come to interact, exchange and transact. Free
markets are those where prices are determined by the forces of unrestricted competition, supply
and demand. A monopolized
market features a single seller
interacting with many buyers to
restrict supplies and dictate
prices (think, “Ma Bell”). A
market monopsony features a
single buyer interacting with
many sellers to restrict demand
and dictate prices (think,
“TARP” and the “moral hazard”).
Through its sole control over college-bound athletes and the institutions they must inevitably
play for, the NCAA operates both a monopoly and monopsony in college athletics (Blair &
Romano, 1997): As a lone “buyer” of college-recruits (there is no alternate path to college
athletics), the NCAA controls the market by governing their eligibility (fixing supplies) and
capping their scholarship awards (dictating prices). As the lone “seller” of college-recruits (there
is no alternate source of college athletes), the NCAA controls the market by governing eligibility
(fixing supplies) and capping scholarship awards (dictating prices)—each being anti-competitive
Figure 3 – A snapshot of the NCAA’s 2015 IRS Form 990. Note the $50M in
corporate payroll. (Source: PROPUBLICA)

practices that place artificial restrictions on supplies, outputs and prices, the very traits of a cartel
(NCAA v. Board of Regents, 1982).
In fact, the NCAA’s entire
licensing, broadcast, advertising and
revenue model would collapse without the
willing participation of, NCAA student-
athletes. For this reason, student-athletes
are in dire need of protection (Bean, 2018)
from what is an evidently corrupt and
exploitative commercial regime (Nocera, Strauss, &
Hoffman, 2016).
Riding the Money Train
At its core, the NCAA is a legion of highly-
paid, veteran athletic and media professionals, sports
and entertainment lawyers, administrators and
executives. Together, they perpetuate what is now a
ten billion-dollar (NCAA, 2010) media cartel. The
larger enterprise consists of the hundreds of athletic
programs and conferences, school administrators,
coaches, assistants, venue and event managers,
product and service sponsors, radio, television and Internet broadcasters who partnering
(collude) with the NCAA to set the value of their unpaid, 17 – 22-year old athletes hundreds of
Figure 5 – In all 50-states, public school admins sit atop the
public payrolls. In 42-States, coaches are the highest paid public
employees. (PHOTO: Deadspin)
Figure 5 - Behold the beauty of the student-
athlete labor force (CREDIT: The Economist)

thousands of dollars below their fair market value (NCPA, 2012)—converting their personality
rights into billions in broadcast, licensing, merchandising and ticket dollars in the process.
These windfall, “non-profit” revenues then flow in reverse—from sponsors to
broadcasters, NCAA to the conferences, schools to coaches—but never, ever in the form of direct
payments to the athletes who make it all possible. Should the NCAA find that they have reaped
even the smallest, most incidental personal gain from their talents, the threat of ineligibility,
sanctions, lost playing time and economic
opportunity looms larger than ever.
Risks ≠ Rewards
For NCAA athletes, the threat of
ineligibility is what gives the NCAA real teeth.
For, behind the glamor and popularity of the
“BMOC”, lies a sordid and worrisome truth: If
a scholarship athlete should become ineligible
or no longer willing or able to perform to her
program’s standards—whether through injury, competition, fit, etc.—she can be cut (Miller,
2018), and rather quickly become a former college athlete with no money from her work, no
scholarship for her education, no team for her development and no degree to show for any of it
all (Littlefield, 2017). Ultimately, the NCAA’s sports business model transfers most (if not all)
of the risk of studying, competing and compliance onto the student-athlete—the party with the
least resources, the lowest margin for error and the smallest share of the rewards.
In leaving college without any of what she came for, the former student-athlete very
likely returns home to the same, bleak economic reality she left home to cure—only this time,
“THE COLLEGE ATHLETE
CANNOT SELL HIS OWN FEET
(THE COACH DOES THAT) NOR
CAN HE SELL HIS OWN NAME
(THE COLLEGE WILL DO THAT).
THIS IS THE PLANTATION
MENTALITY RESURRECTED AND
BLESSED BY TODAY’S CAMPUS
EXECUTIVE.”
-WALTER BYERS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NCAA
(1951 – 1988)

minus the rights to her own personality and the basic freedom to market, promote and benefit
from the experiences, appearances, achievements and accolades that naturally flow from them
(Price, 2015). These basic, personal intellectual rights are those that any other class of employee
or contractor might rightly take for granted in their professional pursuits, but that former NCAA
student-athletes have been utterly denied (Forgrave, 2017). Until very recently, NCAA members
were contractually free and monetarily motivated to market, sell and profit from their student
athletes’ personalities, performances and
likenesses in virtual commercial perpetuity.
Using the overly-restrictive,
Division I Manual (NCAA, 2018) to limit
scholarship athletes’ personal and
professional rights, the NCAA has not only
fixed the $1B college sports market in
America, but indirectly created a multimillion-dollar black market for athletic talent as well—a
fact behind why today’s NCAA finds itself mired in controversy (Nocera, Strauss, & Hoffman,
2016), saddled with liability (Fox Sports, 2014) and absolutely flooded with cash (California
State Assembly Democratic Caucus, 2018).
The New Plantation?
Given the predominance of African-American athletes in college football and basketball
(Harper, 2015) and the “unmistakable whiff of the plantation” (Branch, 2011) terms like
“exploitation”, “cartel” and “monopoly” can evoke in such a charged context, injecting the
phrase, “black market” into an exploration of young, gifted black athletes’ unwitting enrichment
of an inarguably old, white patriarchy (Harper, Blackman, & Williams Jr., 2016) is bound to
Video 1 - NBA legend Lebron James recently aired a few
candid personal views on the NCAA. (ESPN)

create real awkwardness. However, given how efficiently NCAA amateur football and basketball
rules transfer $2B+ in would-be wealth each year from a predominately young black male talent
pool to what is chiefly an older, white male stakeholdership (Hruby 2016), the double entendre is
as cynical and snarky as it is inescapably true.
Alas, few institutions in the modern business landscape reek so strongly of outright
exploitation. Based on the NCAA’s historical penchant for imposing draconian restrictions on
the lives, livelihoods and
professional aspirations and pursuits
of their student-athletes (while
simultaneously building a wildly
lucrative, commercial enterprise),
even the most practical observer
might draw parallels to popular,
slavery-era racial biases and
perceptions (Abdul-Jabbar, 2018)—
especially given the cultural makeup
of the labor force in question.
Indeed, prior to some of the progress
made against the NCAA in the
courts, the NCAA has operated a
form of indentured servitude, where
athletes wishing to pursue economic

freedom and success are essentially forced into trading their talents in for non-negotiable, non-
transferrable in-kind compensation (NCPA, 2015).
Probing the Void
Whether the contact comes through a high school coach, a friend, relative or any one of
the dozens of college recruiters, boosters, sports agents, merchandisers, shady go-betweens and
handlers, today’s high-profile football and basketball recruits come under an incredible amount
of financial, material and social pressure to meet,
greet and accept clandestine, pay-for-play
benefits. By artificially suppressing the
immutable laws of the free-market and unjustly
denying college sport’s highest value student-
athletes (football and basketball players) of their
right to earn even modest income from their
talent and potential (Hruby, 2013), the NCAA’s
current “amateurism” model essentially
guarantees that the illicit, black talent market
will not only persist, but continue to grow going
forward (Huma & Staurowsky, 2012).
The FBI’s recent pay-for-play
revelations (Bean, 2018) have made a couple
realities abundantly clear: (1) A thriving, well-
developed, black market for high-value college
and pro-bound athletes has existed for years,Figure 7 - The NCAAM coaches' black-market scandal in
a nutshell (@SDNYnews)
Figure 6- The NCAAM companies' black-market scandal
in a nutshell (@SDNYnews)

quite possibly with the tacit approval of high-level individuals within athletic programs
(schools), corporations (sponsors) and the NCAA itself and; (2) these activities are so
institutionally pervasive, so monetarily embedded into the system that the NCAA is simply too
compromised—too utterly overrun—to take responsibility for the this sad state of affairs and
actually enforce the very bylaws it promulgates in defense of its zealous idealism and in its very
existence withal.
Instead, law enforcement
agencies like the FBI are out doing
the NCAA’s job for it—developing
sources, following leads and
rooting out corruption (Hobson,
2018)— while the multimillionaire
executives in Indianapolis focus
instead on reviving the throwback,
Walter Byers-era NCAA that worried solely about making money (Smith, 2000).
These developments serve as both indisputable confirmation and as a basic and
incontrovertible economic truth about markets, monopolies and cartels: Where high-value goods
and services exist under artificial legal and economic restraints, buyers and sellers will simply
move their interactions and transactions elsewhere, usually underground, off the books and some
greater risk to the lesser party—in this case, the young, comparatively poorer and far less
informed college sports recruits. Ultimately, when things go wrong, the young and vulnerable
end up on the wrong side of the equation.
Figure 8 - Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Kevin Siers really has a way
with...words. (PoliticalCartoons.com)

Studying Up
At Stanford University, professors Blakey Vermeule and Susan Stephens recently
spearheaded the launch of a free, online course (MOOC), Sports and the University (Stanford,
2018). Offered in partnership with eDX.org, the course examines the origins and history of
college athletics in America and the critical economic, racial and gender considerations required
to bring meaningful reform to the NCAA.
At the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Race & Equity in Education,
activist-scholars like Dr. Shaun Harper conducted years of research into how factors like race,
culture and economic environment on America’s college campuses affect cultural equity in
higher education (The University of Pennsylvania, 2017). Dr. Harper’s important work is set to
resume in 2018 at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education
(Brenneman, 2018).
At Drexel University, Goodwin College Sport
Management Department Dr. Ellen Staurowsky teamed up with
the National College Players Association (NCPA)—a non-profit,
college athlete advocacy group—a to study how the NCAA’s
amateurism model denies billions in fair compensation to
student-athletes every year (McKechnie, 2013). The $6 Billion
Heist: Robbing College Athletes under the Guise of Amateurism
(NCPA, 2015) makes a clear, well-researched case for reforming
the NCAA’s exploitative economic paradigm by allowing athletes to reap more of the benefits
from their sacrifice, investment and institutional returns.
Figure 9 - Huma and Staurowsky’s
work paints an unflattering portrait of
the NCAA.

Interview: ASU Law’s Cameron Miller
At Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, graduates like
Cameron Miller view the NCAA’s rampant economic and ethical issues with an eye toward
building consensus within America’s business, academic and
legal communities. A native of Bakersfield, California, Miller’s
introduction to the NCAA’s needlessly restrictive economic
model came at the expense of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
After landing a bit part as a distance-running extra in
McFarland, USA (2015), the Stanford University cross-country
runner nearly stepped on the third-rail of student-athletics: He
almost made a buck. Before he could commit the sin of working a side job, however, Miller was
waved off the trail by his compliance office, later going on to become an Academic All-
American with the Cardinal. Today, when not clerking on hot-button NFL concussion
settlements, Cameron raises awareness on the topic by writing about NCAA current news and
events while connecting with other interested parties on meaningful college sports reform.
Q: What do you see as the biggest challenge to NCAA reform?
A: Quite clearly, it’s the money. College sports is absolutely rolling in it. And,
unfortunately, because of how the NCAA executives, the schools, athletic programs and coaches
continue to rake in more and more money each year, they have no real incentive to change.
College sports is a $2-billion growth industry where the status quo pays very, very well.
Q: How do you see the calls for change playing out over the next few years?
A: With the NCAA so dug in, the main venue for change will clearly be in the courts.
O’Bannon v. NCAA (Eder & Strauss, 2014) really changed the game. It’s in the settlement phase
Figure 10 – Sandra Day
O’Connor Sports Law graduate
Cameron Miller believes the
free market holds the only real
answers for student athletes.

now but really opened the door for actions like Jenkins v. NCAA—a case that has real legs in my
estimation. Jenkins could truly prove to be the lynch pin for what is now a multi-party effort to
bring an end to the NCAA's antitrust status and deliver more overall security for college athletes.
Q: Given that mythical magic wand, what economic model would you wave into college
sports in the coming year or years?
A: That’s easy. You don’t need a magic wand because the best model for college sports is
no model at all. The fewer restrictions, the better. There is just no logical economic, institutional,
social or competitive reason that a 100% free market couldn’t serve the college sports business
just as well as it serves every other business in the nation. If there is a reason, I haven’t heard it.
My core belief is that we need to be treating “student-athletes” just like every other student on
campus, which means allowing them to earn whatever money they can from their talents. While
some regulation around the fringes might be acceptable, in general, if we simply apply the same
economic rules to all students, student-athletes would be free to go learn and earn like everyone
else. Business students do it. Computer science students do it. So why prevent football and
basketball students from doing it? The double-standard needs to go.
Q: A common rebuttal to letting the free market reign in college athletics is that it
would undermine competition vis-a-vis the “level playing field”. The richest programs will just
buy all the top recruits, or so the argument goes. How would you counter that?
A: I’d say the top recruits already go to the richest programs. Look at the last decade of
national champions in football and basketball. It’s the same half-dozen programs year in and out.
So, we’re already there. In terms of labor, suggesting that all players everywhere should be paid
the same does not accord with any other business or workforce anywhere in the land. In every
field, the most valuable, in-demand talent receives the best compensation. Pure and simple.

Conclusions
Based on its original mission to protect the physical wellbeing of college athletes and
uphold the noble (if not disingenuous) ideals of sports amateurism, one might rightly agree that,
for the first half of its existence at least, the
NCAA had its organizational heart in the right
place. But, after realizing the commercial
potential of a high-profile, unpaid labor force
and securing the rights to exploit it, the NCAA
has had to be dragged kicking and screaming
(Eder & Strauss, 2014) into a fairer, more
progressive stance with respect to its member-
institutions and the young, economically
vulnerable students and athletes in its charge.
Only through careful and consistent public pressure and legal oversight (Jurist, 2017) can
these long overdue NCAA reforms begin making an impact on the lives, wellbeing and
prosperity of student-athletes (Sallie, 2018; Zucker, 2013). Real damage has already been done.
As many educational and sports industry professionals, administrators and other
concerned parties have begun to strongly argue (The Economist, 2014), it is clearly time to
redefine college sports amateurism, ease its restrictions and treat America’s young, hardworking
college athletes with the respect and consideration they deserve—including securing them fair
and timely compensation for their irreplaceable contributions to this otherwise lucrative
profession. With the tide of economics, education and public opinion running counter to their
mission, perhaps the NCAA’s monopolistic, one-way road of exploitation truly will end here.
“…PROSECUTORS AND THE
COURTS, WITH THE SUPPORT OF
THE PUBLIC, SHOULD USE ANTI-
TRUST LAWS TO BREAK UP THE
COLLEGIATE CARTEL—NOT JUST IN
ATHLETICS, BUT POSSIBLY IN
OTHER AREAS OF COLLEGIATE LIFE
AS WELL.”
-WALTER BYERS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NCAA
(1951 – 1988)

Designing a Sustainable Amateur Model
Given the clear moral and economic imperatives for (a) protecting student-athletes from
the exploitation of the NCAA monopoly, (b) designing a fair and sustainable compensation
model within it and (c) eradicating the existence of
and potential need for a risky black market, a
number of solutions have been proposed in and
outside of the NCAA. However, before any
meaningful designs can be seriously considered the
NCAA and its member institutions must first:
✓ Acknowledge the futility of (and
economic damage caused by) thwarting
basic, supply and demand capitalism
amid the greatest free market economy
on the planet
✓ Acknowledge the basic civil right to
ownership of one’s own name, image,
likeness and talent
✓ Acknowledge the right of every
American to seek and secure the highest
possible compensation for said
personality rights and talents
Figure 11 – A proposed NCAA/student-athlete
revenue sharing model (SportsBusiness Journal)

Addressing Rebuttals
Since its inception, the NCAA has been incredibly successful in maintaining the moral
high-ground (Barrow, 2002) with students and families, athletes, administrators, government
regulators and the public at large. However, the debate over the NCAA’s rigid stance on
protecting the institution of college amateurism from the “corrupting” influence of
professionalism has begun eliciting many interesting, if not completely circular and self-serving
arguments in defense of the status quo. Common arguments against to paying college players
almost always include:
Figure 12 – Potential paid business models for college athletic programs (ARIZONA DAILY STAR)

• “Free Education” – opponents frequently spout the claim that scholarship athletes
are already receiving a super-expensive college education for “free”. This completely
ignores three critical facts: (a) Not all scholarships are “full” (and none are
guaranteed); (b) there is nothing “free” about trading one’s talents in exchange for
college tuition, especially given the very real and long-term risks to the athlete’s
body, brain, tissues and overall physical health and wellbeing and (c) scholarships are
non-transferable, in-kind compensation,
non-negotiable for basic, living
necessities such as food, clothing and
essential services.
• “Purity” – college sports lovers (like this
writer) haven often lamented the prospects
of what a paid sports model would do to amateur sports and whether it would prove
antithetical and destructive to the purer, non-commercial ideals of amateurism. Alas,
this argument completely ignores the fact that of all the dozens of professionals on the
field/court, sidelines, press and sky-boxes, student-athletes are the only ones required
to work at-risk and essentially for free.
• “End as we know it” – Pay model doubters often cite fears that free-market model
might defund/destroy other scholarship sports (esp. non-revenue and women’s sports)
and put smaller, less wealthy programs out of contention. The argument has some
merit (as richer schools would have a market advantage) but ignores the revenue
sharing that would undoubtedly develop to keep league, divisional and post-seasonal
play in a viable, competitive and (above all) commercially marketable state.
Figure 13 - Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Christine
Brennan debate whether college athletes should
get a salary. (CNN / YouTube)

References
Abdul-Jabbar, K. (2018, January 9). It's time to pay the tab for America's college athletes. The
Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/09/its-time-to-
pay-the-tab-for-americas-college-athletes
The Associated Press. (n.d.). A history of challenges to NCAA's ban on paying athletes.
Retrieved April 4, 2018, from https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/history-challenges-
ncaas-ban-paying-athletes
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