In a 9-0 vote in May, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory to college athletes over a compensation battle that has dragged on for years. The justices upheld a lower court ruling that the NCAA cannot limit education-related benefits, including how schools reimburse players for things such as computers, musical instruments, books, and science equipment.
This is a great step that moves us much closer to seeing the day college athletes are finally paid for the revenue they produce for everyone but themselves.
That revenue is no chump change, either — we’re talking big money. The total revenue reported among all NCAA athletics departments in 2019 was $18.9 billion.
In addition, think of all the other parties that make a nice profit, including the coaches who make more in a year than most people make in a lifetime, the local communities, the stadium vendors, the television networks, the advertising firms, and even the parking attendants.
But the players — the key to the game, the ones everybody comes to see, and the ones who make it all happen — walk away with zero, zilch, nada! How can anyone with even an inkling of common sense think this is fair?
Imagine a profitable business saying it wouldn’t pay its employees. Every last one of them would quit. I know I wouldn’t work for free, and I’m sure you wouldn’t, either.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it best when he said, “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 rate. And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different.”
Kavanaugh is correct. Yet, we have taken advantage of our revenue-producing college athletes forever and gotten away with it. It’s nothing more than modern-day slavery. It’s a money scheme that would make the late Bernie Madoff proud.
The NCAA has defended its no-pay rules on many different grounds. One of particular interest is its claim that compensating student-athletes would destroy the competitive balance in college sports.
There’s absolutely no logic to this statement. As a former collegiate and professional athlete and someone who coaches many professional athletes, I know we’re all on different pay scales. Corporate executives earn different amounts of money. Pro athletes earn different amounts of money.
If anything, waving greenbacks in front of the athletes would be motivational, increasing competitive spirit more than anything else.
Whether to pay college athletes has long been a heated debate, we have made great strides forward in recent years. A few years ago, a federal judge ruled the NCAA can’t stop players from selling the rights to their names, images, and likeness.
And with the recent 9-0 victory in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, it’s only a matter of time before athletes get their fair share of the big pie.
The wheels of justice move very slowly, but they are moving in the right direction. We are closer than we have ever been. It’s time for the NCAA to finally step up and start paying these great athletes for the entertainment they provide.
Steve Siebold is a former collegiate athlete, a certified financial educator, and author of How Money Works: Stop Being a Sucker.
