The new college football and basketball seasons will bring great games, fantastic finishes, and good times for fans. But they also will bring corruption and scandal.
To induce athletes to play for them, schools will violate National Collegiate Athletic Association incentive and compensation rules by paying athletes under the table, providing jobs and other benefits to undeserving family and friends, and even hire escorts.
To keep athletes eligible for competition, schools will facilitate, encourage, or at least turned a blind eye towards phony courses, unearned grades, and tutors who write papers and take tests for athletes. It’s all been done before.
In 2016, Inside Higher Ed reported that “43 percent of all universities that play in the high-profile Football Bowl Subdivision and more than half the members of the Power Five conferences committed major violations of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules in the last decade.”
Notable universities on this list include Alabama, Cal-Berkeley, Florida, Georgetown, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Princeton, and Southern California.
After decades of scandal, more corruption seems inevitable. It is not. Two basic but radical reforms will end the corruption and at the same time benefit athletes.
First, eliminate the NCAA rules that ban payments to athletes. These rules keep at least the reported prices for athletes’ services below prices that schools and athletes otherwise would freely negotiate. Like other regimes that control prices, these rules have produced a black market that facilitates payment of undisclosed and illicit higher prices. Eliminating these payment limits would end the corruption associated with incentives and compensation. No more under-the-table payments. No more jobs and other benefits for undeserving family and friends. No more hiring escorts.
Eliminating the NCAA payment limits also would benefit athletes. They would earn what their athletic services are worth. Young athletes around the world get paid at market rates to play soccer, baseball, tennis, and golf. There is no reason that college athletes shouldn’t as well. They are already paid through scholarships that cover some or all of the costs of tuition, books, room, and board. They should be allowed to negotiate for cash in addition to, or instead of, scholarship benefits. To allow athletes to prudently negotiate, NCAA limits on hiring agents also should be eliminated.
Second, eliminate NCAA academic requirements. The opportunity to obtain a college education is a boon for many, but not all. Simultaneously being a big-time college athlete and a college student is notoriously difficult. Eliminating NCAA academic requirements will end incentives for schools to have athletes cheat in the classroom. Schools will no longer need to have athletes be awarded particular grades to maintain athletic eligibility. No more phony courses, unearned grades, or tutors who write papers and take tests for athletes. Athletes who want to be students will be real students. Those who do not will not.
Before condemning this proposal to abolish academic requirements, consider that these requirements are already minimal. The requirements for a straight-A student in the bioengineering program at Stanford are stringent, but those for a nearly failing student in the physical education program, doing the minimum to remain athletically eligible at Mississippi State, are not. Eliminating the academic requirements would not change much.
It’s time to end the corruption and scandals. Let schools pay athletes. Free athletes to earn what their services are worth. Let athletes decide whether to be students. Eliminate the incentive for schools to foster classroom cheating.
David M. Simon is a lawyer in Chicago. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the law firm with which he is affiliated.
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