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Brendan Barrett

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

6 April 2017

NCAA: Exploitation at its finest

Wednesday February 1st, 2017. On this special day, members of the 2017 recruiting class

signed their national letters of intent and, legally, became college football student-athletes.

Highly recruited athletes saw this day was filled with media exposure and crazy fans. For others,

they were embraced by only their closest friends and family. This day has been seen through

thousands of different lenses, but these athletes all saw the same sheet presented in front of them.

The National Collegiate Athletic Associations Form 08-3a, also known as the Student-Athlete

form. Athletes see this as their way to fame and fortune, but with their signature, prospects sign

away their rights to their names and image. Unlike their fellow students, athletes are restricted

from making any money from their performance. So wWhile these athletes will never see a

single cent for all of the hard work they put into their college careers, their coaches will continue

to rake in millions.

The NCAA runs an extremely lucrative industry and manages to consistently find

loopholes and get away with it. The March Madness tournament from this year alone generated

10.4 million viewers per game and an all-time best 93.5 million live video streams up to the
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Final Four. The Final Four National Semifinal games averaged 16.8 million viewers, making it

the second most-watched Final Four in 19 years (Dachman). With those staggering numbers the

question comes about; how much money did they make from the tournament? Although the

numbers from this year have yet to be released, last year the NCAA brought in a record $1

billion in revenue from their media rights, ticket sales, corporate sponsors, and television ads

during the three-week long tournament. They also have a deal with CBS Sports and Turner

Broadcasting System for 10.8 billion dollars, yes billion, to broadcast the tournament from 2011-

2025. (Investopedia). The NCAA isnt the only group cashing in on these games; every game

that a school participates in will earn their conference of around $1.7 million. This money is paid

over the next 6 years and is known as the basketball fund'; Its how the NCAA distributes some

of the profits they make back to the schools. March Madness generates the most revenue for the

NCAA due to its length and relevance (Kesselring). The amount of money generated during this

tournament is insane, but so are the coaches salaries! While their players do all of the leg work

and make nothing, theyre the coaches are making millions of dollars. Rick Pitino made 7.7

million dollars, John Calipari made 7.4 million dollars, and Mike Krzyzewski made 5.5 million

dollars in just this past year! (Berkowitz) College basketball is probably arguably the most

exploited collegiate sport due to the amount of games and exposure that the athletes experience,

but it certainly is not the only one. The College Football Playoff was instated in 2014, and teams

that are fortunate enough to make it there bring in $6 million dollars for their conference.

Whether they play in the National title game or not, they still reap the benefits. Also, every

conference with a team playing in the playoff will be paid an additional $2.16 million to cover
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travel and other expenses. Its no surprise that the schools were paid well, the championship

game drew in over 26 million viewers making it the sixth-most watched cable broadcast in

history. ESPN also pays $600 million annually to broadcast the game, and charges $1 million

dollars for a 30-second advertisement. The coaches in this sport are paid a little bit more

graciously. Last year, Jim Harbaugh made $9 million, Nick Saban made $7 million and Urban

Meyer made $6 million.

How can the NCAA allow the coaches and schools to be paid but not the athletes

themselves? They do this by coining the athletes as amateurs. This amateur status by definition

limits prevents the athlete from: salary for participating in athletics, receiving gifts, and does not

permit them to have any endorsements (NCAA). Underneath the conditions that college athletes

are held to, they are technically employees and should be able to negotiate wages. With constant

practices, workouts, games, and other physical demands they are working 20+ hours per week

and should have the opportunity to reap the benefits (Cooper). Along with the rigorous physical

aspect, these athletes also academic students. So not only are these athletes devoting most of

their time to the team, they pretty much have to do schoolwork in all of their free time if theyre

going to keep up at all. The NCAA claims that if student athletes had the opportunity to accept

money from anyone that they may be exploited, and that taking money out of the equation

allows the athletes to focus on academics. All the while, athletes can compete on national

television just like professionals but arent able to see the same benefits. The Olympics held up

the amateur title until 1988, but it was obvious that Communist nations were paying their

athletes to train full-time, and other countries were paying athletes through endorsements.
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College sports draw in some of the largest audiences yet are the only industry to maintain this

state of amateurism (Zimbalist). Not paying the athletes for their performance in this way is sort

of primitive. These young men and women participate in something that is eerily consistent with

the concept of gladiators or a zoo.ide of the NCAA in order to keep the upper level, lesser

involved employees happy and wealthy. oth a hectic athletic schedule a

The reason for the uproar about this debate is that athletes are the only students

discriminated against with the amateur title. Musicians and Actors can freely make money from

their craft with no limits, but student-athletes are held to a different standard. Colleges should

extend the title of amateur to these other students or just abolish the term completely; a policy

that only applies to certain students certainly isnt fair (Zimbalist). It especially isnt fair because

an athletes career window is entirely different from a musician or actors. Athletes have a small

window for their peak performance level, which emphasizes their need to earn money while they

are at the collegiate level. Most college athletes overestimate overshoot when estimating their

skill level when the clear majority will never have the opportunity to play professionally. In fact,

less than 2% of college athletes make it professionally (New). So while it is typically argued that

college athletes dont need to be paid because playing at the collegiate level is a gateway into

wealth at the professional level, that point is actually quite moot considering actual quantitative

data.

While it is wrong for many reasons to force college athletes to perform unpaid, one of the

biggest reasons is dehumanization. Dehumanization is a topic that is brought up in relation to

sports specifically pertaining to football. Football of course, being a high contact, very physical
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sport, can be very dangerous at times. Theres a high possibility of concussions, broken bones,

torn ligaments and occasionally death. On average, around 12 college football players die a year.

While that number seems slightly underwhelming, the NCAA makes a lot of money because the

entire country loves to watch football. While that is great, the concept of having such young

athletes go out and risk their lives for the sake of entertainment is wrong, especially considering

these athletes dont reap any immediate benefits, let alone economic ones. (The idea of watching

other humans compete has been a social institution in the entertainment industry as far as we can

go back in history.) Aside from the immediate consequences of playing football, science has

proven that football almost always causes long-term physical and neurological damage further

down the line. It has been found time and time again that middle-aged men who played football

in their youth, especially through a collegiate level, had lost quite a bit of their rudimentary

cognitive ability. Not to say that playing this sport makes anyone dumb, because it doesnt, it

does pretty regularly kill brain cells. While it is a small amount of brain cells that is lost most of

the time, we only have a finite amount of brain cells and you get hit hard every single play in

football. So consider the statistic stating that only 2% of college athletes end up playing

professionally; is it worth it to play 4 years in college, and realistically receive no benefits but the

memories and invite permanent cognitive and neurological damage? I would venture to say that

it not worth it. A majority of college level football players have difficulty with some speech,

reading, and even vision complications once theyre older that strictly correlate with their time

spent on the field. Aside from something as deep as brain damage, there is also the fear of simple

physical damage. After spending so long training, especially at a collegiate level, your body will

naturally just give out sooner. Playing football in college will almost surely cause physical

complications as an individual ages, and medical bills are not cheap. It would make much more
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sense to pay these college athletes while theyre playing as sort of a repayment for the troubles

playing the sport will cause them in the future. The amount of money that the NCAA makes off

these athletes is obnoxious and the fact that none of the athletes reap an economic reward from it

is unrealistic. Without the athletes, the NCAA wouldnt be able to make any money, so the

athletes themselves should most certainly be paid simply based upon the fact that they go out on

a field every day for someones entertainment and risk their immediate physical health and

definitely damage their long-term physical health. The amount of degradation the athletes

realistically live with is conceptually similar to the human zoos of the early 20th century. The

NCAA schematically functions as a social institution and is consistently exploiting the college

athletes as the NCAA themselves continue to see marginal profit.side of the NCAA in order to

keep the upper level, lesser involved employees happy and wealthy. oth a hectic athletic schedule

Athletes are not only restricted from being compensated for their performance but they

are also restricted from profiting from their own name. The NCAA claims that this prevents them

from becoming celebrities and avoids the media unlike professional stars but, millions tune in to

watch the NCAA tournament and College Football Playoff. Not to mention, the regular season

games and coverage on ESPN over these collegiate teams. The media surrounds these athletes

constantly so the claim that amateurism protects them from this is just plain wrong. In fact, the

NCAA claims to not profit off the names or images of college athletes. As a social institution, the

NCAA is essentially reaping all of their benefits from the reputations of the players, and giving

the players themselves none of the money. It is sad that a social institution that is this vile is as

well established as they are. A couple of years ago, Jay Bilas went on a twitter rant on the official
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NCAA shop. When he searched names like Manziel or Clowney, their jerseys would pop-

up. Although they didnt technically have their names on the jerseys, the players corresponding

jersey numbers would appear with their college. This means that fans could search their favorite

players name, and be linked directly to their jersey. The NCAA has dodged copyright laws for

years by simply using the schools name and number but failing to use the athletes last name.

Although, when someone is wearing a #2 Texas A&M jersey its most likely not because their

favorite number is 2. This is a complete abuse of power and once again the NCAA using the

athletes as crutch in their own personal rat race. Name recognition and branding the key to the

success of any business in this day and age. While the NCAA is very recognizable, no one

watches the NCAA games in support of the NCAA, they watch the games in order to support a

team or an individual player that they really like. The branding for the NCAA is realistically

accomplished by the players themselves, simply for participating in the sport and being

broadcasted to audiences by the NCAA. The players begun to get recognized for their talent or

something that pertains to specifically them, and then that turns into a new fan for the team they

play for, and so on and so forth. Regardless of how much attention a fan pays attention, whether

it be to one player, or a whole team or whatever- the NCAA reaps the benefits at any of those

levels, whereas the players receive no benefits at any of those levels. Aside from the concept of

simply gaining revenue, proper branding and marketing for these players and teams is not a

cheap thing to handle either. Other than the players and their own personal performance, the

NCAA has to pay for its ads and PR. The branding and marketing thats accomplished due to the

players and players alone is free, while all of the other stuff is pricy and costs both time and

money.
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The NCAA needs to reconsider their identification of college athletes as amateurs and

compensate them appropriately. It simply doesnt make sense that advertisers and coaches are

making all of the money off of these athletes. If the conclusion is that college athletes are being

paid in scholarships and other extremities, then the NCAA shouldnt compensate them directly.

Rather allow the athletes to make money off their own name instead of using paternal control

over them. The counterargument that the athletes are paid in scholarships and other amenities is a

fickle one. Its an excuse given by the bureaucratic side of the NCAA in order to keep the upper

level, lesser involved employees happy and wealthy. The exploitation of these athletes is cruel

and dehumanizing- the players are what rake in all of the profit so it only makes logical sense

that they too should receive of an amount of that money made. The amount of time spent training

on a field and working out in the gym, the amount of social activities and time sacrifices made in

order to maintain being an athlete, and the juggling of both a hectic athletic schedule and a

normal students academic level should be celebrated in a tangible way. Without the talent and

personality of the players, the NCAA wouldnt be making any money at all.
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"Amateurism." NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA. N.p., 24 Apr. 2014. Web. 06 Apr.

2017.

Berkowitz, Steve . "USA TODAY Sports." USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network,

n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.

Cooper, Kenneth J. "Should College Athletes Be Paid to Play?" Diverse: Issues in Higher

education 28.10 (2011): 12-13. ERIC. Web. 16 Mar. 2017.

Dachman, Jason. "March Madness Ratings Roundup: Final Four Averages 16.8M Viewers, Up

44%." Sports Video Group. N.p., 3 Apr. 2017. Web.

Kesselring, Colt. "How Much Money Each NCAA Tournament Team Earned for their

Conference." HERO Sports. N.p., 26 Mar. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.

New, Jake. "College athletes greatly overestimate their chances of playing

professionally." College athletes greatly overestimate their chances of playing professionally.

Inside Higher Education, 27 Jan. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

Parker, Tim. "How Much Does the NCAA Make off March Madness?" Investopedia. N.p., 13

Mar. 2017. Web. 5 Apr. 2017.

Zimbalist, Andrew. Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time

College Sports. Princeton Up, 2001. Print.