This Title is Brought to you by the NCAA

 

                The landscape of college sports has grown into a multi-million dollar a year industry. Driven by its two cash cows of men’s basketball and football, the NCAA has generated profit margins that rival its professional counterparts. Even over a decade ago in 1999, ticket revenue for men’s basketball and football games were at $757 million; which trumped major league baseball, football, and hockey that year (Kahn 2007).  However despite these large growing profits, the current system has not allocated any extra compensation to the athletes that drive the business. Athletic directors, coaches, and Universities alike are able to benefit from the success while the “student athletes” can only hope for the possibility of being offered a non-guaranteed athletic scholarship. The profit is shared as the NCAA sees fit, and they obviously do not see it as a fit for the athletes that attract the customers to their NCAA approved merchandise.

                This disparity in compensation has produced numerous examples of athletes receiving under the table payment from boosters or others associated with a given University. One of the most infamous accusations came from the Fab Five scandal at Michigan. Then student athlete Chris Webber was accused (along with several other former Wolverines) of receiving money from a man named Ed Martin. Webber’s alleged participation led to the Michigan NCAA tournament banners being stripped down as if the games were never played. Also Webber and the other alleged beneficiaries were alienated out of the program and have not been welcome on campus since. The specifics of the case are not my focus however. The Fab Five example illustrates how the NCAA punishes the individuals that would dare try to capitalize on the NCAA brand that they provide the free advertising for. The very existence of such instances of illegal payment to student athletes is a product of the power dynamics within the NCAA business model. The Fab Five was a group of individuals that helped usher the hip hop culture into college basketball. Their baggy shorts and black socks became best sellers as kids all over the country followed the trend. Unfortunately though for the Jalen Rose’s and Chris Weber’s of the world, they were not allowed to receive a fraction of the profits they were responsible for.

                College players are systematically exploited for the good of the brand they represent.  Many have refuted these claims by arguing that the athletes are still students first and the education they are offered should be payment enough. This just seems as another bourgeois entity trying to maintain the status quo. As long as the NCAA is granted the power to regulate its product without being regulated itself, the rich will continue to get richer and the students will continue to line those pockets and be punished accordingly if they ask for their piece of the metaphorical pie.

               

 

http://www.michigandaily.com/content/fab-five-legacy-tainted?page=0,1

http://www.pitt.edu/~mtb32/cs134/history.html

                Kahn, Lawrence M. "Markets: Cartel Behavior and Amateurism in College Sports." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 21.1 (2007): 209-226.