Why Do College Athletes Get Paid?
College sports plays a pivotal role for universities and the community that surrounds the university. The two major valued sports are football and men’s basketball. These are the sports that generate the most profit for the university. College athletics is a term encompassing the non-professional, collegiate and university level competitive sports requiring physical skills and training that prepare athletes for competition performance. Football and men’s basketball teams that have good seasons bring in more recognition and enrollment for the universities. Most importantly, they bring in money for the universities. To help govern college athletics an association was formed in 1906 known as the NCAA. It was created to help protect people from
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the dangerous and exploitive sports. This association first started when football was in jeopardy of being abolished as a result of the sport being to dangerous as many players had died or were either injured playing football. The NCAA harps on the term student-athlete. Student-athlete is used to define the collegiate model, amateurism. Even before the NCAA became arguably one of the most controversial tax-exempt organizations in existence, people were able to see the absurdity of insisting that athletes not being able to earn their own money as they fit. How did the NCAA go from being an agreement to promote safety standards so as to prevent death to a multimillion dollars enterprise that seems most concerned with ensuring that “student-athletes” do not receive any compensation for their in demand talents (Dan Treadway)? College sports have become more commercialized. One of the major reasons for the significant money tied to college football is ESPN. ESPN saw college football as a cheap way to provide programming. Television networks pay conferences billions for the right to broadcast the football and men’s basketball players and games. ESPN has spent more than ten billion dollars so that it can display college sport programming. For example, the Jadaveon Clowney hit in the Outback Bowl against Michigan. In 2013, EA Sports announced that they will not be publishing a new game for college football because of the disputes between NCAA and the student-athletes who seek for compensation. This affects the NCAA because they use the likeness of the college players for the video game. The EA Sports then made a decision to make a licensing deal with the collegiate licensing company that would allow for the EA Sports to keep using the schools names and logos for the schools that were willing to participate. Unfortunately, universities and big conferences such as the SEC, Big Ten were not willing to participate. Collegiate athletics is always evolving and has changed dramatically. Over the years, college sports have turned into a big business. There have also been many disputes with the NCAA and student athletes because of college sport becoming a business. Many different cases have occurred to try to protect the athletes. A change that has recently occurred is the NCAA changing rules to allow unlimited means and snacks for the athletes after Connecticut’s Shabaz Napier statement that there are nights that he go to bed and be starving. In 2009 Ed O’Bannon, a former basketball player for the University of California, sues the NCAA for licensing his likeness for the use in video games and broadcasting without permission and payments. O’Bannon was recruited into the case a few days after seeing his likeness in the video game by Sonny Vaccora, who had been rejected by a many of the former athletes in his quest to find a plaintiff. The plaintiffs’ argument is that the NCAA has failed to compensate former student-athletes for the use of their likenesses in video games, television broadcast, memorabilia, advertisements, and other promotional venture violating federal antitrust laws. When starting to play a NCAA sport, you have to sign a contract for your eligibility that relinquishes your right to make money off your likeness as a NCAA athlete. The Sherman antitrust act bans artificially fixing prices, aiming to mean people and businesses are paid what they deserve (Robert Wheel). O’Bannon is claiming that if the NCAA didn’t force him to sign the contract, then he could have gotten money from someone else.
This has fixed the price of O’Bannon image at zero. Even if you consider players’ scholarships adequate payment for their services, this still lowers the amount they’re paid (Robert Wheel). O’Bannon continues to argue that the NCAA rules preventing football and men’s basketball players from being compensated hurt two markets, the college education market and the group licensing market. It affects college education because the schools have to compete to recruit the best players. It affects the group licensing market because broadcasters and video game developers have to compete with each other for group licenses to use the players’ images. Other areas that O’Bannon argue are that the NCAA rules make student athletes leave college early, limits consumer choice by restricting the number and quality of licensing products, and it spurs inefficient substitution, such as excessive expenses on recruiting, salaries and facilities (Jon …show more content…
Solomon). The NCAA disagrees with what O’Bannon argues. They believe that paying these athletes for their likeness will affect the attendance from the fans. The NCAA sticks to the tradition that amateurism is the core of college athletics. The judge of this case Wilkens disagrees as she states that she doesn’t believe that amateurism is going to be a useful word in the case. The NCAA uses that term in many of its disputes but the many changes that have taken place in college sports, amateurism is a term that doesn’t fit the model the NCAA has set up. The NCAA also makes plenty of reference to the NCAA v. Board of Regents of Oklahoma case. This case determined that the NCAA had an illegal monopoly to televise football games. The NCAA believes that it is a joint venture.The NCAA states that the NCAA and other sport organizations are the leading examples of activities that can only be carried out jointly because sports require rules on which the competitors agreed to create and define the competition to be marketed. The NCAA continues to argue by saying that not paying the players creates a competitive balance amongst the schools. The integration of athletics and academics would be damaged and the increased output of teams, support services, and participation would be impacted if the players were given payments for their images according to the NCAA beliefs. The NCAA continued to argue that the First Amendment and other laws do not recognize athletes’ rights to sell their likenesses in television broadcast- a major source of the licensing money in which Wilken ruled the athletes must be allowed to share. O’Bannon is not asking for the NCAA to compensate the athletes for their play but for their likeness. He has a solution on how the NCAA will be able to complete that task. The plaintiffs have suggested group licensing money could be put into a fund for deferred payments until after graduation or eligibility expires. The NCAA could allow for the athletes to be paid off of licensing or the NCAA could allow individual schools or conferences to decide whether to share licensing money with the athletes. “The analysis involved the Judge, Wilken, deciding whether the benefits that the NCAA and its Division 1 schools get from the association’s compensation limits outweigh the economic harm that those limits do to football and men’s basketball players and whether the NCAA can accomplish its goals in a less-restrictive way” (Steve Berkowitz).
As a result, the Judge Wilkens ruled in the favor of the student-athletes and O’Bannon. Even though the judge ruled in the favor of the student-athletes there is still something for the NCAA. The judge ruled that there can be a cap set for the athletes being paid for their name, images, or likeness as long as it is five thousand dollars per athlete per year. If the school doesn’t use that athlete’s name, image, or likeness then they do not have to pay them. The NCAA can still set rule governing eligibility, the number of scholarships, and they still have the power of keeping athletes from signing
endorsements. The collegiate model would be at stake if O’Bannon would win the case. The NCAA wouldn’t be able to rely on the term amateurism. This could impact other lawsuits that are disputes between the NCAA and student-athletes. For example, the next big case, the Jeffrey Kessler case, which is seeking a free market to compensate athletes what they believe they are worth beyond their scholarships. If O’Bannon win, the case it would be a reference used in the Kessler case which will change college sports tremendously. It would also impact the athletes wanting to act as a union. Winning the case could also affect college sports with Title IX as it is already still a problem that exist in college sports today. Smaller teams are already being eliminated; the question would be whether the smaller teams and women sports would be able to survive with football players and men’s basketball players getting more money funneled into their programs. This solution is a good solution as it gives the athletes more power and the rights that they deserve. This can be seen as a problem of how they manage to go about paying the athletes. Athletes don’t deserve to be used to create revenue and not get any of it. The good thing is that the athletes do not receive the money until after graduation. This can be seen as a preparatory system for the NFL or NBA. College sport is a business, it has been changing over the years, and it will continue to keep changing. Although this solution can be the start to tremendous changes in college sports, I believe the athletes deserve to be compensated for their image. I don’t believe that this will affect college sport as much because the NCAA can put a cap on the price and only have to pay the athletes a minimum of five thousand dollars. That can affect the smaller schools, but the big conferences are the ones that get majority of the great athletes, so the impact won’t be big. The NCAA appealed this case but it can make major changes to college sports and give the athletes’ power against the unjust NCAA.
Berkowitz, Steve(2014) NCAA files opening argument in appeal of O'Bannon case (USA Today) Retrieved Nov. 27, 2014 http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2014/11/15/ncaa-obannon-case- appeal-9th-circuit/19068249/
Solomon, Jon (2014) Ed O'Bannon vs. the NCAA: The antitrust lawsuit explained (SBNation.com). Retrieved Nov. 22, 2014 from http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/1/31/3934886/ncaa-lawsuit-ed- obannon
Treadway, Dan(2013) Why Does the NCAA Exist? (The Huffington Post). Retrieved Nov. 22, 2014 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel- treadway/johnnymanzielncaaeligibility_b_3020985.html
Wheel, Robert (2013) Ed O'Bannon vs. the NCAA: The antitrust lawsuit explained (SBNation.com). Retrieved Nov, 12, 2014 from http://www.sbnation.com/college- football/2013/1/31/3934886/ncaa-lawsuit-ed-obannon
the dangerous and exploitive sports. This association first started when football was in jeopardy of being abolished as a result of the sport being to dangerous as many players had died or were either injured playing football. The NCAA harps on the term student-athlete. Student-athlete is used to define the collegiate model, amateurism. Even before the NCAA became arguably one of the most controversial tax-exempt organizations in existence, people were able to see the absurdity of insisting that athletes not being able to earn their own money as they fit. How did the NCAA go from being an agreement to promote safety standards so as to prevent death to a multimillion dollars enterprise that seems most concerned with ensuring that “student-athletes” do not receive any compensation for their in demand talents (Dan Treadway)? College sports have become more commercialized. One of the major reasons for the significant money tied to college football is ESPN. ESPN saw college football as a cheap way to provide programming. Television networks pay conferences billions for the right to broadcast the football and men’s basketball players and games. ESPN has spent more than ten billion dollars so that it can display college sport programming. For example, the Jadaveon Clowney hit in the Outback Bowl against Michigan. In 2013, EA Sports announced that they will not be publishing a new game for college football because of the disputes between NCAA and the student-athletes who seek for compensation. This affects the NCAA because they use the likeness of the college players for the video game. The EA Sports then made a decision to make a licensing deal with the collegiate licensing company that would allow for the EA Sports to keep using the schools names and logos for the schools that were willing to participate. Unfortunately, universities and big conferences such as the SEC, Big Ten were not willing to participate. Collegiate athletics is always evolving and has changed dramatically. Over the years, college sports have turned into a big business. There have also been many disputes with the NCAA and student athletes because of college sport becoming a business. Many different cases have occurred to try to protect the athletes. A change that has recently occurred is the NCAA changing rules to allow unlimited means and snacks for the athletes after Connecticut’s Shabaz Napier statement that there are nights that he go to bed and be starving. In 2009 Ed O’Bannon, a former basketball player for the University of California, sues the NCAA for licensing his likeness for the use in video games and broadcasting without permission and payments. O’Bannon was recruited into the case a few days after seeing his likeness in the video game by Sonny Vaccora, who had been rejected by a many of the former athletes in his quest to find a plaintiff. The plaintiffs’ argument is that the NCAA has failed to compensate former student-athletes for the use of their likenesses in video games, television broadcast, memorabilia, advertisements, and other promotional venture violating federal antitrust laws. When starting to play a NCAA sport, you have to sign a contract for your eligibility that relinquishes your right to make money off your likeness as a NCAA athlete. The Sherman antitrust act bans artificially fixing prices, aiming to mean people and businesses are paid what they deserve (Robert Wheel). O’Bannon is claiming that if the NCAA didn’t force him to sign the contract, then he could have gotten money from someone else.
This has fixed the price of O’Bannon image at zero. Even if you consider players’ scholarships adequate payment for their services, this still lowers the amount they’re paid (Robert Wheel). O’Bannon continues to argue that the NCAA rules preventing football and men’s basketball players from being compensated hurt two markets, the college education market and the group licensing market. It affects college education because the schools have to compete to recruit the best players. It affects the group licensing market because broadcasters and video game developers have to compete with each other for group licenses to use the players’ images. Other areas that O’Bannon argue are that the NCAA rules make student athletes leave college early, limits consumer choice by restricting the number and quality of licensing products, and it spurs inefficient substitution, such as excessive expenses on recruiting, salaries and facilities (Jon …show more content…
Solomon). The NCAA disagrees with what O’Bannon argues. They believe that paying these athletes for their likeness will affect the attendance from the fans. The NCAA sticks to the tradition that amateurism is the core of college athletics. The judge of this case Wilkens disagrees as she states that she doesn’t believe that amateurism is going to be a useful word in the case. The NCAA uses that term in many of its disputes but the many changes that have taken place in college sports, amateurism is a term that doesn’t fit the model the NCAA has set up. The NCAA also makes plenty of reference to the NCAA v. Board of Regents of Oklahoma case. This case determined that the NCAA had an illegal monopoly to televise football games. The NCAA believes that it is a joint venture.The NCAA states that the NCAA and other sport organizations are the leading examples of activities that can only be carried out jointly because sports require rules on which the competitors agreed to create and define the competition to be marketed. The NCAA continues to argue by saying that not paying the players creates a competitive balance amongst the schools. The integration of athletics and academics would be damaged and the increased output of teams, support services, and participation would be impacted if the players were given payments for their images according to the NCAA beliefs. The NCAA continued to argue that the First Amendment and other laws do not recognize athletes’ rights to sell their likenesses in television broadcast- a major source of the licensing money in which Wilken ruled the athletes must be allowed to share. O’Bannon is not asking for the NCAA to compensate the athletes for their play but for their likeness. He has a solution on how the NCAA will be able to complete that task. The plaintiffs have suggested group licensing money could be put into a fund for deferred payments until after graduation or eligibility expires. The NCAA could allow for the athletes to be paid off of licensing or the NCAA could allow individual schools or conferences to decide whether to share licensing money with the athletes. “The analysis involved the Judge, Wilken, deciding whether the benefits that the NCAA and its Division 1 schools get from the association’s compensation limits outweigh the economic harm that those limits do to football and men’s basketball players and whether the NCAA can accomplish its goals in a less-restrictive way” (Steve Berkowitz).
As a result, the Judge Wilkens ruled in the favor of the student-athletes and O’Bannon. Even though the judge ruled in the favor of the student-athletes there is still something for the NCAA. The judge ruled that there can be a cap set for the athletes being paid for their name, images, or likeness as long as it is five thousand dollars per athlete per year. If the school doesn’t use that athlete’s name, image, or likeness then they do not have to pay them. The NCAA can still set rule governing eligibility, the number of scholarships, and they still have the power of keeping athletes from signing
endorsements. The collegiate model would be at stake if O’Bannon would win the case. The NCAA wouldn’t be able to rely on the term amateurism. This could impact other lawsuits that are disputes between the NCAA and student-athletes. For example, the next big case, the Jeffrey Kessler case, which is seeking a free market to compensate athletes what they believe they are worth beyond their scholarships. If O’Bannon win, the case it would be a reference used in the Kessler case which will change college sports tremendously. It would also impact the athletes wanting to act as a union. Winning the case could also affect college sports with Title IX as it is already still a problem that exist in college sports today. Smaller teams are already being eliminated; the question would be whether the smaller teams and women sports would be able to survive with football players and men’s basketball players getting more money funneled into their programs. This solution is a good solution as it gives the athletes more power and the rights that they deserve. This can be seen as a problem of how they manage to go about paying the athletes. Athletes don’t deserve to be used to create revenue and not get any of it. The good thing is that the athletes do not receive the money until after graduation. This can be seen as a preparatory system for the NFL or NBA. College sport is a business, it has been changing over the years, and it will continue to keep changing. Although this solution can be the start to tremendous changes in college sports, I believe the athletes deserve to be compensated for their image. I don’t believe that this will affect college sport as much because the NCAA can put a cap on the price and only have to pay the athletes a minimum of five thousand dollars. That can affect the smaller schools, but the big conferences are the ones that get majority of the great athletes, so the impact won’t be big. The NCAA appealed this case but it can make major changes to college sports and give the athletes’ power against the unjust NCAA.
Berkowitz, Steve(2014) NCAA files opening argument in appeal of O'Bannon case (USA Today) Retrieved Nov. 27, 2014 http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2014/11/15/ncaa-obannon-case- appeal-9th-circuit/19068249/
Solomon, Jon (2014) Ed O'Bannon vs. the NCAA: The antitrust lawsuit explained (SBNation.com). Retrieved Nov. 22, 2014 from http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/1/31/3934886/ncaa-lawsuit-ed- obannon
Treadway, Dan(2013) Why Does the NCAA Exist? (The Huffington Post). Retrieved Nov. 22, 2014 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel- treadway/johnnymanzielncaaeligibility_b_3020985.html
Wheel, Robert (2013) Ed O'Bannon vs. the NCAA: The antitrust lawsuit explained (SBNation.com). Retrieved Nov, 12, 2014 from http://www.sbnation.com/college- football/2013/1/31/3934886/ncaa-lawsuit-ed-obannon