Money
Everyone profits from March Madness but the players
By: Marc Lamont Hill
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Thu, 04/08/2010 - 00:00
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Like every year, the nation has spent the last month captivated by the NCAA basketball tournament. In addition to showcasing the nation’s top basketball talent, the tournament also exposes us to one of the most unconscionable economic arrangements in American history: the failure to pay college athletes.
Every year, the NCAA finds new ways to extract economic value from the sweat of its athletes. From shoe deals to video game licensing to television contracts, the labor of college athletes generates billions of dollars every year for TV networks, schools, coaches, apparel companies, hotels, airlines and countless other entities that do not have to lace up sneakers, miss class, or risk injury. In fact, the only people who do not benefit from the ever-expanding “athletic industrial complex” are the athletes themselves.
The primary argument against payment has been that they are student athletes who are being rewarded with a full ride to college. If tainted by money, proponents argue, collegians will lose their innocence and be hastily hurled into the dark world of profit-making. Like any effective pimp, the NCAA pretends to protect its athletes from the harsh realities of the “real world” while exploiting them in the most extravagant ways imaginable.
While the romantic notion of the “student-athlete” may have been authentic 50 years ago, today’s college player is markedly different. Today’s athlete is expected to practice 4-6 hours a day, work out 12 months out of the year, and miss out on many of the personal, social, and intellectual experiences that color our idyllic memories of college. In nearly every way, today’s college player is much more like an overworked semi-professional than an amateur student in need of protection from corporate bloodsuckers.
Of course, there is an enormous, poor Black elephant in the room that few are willing to acknowledge. As the most lucrative sports become increasingly populated by economically disadvantaged minorities, there is considerably less outrage about the NCAA’s billion dollar plantation.
For a variety of reasons, many Americans still view Black athletes as undeserving of our sympathy, respect, or outrage. To these people, college athletes should be happy to get a “good education." It's the same racial double-standard that incites moral panic whenever Black college basketball or football players leave school after freshman year, while white hockey or baseball players go straight to the pros from high school with nothing but fanfare and admiration.
Such a claim, while absurd for the reasons previously stated, is also disingenuous, as most high-powered programs provide little academic support and even less of a commitment to sustaining respectable college graduation rates.
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COMMENTS
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Why is this article followed by a poll to see which NCAA team will "go all the way"? The irony is too much for me right now...
You can't just pay some. You would have to pay all the athletes. According to the NCAA, there are 380,000 collegiate athletes. Let's say the NCAA had an extra 100 million each year to divide among the 380,000. They'd get a whopping $263. Yeah, let's pay the athletes. Great idea!! Or do you only want to pay the black athletes?
I feel where your coming from MLH and this is a topic that frequently comes up during this time of the year in the midst of the madness called march in the culture of intercollegiate athletics. The topic of paying players is much deeper and is multi layered, than what's initially perceived during the hype of the tournament. It's no secret the enormity of revenue the mens basketball tournament produces as well as the BCS bowl games during football season. In a capitalist economy where profit sharing is a diplomatic means of doing business, the argument of paying college athletes holds some weight, because they provide the entertainment and many times the on the court heroics which draws the novice of fans into a avid follower. This emotional connection cultivated between the team and the fan is what then in turn creates the interest from corporate america, who changes the game with the size of the checks they're willing to write, to be a player/contributor during one of the best months in sports. That being said, you have to keep in mind the NCAA as a whole sponsors over 25 different sports, comprised of over 300,000 student athletes. Paying college athletes creates many more issues that are over looked because of the popularity of the mens basketball tournament ad BCS football bowl games. These are only two of 20 plus sports under the NCAA umbrella, which represent only a small percentage of student athletes who compete nation wide amongst NCAA sponsored institutions. By no means is the current culture completely student athlete friendly and much has to be done to academically support these student athletes once they commit to an institution, resources must be available to support adequate progress towards a degree to take place. At the end of the day significant revenue is only being generated by football and men's basketball at the collegiate level. If NCAA moves in the direction of paying college athletes, football and mens basketball players should be the prime beneficiaries, right? If so how do you justify paying or not paying the other the large percentage of student athletes who compete in non revenue generating sports? Slippery slope to go down, and is much deeper than the madness that takes place in March!
I feel where your coming from MLH and this is a topic that frequently comes up during this time of the year in the midst of the madness called march in the culture of intercollegiate athletics. The topic of paying players is much deeper and is multi layered, than what's initially perceived during the hype of the tournament. It's no secret the enormity of revenue the mens basketball tournament produces as well as the BCS bowl games during football season. In a capitalist economy where profit sharing is a diplomatic means of doing business, the argument of paying college athletes holds some weight, because they provide the entertainment and many times the on the court heroics which draws the novice of fans into a avid follower. This emotional connection cultivated between the team and the fan is what then in turn creates the interest from corporate america, who changes the game with the size of the checks they're willing to write, to be a player/contributor during one of the best months in sports. That being said, you have to keep in mind the NCAA as a whole sponsors over 25 different sports, comprised of over 300,000 student athletes. Paying college athletes creates many more issues that are over looked because of the popularity of the mens basketball tournament ad BCS football bowl games. These are only two of 20 plus sports under the NCAA umbrella, which represent only a small percentage of student athletes who compete nation wide amongst NCAA sponsored institutions. By no means is the current culture completely student athlete friendly and much has to be done to academically support these student athletes once they commit to an institution, resources must be available to support adequate progress towards a degree to take place. At the end of the day significant revenue is only being generated by football and men's basketball at the collegiate level. If NCAA moves in the direction of paying college athletes, football and mens basketball players should be the prime beneficiaries, right? If so how do you justify paying or not paying the other the large percentage of student athletes who compete in non revenue generating sports? Slippery slope to go down, and is much deeper than the madness that takes place in March!
Certainly athletics are not the only source of revenue for most institutions. So, what makes athletes different? If they are not different, then to be perfectly equitable, one most consider, for example, the value of academic staff and graduate staff in attracting research dollars. Similarly, one must consider those people as well as administrative staff whose efforts or reputations contribute to giving towards endowments and the like. In some cases, those are more impressive than the athletic revenues.
In reality, to me, Dr. Hill's argument is either weak or incomplete. In applying and accepting the pimp analogy you must not look beyond the very crust of the comparison. If you do, you find nothing binding the athletes in servitude, and to the contrary (I am guessing without data or a report at hand) the athletes are actually more likely to benefit from their circumstances to a degree greater than the average undergraduate. In addition, they are free to leave or move one after graduation. For example, those who are truly top at their respective games are very likely to go on to quite an enriching career. Even if average, the introductory level in some professional sports dwarfs the salaries of most any entry level position for someone earning a 4-year degree. For those who are not good enough or lucky enough to move into professional sports, but do earn their degree, it is my experience that in many cases, if not most, they also have benefits that many undergraduates do not receive. That is, the larger the fan base the larger the revenue to the school, to some proportion. Such a fan base does offer preferential hiring to athletic candidates, again in my experience.
So, it seems to me that the upside of the "sacrifice" the athletes must make is better than the upside for many non-athlete students. Anecdotal exceptions exist, such as the stellar student at a well known school who perhaps has the privilege of many high paying choices upon graduation, or the average athlete who cannot compete in the business marketplace. But it surely isn't as simple a situation as posited by the pimp analogy.