This is a guest post from TallahasseeScene’s Noah Gomez.
We all know (or are at least somewhat familiar with) the phrase “March Madness,” a.k.a. the one time a year that basketball fans everywhere lose their minds after their dreams of having the perfect bracket are shattered.
There’s a reason why madness is the best way to describe the nature of the month of March.
Via: Gambler’s Palace
This year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament recently came to a close during the second week of April with the final game being held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The much anticipated championship game came down to an all-out brawl between the Duke Blue Devils and the Wisconsin Badgers, one that definitely didn’t let fans down. In the end, it was the Blue Devils who took home the title of National Champions after beating out the Badgers by a hard-earned five points.
But the madness that’s associated with March doesn’t just stop at the end of the tournament. In fact, there is still plenty of chaos (or rather “heated ethical debate”) that fills the air year-round when it comes to college athletics.
Over the past decade, the public has begun to wonder why this $60 billion-per-year industry, which capitalizes on the labor of collegiate-level student athletes, does not compensate its workers. Some argue that the “student-athlete” nomenclature is a façade used to disguise the reality of what college athletes often become: university employees.
However, there are some who offer the opposing reality that there is no way to accurately compensate collegiate athletes for their labor without either, no. 1, destroying the impassioned integrity of their institution, or no. 2, stirring the rise and systematic endorsement of a recruiting market.
This complex issue has many forces, but the opposing sides of the debate, listed below, are the basics that you, as a college student, should be aware of.
Via: Live Binder
Why should we compensate athletes?
1. They are employees, not just student-athletes.
Congress enacted the 1935 National Labor Relations Act to protect employees from identity abuse. In other words, the NLRA defines what am employer-employee relationship is so that further labor regulations may be applied. Although its initial conception applied to private corporations only, it is still the starting place to frame what exactly an “employee” is.
2. Student athletes do not receive pay for their talents, and they often put athletics above academics.
Collegiate athletes do not receive direct pay for their two full-time working roles as both a student and an athlete. While students have every opportunity to profit from the knowledge they gain in class, athletes do not likewise have the ability to profit from their sweat. Even for those who have scholarship aid, the emphasis is on them performing athletically, meaning they don’t make a profit and they simultaneously lose the chance at a good education.
3. The NCAA coined the term “student-athlete” to avoid compensating workers.
Student athletes do not have medical insurance across the board. Universities may choose to sponsor certain athletes, but the vast majority runs the risk of injury without university-sponsored compensation. The NCAA resistance is understandable: authorizing medical compensation would open the floodgates to full employee recognition status that would cost the university a lot of money. The question is, however, should a football player paralyzed on the field be denied medical assistance because he had “academic scholarships, not just athletic ones?”
4. The NCAA can definitely afford to pay its athletes.
Higher-level education is by nature non-profit. In other words, it must spend all of the money that it makes. Usually these funds go to paying coaches and building state-of-the-art facilities. A simple reallocation of funds would fix this problem.
Via: Weekly Storybook
Why shouldn’t we compensate athletes?
1. Paying athletes creates an unbalanced power dynamic between colleges.
“We’re bringing free agency to the college game now,” said Randy Edsall, Maryland head coach. “Now, I think [recruits] will look at how much money they can get.” Edsall is essentially saying that students coming from harsher socioeconomic backgrounds who don’t have the ability to work a job in their dual-role as “student-athlete” will take to the university who offers them the most money. However, some universities have higher endowments and can afford to pay more. Students won’t choose the best school for their academic interests, nor will they choose a school for its coaching. Instead, they will choose the highest bidder.
2. This payout plan must abide by Title IX rules, and universities won’t go for it.
The NCAA Title IX rule states that men and women must be equally funded and represented at any sporting institution. This means that monetary compensation for football players at 1 million dollars must be matched for female athletes elsewhere. Consequentially, economic principles suggest that universities would create a coalition to agree upon paying athletes very minimally, rather than paying them large sums. This would worsen the current plight of the “student-athlete.”
3. The emphasis on a highest-bidder decision undermines education.
If universities are indeed non-profit, they stand to defend a cause. This cause is a student’s ascertainment of education. However, if student athletes choose an education based off of money, an education is the last of their concerns. These students will turn into more of a growing population: high-hoping adolescents with big dreams who failed to address the importance of a back-up plan. They will become members of a community of could-have-beens, rather than people with sturdy education.
Featured photo courtesy of: The Washington Post TV
