Nathan Kalman-Lamb
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Should college athletes in revenue sports receive pay? Um, yes.

1/30/2012

9 Comments

 
_Not long ago, I was talking to a friend who had recently been to the Mid-Western United States for the first time (we live in Toronto). She had been there for a sports-related academic event and had been hearing a lot of discussion about whether university athletes should be paid or not. Many of the people she had been listening to were fervently opposed to the idea; knowing my politics, she wondered what my take would be.

The question was both entirely reasonable and completely absurd. Reasonable, because it is only natural to question one's own perspective when confronted with ubiquitous disagreement. Absurd, because of the nature of the premises upon which that disagreement was founded.

In the October issue of The Atlantic, Taylor Branch makes a case for paying college athletes. The argument is as simple as can be. Branch writes, "In 2010, despite the faltering economy, a single college athletic league, the football-crazed Southeastern Conference (SEC), became the first to crack the billion-dollar barrier in athletic receipts. The Big Ten pursued closely at $905 million."

The scholarships that athletes earn are not just compensation for the revenue that is generated by their labour. Not even close. Although this seems pretty self-evident, Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated disagrees. He writes,

...did you know that out of 332 schools currently competing in the NCAA's Division I, fewer than a dozen have athletic departments that are operating in the black? And that of the 120 programs that comprise the Football Bowl Subdivision, just 14 are profitable? That means some 88 percent of the top football programs lose money for their universities -- and that doesn't even include the reams of cash the schools are spending on the so-called nonrevenue sports... Branch derides college athletics as "Very Big Business," but the truth is, it's actually a "Very Lousy Business."

Davis may be right that college sports is "lousy business," but that doesn't mean it isn't big business as well. Regardless of how athletic department revenues are spent (whether it is on state-of-the-art facilities, marquee coaches, or expensive trips to bowl games), the point remains that revenues are enormous and they exist because of the labour of athletes.

Scholarships that cover exorbitant tuition fees are not meaningless or insignificant (although the very fact that U.S. fees are so high raises another set of questions beyond the purview of this post). However, neither is the amount of labour that goes into playing college sports. This is no part-time, extracurricular commitment. A 2008 NCAA survey found that college football players spent over forty hours per week in team-related work, be that practices, games, film study, weight training, etc. In other words, they work full time at a craft that generates universities millions of dollars.

That isn't fair. If those governing college sports think this is a bad business model, they can change the way they do business. Here's guessing that they won't. The bottom line is that as long as this system persists, athletes deserve a commensurate share of the revenue they generate.
9 Comments
Benjamin Cook
2/1/2012 02:20:39 am

I couldn't agree more. Whether the universities choose to run their departments in the red or not has no bearing on the question of how much business is generated by these "revenue sports" teams. Million dollar coaches along side indentured althletes certainly seems exploitative.

Reply
Trevor Ellis
2/13/2012 08:49:31 am

I agree with the premise of "fair compensation for fair labour".

But doesn't that neglect the positive impact that the student-athlete system can have? The vast majority of student athletes will never be able to play professional sports (obviously especially true for females), so the student-athlete system provides an opportunity to develop athletically and hope for a professional contract for a select few, and provide a valuable college degree for the others.

How much compensation for student-athletes is appropriate? Most college football programs, for example, simply wouldn't exist if they had to play their players 40 000$ each per year. Most programs, I don't think, would exist at all if this were the case. Instead, some scholarship $ is provided to many athletes, and most come out of the experience with a university degree. (That is tangible compensation!)

I would also say there are intangible benefits to playing on a university team. At what point does sport become play and at which point does it become labour? When the program makes money? But most programs lose money, as you wrote...I'm not sure myself.

Nice article!

Reply
Nathan Kalman-Lamb
2/14/2012 09:01:28 am

Hi Trevor,

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think that you raise some important questions here.

Certainly, you are correct to suggest that whether a school makes money is not a sufficient marker of exploitation given that many lose. This is why we need to evaluate the structure of the system as a whole. College basketball, and, especially, college football have become high stakes business. This means that athletes are subjected to the pressures of such a system. If they do not produce, they are cut. If they are hurt, they are prompted to play. Coaches are encouraged to treat them in a borderline abusive fashion (see my earlier post about high school football: http://www.nathankalmanlamb.com/1/post/2012/01/boys-and-men-high-school-football-in-america.html).

Thus, it is the spectacular nature of college basketball and football, the fact that they are produced for the consumption of spectators, that transforms them from play into labour.

I should also add that there is a racial component to this. You note that most athletes graduate and that degrees are a form of compensation. However, it is a particularly salient detail that African-American players graduate at significantly lower rates. This means that these young men are being chewed up and spit out by this system with no real compensation at all. In the context of a society that has and continues to exploit racialized labour, this is not an isolated problem but part of a larger structural issue. Racialized youth often have few options to choose from aside from athletics for upward mobility. The college system preys upon the aspirations of these young men, often leaving them with nothing to show for their considerable.

Finally, I do want to add that I agree that there is value to a student-athlete experience, especially in non-revenue sports. Although it may be costly indeed to fund these other athletic pursuits, my point is simply that it is not the responsibility of basketball and football players to foot the bill.

None of this is to say that I think your questions are in any way unreasonable. On the contrary, this is exactly the sort of debate that needs to become more pervasive in discourse around US college sport.

Reply
johnnnydepp link
8/2/2012 03:31:57 pm

I do want to add that I agree that there is value to a student-athlete experience, especially in non-revenue sports in their college days. from this type of facilities makes students more involvement in playing games. it is best options for all kind of scholarship.

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5/23/2013 05:50:54 pm

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