There’s Nothing Amateur About College Athletics

When I couldn’t do flip turns any longer at practice because of the pain, I’d tie myself to a tree with a tension cord so that I could swim continuously in the middle of the pool. I did hundreds of hours of physical therapy. Yet, when I did the third and final flip turn as part of our 4x100 relay at the Atlantic-​10 Championships, a sharp pain radiated from my lower back. I immediately lost feeling in both my feet; but while it didn’t stop me and I hit the final wall, happy to look up and see who won, I teared up knowing that I would need to be carried out of the pool. I knew that it was my last race, but I was still in denial. Eighteen chlorinated years does that to you.

If I had a dollar for every time I am asked, “was being a college athlete worth it?”, I’d be able to retire. On the one hand, a small number of college athletes receive substantial scholarships to cover classes, room & board, textbooks & other incidentals. That is not a bad return for all those hours of practice and play. But these full rides are not available to every athlete in a Division I level sport (let alone those at the far greater number of Division II and III programs). And even if every athlete were guaranteed a full ride, those scholarships do not represent the full value of what college athletes bring to their schools.

In 2019, Alabama athletics brought in $164 million; football accounts for 59.8% of that amount, which explains why they could afford to shell out $8.7 million for head coach Nick Saban’s salary. However, the all-​in cost to attend classes at Alabama for the 2018-2019 school year for out-​of-​state students was $44,984, which means that for 50% of Saban’s salary, Alabama could give full rides to all 99 of the football players on their roster.

Schools can get away with not compensating athletes because of the notional amateurism of college sports. Amateur college athletics began in the U.S. in 1852 when crew teams from Harvard and Yale raced each other in the sport of rowing. In 1906, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS) formed and became the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in 1910. The NCAA credits its formation to when President Theordore Roosevelt, on two separate occasions, held conferences after several colleges and universities suspended their football programs subsequent to many injuries and even deaths on the field. Even though this story is not entirely true, many at the time believed that Roosevelt had saved the sport.

In the early 1900s, Harvard refused to have a professional football coach. That conviction faded after repeated losses to Yale, and they finally gave in and hired Bill Reid, offering him $7,000. To put that figure in context, that was thirty percent more than the salary of Harvard’s then president of 40 years, Charles William Eliot! Even prior to this, President Eliot and President Francis Walker of MIT had been concerned about the increasing commercialization of college athletics. President Walker once remarked, “If the movement shall continue at the same rate, it will soon be a question whether the letters B.A. stand more for Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Athletics.”

The NCAA claims it “was founded in 1906 to protect young people from the dangerous and exploitative athletics practices of the time.” So, how did the NCAA transform from an organization meant to promote basic safety standards into a multi-​million dollar enterprise that ensures that “student-​athletes” aren’t compensated for their in-​demand talents? The short answer is television broadcasting contracts.

In 1984, NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma created an open market for televised football, ending the NCAA’s nearly two decade functional monopoly on broadcasting contracts. Prior to 1984, the NCAA carefully limited the number of games allowed to be televised out of fear that it would affect in-​person attendance numbers. The NCAA prevented schools from negotiating television contracts and limited them to 6 televised games per year.

But the Supreme Court’s decision stated, “The NCAA regulatory plan, which strictly limited the number and viewing times of games telecast restricts competition and violates federal antitrust laws.” This put the NCAA in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act because their plan, as Justice Stevens put it, caused colleges to “lose their freedom to compete.”

As a result, the value of those broadcasting contracts soared. Before the ruling in the 1984 season, the revenue generated by college football television rights was around $43.6 million. By comparison, in 2019, the Rose Bowl generated $92.3 million. Adjusted for inflation, that would have been $35.6 million in 1984, meaning that today, a single game is worth 84% of the revenue generated from the entire 1984 season. And that’s just football; the annual college basketball tournament March Madness generates 90% of the NCAA’s annual revenue of $1.05 billion.

The business of “amateur” college athletics boomed, but none of that money went to players. Yet, many still argue that “college athletes are not worth a single cent on the open market” or say that “college athletes are already being paid [via scholarships].” Try arguing this with someone who spent more of their life engaged in athletics than doing practically anything else.

I have tried to calculate how much total time I spent swimming or training and it is in the ballpark of 21,900 hours, fully 2 and half years of my life. And my career, like that of many others, ended in injury. Luckily-​-​or unluckily depending on how you look at it-​-​I competed in a historically non-​revenue generating sport. Swimming, especially men’s swimming, is often the first sport to be cut when the budget is tight. That means that my injury likely did not cost me any future earnings, but that is certainly not the case for everyone.

In 2018, standout freshman basketball player Zion Williamson fell on the court and clutched his right knee in pure agony. Viewers could almost see his dreams of professional sports stardom flash before his eyes and with it the dollar signs slipping away like the tears on his face. One writer for the Washington Post remarked, “All the NCAA can do is take from him [Williamson], steal his likeness and jeopardize millions of his future income.” Up until that point, Williamson had been all but guaranteed a major NBA contract in addition to countless sponsorship deals with companies like Nike. But that would only happen if he made it through college athletics without any further devaluation of his abilities. Williamson’s story has a happy ending; he went on to be the No.1 draft pick in the 2019 draft. Others have not been so lucky.

It is hard for me to believe that any non-​athlete can truly understand what it’s like to dedicate years of your life to a passion for it all to be wiped away after a twist of an ankle or the pop of a shoulder. I have witnessed soccer players undergo two, three, or four ACL surgeries as teenagers. I have talked to football players who had concussions so bad they could not remember where they had traveled from the day before. It was routine for these athletes to suffer injuries so bad that many of them, including me, are still dealing with chronic health problems today, long after college.

The NCAA foresaw the potential for injuries becoming a major detriment to their business. In 1955 they created the term “student-​athlete” and lobbied Congress to codify it in law. Classifying college athletes as “student-​athletes” means that athletes are not considered employees and thus they are not privy to workers’ rights, including compensation for an injury received while on the job. This allows colleges to avoid the expense of paying for medical treatments for their athletes and also to discard them once their injuries make them no longer useful on the court, field, or in the pool.

Critics are starting to challenge the legal fiction of the student athlete. In late September, the top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Jennifer Abruzzo, penned a memo that stated, “The players at academic institutions are statutory employees, and if they’re going to be misclassified, then institutions are going to have to be held to account.” While years of legal wrangling over the question is likely, colleges may soon find themselves having to treat college athletes like the valuable employees they are.

In addition, there has been some progress towards allowing athletes to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness (NIL) through sponsorship deals. College athletes can finally accept sponsorship deals without having to worry about an NCAA prohibition. This change went into effect on July 1, 2021, and since then many athletes have signed deals with local restaurants and gyms. One of the biggest winners of the NIL regime thus far is University of Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, who by late July had earned close to $1 million in endorsement deals.

Don’t be fooled, all of this is too little too late. Endorsement deals are only a sliver of college athletics revenue. The real money lies with broadcasting rights, which athletes still have no claim over. Endorsements also benefit only the top tier of college athletes. The typical athlete might still work a part-​time job after attending 3 classes and enduring four hours of practice each day, a grueling lifestyle that hurts their academic performance as well as their physical and mental wellbeing. The “student” part of “student athlete” is often as much a lie as their amateur status is.

You can imagine a world where schools compete for athletes’ labor, offering not just tuition scholarships but also stipends, as is routine for other on-​campus student workers. They could take care of their mental health, attend study groups, and maybe even catch up on some sleep knowing that they are valued correctly by an institution which had to woo them in an open market for athletic labor.

Although there is no quick fix for college athletics, the NCAA has a lot to answer for. At each step of the way, the organization has fought to minimize the rights and market-​power of college athletes. And the exploitation of college athletes continues. Even the Supreme Court agrees! The contest between college athletes and the NCAA is in overtime and there is not much time before the shot clock runs out.