Is the NCAA Scholastic or $$$cholastic?

With all the revenue that college sports such as football and men’s basketball generate, should it be concerning that the NCAA is perpetually resistant to finding more ways to include athletes in the revenue sharing? Why is that?

Is the NCAA afraid that if it allows college athletes to take a share of the revenue generated, it will look as though the NCAA is less of a scholastic endeavor as it is a big business?

It’s documented that the NCAA generates $1 billion annually for March Madness and an expected $2.2 billion from the expanded two 12-team college football playoffs. Portions of this money gets dispersed back to schools to pay for salaries of athletic administrators, coaches, and other sports.

However, that’s a large chunk of revenue that the athletes help generate but don’t get a share of the pie. Not to mention the athletes help generate multibillion dollar television and digital streaming contracts that get paid back to the universities. It’s estimated that in 2024, teams in the Big Ten will receive $90 million annually from 2024-2028. This is a result of the Big Ten signing the biggest media package in college sports history with a 7-year, mid-$7 billion deal with Fox, NBC, FS1 and CBS.

Shouldn’t the athletes share in this revenue they help generate? The NCAA is adamant about college sports being amateur sports and not professional sports. If players start receiving a salary, it’s considered pay for play or professional sports. That’s the subtly difference between the NCAA and professional leagues such as the NFL or NBA. The NCAA doesn’t pay salaries, making its athletes be deemed amateurs and not professionals. The NFL and NBA pay salaries – pay for play – making their athletes be deemed professionals.

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Pay for play exists at the collegiate level whether the NCAA wants to acknowledge it or not. If an athlete is on a scholarship, he received that scholarship because he agreed to play for that university. If he wakes up one day and decides that he doesn’t want to play for that university anymore, he can lose his scholarship.

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If he decides to come to practice and games and only stand on the sideline, cheering his teammates on instead of playing with them when they desperately need him, he will lose his scholarship. Furthermore, per ncaasports.org, a scholarship is a year-to-year agreement between the program and the athlete. A coach can decide to not renew an athlete’s scholarship for something such as getting into trouble off or on the field. A coach can even decide to not renew an athlete’s scholarship for poor performance on the field. ?

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Hence why a scholarship can be seen as a salary – pay for play; it’s a performance-based contract. The performance is a factor. The athlete can lose the scholarship for poor performance and can keep the scholarship for good performance year to year. A scholarship may not be money placed in an athlete’s hand to do whatever with, but it is real money used to pay off what would be financial debt for an athlete. This year at the University of Georgia, the 2023 NCAA college football national champions, tuition for in-state students living on campus is $22,426. For out-of-state students living on campus, the tuition is $41,466.

Stretch those costs over the course of 4 to 6 years for an out-of-state player and those costs are similar to a 20% down payment on a million-dollar starter home in Southern California. It requires a salary to pay off those tuition bills, and someone’s salary is likely paying those tuition bills. Just ask Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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Therefore, should the NCAA still be latching onto college sports as being amateurism and not professionalism? Shouldn’t the NCAA make a change? Are they afraid that the narrative about the NCAA being a scholastic endeavor will change?

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And what if the narrative does change? What’s wrong with the narrative being the NCAA is a scholastic endeavor and a great business opportunity for college age student athletes? Can’t college sports be about getting degrees and dollars?

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Certainly, the goal is to come to college to get an education. Knowledge is power. Education lifts people out of poverty and can increase wealth for generations of a family. However, a blind eye can’t be turned to the fact that college sports are huge revenue generators, produced off the backs of unpaid talent/workers.

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With things such as NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) transpiring in the college sports space, why wouldn’t the NCAA take proactive steps to propose a new revenue model that includes the college athletes in the share of all the revenue being generated. Per ESPN, the NCAA revenues were $1.15 billion in 2021. In 2021, the NCAA distributed $613 million back to its members. Hypothetically, there is roughly $400 million left all to the NCAA.

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Perhaps this is where things get interesting. That’s a nice slice of pie to go around, that $400 million. Once players are added into the distribution, that piece of pie starts to shrink even more. Salaries of important people start to halt or diminish. Lifestyles might begin to change.

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There’s no need to call out the size of any person’s piggy bank, but perhaps some people in powerful positions don’t want a halt, reduction or cap in salary. Perhaps they want to capitalize and cash in more and more on the big business of college athletics.

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The best way to do that is to maintain the status quo conversation and argument that these are amateurs not professionals and these are students not employees. Maintaining the amateurs and students talk comes off as very scholastic, but maybe what’s underlying this is actually $$$cholastic – education is the cover for generating massive revenue off the backs of unpaid talent/workers.

Many think that the scholarship given by schools/athletic programs is the NCAA’s payment to players, but it’s not. In fact, the NCAA doesn’t pay anything to the players, nor does the school/athletic program. Outside donors and supporters give to a school’s athletic program, which can then offer a scholarship to a player. It’s donations from donors and supporters that fund scholarships.

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Therefore, what we see is the NCAA essentially gains free labor by holding onto talks about amateurs, students, and scholastic endeavors. All the while, this is really a $$$scholastic endeavor.

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As NCAA revenues continue to climb from $1.09 billion in 2017 to $1.14 billion in 2022 and the expanded college football playoff could be worth $2.2 billion annually, there’s a lot of money that could increase salaries and provide bonuses to the NCAA’s executives, directors and employees. If payments from this generated revenue start being distributed to athletes, increases and bonuses for NCAA professionals might not occur, or they will be significantly smaller.

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Even though the actions by the NCAA possibly may appear to be $$$cholastic and not scholastic, there’s still time to be an influence and make changes. What would be nice is if the NCAA went to scholastic and $$$cholastic. Make the college experience about getting degrees and dollars.

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There’s no lack of wholesomeness to college athletics if the NCAA finds a way to put more money in players’ pockets. Everyone is in college in the first place so that they can get a job that makes money. Now is the time to innovate and participate in the much needed and highly anticipated direction NIL is taking college sports. ?

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Degrees and dollars. How sweet that could be. At this point in time, the NCAA has a tremendous opportunity. Be the ones to champion this new identity. Forget about unfounded problems and focus on possibilities. Degrees and dollars. The new athlete $$$cholar.

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Battle well,

Derek Cox