Should NCAA Athletes Be Paid?http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid

This weekend, the Final Four of both the Women's and Men's NCAA basketball tournaments will garner the collective attention of sports fans across the country. Brackets will be busted, nets will be cut down, and two champions will ultimately be crowned.

But while those teams are celebrating a national title, the real winners of the tournaments may be their corporate sponsors, broadcasters and ultimately, the NCAA itself.

The NCAA basketball tournaments, or "March Madness," have become a huge business. As Forbes' Chris Smith wrote, CBS and Turner Broadcasting make more than $1 billion off the games, "thanks in part to a $700,000 ad rate for a 30-second spot during the Final Four." Athletic conferences receive millions of dollars in payouts from the NCAA when their teams advance deep into the tournament. Ditto for the coaches of the final squads standing. The NCAA, as a whole, makes $6 billion annually.

But the players themselves don't see any of that money, even as they risk career-ending injuries every time that they step onto the court, field or rink. Just last weekend, Louisville's Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome broken leg (but successfully had surgery that will enable him to return to playing eventually).

The huge amount of money being made off college sports has led some to question whether student-athletes can be considered amateurs any longer, and whether they should, instead, be paid for their efforts. The New York Times' Joe Nocera has been beating the drum to reform the NCAA, and he is certainly not alone. A group of former players has filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that student athletes are entitled to some of the money the NCAA makes off of using their names and likenesses on merchandise such as jerseys and video games.

But on the flip side, the argument can be made that the opportunity to both receive an education and get the exposure to win a major professional contract more than compensates NCAA athletes for their efforts. "Rather than push college athletics further and further from academics, we need to bring it closer," says NCAA president Mike Emmert.

Fans Must Understand That College Sports Is Big BusinessBy Brian Frederick April 1, 2013 | 5:46 p.m. EDThttp://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid/fans-must-understand-that-college-sports-is-big-business

Most fans are not in favor of paying players. This is primarily because many still buy into the myth of "amateur athletics." Fans who oppose paying athletes frequently refer to the "free education" student-athletes receive and, indeed, there is some value to what they learn on campus. However, that education is conditioned on their health and success and always comes second to athletics.If a student-athlete is hurt or unsuccessful, the coaches and administrators suddenly discard the noble ideals of "education" and a player is left with nothing. Fans would no doubt feel differently about the issue if a student-athlete was in their own family.

Moreover, no one mentions the lifetime of health care bills that await some student-athletes in contact sports. How can a "free education" compensate them for debilitating injuries caused during their time on campus? And how can we as fans truly enjoy a football game knowing that one player's career-ending injury will leave him saddled with nothing more than a lifetime of pain and doctor's bills?

Fans also like to imagine that college sports are somehow simpler and less corrupt than professional sports. Nothing could be further from the truth. College athletics are just as much of a big business as professional sports—it's just that the money goes into the pockets of coaches, athletic directors, conference commissioners and sports media executives. Further, the current system leads to corruption ,as coaches and boosters regularly find ways to circumvent the rules and provide benefits to young athletes.

It's time for all sports fans to wake up and realize that the current system benefits only the elite few who continue to perpetuate the myth of "amateur athletics." Everyone would benefit from a college athletics system that provides its athletes with better compensation and lifetime health care. If we truly enjoy college athletics and want them to continue, we better start calling for changes now. Because if we continue to throw more and more money into this broken system, it won't be long before the whole thing falls apart and we all lose.

A Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's WorkBy Ramogi HumaApril 1, 2013 | 5:47 p.m. EDT

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid/a-fair-days-pay-for-a-fair-days-work

The NCAA argues that college athletes are paid with a free education. The reality is that players' opportunities are not free, and half of the revenue-producing athletes don't graduate. College athletes spend 40 hours per week of labor in their sport alone (according to an NCAA study), generate billions of dollars per year, and can lose their scholarship if they're injured.

A joint study between the National College Players Association and Drexel University shows that the NCAA will strip football and men's basketball players of $6 billion of their fair market value between 2011-2015. In contrast, the NCAA admits that its scholarship limit leaves "full" scholarship athletes with $3,000 to $5,000 in out-of-pocket-expenses each year.

Meanwhile, recent television deals pay the NCAA and its colleges over $1 billion per year in brand new revenue. Most would expect that this tax-free revenue would be spent primarily on their educational missions, but historical spending patterns show it will be spent exclusively on mega-stadiums and salary increases for coaches and administrators.

Colleges should fully support their players' education by increasing full scholarships equal to the cost of attendance. It would cost an affordable $95 million per year to increase scholarships for revenue athletes and pay matching funds to female athletes for Title IX compliance. They should also direct a percentage of new TV revenues into a trust fund where former FBS football players and Division I men's basketball players who abide by NCAA rules would receive an equal portion upon graduation, or to complete an undergraduate degree. Furthermore, all athletes should be allowed to earn money from commercial endorsements (like their schools), which could be put in the trust fund. These reforms would increase graduation rates and decrease violations, which should be prioritized.

The NCAA claims that increasing compensation for revenue athletes would force colleges to eliminate nonrevenue sports. However, robust participation in NCAA Division II non-revenue sports must be inconvenient for those that make this argument. Over 300 Division II colleges manage just fine without reliance on millions of dollars from football and men's basketball programs. Similar to Division III, NAIA, and high school sports, Division II programs field teams because they value sports participation, not because they wish to pay multimillion-dollar salaries and build luxury boxes with massive revenue.

At the end of the day, college athletes are just like all other hard working Americans who should receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

College Athletes Are Already Paid With Their EducationBy Richard BurtonApril 2, 2013 | 12:21 a.m. EDT

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid/college-athletes-are-already-paid-with-their-education

Remember the line in the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles where one of the cowboys is offered a tin shield and sneeringly says, "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges"?

I always think of that line when I'm asked if NCAA Division I athletes should be paid for their collegiate contributions. It invokes the strained logic of Blazing Saddles because college athletes are already paid. They're just not paid what the market is capable of bearing.

Whoa, wait a minute. What do I mean they're already paid?

Well, let's set aside the value of their free or partially-funded education and assume no college athlete goes to class or actually gains any knowledge in class that has a useful value. That purposeful sarcasm (or cynicism) removes a healthy percentage of what many readers consider to be the bulk of the collegiate athlete's current compensation.

However, since you can't trade knowledge (i.e., mental enhancement) for an immediate financial asset, higher education is often (and falsely) assumed to have no value for athletes.

But even removing this educational asset from the equation, NCAA Division I athletes still receive expert coaching (that could lead to a professional career as an athlete or as a coach), on-campus housing, frequent meals (if not elaborate training tables), non-uniform clothing, free medical consultation, free access to state-of-the-art training facilities and free professional development (media/public relations, life skills, networking, etc.). That all has to count for something, right?But what about cash for student athletes? Shouldn't they get money too?

Oh, so this discussion is about the Benjamins, eh? Well, why is that? Is the amount (the perceived value) a college athlete currently receives not enough? Are we asking this last question because an NCAA coach might be making millions (or a very hefty six-figure salary)? Or is it because the student-athlete's university is making millions from ticket and merchandise sales? Is it because the athlete's athletic conference is headed to the bank with a massive TV deal? Or is it because the NCAA is raking in billions off the performances of college athletes?

We know the answers to all of those questions are yes but if some "force for good" wants to pay the athletes cash, it seems likely some other party will have to take less.

And that's where this discussion stops. Because the NCAA, major BCS conferences, big-time universities and well-paid coaches are all expert at practicing the first law of capitalism … which is to capitalize on inefficient suppliers. Simply stated, college athletes have been convinced they are paid enough. And their appropriate share of the revenue pie has been given to others.

But I predict, someday, in the not too distant future, college athletes will learn they are leaving money on the training table and they will grasp that the whole NCAA pyramid crumbles unless they perform. When that day arrives, collegiate athletes will start getting paid in cash instead of psychology classes, track suits, knee braces and ice baths.

The Cost of Paying Athletes Would Be Far Too HighBy Andrew ZimbalistApril 1, 2013 | 5:56 p.m. EDT+ More

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid/the-cost-of-paying-athletes-would-be-far-too-high

Advocates of paying college athletes need to explain (a) how the labor market for players would function, (b) how the Division I colleges could afford this expense when the median DI athletics program loses $11 million a year on an operating basis and much more when capital and indirect costs are included, (c) how the new system would impact college culture, and (d) what would happen to the branding of intercollegiate athletics that tens of millions of fans have come to love.

For its part, the NCAA has to come to terms with the fact that it has applied an arbitrary, morphing, and overly restrictive definition of amateurism, the outcome of which is that student-athletes are unnecessarily manipulated and exploited. Until the 1940s, the NCAA defined amateurism like the rest of us: An amateur (the word means lover) is someone who engages in an activity for fun, not remuneration. A scholarship was seen an extrinsic inducement and not compatible with amateurism.

After the 1940s, what the NCAA allowed to be included in a scholarship was changed every few years. In 1973, the NCAA restricted scholarships to one year at a time, meaning that a coach could revoke a player's scholarship if he or she wasn't performing well on the field, regardless of how well they performed in the classroom. More recently, the NCAA has allowed athletes on winning teams to receive gifts worth hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.

Now in dispute is the claim of former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon. His team won the national basketball championship back in 1995. Through its Collegiate Licensing Company, the NCAA licenses the right to Electronic Arts to produce a video game of the 1995 team, using the images and likenesses of its players. Not a penny of the licensing income is shared with these players. Current and former college players also have their names, images and likenesses used in a variety of other commercial forms: Jerseys, photos, bobbleheads, replay of old games, play footage for ads, etc. They don't get paid.

The O'Bannon suit argues that the former student-athletes are no longer amateurs and should be compensated for the exploitation of their publicity rights. It also claims that current student-athletes should have money put into trust funds for their subsequent use.

These claims make perfect sense, and with the reduction of pervasive waste, inefficiencies and unjust enrichment of coaches and administrators, there would be more than enough money to go around.

NCAA says students are losers if amateur sport rules tossedBy Pamela MacLean, Bloomberg NewsBloomberghttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-ncaa17-20150317-story.html#page=1

SAN FRANCISCO — Professional sports and higher education are a losing combination for American college students and fans.

That's the National Collegiate Athletic Association's game- day argument as it seeks to reverse a judge's ruling that the organization behind March Madness and January bowl games is running a multibillion-dollar cartel that cheats athletes.

NCAA member schools would be required to share their $3.5 billion annual licensing revenue, mainly from television broadcasts and ticket sales, with football and basketball players at an estimated cost of $30,000 per athlete over four years. The players will lose part of the academic experience and fans will be deprived of an alternative to professional sports, contends the NCAA, which gets the majority of its almost $1 billion in revenue from licensing.

The NCAA presented its case to the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Tuesday, hours before the Division I men's basketball tournament opens. The association has already granted the biggest athletic programs partial autonomy, allowing conferences to offer athletes benefits including money beyond what current scholarships allow or increased medical coverage.

"The rules say athletes cannot be paid and we define what constitutes pay," Seth Waxman, the former U.S. Solicitor General who is representing the NCAA, argued to a three-judge panel.

The players won the antitrust decision against the NCAA in a lawsuit brought by former University of California at Los Angeles basketball player Ed O'Bannon, who was named most outstanding player of the 1995 Final Four and is featured in DVDs about UCLA games offered for sale by the NCAA. He sued in 2009 on behalf of a nationwide group of active and former players seeking to negotiate licensing deals for use of their images.

"The no-compensation rule is anticompetitive, not pro- competitive," the athletes' lawyers said in a court filing. Last year's court victory will give athletes, especially those injured in college and others who may never get a chance to play professionally, a shot at some of the billions they generate for their schools, they argue.

Marc Edelman, a sports law and antitrust professor at Baruch College, City University of New York, said the NCAA is the underdog in the appeal.

"Strictly as a matter of law, the NCAA has a very uphill battle," he said.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, following a 15-day trial in Oakland, California, last August struck down the NCAA's claims that its restrictions on pay for athletes preserved competitive balance and amateurism in college sports. Wilken stopped short of completely opening the market, saying the NCAA could limit payments to football and men's basketball players as long as the cap was above $5,000 a year.

The NCAA contends Wilken was out of bounds in applying antitrust law to its regulatory turf, saying her "judicial micromanagement" amounted to an end-run around a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it argues granted an antitrust exemption for amateur athletics.

Wilken's analysis "would blur the line between amateur college sports and their professional counterparts and thereby deprive athletes of a genuine choice between the two endeavors," NCAA lawyers said in a court filing. If students are paid, "they might be less likely to take full advantage of their scholastic obligations and opportunities."The NCAA cites the U.S. Supreme Court decision to bolster its position that its rules that preserve amateurism are valid. In that case, two universities challenged the NCAA's limit on how many football games they could license for telecast.

Lawyers for O'Bannon and the athletes counter that the NCAA is misreading the Supreme Court's decision, which also found the association was violating antitrust laws, and argues that last year's trial offered Wilken ample evidence to conclude the 1984 case didn't apply to the one before her.

The NCAA's reliance on that ruling in the O'Bannon lawsuit is "misguided," said Michael Lehmann, a lawyer for the athletes, said in a phone interview.

In support of the NCAA's appeal, a group of four economics and antitrust professors at U.S. universities argue Wilken went too far in her ruling, saying "federal antitrust cases are poor vehicles to create new property rights."

"No sound economic basis exists for a district court creating a property right in a student-athlete's name, image or likeness in these live team sports telecasts or game re- broadcasts, when no such right has been recognized before," they said in a court filing.

A key dispute in the appeal is whether O'Bannon had grounds under antitrust law to claim an injury for the unauthorized use of his name, image and likeness, known as NIL.

The NCAA contends there was no injury because there is no publicity right under the law to live-game broadcasts, video games and archival footage of games. It also claims that its rules barring payment for use of a student athlete's image don't regulate commercial activity and therefore aren't covered by the Sherman Antitrust Act.

"There is no such thing in NIL rights," Waxman, the NCAA attorney, said at Tuesday's hearing.

U.S. Circuit Judge Jay Bybee challenged Waxman on that.

"NIL rights are referred to in contracts," Bybee said. "That doesn't mean that they have no value. And the fact people are contracting about it suggests they have value."

O'Bannon's lawyers point out that the NCAA's new chief regulatory officer, Oliver Luck, has been outspoken about the need for scholarships to match the cost of attendance and his belief that athletes should be compensated for the use of their images. Luck, who started in January, is a former athletic director at West Virginia University, a former National Football League executive and father of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, a Stanford University alumnus.

The panel that heard Tuesday's arguments is the same one that in 2013 rejected a bid by video-game maker Electronic Arts Inc. to block lawsuits over its use of college athletes' likenesses without their approval or compensation.

Electronic Arts argued the U.S. Constitution's free speech guarantee means it didn't need permission to use images of former NCAA players if its games had enough other creative elements to make them more than merely celebrity depictions.

In a 2-1 win for the former Arizona State University quarterback who brought the lawsuit, the appeals court concluded there was no such transformation in the company's "NCAA Football" game. Electronic Arts and the NCAA later settled that case for a total of $60 million and EA canceled the game.

If Wilken's decision is left intact by the appeals court in the O'Bannon case, the effect may be "a lot less than people think," Edelman said.

While her decision bars the NCAA and schools from getting together to pass a no-pay rule, "nothing prevents member conferences from doing what the NCAA did," he said.

Highly competitive conferences may choose to allow some form of pay for publicity rights, he said. Others, like the Ivy League, may continue to prohibit player compensation beyond scholarships.

- With assistance from Eben Novy-Williams in New York.

Should Athletes Get a Piece of the NCAA Tournament Revenue?Whether to pay college athletes remains one of the most explosive issues in sportsENLARGE

Wisconsin's Traevon Jackson dribbles past the NCAA logo during practice. PHOTO:ASSOCIATED PRESS

By MATTHEW FUTTERMANUpdated March 17, 2015 1:06 p.m. ET

http://www.wsj.com/articles/should-athletes-get-a-piece-of-the-ncaa-tournament-revenue-1426610424

It won’t come as a shock to anyone that the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is one of the great win-win arrangements in sports.

Five years ago, the NCAA extended its media rights deal with CBSand Turner Sports through 2024 for a record

$10.8 billion. That’s an average of $720 million a year, or about 80% of the organization’s $905 million in revenues in 2013. The NCAA reported a $59 million profit that year.

CBS and Turner don’t report how much they make on the tournament, but last week both CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus and Turner President David Levy, boasted about the success of the partnership. Great ratings, great advertising sales, everything a television executive could want. Of course, this being college, free labor from the players helps the bottom line.

Whether to pay college athletes remains one of the most explosive issues in sports, as media rights fees and coaching salaries have exploded. Athletic departments have morphed into mini-corporations. A vote by the five power conferences earlier this year to approve cost of living stipends of $200-400 a month has done little to tamp down criticism.

There are folks like McManus, who without dismissing the concept outright, last week rattled off a list of complicating factors to paying players. Does the star get as much as the 15th player on the roster? Would money going to basketball players force schools to end other sports programs that don’t make money? “It’s a lot more complicated than whether the men and women who play in these tournaments should get paid,” he said.

McManus has a big reason for liking the status quo of the three-week, 67-game television extravaganza the NCAA tournament has become. Amateur basketball allows the networks to present the tournament as something more pure than the usual sports fare, a kind of well-lit version of the Indiana state high-school hoops championship.

Not everyone on the tournament telecast agrees with him. Jim Nantz, the face of CBS Sports, said it is clear the college sports business is headed in the direction of paying the players. “That’s what the big conferences are beginning to do with the stipends, isn’t it?”

Bill Raftery, the septuagenarian college-basketball analyst said he’d be in favor of a “modest” payment to the players, though as the former Seton Hall coach, he worries that some smaller schools wouldn’t be able to afford the outlay.Others are less diplomatic. “Primitive,” Kenny Smith, the former player and basketball analyst, said of the system where players don’t get a cut of the tournament windfall. “It’s the only industry in the world where employees don’t get paid.”

Smith wants players who attain their diplomas to be paid upon graduation a portion of the money their schools receive for playing in the tournament. (The amount varies depending on how many games teams win.) That way the NCAA can incentivize academic performance. Presumably, players who leave early to turn professional don’t need the money, Smith said, but the reserve who toils for Butler or Belmont probably does.ENLARGEAnalysts Kenny Smith, middle, and Charles Barkley remain split on the pay issue. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sitting across a table, fellow March Madness analyst Charles Barkley immediately began tearing Smith’s proposal apart. To Barkley, paying the basketball players for participation in an event that produces a windfall without compensating the fencers and swimmers would be a form of discrimination. “You pay the basketball players, then you got to pay the softball team and the gymnastics team and everybody else,” Barkley said.

So how about allowing Duke’s Jahlil Okafor or a Heisman trophy candidate to sell autographs or sign a sponsorship deal? Nope, Barkley said, because it would wreck a team if one guy is making money and no one else is. “If I am an offensive lineman and Johnny Manziel is making money and I’m not, I’m not blocking for him,” he said.

Team politics aside, Clark Kellogg, another analyst and former player, said the issue isn’t simply about giving the players a share of the tournament revenue, but making sure the colleges are doing everything they can to give athletes a chance to succeed at a time where they are demanding more of them. Kellogg is the parent of three Division I athletes who all got full rides. He wants to see the kind of academic support that can produce a meaningful degree, and enough money to cover every incidental expense of being a college student, since playing a major sport at a major college now often leaves no time for part-time work or even a summer job. He wants the NCAA to pay for families to be able to travel to watch their kids play in championships.

“The schools have changed the time commitment they are demanding,” Kellogg said. “You do that you got to increase the effort you are making.”

Sharing the largesse with the players producing it isn’t a bad place to start.

Write to Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.com

U.S. appeals court scrutinizes NCAA over athlete payBY DAN LEVINESAN FRANCISCO Tue Mar 17, 2015 6:45pm EDThttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/17/us-usa-athletes-pay-idUSKBN0MD17A20150317

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court wrestled with whether student athletes should win a slice of the billions of dollars universities reap from football and basketball, amid mounting public pressure for colleges to give athletes better benefits.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday to throw out an earlier ruling granting student athletes a limited share of revenue generated from use of their names, images and likenesses.

Critics say the NCAA's scholarship policy short-changes athletes who risk injury and devote many hours to practice sessions, travel and competition. The majority of college athletes do not go on to play professionally.

In a ruling last year, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, California sided with more than 20 current and former athletes who filed an antitrust class action against the NCAA.

The NCAA says it is defending amateurism in college sports.

Yet in the appeals court hearing on Tuesday, two members of the three-judge 9th Circuit panel appeared open to the idea that the NCAA's argument violates antitrust laws.

Citing a previous case which involved sharing video game revenue, Chief Judge Sidney Thomas said a ruling for the athletes in that matter "has opened a pathway for compensation."

Broadcasters including Walt Disney Co and CBS Corp have rallied behind the NCAA, arguing in a filing that the idea each participant in a team sporting event has an individual right of publicity "is simply wrong."

Yet Judge Jay Bybee on Tuesday said contracts the NCAA signs with television networks contain language about players' names and images. That suggests such rights are valuable assets that may be falling victim to anti-competitive behavior by the college sports association.

"Its clear you've got financial transactions going on here that are of great importance to both sides," Bybee said.

Even so, Bybee was skeptical of how Wilken went about trying to remedy the situation - directing that some college athletes should receive deferred payments of $5,000 per year.

"It looks to me like it crossed a line," Bybee said.

The hearing took place just a day before the NCAA's annual March Madness men's basketball tournament begins.

The lead plaintiff, Edward O'Bannon, won a national basketball championship with UCLA in 1995. He testified during trial that he usually spent about 40-45 hours per week on basketball.

"I was an athlete masquerading as a student," O'Bannon said in court.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Christian Plumb)