Pay For Play

Yglesias is one of my favorite bloggers out there and I usually find myself agreeing with him, but I'm just not sold here.

I do, however, think that there could be a role for the Justice Department in looking at the larger issue of the NCAA cartel that enforces the “no wages for young professional athletes” rule governing big-time college football and college basketball programs. The rule makes no sense. Lots of people earn lots of money off big-time college football and college basketball programs. The unpaid players are adults, fully legally eligible to do paid work in the American economy. And colleges all across the country employ students as part-time workers in a variety of capacities. So why shouldn’t they pay the kids who are earning them big money playing football and basketball? No reason anyone should force schools to pay their players, but there’s also no reason colleges should be allowed to engage in cartel behavior that would be considered illegal in any other field just because they’re colleges.

Too often people seem to accept the idea that college athletes in big-time programs are making the university lots of money and getting nothing in return. This just isn't the case. First, and most important, they are afforded the opportunity of getting a college education for free. Simply because one and done players, for example Greg Oden, refuse to take advantage of this doesn't make it less valuable. And while it may seem small to some, the travel schedule (including things like bowl games and March Madness) on the university dime shouldn't be dismissed.

Something else to keep in mind is that while a number of schools make money off their basketball and football programs, a good deal of that money made goes back into the Athletic Department to fund the lesser programs like soccer and lacrosse. Paying student athletes would likely result in a good number of cuts to those programs if not their elimination and creating a small number of big-time programs that could actually pay their student athletes.

One thing that I wouldn't be against is for players to get a cut of merchandising profits from appearal tied to their number or likeness based on the condition that they graduate within a five year window.