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All It Takes Is One

March 21, 2012 by

Many people have moved from asking whether college athletes should be paid or why they should be paid to how they could be paid. It’s a fatalistic position based on the fact that everywhere in the world, amateur sports eventually lost out to professional sports. The US has the odd quirk of attaching high level athletics to higher education but whether that ultimately makes a difference remains to be seen. For pay-for-play advocates, the answer is already that it should not.

But the more interesting question is when. Or more specifically what will be the trigger that sets in motion the move to professional college athletics? Candidates emerge and are annointed all the time. Newspaper and magazine articles, lawsuits, possible unionization, an influx of money into college athletes are all pointed to as being the tipping point. So far, none have panned out and the whole exercise is becoming a bit like the boy who cried wolf. But a possible answer has come from Brazil. It could be as simple as waiting for the best football or basketball player ever.

Even the casual sports fan knows of Lionel Messi but few outside of soccer fans are familiar with Neymar. Neymar is the future of the Brazilian National Team and may be the only player alive right now who could challenge Messi over his career. Neymar is a little younger than Messi, but should be doing battle with him in Spain’s La Liga or in the Champions League. An even more frightening prospect is the idea of the two of them as teammates at Barcelona. But while Messi is the star NBA point guard, Neymar has so far played the role of the streetball legend.

The reason is that many forces well beyond Neymar’s control are keeping him from leaving his boyhood Sao Paulo club of Santos. Chief among them is the convoluted ownership of Neymar’s transfer rights. Normally soccer clubs own these rights, buying and selling players on the transfer market. Neymar is the classic case of third-party ownership. In exchange for paying a portion of his salary, a number of third parties (agents and investment funds typically) own a portion of Neymar’s transfer rights. European clubs typically must buy out all of the third-party owners in addition to the original club. In Neymar’s case, that means at least two investment funds, the club, and Neymar himself (his company owns 10% of his transfer rights). All of these parties are looking for a return on their investment, meaning the total transfer fee needed is approaching record levels.

Money could solve all those problems, and despite upcoming financial fair play rules and clubs suffering with debt and losses, there surely exists a team on the continent who could pony up the transfer fee, which could approach nine figures (in dollars, euros, or pounds, however you care to slice it). But other forces are at work. For starters, Brazil’s robust economy compared to Europe is keeping players like Neymar within the means of Brazilian clubs:

 A few short years ago, there would be nothing to debate. Financial realities already would have forced Neymar across the Atlantic. Brazilian football simply would not be able to afford him. Times have changed, though. Europe is in crisis. Brazil’s economy has been enjoying a consumer-led boom. For companies seeking to connect with those consumers, an involvement with football makes sense. Sponsors, then, can be brought on board to help with the wages that big-name players can command as much at home as by moving to Europe.

Those means extend all the way to the government. Banco do Brasil, one of the country’s largest banks, was prepared to help finance Neymar’s new contract with Santos. Banco do Brasil also happens to be state-run. In the end a private bank stepped in, albeit with with an extensive sponsorship deal that may further complicate a future move for the player.

Beyond means though is the possibility of revolutionizing Brazilian soccer. In most countries, the United States included, clubs run their own league, sharing some of the power with the national federation. In Brazil though, state federations have disproportionately high influence in the structure of the game. The result is that major clubs in Brazil spend January through May participating in state leagues against tiny clubs. Imagine the Lakers having to spend the offseason playing semi-pro and amateur teams, with even the right to stay in the NBA on the line and you get a sense of the idea. One hope is that as the big clubs gain the financial might to challenge European teams for players, they will also gain the political power to break away from the state championships and create a national league and cup system similar to the rest of the world.

What does all this have to do with college sports? For starters, one athlete in a different hemisphere under a totally different set of rules has encapsulated many of the issues and debates facing college athletics. How much should governments invest in or interfere with athletic teams? Should programs be run to maximize the success of a few teams or athletes or to provide as many opportunities as possible (Santos shut down its women’s team and its futsal team, a form of indoor soccer, just to pay Neymar)? How much of how a program is run or control over an athlete’s career should be ceded to third parties (or the club itself)? How important is regional vs. national interest? And what is the responsibility of the haves to maintain some degree of competitive equity or even engage in competition at all with the have nots?

Collegiate athletics can also learn from the fact that one athlete, simply by being a great athlete, could potentially cause massive change to how a sport operates in an entire country. It would be like if LeBron James had decided to go to college and stay for four years, so the entire structure of the NCAA was changed to accommodate him. The main difference might be that while there might not be true alternatives in either Brazil or the United States for Brazil’s professional leagues and college athletics, in the US there are at least potential alternatives, like professional youth leagues or amateur development operated by national governing bodies.

Could it happen here? The short answer is: it depends. The long answer is that it will and already has, in bits and pieces. Athletes who are “too good” for college have been a problem solved in a myriad of ways across the many sports the NCAA oversees. Generally they’re presented with a choice: amateurism and education in the NCAA or payment and training in a professional setting. We’ve yet to have a major showdown between a once-in-a-generation athlete who desperately wants to go to college and an NCAA not designed to accommodate him or her (given that this would almost certainly be a football or men’s basketball athlete, probably him).

Because potential alternatives exist, it would require abandoning the assumption that colleges, backed by state and federal taxpayers and committed to different missions should be involved in the development of elite athletes and asking the hard question about whether they should. An American Neymar is almost a certainty in the foreseeable future (15–20 years). But rather than moving the NCAA and its members forward, the major change could be the end of elite, commercial college athletics.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: ,

What Pay-For-Play Advocates Get Wrong

January 3, 2012 by

“College athletes should be paid.” It’s a very simple sentence. Most people either agree with it or they do not. A few go for the more subtle responses like “They already get paid with a scholarship” and “They already get paid with a scholarship so all we’re negotiating is the wage.”[1] By and large though, you could draw responses on a continuum and divide them into support or oppose.

Precisely because so many people have such strong opinions about amateurism and pay-for-play, rare is the article that actually tries to lure people to the author’s side. That does not mean those op-ed columns were an illusion. It means that the issue of paying student-athletes is normally presented as a moral one. There is a right and wrong side and it does not matter whether one side is more popular than the other.

But while issues of how public institutions spend their money can be a moral issue, they are more likely to be judgement calls. Should these people pay more taxes to provide services for these other people? Should this program get cut in favor of that program? Should we expand this department or contract that one? History may eventually favor one side or the other, but that does not necessarily mean being on the wrong side of history should not be allowed.

Often the trump card in arguing for professionalizing college athletics[2] is the conclusion that either college athletes should be paid or major college athletics should cease to exist. The problem is that is not a conclusion, it is two options. And one option, closing up shop, is widely supported with more detailed arguments behind it than one would ever need in a debate.

Agree or disagree, pay-for-play advocates do a fine job attacking the status quo. They do a reasonable job of coming up with plans to pay college athletes. But the bit they get wrong is that they never do a good job persuading people to support their plan. Unless “opposing this idea is morally wrong” is considered a good persuasive technique.

What is being argued for is not a general idea, but rather a very specific one. There are very few people at this point who disagree with the general idea that there should be more professional opportunities for athletes, particularly athletes aged 18–22. But this debate is not about a general idea. It is about a very specific one: that public institutions, which all colleges are to some extent, should be providing the opportunities. That fewer students should have other opportunities and fewer schools should be able to offer them. And that revenue generation and entertainment should be embraced as the goals driving decision making.

My advice to pay-for-play advocates is to stop treating this debate as a legal one and start treating it as a political one. Rather than assuming that professional athletics and higher education can and should coexist, explain why. Do the research to show it will be better. Convince people that the things being gained are worth more than the things being lost or put at risk. Above all, make the case rather than acting like it has been won.

  1. Apologies to Winston Churchill.  ↩

  2. Read: Professionalizing college football and men’s basketball.  ↩

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With:

Club and Division I Are a Difference in Kind, Not Degree

November 3, 2011 by

To the extent that anyone argues, without qualification, that there is not enough money to pay any athletes in college, they are wrong. Some set of schools could pay some set of athletes some amount of money above and beyond the cost of attending the school. The issue is that there is not enough money at the moment to pay even just football and men’s basketball players a significant wage and do everything else that college athletic departments currently do.

All of that other stuff has value. Coaching salaries are a typical target of pay-for-play advocates. If athletes were paid, the theory goes, coaching salaries would go down. But if they did, the best coaches might go coach somewhere else, lowering the qualify of coaching athletes receive. That is just one of many trade-offs, like whether college athletic departments should provide opportunities to a large number of athletes or compensation to a smaller group.

George Dohrmann’s pay-for-play plan then is less ground-breaking for making the numbers work than it is for making the tough choices. Fewer, smaller athletic departments in Division I would, all else being equal, free up enough revenue to provide a meaningful amount of money above the current scholarship ($12,000 in Dohrmann’s example). That comes though at the expense of many non-revenue programs.

Mainly I don’t support Dohrmann’s plan because I disagree with the trade-offs that are made. I generally believe it’s more fair and more appropriate for a university to spread resources and revenue on more athletes rather than fewer. In many ways this is the heart of the current struggle over the future of college athletics, and it is a question upon which reasonable people can differ.

But there is one flaw in Dohrmann’s plan and it comes in the treatment of club sports. Club sports are a sidebar to the article, but if you were politicking to have this plan adopted, they would be central to building support. Allowing nonrevenue teams to fall by the wayside is acceptable, the argument goes, because there is a club sports system that will pick them up. And that on a club team, athletes will receive most of the benefits they would have gotten as a Division I student-athlete.

Take these quotes in favor of the club sports model:

“We work hard and we play hard, and there is that same sense of teamwork and camaraderie.” … “We have gained a lot more life skills having had to work for everything, by not having anything handed to us. And isn’t that what college is all about?”

Those quotes come alongside claims that varsity athletes and club sport athletes are more similar then they are different. And in many ways, they are. There is often a similar time-commitment, athletes are representing the university, and many of the athletes could have been Division II, Division III or NAIA athletes, even Division I in some cases.

The tone of those quotes and the entire piece highlight the differences between club and varsity sports. That difference is explained by Jay Coakley’s power/performance and participation/pleasure models. Elements of the power and performance model are:

  • The use of strength, speed, and power to push human limits and aggressively dominate opponents in the quest for victories and championships
  • The idea that excellence is proved through competitive success and achieved through intense dedication and hard work, combined with making sacrifices, risking one’s personal well-being, and playing in pain
  • The importance of setting records, defining the body as a machine, and using technology to control and monitor the body
  • Selection systems based on physical skills and competitive success
  • Hierarchical authority structures, in which athletes are subordinate to coaches and coaches are subordinate to owners and administrators
  • Antagonism to the point that opponents are defined as enemies

By contrast, the pleasure and participation model focuses on:

  • Active participation revolving around a combination of types of connections-connections between people, between mind and body, and physical activity and the environment
  • An ethic of personal expression, enjoyment, growth, good health, and mutual concern and support for teammates and opponents
  • Empowerment (not power) created by experiencing the body as a source of pleasure and well-being
  • Inclusive participation based on an accommodation of differences in physical skills
  • Democratic decision-making structures characterized by cooperation, the sharing of power, and give-and-take relationships between coaches and athletes
  • Interpersonal support around the idea of competing with, not against, others; opponents are not enemies but those who test each other

One of these sounds like Division I athletics and one sounds like club sports. Neither is good or bad, nor is one better than the other. But they are different things, run in most universities by different departments. There are counterexamples, like BYU’s club men’s soccer team which plays in the highly competitive Premier Development League. If you ask the US Soccer Federation, they might say BYU’s club team is playing at a level higher than Division I.

So aside from the tangible loses, like the national competition, university funding, academic support, and financial aid, dropping teams to club status means asking them to embrace different values and set different goals. It is so different that it should not be considered an alternative to varsity Division I athletics. Those teams are lost. That loss can be mitigated or it can be accepted, but it cannot be explained away with club sports.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , ,

NCAA Rules That Could Have Been

April 18, 2011 by

The NCAA Division I Manual takes a lot of criticism for being a large and unwieldy beast full of esoteric and confusing rules. The size is a bit overstated, and much more complicated legal codes can be found. But the best way to defend what’s in the Manual is to point out what isn’t in the Manual.

Every year, about a hundred or so proposals are offered. Many tend to be adopted. And most are approved without much debate or controversy. But between the tendency of NCAA committees to go wherever the data points them and 31 conferences with their own ideas, sometimes proposals can go off the reservation. So here’s the 10 craziest NCAA rules of the last decade that never made it over the hump into the Manual.

#10: 2008-27

In women’s lacrosse, to specify that an institution’s athletics department staff member shall not arrange lodging for a prospective student-athlete on an unofficial visit in an enrolled student-athlete’s residence (e.g., dormitory room, apartment) until August 1 following the prospective student-athlete’s junior year in high school.

2008 began a series of innovative recruiting proposals that lead to a through review of the entire recruiting model that started in 2009 and continues to this day. Part of the impetus for that review was a series of proposals by the Ivy League in women’s lacrosse designed to test different recruiting reforms. The proposal even expressly stated that the concepts could be a pilot program in women’s lacrosse, then expanded to other sports.

The most specific among them was 2008-27, which sought to eliminate the unofficial official visit, where a junior prospect stays overnight, gets free tickets to games, but pays for her own food, transportation, and entertainment. All of the sport-specific legislation was defeated, although many of the concepts were combined in another proposal on the list the following year.

#9: 2010-76

In women’s basketball, to reduce the annual limit on the number of counters at each institution from 15 to 13.

The most recent proposal on the list, offered by the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, sought to reduce women’s basketball’s scholarships to the same level as men’s basketball.

The proposal is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it is the only reduction in financial aid for a sport that has been proposed since 2000. Even men’s sports have gotten proposals seeking to increasing scholarship limits. And secondly was the MAAC’s “use it or lose it” rationale, pointing out that the average number of women’s basketball scholarships used was 13.08.

#8: 2007-23-A

In tennis, to specify that, prior to full-time collegiate enrollment, an individual may accept prize money based on his or her place finish or performance in open athletics events, not to exceed $10,000 per calendar year; further, to specify that once the individual has reached the $10,000 limit, he or she may receive additional prize money on a per event basis, provided such prize money does not exceed his or her actual and necessary expenses for participation in the event.

Division I has always struggled with regulating the amateur activities of prospective student-athletes, who often don’t know the rules but who are equally likely to be attempting to manipulate them. No where is that no prevalent or more highly regulated than tennis. But in 2007, tennis almost went off the deep end of deregulation.

2007-23-A would have allowed for a tennis prospect to pocket $10,000 per year in prize money and then continue to accept prize money, provided it was only for actual and necessary expenses in each event. The rationale was that tennis is exceedingly expensive to play at the elite level, and the $10,000 per year often just covers unitemized expenses. Sponsored by the Ivy League, both 2007-23-A and an alternative allowing $10,000 total were both defeated.

#7: 2003-69

To eliminate the requirement that each Division I member institution, at least once every 10 years, complete an institutional self-study, verified and evaluated through external peer review.

Certification is built into the fabric of Division I athletics at this point. Every 10 years a school studies itself, submits itself to a peer review, evaluates its progress over the last decade, and offers a plan for growing over the next 10 years.

Following the first cycle of certification and as the second cycle ramped up, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference decided the exercise had reached its conclusion. Claiming second cycle certification had produced “few tangible benefits,” the MAAC proposed to do away with continued certification of athletic departments, and proposed ongoing review of topical areas conducted by conferences. After drawing a sharp rebuke from the Committee on Athletic Certification, the MAAC withdrew the proposal.

#6: 2005-162

To specify that an individual who officially registers, enrolls and attends classes at one of the three national service academy official preparatory schools (i.e., Army, Navy, Air Force) prior to initial full-time collegiate enrollment shall not be subject to the contact limitations in Bylaw 13 and shall be considered a student-athlete for purposes of contact by athletics staff members at other Division I institutions.

Proposed by the Patriot League, home of Navy and Army, 2005-162 would have essentially turned into student-athletes anyone who enrolled at one of the official military prep schools. That means recruiting restrictions would not have applied, and anyone from another school seeking to recruit this prospects would have had to get permission to contact these high schoolers.

The rationale was that the United States Military was already investing substantial resources in these prospects, and thus they should be treated like student-athletes. While our service academies get a number of breaks in the NCAA legislation, a de facto farm system went too far and was seen as too much of a competitive advantage. Thus it was defeated.

#5: 2009-28-A

In women’s soccer, to revise or establish restrictions related to contacts, telephone calls official and unofficial visits, offers of financial aid and involvement in nonscholastic-based soccer programs, as specified.

There has been a lot of talk of recruiting models and comprehensive recruiting reform. But no single proposal capture an entire recruiting model quite like 2009-28-A. “As specified” meant no contact prior to August 1 before a prospect’s senior year in high school. That meant no unofficial visits, no phone calls made or received, no off-campus contacts, and no club coaching by college coaches, although official visits were moved up to August 1, allowing them to be taken before school started for prospects.

Proposed by the SEC, the fear amongst the membership was that August 1 would be a feeding frenzy of coaches who would pressure student-athletes to make a decision quickly to fill a recruiting class they were used to being finished with up to two years prior. Both this proposal and a companion offered by the Ivy League proposing many of the same restrictions for all sports were both defeated.

#4: 2004-121

In men’s basketball, to specify that the head men’s coach must annually develop an individual personal growth plan with each student-athlete using community and institutional resources; further, to require the coach to periodically meet with each student-athlete to ensure that appropriate progress is being made toward the objectives set forth in the student-athlete’s personal growth plan.

Offered as part of a package developed by the NABC, this proposal would have required the creation of a mentioning plan between head coaches and student-athletes in men’s basketball. It’s a far cry from the NABC’s recent stance of deregulating most men’s basketball activities outside of money funneling.

The unanswered question is how this would ever be monitored. Sure, plans could be created and filed. And meetings could be scheduled and tracked. But how would you ever know if a student-athlete was progressing along his personal growth plan? Sadly we’ll never know. The proposal was defeated, resoundingly so, by a vote of 41-4.

#3: 2001-69

To specify that there shall be no simultaneous telecasting or cablecasting of regular season intercollegiate football games on Friday nights.

There’s college football televised on almost every night. But back in 2001, the Atlantic Coast Conference proposed leaving Friday Night Lights for high school only. There was one catch though: a Friday game could be broadcast live if it finished by 7:00 PM everywhere it was broadcast. So had the ACC not withdrawn the proposal after it was introduced, perhaps college might have seen the Friday Night Dusk.

#2: 2002-97, 2006-86

To establish an NCAA Division I Nonscholarship Football Championship.

Twice since 2000, the Football Championship Subdivision teams that do not provide scholarships have asked for the NCAA’s assistance in creating their own national championship. Conference of nonscholarship FCS schools are not eligible for automatic bids and the individual schools are rarely, if ever, selected as at-large participants. On two separate occasions, the schools have tried to carve out their own unique niche.

2002-97 was to create an official NCAA championship for Division I FCS (I-AA at the time) nonscholaship football. 2006-96 asked to allow schools to exempt the games in a non-NCAA championship event for nonscholarship football programs. As the calls for a major college playoff get louder and louder, we almost had two Division I playoffs without including the big boys.

#1: 2000-103

To permit a student-athlete to obtain a loan (not to exceed $20,000) based on future earnings potential from a centralized lending institution, as specified.

First the particulars: it wasn’t all student-athletes. Only student-athletes that had qualified for the NCAA’s disability insurance for elite student-athletes. Currently, that would apply to student-athletes who are projected to be drafted in the first round of the NBA, MLB, or WNBA Draft or first three rounds of the NFL or NHL Draft. And it wasn’t a loan from just anyone but from a real bank.

The Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet sponsored the proposal through the Management Council, the predecessor to the Legislative Council. The Board of Directors did not yet have authority to sponsor legislation, so 2000-103 came from as close to the top as it could back then.

And the proposal was never actually defeated in an up and down vote. It was tabled and forgotten until 2008 when the shift to the current governance structure finally killed the proposal. It may not be paying athletes exactly, but it’s the most surprising rule that could have been from the last 10 years.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Deal

March 18, 2011 by

At its heart, the NCAA is a voluntary enterprise. Schools voluntary decide to join it and select their level of competition and regulation. Coaches and administrators choose to be employed by NCAA institutions, with all the restrictions and benefits that designation entails. Athletes choose to become student-athletes. When an athlete decides to become a student-athlete, they enter into a bargain.

That bargain provides athletes with assistance in paying for a college education, training and development in the sport of their choosing, and in some sports the exposure that can be vital in beginning a career as a professional athlete. In return, the student-athlete agrees to forego profiting off his or her athletic ability while they are a student-athlete and agrees to reach certain academic benchmarks. This is the deal offered to student-athletes.

There are plenty of potential criticisms of this bargain. You may not believe enough financial assistance is guaranteed. You may not believe the training and development is sufficient. And you may not feel like student-athletes have enough information to enter into this bargain or leave it at the proper time.

The fact is that for two sports, this bargain is only technically a bargain. College athletics is neither slavery nor indentured servitude. All student-athletes is free to walk away at any time if they feel exploited or are offered a better deal. But when an option is your only option, what is technically a voluntary bargain becomes one you are compelled to accept.

In some sports, baseball for instance, the bargain is a truly voluntary one. A prospective student-athlete is free under NCAA and MLB rules to be drafted and negotiate a contract (yes, we can argue about the agent/advisor distinction). At some point, the prospect has a final offer with a deadline from a professional team and a scholarship offer from an NCAA institution. He then can decide which one is in his best interest to accept. Similar scenarios play out in hockey and soccer every year.

But in football and basketball, those alternatives do not exist. A senior in high school has no clear alternative to agreeing to at least one or three years of NCAA amateurism. As a result, those years of restrictions on earnings and required coursework are essentially forced upon someone who would not have agreed to it if an alternative existed.

The onus then in put on the NCAA to improve the deal it offers to student-athletes. And not just at the margins in terms of multi-year scholarships or better training. Rather, the NCAA membership is pressured to change the fundamentals of the agreement by eliminating the restrictions on profiting from one’s athletic ability and/or reducing or eliminating the academic requirements.

But it was not the NCAA who made the current deal offered to student-athletes the only one available. It was the NFL and NBA who took advantage of the fact that the NCAA operates the only 18-23 year old developmental league at zero cost to the professional league it feeds athletes into in the world. If Division I athletics were not played at the level they are, it would be both unconscionable and unprofitable to both bar high schoolers from entering the professional ranks and refuse to operate a minor league focused on development.

When Brigham Young University suspended Brandon Davies for a violation of the university’s Honor Code, we were reassured that every student at BYU knows what they are signing up for. To the extent that we as NCAA members have failed to make it clear to prospective student-athletes what they are signing up for, then we can justly be criticized.

Because NCAA amateurism has an educational, if not a moral component. It preaches delayed gratification. It encourages student-athletes to use fleeting athletic talent to secure a college education, something with a much greater shelf life. And it exposes student-athletes to a range of experiences and opinions they are unlikely to encounter if they jump straight to the professional ranks.

But no one should be forced into those experiences. If a student-athlete does not want to be bound by the BYU Honor Code, there are 345 other Division I institutions that have different rules. Prospective student-athletes don’t need 345 different options when deciding how to continue their athletic career. They just need at least two. The NCAA is offering one. It’s time that the NFL and NBA offer a second.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , , ,

What Would Paying Student-Athletes Look Like?

January 19, 2011 by

One of the troubles with the debate over whether college athletes should be paid is that both sides have a moving target. Proponents of NCAA amateurism have many arguments to throw at the idea of paid college athletes, from the dynamic between coach and athlete to the impact on education to the unique appeal college athletics has as elite amateur competition (the old “I hate the pros, bunch of overpaid divas!” complaint). Proponents of professional college athletics have any number of different ideas, from monthly stipends to allowing outside compensation to bona fide professional contracts.

As a result, you’ve rarely seen a debate between the status quo and one definitive alternative. That makes it too easy for proponents of pay-for-play to change the alternative to fit the argument and for proponents of amateurism to change the argument to attack the alternative. The result is that the debate never serves its core function: to force a continual reassessment of the fundamental fairness of the grant-in-aid.

Let’s assume major college football has broken away from the NCAA to form their own league. Football is the example here for a number of reasons. No developmental league exists here or abroad. Removing football from the NCAA has little immediate impact on how college sports are administered, and if anything would improve the situation. The NCAA membership, as a whole, has less at stake in FBS football because of the lack of an NCAA championship.

Let’s also assume that this league keeps the rest of the NCAA rulebook largely intact. Meaning no booster payments, no agreements with agents, all academic eligibility requirements, practice limits, etc.

Payment would not be small monthly stipends. The idea that pocket money solves all the problems is disproven by last summer’s agent cases. $1,000 watches, trips to South Beach, and expensive personal training on the other side of the country are all things elite student-athletes want. They’re also all things that cannot be funded on a couple hundred dollars a month.

It would also not be major league contracts. By that I mean player compensation would likely not vary widely, and would not be tied to a percentage of revenue. This is for a couple reasons. First, a college football league is going to fight hard to keep the parity that exists due to the NCAA’s standard grant-in-aid amount. Second, this would be very a much a minor league and minor leagues tend to have much more standardized player contracts than major leagues.

So what would it look like? Inspiration comes from two sources: the minor league baseball contract and Generation adidas.

The minor league baseball contract is a standard contract that has one major part that changes: the size of the signing bonus. For the first contract season, the salary is capped at $1,100 in the most recent CBA. The slotting system and negotiation is based around the signing bonus.

In Major League Soccer’s Generation adidas program, early entry candidates (high school or college athletes who have not exhausted their eligibility) sign a contract that includes money held in escrow for educational expenses that they have 10 years to use.

So what are the elements of a contract that this league might use?

  • A base salary that covers basic room and board expenses. Let’s use $1,250 per month, which works out to a nice round $15,000 per year and represents a little above the highest room and board allowances.
  • Payment of all tuition, fees, and book costs associated with attending the university during the athlete’s collegiate career, since these would still be student-athletes. Call it an average of $20,000 per year. This money would be guaranteed upon the signing of the contract though at least six years.
  • A signing bonus up to $100,000 or $25,000 annually for a four-year career

That creates a system where the lowest paid players are getting essentially the same deal they are now: a full grant-in-aid that covers tuition, fees, room, board, and books. The highest paid players are getting total compensation of roughly $60,000 per year, but a third of their compensation is earmarked for education. $40,000 a year represents a decent living wage, and much of that money comes up front, which can provide assistance to needy athletes. Stay smart about how you spend your money, and it could provide for a few of the finer things as well.

So to proponents of paying college athletes, focus on this proposal. It’s a sensible proposal for paying college athletes that is based on professional developmental contracts. If you run the league right, it may even be a wash in costs for many football programs (although that’s beyond the score of this post).

And to the proponents of NCAA amateurism, this is the proposal that should be argued against. Stipends and major league contracts are too easy to argue against. It represents both the biggest challenge to NCAA amateurism, as well as the best yardstick for judging the fairness of the grant-in-aid and working toward improving financial assistance for student-athletes while still adhering to NCAA principles.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

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