By Jordan D. Mamorsky
The player stood proudly next to the most prestigious trophy in college football, basking in the shadow of the “Heisman.” The lightning quick running back had reached the pinnacle of his amateur sport. He had won millions of dollars for his school, the University of Southern California (USC) and helped them triumphantly win a 2005 BCS National Championship.
That player was Reggie Bush. Five years later, Bush had to give up the greatest honor of his career, the “Heisman” Trophy for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits from marketing agents. While Bush was unable to accept any gifts, his school received countless amounts of profits through BCS bowl appearances, his apparel sales, and video gaming contracts. While at USC and after graduation, Bush never collected any of these profits.
Can this really be considered equitable?
Author Taylor Branch recently wrote in the October 2011 issue of The Atlantic as follows: “The real scandal is not that students are getting illegally paid or recruited, it’s that two of the noble principles on which the NCAA justifies its existence—“amateurism” and the “student athlete” are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes. The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some college athletes are getting paid, but that more of them are not.” 1
On November 4, 2011, school officials, academics, and attorneys met to discuss these issues at the New York Law School’s Third Annual Sports Law Symposium in a panel entitled “Amateurism Issues in College Sports.”
Warren Zola, the Chair of the Boston College Professional Sports Counseling Panel, provided an overview of the major issue: “The buzzword in college sports is reform. Many say college sports is broken. We hear it a lot. However, college athletics provides quite a few benefits and teaches many transferable skills. Football and men’s basketball is a small slice of the pie, but their issues are on the front page.”
Football and men’s basketball might steal the front page headlines; however, the NCAA and its various members operate for-profit across the board. Every sports team and program is geared to bring in profits for the university, often at all costs. For example, a men’s lacrosse team and a women’s basketball team sell merchandise in college bookstores, across the country, and when they win, it drives fan interest.
Law professor and sports business expert Marc Edelman explained that: “If you parse through the NCAA rule by rule, it is hard to believe that the rules are meant to protect amateurs its more about driving revenue.”
Even Zola concedes that all student athletes have a right to merchandise sales. “I don’t think a student athlete has the right to merchandise sales, but after graduation he or she should get proceeds. I wouldn’t be opposed to a trust fund or graduation bonus.”
Perhaps even more controversial than rights to merchandise sales, is the annual profits made by the NCAA from including player likenesses in sports video games. NCAA players receive no compensation from this use and do not give video gaming companies permission to use them.
This past fall a New Jersey District Court Judge dismissed a lawsuit by former Rutgers quarterback, Ryan Hart, that Electronic Arts (EA) could not use his likeness, image, and personal characteristics without his permission. U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson concluded that the First Amendment and its protection of free speech empowered EA to create digital representations of its players. 2.
Nonetheless, the popular video gaming company EA pays the NFL Players Association annually an estimated $35 million to include their likenesses in their video games. College football and basketball players that are featured (although nameless) in similar EA video games do not see any profits from their own likeness “The NCAA gave EA sports the right to use its school logos, fight songs, and other licensed material,” Edelman said. “This could likely be $35 million in windfall profits. This is money from using student names and likenesses. Student athletes should collect money at least at graduation.”
To escape the rigid rules of the NCAA, amateur athletes often turn to agents in deciding whether it is the opportune time to go pro and make money from their talents. Yet, agents are not always advising in an athlete’s best interest. “You can definitely tell between amateur athletes who were not offered the right advice said one panelist. “It is a slippery slope in allowing more agent contact, because there is no control over what is said.”
For the 400,000 student athletes in the NCAA it is a confusing landscape. They essentially have two “jobs,” one as a student and one as an athlete. Balancing both is difficult, and they receive no immediate revenue gains from their efforts on the playing field week in and week out.
“The 400,000 student athletes receive a huge benefit from a free education,” Zola said. “At most schools one or two sports receive the most percentage of revenue. Most of our NCAA athletes go on to have careers outside of sports.”
While the majority of NCAA student athletes may not become professional athletes after graduation, a small percentage do and only attend a university as a bridge to a career in the NBA, NFL, or MLB. Clearly, this is a major problem. For the outstanding talents such as a Reggie Bush, schools receive far more benefits and revenue from the player’s time at the school.
Athletes rarely have time to even study and receive the supposed true “benefit” of an education. “They are told to hit the weight room, struggle to memorize the playbook, that’s a full time job,” Edelman said.
As college sports evolve more into a mutli-billion dollar business, there is rising pressure for the NCAA to enact reforms. One thing is for sure, a school’s interest must be aligned with their student athletes. Life changing trophies should remain in the cases of their rightful owners.
1. Taylor Branch, “The Shame In College Sports,” THE ATLANTIC, October 2011
2. Michael McCann, SPORTS LAW BLOG, September 12, 2011 available at: http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2011/09/ryan-harts-federal-lawsuit-against.html
