Don’t want to pay, NCAA?

On the day that the UCLA Men’s Basketball team upset the odds against the Michigan Wolverines and headed to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament, the governing body of collegiate sports was headed to Washington DC.

NCAA representatives were before the Supreme Court as part of an ongoing class-action lawsuit, filed by former NCAA student-athletes, which alleges that the association’s restrictions on athlete compensation violate federal anti-trust law.

First queried decades ago, and the subject of multiple lawsuits, the payment of student-athletes has been a contentious issue for some time now. The case in favour of compensation has continually been bolstered over the years and now seems something of an inevitability – not that the NCAA will concede that.

On March 31st, however, The Supreme Court did an excellent job of straddling the fence by pointing out the issues, inconsistencies and hypocrisy of the NCAA’s argument, followed by expressing an aversion to providing courts the authority to rule on the association’s restrictions, which would likely spell the end of amateur student-athletics.

The NCAA’s case for ‘protecting the sanctity of amateur competition’ is flimsy. The revenue streams the organisation enjoys are varied and bountiful and the constraints on players’ earning potential draconian (This short VICE documentary from 2017 does a good job of laying the whole situation bare – and showing just how vast the NCAA empire is). Although with financial incentives dictating coaching moves, equipment and facilities, not to mention conference realignment, the amateurism argument seems more duplicitous than idealistically naïve.

It was one interaction between the NCAA’s lawyer, Seth Waxman, and the Justices that really caught my attention. Justice Samuel Alito cited the “really shockingly low graduation rates” of student athletes and the “tiny percentage [that will] ever go on to make any money in professional sports” as evidence that the amateur-athletic requirements of NCAA competition are damaging to athletes’ academic performance, as well as the fact that for most there is not the delayed gratification of becoming a professional. In response, Waxman argued that paying the students would only exacerbate the problem; “If you allow them to be paid, they will be spending even more time on their athletics and even less attention to academics.”

Whilst I think that this is highly debatable – payment offers only further incentive to remain academically eligible – it also gives the false but transparent notion that the NCAA are at all concerned with the academic performance of collegiate athletes.

There have been various ‘academic fraud’ cases in recent years, and the NCAA has done little to punish those involved or to encourage student athletes to prioritise their schoolwork. However a 2015 study found that on average student athletes cared more about academics than their athletics, this therefore directs the blame for underperformance towards their environment - the environment that, a Michigan State basketball player told VICE journalist Gianna Toboni, has him getting home from a road game at three-am with a class to attend at eight.

The NCAA has already lost in the court of public opinion. With high profile professional athletes such as LeBron James, as well as the student athletes themselves, protesting the NCAA compensation restriction – particularly the inability to earn from their own name, image or likeness (NIL) – the American public appear to favour change.

If – or rather, when – that change comes, there appears to be great opportunity for both athlete and endorser. A recent Axios report posited that Louisville basketball star, Hailey Van Lith, could stand to earn up to $1million per year based on the estimated value of her image rights and social media following.

The prominence of women amongst Axios’ projected list of top earners in college basketball stands in stark contrast to professional sports. In 2020, no woman cracked the top twenty of the world’s highest paid athletes - Naomi Osaka was highest in 29th. The financial disparity between the NBA & WNBA is eye-popping, if predictable. In 2019, the revenue of the WNBA represented just 0.82% of the NBA’s. The average salary of a professional women’s player was 1.12% of a professional men’s player, and the highest earner in the WNBA, Brittney Griner, earned just 0.28% of what Steph Curry pulled in from the Warriors.

This indicates that a female athlete’s collegiate career could potentially be the period at which their earning potential is at its highest. Not only this, but given the opportunity to earn from their NIL whilst in the collegiate limelight, prominent female student athletes may attract increased endorsements, investments and ultimately revenue to professional women’s sports leagues, such as the WNBA. This could lead to increased rewards for all female athletes and a narrowing of the chasm that exists between men’s and women’s leagues.

So, the NCAA’s refusal to compensate student athletes– now long defeated in the court of public opinion – appears to be headed the same way in a real courtroom. Perhaps the changes that follow will damage college sports, something that I love about American life – I hope not. However, it will be a step towards a more equitable and ethical collegiate arena and it will undoubtedly have ripple effects that alter the way professional sports teams and leagues operate in the US.