Racial gap over issue of paying collegians
More support for compensation among blacks
Earlier this week, behind the closed doors of a hotel conference room outside Cincinnati, Mississippi State linebacker Leo Lewis explained to NCAA officials what he alleges a booster offered a few years ago to try to get him to attend the University of Mississippi: $10,000 cash.
Last week in Clemson, S.C., recruits toured the football team’s new $55-million complex, which features an 18-hole miniature golf course, an arcade and a nap room. Over in Alabama, Nick Saban’s $11.1 million in compensation this year would make him the highestpaid coach in the NFL, even though Alabama football generates only about $100 million in revenue, compared with $300 million to $700 million for NFL teams.
To some economists and labour lawyers, these stories of boosters waving bags of cash, luxury recruiting palaces and disproportionately large coach salaries are all manifestations of what they believe is a critical problem with college sports in America: schools are barred from paying the valuable top recruits in lucrative football and men’s basketball.
A slight majority of American adults — 52 per cent — still believe a full scholarship is adequate compensation for college athletes. But the racial divide on the issue is significant, according to a nationwide poll conducted in August by the Washington Post and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
More than half of black Americans, 54 per cent, support paying college athletes based on revenue they generate, the poll finds. Among white Americans, however, a far smaller 31 per cent support paying athletes, while 59 per cent are opposed. Hispanics split more evenly: 41 per cent say athletes should be paid, while 47 per cent say scholarships are adequate.
Dawson Gaymon and Theresa Melki represent opposing viewpoints on each side of the divide. Gaymon, a 54-year-old water department employee in Summerton, S.C., thinks athletes should get paid.
“The schools are making an awful lot of money and the coaches are making millions and millions of dollars and they’re (the players) the ones bringing in the money, really,” said Gaymon, who is black.
Melki, a 38-year-old nurse from Boston, disagreed.
“The whole reason they go to college is to get an education and a scholarship should be enough,” said Melki, who is white. “They shouldn’t be paid to play football.”
The idea of allowing players to earn money if their image or likeness is used through the sale of merchandise has more broadbased support than revenue-based pay with 66 per cent of Americans in favour. A sizable racial gap exists on this issue as well, however. Nearly nine in 10 blacks (89 per cent) say athletes should be paid for the use of their name or likeness, while 60 per cent of whites are in favour.
According to NCAA data, 48 per cent of Football Bowl Subdivision players are black to 38 per cent white. In men’s basketball, 58 per cent of Division I athletes are black to 25 per cent white.