Pay to play?

As March Madness looms, so does the question of college athlete compensation

Have you started working on your bracket yet? The big dance is kicking off in a little over a week, and just about any sports fan is aware that March Madness is here. Many adore the stereotypical depiction of college sports: an unlikely crew of business and biology majors being cheered on by a bunch of enthusiastic classmates as they compete for a top spot on the national stage in games often broadcast on television.

College sports is a profitable business. According to a recent study conducted by Kantar Media, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament generated a record $1.24 billion in advertising revenue in 2016. But how much of it do players actually receive? Not much. Over the past several decades, the issue of student-athlete pay has continued to spark heated debate. For many years, NCAA athletes were only allowed to receive scholarships covering tuition and/or housing expenses at their schools. However, following a class-action lawsuit in January 2015, the NCAA permitted its member schools to start providing some of the their athletes with small “cost of attendance” stipends to cover other miscellaneous expenses for things like traveling and food.

Even with this increase, some argue that college players are still compensated way below their market value.

David Berri, a professor at Southern Utah University, journalist for Forbes.com and author of the book Sports Economics, found in 2014 that Philadelphia 76ers basketball player Joel Embiid was underpaid about $650,000 while in college, so even with the new $2,000-$5,000 stipend taken into account, that would still leave Embiid short a lot of cash.

“Student-athletes provide far more promotional value to their universities than the value in the scholarships they receive,” Michael R. Hyman, a professor of marketing at New Mexico State University, told Generation Next, “In essence, the spoils of student athletics are split unfairly, with universities receiving an excessively large share.”

Over the years, the NCAA’s main reasoning behind refraining from player pay has been “to promote amateurism,” or “ensure the students’ priority remains on obtaining a quality educational experience and that all student-athletes are competing equitably,” according to a statement the association released on the issue.

Ray Birmingham, The University of New Mexico’s head baseball coach, is against paying student-athletes.

“I treat my program just like a high school program would treat theirs: School first,” he said. Birmingham said that the majority of student athletes will probably not make it to the pros, and even if they do, their athletic career will only last for so long. “Eventually you get into the real world … and your academics and your training in college have to take over,” he said.

In contrast, Richard M. Southall, a professor in the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management at the University of South Carolina and director at the College Sports Research Institute, believes the NCAA is simply selling a “student-athlete mythology” for its own economic benefit.

“The [phrase] ‘student-athlete’ was created by the NCAA in the 1950s to forestall legal challenges and forestall compensation claims,” Southall said. “The issue is that the NCAA does not want to pay the players because that decreases their revenues.”

Tyler Davis, a recent graduate and former kicker for the Penn State Nittany Lions, would like to see more money granted to players. Davis told Generation Next that his team “probably funds the entire athletic program and some other stuff around campus.”

Davis only received a scholarship and $2,000 stipend for his senior year of college, meaning that during his sophomore and junior years at Penn State, he still had to pay for tuition, housing, meals and other expenses. Having no time

for a job on top of school and a rigorous football schedule, the student-athlete relied on loans and help from his parents to make ends meet.

This is not unusual. According to a 2015 GOALS Study of the Student-Athlete Experience, the median time student-athletes spent on their designated sport was anywhere from about 28 to 34 hours a week. So while other students may have the time to pick up several shifts during the week and earn money, many college athletes do not.

Given this, it may come as no surprise that the study also found that 22 percent of all student-athletes said that they don’t usually have enough money to buy the things they need, and about one-third were “struggling to find energy for other tasks because of the physical demands of their sport.”

Davis indicated that even with a stipend, things would often get tight financially for him and his teammates.

“Sometimes our meal plans would run out and stuff, and so we’d be calling each other, like, ‘Hey man, do you got any meal points?’ ” he recalled.

Providing adequate course offerings to college athletes also has been a source of concern for many. However, according to Les Myers, the associate athletic director at UNM, nowadays players have a variety of options to fit their schedule needs, including online classes.

“[The NCAA] continues to look at ways to support participating student-athletes,” Myers told Generation Next. “My advice is to take advantage of the opportunity at hand and utilize every last resource available to pursue the educational outcome you want to accomplish during your college career.”

Birmingham agrees. “The athletes at UNM get plenty,” he said. “I’m teaching them to get better, and then they get drafted — they should be paying me. If you think you’re good enough to go pro, go get ’em, but we’re not gonna pay you to be here.”

But, Southall said, there may be other ways to compensate college athletes, much as professionals are compensated, such as endorsements. Currently, the NCAA prohibits its players from receiving commercial benefits of any kind — something Davis simply can’t understand.

“I think the unfair part is that we can’t make money off of using our own name. That just doesn’t make sense to me,” Davis said.

Madeline Grantham-Philips is a senior at Santa Fe High School. Contact her at madeline. granthamphilips@gmail.com.