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Sport and Society for Arete</div>
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June 30, 2024</div>
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Over the past several weeks, the world of college sports has witnessed considerable turmoil and the prospect of major change. The future of the NCAA is in doubt, at least in its current form. The myth of the “student athlete” under the banner of amateurism
is dead. The term should be laid to rest and never be seen in print again. It was a fabricated term created by former NCAA president, Walter Byers, designed to allow the NCAA to keep the money earned from intercollegiate athletics for itself, and out of the
hands of the athletes.</div>
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Five weeks or so ago, at the North American Society for Sport History annual conference, I participated as a commentator in a session looking at the NCAA and its relationship to the courts. Sarah Fields of the University of Denver laid out the history of the
relationship between the courts and the NCAA. Ron Smith offered a detailed look at the NCAA and its relationship with athletes, focusing on concussion policy and the Alston Case. The third paper by Brian Ingrassia examined the case of
<i>NCAA v. Board of Regents </i>in 1984.</div>
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The 1984 case is very interesting because of its highly significant ruling that seems to have hardly been noticed at the time. The case stemmed from the formation of the College Football Association in 1977 by several college football powers. The CFA sold its
television rights to NBC for $180M. The universities of Oklahoma and Georgia sued the NCAA that limited the number of times a team might appear on television and the number of games that could be televised. The court ruled that colleges were free to sell their
games without restraint by the NCAA.</div>
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The crux of the ruling was that the NCAA does not have immunity from Anti-Trust Law and was, in fact, a cartel. Very little seemed to have followed from the 1984 ruling, at least initially. It was, however, at the heart of the ruling in the Alston Case a few
months ago.</div>
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The 1984 case also raised a question about the NCAA’s use of the amateur status of the “student athlete,” a term to justify the ban on paying athletes and avoid worker compensation laws being applied to them. Ingrassia notes, at one point, that the thing the
NCAA was very good at, was keeping money out of the hands of college athletes while continuing to enhance the revenue flow into the NCAA.</div>
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Between <i>NCAA v. Board of Regents</i> in 1984 and the recent Alston Case, the world of sports went through consider change. Perhaps the greatest changes were in televised sport and the resulting massive flow of money into sport. The NCAA was one beneficiary,
while the athletes were tossed a few crumbs.</div>
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In her paper, Sarah Fields chronicled many of those changes and their consequences. Fields notes first that in 2023 the NCAA had $1.3B in revenue and $870M in assets. In 2019, the NCAA president was paid $2.9M. At the same time, the NCAA prevented athletes
from being paid and capped the salaries of assistant coaches. It also ruled that paying for a bagel for a recruit constituted a meal if cream cheese was put on the bagel, making it a recruiting violation. What guaranteed this power was the winning record of
the NCAA in court. Of thirty-six cases reaching the Federal Appeals Court level, the NCAA won thirty of them.</div>
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Fields looks at the 1984 case as the point that things began to change. In 2015, the O’Bannon Case centered on NIL (name, image and likeness) the court ruled that the denial of compensation to the athlete was an anti-trust violation. This led directly to the
Alston Case, when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the NCAA could not limit compensation to athletes for educational related expenses.</div>
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In addition, Justice Cavanaugh looked at the NCAA’s use of amateurism to deny pay to athletes. He wrote this, “Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined
by not paying their workers a fair market rate.” This ruling has, says Fields, opened the Flood gates of lawsuits from athletes, volunteer coaches, and others.</div>
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The first of the flood gates to open involves the agreement between the NCAA and the Power Five Conferences on a settlement of House v. NCAA. In it, the NCAA agrees to pay $2.75B in back pay damages over the next ten years to Division I athletes. Also included
is a revenue sharing agreement between the power conference athletes and their schools. This settlement remains tentative given that the court needs to accept the terms of settlement, as do the parties affected by it. None of this is certain to happen.</div>
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There is a raft of cases in the courts and heading to the courts that will further affect the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics and athletes. If all of these cases reach fruition, the future is more than a little in doubt. Also in doubt is the continued existence
of the NCAA. It could potentially be forced into bankruptcy and go out of business. If that happens, most of those at the NASSH session think that the NCAA will be replaced by a similar body because some regulation of intercollegiate athletics is a necessity.</div>
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The other consequence of all of these cases and actions center on how the lives of college athletes will be affected and what form college athletics will take. Also of some consequence is the reaction of the fans of college athletics to whatever new form emerges.
Will fans cheer for athletes as employees of the university, rather than cheering for the institution? Will the fans still be there? Will they continue to spend their money in this market? What of television and those who buy the advertising that sustains
the final product? These and other questions are yet to be answered, and how they are answered will reshape intercollegiate athletics.</div>
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One other point raised at this session came from Ron Smith. The NCAA over the course of its history made the claim that it wielded regulatory power to protect the athletes. Repeatedly, Smith cited evidence to the contrary. On concussions, for example, Smith
demonstrated that the NCAA failed throughout its history to address this issue despite evidence and advice provided by medical personnel both inside and outside college athletics. What drove the NCAA was not the interests of the athletes, but rather the financial
interests of the NCAA and those who ran that organization.</div>
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Needless to say, this was a lively and instructive session.</div>
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On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau reminding you that you don’t have to be a good sport to be a bad loser.</div>
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Copyright 2024 by Richard C. Crepeau</div>
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