Race for revenue propels problems in college athletics

Editorial by Wilmington Star-News, August 15, 2014.

Frank Porter Graham was prophetic, even if his ideas proved unpopular in his day. Back in the 1930s, the University of North Carolina president and others were concerned about the growing influence of money in college sports, especially football. In an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Andy Thomason wrote of Graham's crusade for athletic reform.

Graham actually opposed the idea of athletic scholarships, arguing that all students should compete on equal footing for university money. Because of his talent for building consensus, he was able to persuade the Southern Conference to adopt stricter rules meant to rein in the practice of wealthy alumni and businesses lavishing money on athletes to recruit them for their university team. But the rules didn't last. What alumni and the public wanted were winners.

Oh, there are rules today. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has rules intended to uphold "integrity" in college sports. But big-name sports at major Division I schools are all about television revenue, ticket sales and endorsements for the coaches.

Money was behind the massive reorganization of athletic conferences into mega-divisions. An effort to unionize football players at Northwestern University, the NCAA's decision granting major universities the authority to increase the size of athletic scholarships, and a federal judge's recent ruling that the NCAA cannot ban colleges from paying student athletes erase any pretense that college sports are all about school spirit and building character.

The court case revolved around a former college athlete and NBA player who rightly objected to the use of his likeness in an NCAA-sanctioned video game. The judge said the NCAA can't ban colleges from giving college players a cut, although the association can cap the payments.

The judge was right – universities shouldn't have the right to capitalize on the name or likeness of a student athlete without compensation, and the NCAA has since cut ties with the company that developed a number of these popular games. But the case highlighted what most people already know: College sports are big business, and the players are commodities.

That truth became abundantly clear after revelations that athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were being steered toward classes that never met, and that tutors often were doing the work. And we all know UNC is not alone in having given athletes special treatment.

Eight decades ago, Graham lamented the influence money would have on future athletic programs.

"To introduce money into amateur athletics would eventually make college sports ‘a contest in subsidies,'?" Thomason wrote, quoting Graham.

What, if anything, will universities or the NCAA do about it?

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