There’s Something Rotten in the State of College Athletics
I love college basketball.
I think prefacing this piece with that statement is important. I was born and raised in Durham, NC and attended the University of North Carolina. College basketball has been a central part of my life since my conscious memory begins. It combines the greatest sport, basketball — fast-paced, athletic prowess, cerebral play — with the storylines and raw hustle that you can only get from college athletics.
But college athletics— particularly the moneymakers, football and basketball — are broken. This isn’t groundbreaking — we’ve known this for a long time. People way smarter than me have written articles about how the NCAA is essentially a cartel and any benefit to the student-athletes is vastly outweighed by the profit from the colleges. It’s exploitation, characterized as benevolence, that drives college profits.
This isn’t new. The system has been broken for a long time. Enter COVID. It’s time to pause college sports and put safety and health first, right? That’s a rhetorical question — obviously the overlords wouldn’t let a pesky pandemic get in the way of their enormous money-making scheme. But while society at large has been relatively willing to look past the exploitation of college athletes by the NCAA and its partners, COVID is laying these priorities bare for all to see.
Just last night we had the NCAA College Football National Championship (sponsored by Dr. Pepper®), where in a completely tone-deaf move fans were allowed into the stadium (in limited capacity) to cheer on their school’s unpaid laborers. Ohio State running back Trey Sermon went down with a collarbone injury on his first carry of the game and was taken to the hospital — play promptly continued as normal.
But in a time where we need to ramp up vaccinations and testing, limit social engagements, and generally be smart and safe to try to end this national nightmare as soon as possible, we put a football game (with players who are, let me say it again for those in the back, not being compensated) as a number one priority. I don’t just mean that figuratively — the stadium was being used as a COVID testing and vaccination site, which was put on hold to accommodate the NCAA.
All so that a team with just six regular season wins could have the privilege to get blown out by Alabama.
College basketball isn’t faring a whole lot better. The NCAA announced a bubble-like plan for the tournament, where all teams would gather in Indianapolis and remain in some sort of “controlled environment,” though notably did not use the term “bubble.” It’s something, I guess, but details are sparse and bubble or not, it’s still an unnecessary risk.
Concerns about this season have been raised since the beginning. Millionaire college coaches (a term that should not even exist, certainly at least for public schools) have expressed uneasiness about the position their unpaid players have been put in. Pitt coach Jeff Capel acknowledged “something just doesn’t feel right about it right now,” which is about as straightforward a criticsm as you’ll get from an NCAA coach against their ruling overlords. The worst person you know made a great point when Rick Pitino tweeted that the tournament should be moved back to May to help accommodate vaccination:
Even Mike Krzyzewski, the biggest figure in college basketball, admitted “I don’t think it feels right to anybody.” Coach K acknowledged that both physical and mental health of the players (yes there are COVID protocols, but there’s no “bubble” and they haven’t boasted the best success rate) are at risk with the current season. Let’s state that again: the public face of college basketball admitted these players are at significant risk by playing. And yet — business continues as normal, ignoring concerns of players.
Professional sports are one thing. They probably shouldn’t be back either — especially with fans in attendance — but these are paid adults making decisions for themselves, with the benefit of a union (at least nominally) fighting for their health and safety. College athletes get none of this — they’re essentially kids, not receiving any of the profits from this billion-dollar industry, with no tangible worker protections.
We can’t look at college athletes as kids — ineligible to profit off of their skills while the NCAA and universities rake in the money to keep the “purity” of student-athletes — while simultaneously not affording them the protections they deserve. If they’re kids and can’t profit from college athletics, they damn sure shouldn’t be put into a position where their health and safety are at significant risk. If they’re adults and can take the responsibility to play in this risky environment, they should be paid for it. Either way, they desperately need the protection of a union. The argument has been shaky for years, but with COVID the hypocrisy has been laid bare for all to see. This contradiction — they’re adults who can assume the risk, but kids who cannot be trusted to profit from it — cannot persist.
Yes, players can opt out. But they can’t, really. They could unionize, but the impediments are numerous and progress is slow. They’re also being fought at every stage by, you guessed it, the cartel itself who can’t imagine ceding any power to, god forbid, the players. And unsurprisingly, it’s very difficult to claw any inch of power when you’re starting from below ground.
This system has been broken for a long time, but the decision to move forward in the face of a literal global pandemic, which as of writing continues to worsen, is unconscionable. I can only hope it leads to real change.
