[NU Sports] FW: interesting column by NU alum Darren Rovell

[Jonathan Hodges]

Some of my thoughts on the issue:

Institutions are allowed to provide student-athletes on scholarship the
entire "cost of attendance" calculated following federal regulations that
includes "the total cost of tuition and fees, room and board, books and
supplies, transportation, and other expenses related to attendance at the
institution." (Reference Bylaw Article 15 of the 2010-2011 NCAA Division I
Manual, available here if you have plenty of time on your hands and some
lawyers ready to interpret:
http://www.ncaapublications.com/p-4180-2010-2011-ncaa-division-i-manual.aspx
).

Therefore, student-athletes should be pretty well taken care of financially
while in school in regards to the essentials.  While some student-athletes
do come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, so do plenty of non-athletes,
and the same student loans are available to both groups to take care of
extra expenses.  I would argue that by getting all "essential" expenses
(including room and board, books, transport) covered makes things very
manageable from a financial standpoint.  Sure, everything is expensive
nowadays and it doesn't mean that there aren't any individual instances of
hardship, but in general the athletes on scholarship are pretty well taken
care of already.

The most reasonable idea that I can think of regarding the "use of likeness"
issue (including using players' likenesses in video games, advertisements,
and things like jersey sales) is to put a certain portion of the profits
into a trust fund that will be turned over to the athlete when their
eligibility is extinguished.  In this case it's explicitly clear that the
athlete's individual likeness is part of the reason why those profits are
generated, and it is a bit unfair to leave them completely out of the
picture.  Do note that there is an ongoing lawsuit regarding the NCAA
Football video game which doesn't use player names but uses characters in
the game who share the number of most recognizable players and facial
features that sure look like them (also, there are download packs that fans
put online that allow everyone on the game to be renamed to the actual names
instead of "QB No. 7" or something like that).

Personally, I don't think that athletes should be further compensated beyond
what they are now plus the "use of likeness" trust fund I proposed above.
The amount they receive in tuition & expenses is huge and in the vast
majority of cases the athletes are not even participating in a revenue
generating sport.  Even in the revenue generating sports, relatively few are
in it to prepare for a professional career.  (Note that I won't touch on the
obscene tuition costs nowadays and how they continue to rise much faster
than the rate of inflation - that's a much wider and non-sports related
issue).

This issue will likely never die.  Again, in my opinion, the only way to
absolutely resolve this is for the NFL and NBA to pony up and create
full-fledged minor league systems, leaving college football/basketball as
more "pure amateur" type leagues.  Look at college baseball and hockey,
where athletes have the choice between the professional minors or a college
career where they may have a shot at the pros later but are squarely
amateurs until then.  Yes, this will severely erode the competition in those
two sports (and I love college football and basketball more than any other
sport/league out there) but it would be the only way to completely address
the issue.

Jonathan



On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Dennis W. Brandt <tbng at comcast.net> wrote:

> It should not be a university's responsibility to see to it that its
> students have spending money.  As to not helping athletes with academics
> after their eligibilty ends, I would need to see something more than
> anectodal evidence that is occurring.  Even if it is, they're seniors or
> grad students by then and should have figured out how to study.  They have
> no spring practice to consume their time and, if they're not turning pro, no
> requirement to hit the gym either.  Either you treat students as adults or
> you don't.  If a university must hand-hold students through four or more
> years of education, then it's time to return to a system that includes
> parietal hours.
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