Antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/10620388/anti-trust-claim-filed-jeffrey-kessler-challenges-ncaa-amateur-model

There is a lot out there about why the NCAA isn't an antitrust violation - basically, because collusion is an essential part of the business model and thus "pro-competitive."

That said, I don't know that it has ever actually been held to not violate the Sherman Act. Judges have just said this in dicta.

 

Three hours and 53 minutes until I call my doctor.

 

Burn it to the ground.

 

Except the NCAA argues that they are not a business, they're a "non-profit" regulatory organization.

They'll have a heckuva time claiming that collusion is part of their business model and then claiming they're not a business.

 

I've long thought that what the NCAA should do is remove the players' restrictions on profiting from their athletic success. So the schools could still "only" pay them a scholarship plus room and board and book fees. But the athletes could get a percentage of memorabilia sales, get endorsements or otherwise profit from their own name. (The school retains rights to its name, so the player couldn't be ID'd as being from a specific team unless the athletic department approves it.)

 

It's really a simple solution but that means the NCAA is relinquishing control.

 

It's not "the NCAA" -- it's the member schools. If the member schools wanted to allow boosters to hand out hundred-dollar handshakes with impunity, they could make it so. But part of the fiction that fans -- as much as anyone -- buys into is that this is a purely rah-rah, school-based amateur enterprise. If the NCAA becomes an outright pro organization, then the emotional connection starts severing.

The thing is, every high school sports association is struggling with professionalization, Or at least, with the model that every school is a public institution with inherently equal resources, with schools only drawing students from a firm boundary line. That's hardly so, anymore, and that's why you see so many scrambling on so many issues.

 

I've said this plenty of times: I don't understand why sports, alone, imposes amateur purity on its participants. In no other field that I can think of - certainly there are some, but none that seem prominent - is a college student actually forbidden from making money from his or her craft. The fact that the Olympics for so long imposed amateur status on athletes who dedicated their lives to their sport is astonishing, too.

 

And people buy into it as well... that there is some shining beacon to being an 'amateur' athlete... I have never understood it.

 

Wouldn't that just kick the problem further down the road? Why shouldn't the athletes be entitled to share in the primary revenue they generate -- TV contracts and the gate, etc.?

Also, can someone explain the virtue of amateurism?

 

Amateurism, at least when the modern Olympics began, was seen as a pure thing because the upper class could afford to take time out of their day to play games, while the working class was too busy working. It was seen as a way to show he upper class was superior to everyone else. It also came at a time when pro baseball players were seen as slackers and scumbags.

The Olympics clung to this until it became so blatantly obvious that Commie-bloc athletes were basically pros that it couldn't be controlled. Plus,the IOC, like the NCAA now, couldn't keep spouting off on the virtues of amateurism when their own people were profiting handsomely.

I also agree with Bob, that players are going to be able to make their own deals, or at least get a cut of the school's sneaker money.

 

There's no good reason why athletes should ignore the bigger pile of money they generate and settle for a little sneaker money. They're entitled to a negotiated cut of all the money they generate -- TV, gate, licensing, endorsements, etc.