Since Governor Gavin Newsom signed the “Fair Pay to Play” Act into California law on September 30, congressmen in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and other states have started to introduce similar legislation and put the pressure on the NCAA. Since then, the NCAA has announced that they are passing legislation that will allow players to benefit off of their likenesses, following the suit of California’s legislation. At face value this seems like a major step forwards that is only pushing the ballot on efforts made in California, but historical NCAA decisions make this one seem underwhelming.
In the past, there have been minor changes to the structures regarding “student athletes” and their compensation for their athletic labor, but change has been slow. The NCAA continues to push the narratives that paying players will make the leagues more unbalanced or unfair, however not every athletic program is equal as it stands right now. Amongst men’s football and basketball programs, which would likely benefit the most off of this legislation, the playing field hasn’t been even to start with. Programs have widely varying endowments for athletics to start with, and have paid athletes under the table to attract them to their schools. It is already an uneven playing field, and justifyingly paying athletes won’t change that.
The whole notion of a student athlete was created through the NCAA narrative of exploiting ameteur athletic performance for immense monetary gain. This is a step in the right direction, of the NCAA allowing athletes to benefit off of their likeness, but on a closer look it’s a cop-out. With the pressure of states like California, the NCAA was in a position to either make change early on, or to wait and fight the pressure of this strong wave of government and athlete support against current NCAA legislation. As an organization, they have waited until the last minute to make the most minor of changes in hopes of keeping the structures of the institution similarly exploitative going forwards. The wording on recent changes has been very vague, and in doing so, the NCAA has enabled masses to get off their back regarding new policy, as they did literally make change. What’s next is looking at the actual changes and making sure that this is actually taking a step in the right direction.
In terms of athletes getting paid to play, as the California law seems to suggest, this is but a small step. For now, athletes will be able to profit off of their likenesses, which will mostly be social media branding and video game endorsements. To put the actual pay of athletes into perspective, this morning, Trey Johnson, a former Villanova football player filed a lawsuit against the NCAA for violating minimum wage laws. While great changes are being made, it is important to continue to follow the literal legislation the NCAA puts in place and not fall victim to allowing a minor tweak to end efforts much larger towards athletes getting compensated. Additionally, it’s time to really call into question what it means to be a “student athlete” and whether or not it’s time that athletes get paid for the money they bring into their schools, and if so, what this might look like.
Throwing the Challenge Flag 