Payday is Almost Here for NCAA Athletes

COLLEGE SPORTS-In a 9-0 vote this week, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory to college athletes over a compensation battle that has been dragging on for years.

The high court upheld a lower court ruling that the NCAA cannot limit education-related benefits, including how schools reimburse players for things like computers, musical instruments, books and science equipment. This is a great step that moves us much closer to finally seeing the day that college athletes are paid for the revenue they produce for everyone else but themselves. 

That revenue is no chump change, either; we’re talking about big money. The total athletics revenue reported among all NCAA athletics departments in 2019 was $18.9 billion. In addition, think of all the other parties who make a nice profit including the coaches who make more in a year than most people make in a lifetime, the local communities, the stadium vendors, the television networks, the advertising firms, and even the parking attendants. But the players, the key to the game and the ones everybody comes to see who make it all happen, walkaway with zero, zilch, nada! How can anyone with even an inkling of common sense think this is fair? 

Imagine a profitable business saying it wouldn’t pay its employees. Every last one of them would quit. I know I wouldn’t work for free, and I’m sure you wouldn’t, either. Supreme Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it best when he said, "Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate. And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different." 

Justice Kavanaugh is correct, yet we have taken advantage of our revenue-producing college athletes forever and gotten away with it. It’s nothing more than modern-day slavery. It’s a money scheme that would make the late Bernie Madoff proud. 

The NCAA has defended its no-pay rules on many different grounds. One of particular interest is it claims that compensating student-athletes would destroy the competitive balance in college sports. There’s absolutely no logic to this statement. As a former collegiate and professional athlete, and someone who coaches many professional athletes, we’re all on different pay scales. Corporate executives earn different amounts of money. Pro athletes earn different amounts of money. If anything, waving greenbacks in front of the athletes would be more motivation and increase that competitive spirit more than anything else. 

Whether or not to pay college athletes has long been a heated debate, but in recent years we have made great strides forward. A few years ago, a federal judge ruled that the NCAA can't stop players from selling the rights to their names, images and likeness. And with this week’s 9-0 victory in Alston vs. NCAA ruling, it’s only a matter of time before the athletes get their fair share of the big pie. 

The wheels of justice move very slowly, but they are moving in the right direction. We are closer than we have ever been. It’s time for the NCAA to finally step up and start paying these great athletes for the entertainment they provide.

Steve Siebold is a former collegiate athlete, a Certified Financial Educator (CFEd) and author of the book “How Money Works: Stop Being a Sucker.” www.howmoneyworks.com