Show Me the Money

By January 2021, each division of NCAA athletics must have a plan in place for student-athletes to profit from their name, images and likeness. Holy shoe deal Batman!

NCAA athletic departments brought in $14B revenue during 2018. People near and far are tuning in to watch teams, both male and female, and thus a windfall of cash is created by the TV Networks and the Universities anxiously await their cut so they can improve facilities and pay their coaches millions of dollars. I used to believe student-athletes don’t deserve compensation outside their scholarship. There is tremendous value in having an education paid for and entering the workforce with a college degree. I now fall in the camp where I do believe athletes should be compensated given the large amounts of revenue they help to generate. However, I fail to see how a program can be implemented to create a fair playing field for schools at each level. In my opinion, the already successful schools will find avenues aka boosters, to provide additional monies to every player on their team. Advertisements from Joe Bob’s Car Dealership and Bob’s Burger Barn will help to fund players ranging from the starter to the water boy. Teams will be ranked as to how well they treat not only the starters but the non-starters as well.

To take this a bit farther, will high school players be allowed to receive payment also? Will amateur tournaments cease to exist if everyone is getting paid? We live in tumultuous times and I don’t believe we’ll recognize amateur sports five years from now. But as long as the kids are getting paid, who cares if we’re teaching them about work ethic and competition, we need to be focusing on marketing and finance.