New study calls current policy "unethical"
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said Tuesday that he agrees with a new study that argues college athletes should be paid.
The National College Players Association (NCPA) and the Drexel University Department of Sport Management released a joint study entitled “The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport,” which “blames colleges sports scandals on a black market created by unethical and unpractical NCAA restrictions on college athletes” according to the NCPA’s website, ncpanow.org.
The study estimates the mean scholarship shortfall or out-of-pocket expenses for student-athletes that receive “full” scholarships was about $3,222 during the 2010-2011 school year. The study also says the fair market value of the average FBS football player during the same period was $120,048 despite the fact many Division-1 players live below the poverty line.
In order to offset the inequity and prevent scandals, the study suggests that the United States Department of Justice and Congress should take several steps, including the pursuit of antitrust suits against the NCAA, to “prevent further harm to college athletes.”
Those suggestions include legislation to establish full cost of living scholarships, lifting restrictions on student-athletes’ commercial opportunities and allowing student-athletes in revenue-producing sports “to receive a portion of new revenues that can be placed in an educational lockbox, a trust fund to be accessed to assist in or upon the completion of their college degree.”
“I think it’s all true,” Spurrier said. “Twenty years ago, 50 years ago, athletes got a full scholarship. Television income was what, maybe $50,000? And now everybody’s getting 14, 15 million bucks? And then they’re still getting a scholarship?”
Spurrier said he feels the players deserve something more because of their role in making collegiate athletics, especially football, a multi-billion dollar industry for the NCAA, television, conferences and individual institutions.
“Their value is all based on money,” he said. “It’s not based on anything else except what they bring in to the university money-wise. They’re talking about it. I don’t know that they’ll do anything until they have to do something, but football, basketball players bring in a lot of money.”
Spurrier proposed a plan for coaches to pay players $300 dollars a game out of their own pockets during June’s SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla. The plan, which has been dismissed by many as being more symbolic than practical, sparked a continuing discussion about full cost of living scholarships.
“I think three to four thousand a player would make them pretty happy,” Spurrier said. “All the money that comes in is the reason for it. If there wasn’t any money coming in, I’d say ‘Shoot ... a full scholarship’s good for everybody.’
“When an enormous amount of money comes in, they pay all the coaches and the other sports benefit from it. And the top players, especially the players that are doing the performing, they’re treated like everybody else.”
USC tailback Marcus Lattimore said players talk about the situation “all the time,” but the current system is what they must abide by.
“It’s the rules,” Lattimore said. “We’ve got to follow the rules as long as we’re here.”
If the rules were to change, Lattimore said, he would support student-athletes receiving compensation, and not just in college football.
“It should be for football, basketball, every sport, I think,” he said.