research articles on paying college athletes

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What should college athletes be paid market structure and the ncaa.

"From the start, American colleges and universities have had a complicated relationship with sports and money."   —Justice Neil Gorsuch,  NCAA v. Alston  (2021)

Introduction  

College athletic programs are an integral part of many college campuses. Colleges earn revenue from ticket sales, merchandise, and licensing agreements. But should the athletes themselves be given a portion of these earnings? There is a long tradition of unpaid amateur athletics in the United States, and many argue that the scholarships offered to student athletes are fair compensation for their time and talent. But recent court cases and subsequent rule changes by bodies governing college athletics have highlighted the underlying market structure of college athletics in the United States—and have begun to change it.

Monopoly vs. Monopsony: What Is the Difference?  

Many of us are familiar with the concept of a monopoly , where a market is controlled by a single firm or producer. Monopolies mean that consumers have no choice when shopping for a product or service, because there is only one supplier. Without competition for buyers, a monopolist can essentially control the market price. Monopolies are generally created when there is some barrier to entry that prevents other producers from joining the market. 

But what if, instead of there being only one producer in a market, there was only one consumer? What if you produced a good or service but had only one option when it came time to try and sell your product or service? This is a monopsony (Figure 1).

NCAA As a Monopsony

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was originally founded to set standards and safety practices for college athletics. Today the NCAA has more than 1,000 member colleges and universities organized into three divisions. Many of the standards and regulations the NCAA established have to do with how member schools can recruit and compensate athletes for participating in college athletics. Colleges and universities are primarily educational institutions, not athletic franchises or companies, so how did the NCAA (and its member schools) end up being defendants in an antitrust claim before the US Supreme Court? 

As college athletics increased in popularity, they created more and more revenue for both the NCAA and the colleges and universities. In 2022, the NCAA reportedly earned $1 billion in revenue from March Madness alone. 1 The increased revenue the NCAA and member schools received, driven by the increased popularity of college sports, left many questioning if the athletes were still being fairly compensated for their labor. 

In 2021, a group of both current and former student athletes filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA ( NCAA v. Alston ). The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the students against the NCAA's rules that restricted education-related benefits, such as scholarships for graduate or vocational school or payments for academic tutoring. These types of caps on education-­related benefits had kept costs down for member schools who would have otherwise bid up these types of payments to attract potential star athletes.

The US government has several antitrust laws in place that are designed to prevent monopolies from forming and that require competition be maintained in the market. It has been long held in the US that monopolies hurt the consumer by reducing output, raising prices, and limiting innovation. (When producers do not compete, there is less incentive to innovate or lower costs.) The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) prohibits "contract[s], combination[s], or conspiracy[ies] in restraint of trade or commerce." 2

When a person or group files an antitrust claim, the court must determine if the parties involved are limiting competition in a way that is detrimental to consumers. But would the same reasoning be applied to a monopsony? According to the Supreme Court in the NCAA case, yes. 3  

College athletes are in essence "selling" their labor to colleges/universities in exchange for scholarships, tuition, and other education-related expenses. If you are an amateur athlete, there is no other viable "buyer" in this labor market beyond colleges and universities. In short, the NCAA has established a monopsony labor market for amateur athletes (Figure 2).

Because there is no other labor market for these amateur athletes to sell their talent and skills, the NCAA guidelines determine how student athletes are compensated. The Supreme Court found that because member schools compete against each other to recruit student athletes, the NCAA, through rules like limiting education-related benefits, used its monopsony power to "cap artificially the compensation offered to recruits." 4

The Court ruled that these caps violate antitrust law, which has opened the door to further debate and rule changes related to student athlete compensation. We are already seeing policy changes that have begun to reduce the monopsony power of the NCAA.

Opening the Door for Name, Image, Likeness  

Following the ruling in NCAA v. Alston , the NCAA made a major policy change that has reshaped the way student athletes are compensated for their talent. Starting in July 2021, the NCAA allows all Division I-III student athletes to be compensated for use of their Name, Image, Likeness (NIL). Examples of using NIL include a university selling jerseys with an athlete's name on them or licensing an avatar in an athlete's likeness for a video game. 

This change reversed previous policy that strictly forbade college athletes from earning "benefits linked to their participation in a sport." 5 That is, colleges and universities could earn income by selling merchandise and licensing featuring an athlete, but the individual would not receive any compensation based on sales of these items. Nor could college athletes participate in any individual endorsement or advertising contracts. 

With the new NIL policy, college athletes are now able to accept endorsement deals with both large national brands and smaller local businesses. Big-ticket endorsements can earn players upward of $1 million per year, while smaller sums of money or free products from smaller local businesses are often available for college players.

Long-Term Consequences

Monopsonies are less common and certainly less visible than monopolies; but monopsony labor markets still have a large impact on the income and wages of laborers within those markets. While colleges and universities are not your typical profit-making businesses, and so unique circumstances must be considered, we can see in the college athletics example how monopsony power can depress earnings and compensation for athletes within these markets.

With changes in policies around NIL and education-­related compensation for student athletes, the landscape of college sports is changing. NIL has created opportunities for athletes to profit from endorsements and advertising contracts and is already impacting the way colleges recruit, as schools are offering programs and partnerships internally to help student athletes make the most of their NIL opportunities. Less than 2% of NCAA athletes move on to play professional sports; so, the opportunity for NIL compensation during their college years is important for the vast majority of these athletes who may not have similar opportunities in the future. 6

While the debate over college athlete compensation goes on, reducing the monopsony power of the NCAA and expanding earnings competition among college athletes will definitely change the way these institutions recruit, manage, promote, and retain athletes. The complex relationship between higher education, sports, and money won't become any less complex anytime soon.

1 Blinder, Alan and Draper, Kevin. "Topping $1 Billion a Year, Big Ten Signs Record TV Deal for College Conference." New York Times , August 18, 2022; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/sports/ncaafootball/big-ten-deal-tv.html .

2 The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, July 2, 1890; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

3 No. 20-512 National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston , 2021.

4 NCAA v. Alston , 2021. (See footnote 3.)

5 Blinder and Draper, 2022. (See footnote 1.)

6 National Collegiate Athletic Association. "NCAA Recruiting Fact Sheet." August 2021; https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/compliance/recruiting/NCAA_RecruitingFactSheet.pdf .

© 2023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve System.

Antitrust law: Legislation that prohibits practices that restrain trade, such as price fixing and business arrangements designed to achieve monopoly power. 

Barriers to entry: Obstacles that make it difficult for a producer to enter a market. Examples might include control of a scarce resource or high fixed or start-up costs. 

Competition: Competition takes place in markets. Sellers compete with other sellers for sales to consumers. Sellers compete on the basis of price, product quality, customer service, product design and variety, and advertising. Buyers compete with other consumers for goods and services. This often results in higher prices.

Incentives: Perceived benefits that encourage certain behaviors.

Market: Buyers and sellers coming together to exchange goods, services, and/or resources.

Monopoly: A market for a good or service where there is only one supplier, or that is dominated by one supplier. Barriers prevent entry to the market and there are no close substitutes for the product.

Monopsony: A market for a good or service where there is only one buyer, or that is dominated by one buyer.

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What we know and what we don't about a historic settlement to pay college athletes

Becky Sullivan

The NCAA and its Power 5 conferences agreed this week to a legal settlement that could allow for schools to pay athletes directly. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images hide caption

A sea change is coming to college athletics.

On Thursday, the NCAA and the so-called "power five" athletic conferences reached a groundbreaking agreement that seeks to end the century-old tradition of amateurism in college sports by allowing athletes to receive pay directly from the colleges and universities they play for.

The agreement, part of a class-action lawsuit known as House v. NCAA , must be approved by a federal judge overseeing the case, a decision that could be months away.

NCAA and college conferences OK $2.8 billion settlement over antitrust claims

The proposed settlement has two parts. First, it would distribute some $2.75 billion to athletes who competed before July 2021, when the NCAA first allowed athletes to earn money from their name, image and likeness rights. Second, it would create a future revenue-sharing model in which schools could each distribute around $20 million per year directly to athletes.

But far from closing the door on the years of debates and litigation over the question of payments to student athletes, the proposed settlement raises a slate of even more questions: Which athletes will be compensated? How much will they make? Will women be paid equally to men? Will schools that are unable to pay athletes be able to keep up with bigger, richer schools?

"Those are going to be very important details we're going to have to work out," said Matt Mitten, a professor of sports law at Marquette University. "The settlement is just the start."

Here's what we know and what big issues remain unresolved.

What would the proposed settlement cover?

In short, the future-looking part of the proposed agreement creates a system in which schools that are part of Power 5 conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Pac-12 and the Southeastern Conference, all of which voted to approve the proposed settlement — can pay athletes.

Each school will be allowed to distribute up to around $20 million to its athletes, an amount based on a percentage of the average revenue earned annually by the power conference programs. That percentage begins at 22 percent and could go up over time. It's expected that other schools, those outside the Power 5 conferences, will be able to opt in.

College football is back and players still aren't getting paid

"This landmark settlement will bring college sports into the 21st century, with college athletes finally able to receive a fair share of the billions of dollars of revenue that they generate for their schools," plaintiffs' attorney Steve Berman said in a statement.

Will all college athletes get paid?

No. Football players and men's basketball players at large programs are the most likely to receive payments. That's because most of the revenue earned by college athletics departments has historically come from TV contracts to broadcast those two sports. Women's basketball also earns some revenue, and those players too could receive payments.

"It's going to be up to each school to decide how they're going to distribute that $20 million. And that's going to probably vary a lot from school to school," said Mit Winter, an attorney who has represented conferences, schools and athletes in a variety of college sports legal issues.

A New Era Dawns In College Sports, As The NCAA Scrambles To Keep Up

Schools will also have the option to pay players in sports that generally don't generate revenue — like rowing, soccer, tennis, track and field and more — but it's unclear how institutions will choose to proceed.

And many schools that aren't part of the major conferences may choose not to pay anything to any players at all, which could eventually open a competitive gulf between the haves and the have nots.

As an example, Mitten pointed to his employer, Marquette, whose men's basketball teams have reached three Final Fours despite the school's lack of a football team and accompanying revenue that could more easily fund payments to players.

March Madness is an NCAA gold mine. This year, players can finally cash in too

"How do we maintain the parity and competitive balance among the 350-plus Division 1 basketball schools when not all of them play football and are getting, individually, millions and millions of dollars from these big TV contracts?" he said.

Will women be paid equally with men?

The proposed settlement marks a new frontier for Title IX, the cornerstone civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at educational institutions that receive funding from the federal government.

Title IX's legacy in college sports has been massive, as schools are required to pay out scholarships in equal proportion to women as they do for men.

Women's NCAA championship TV ratings crush the men's competition

Now, schools will have to determine whether and how the law applies to revenue payments to athletes. It will likely be up to litigation to resolve the question, he said.

"There's really no set final answer on how Title IX is going to apply," said Winter. "I think some schools will assume that Title IX is going to make them give 50 percent of that $20 million to female athletes and 50 percent to male athletes. Other schools won't make that assumption."

Are the NCAA's antitrust woes over?

As much as the NCAA may hope this settlement puts the years of antitrust lawsuits behind them, on this one, experts agree: The answer is no.

Of particular concern is the cap that the settlement places on payout, which is set for now at 22 percent of the average revenue earned annually by Power 5 schools. That figure is much lower than the portion of revenue paid out in professional sports like the NFL and NBA, where players take home about half of revenue.

Dartmouth men's basketball team votes to unionize, shaking up college sports

In those leagues, players have agreed to receive that share of the revenue by way of collective bargaining agreements. Those labor agreements provide legal protection from individual lawsuits over compensation, said Mitten. But in college sports, where athletes aren't considered employees, no such bargaining agreements exist — meaning the NCAA is still exposed to antitrust litigation.

The NCAA and schools are already lobbying Congress to pass a federal antitrust exemption for college sports that would protect them from future lawsuits over pay.

Equity Implications of Paying College Athletes: A Title IX Analysis

Boston College Law Review, 2023

Elon University Law Legal Studies Research Paper Forthcoming

63 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2023

Andrew J. Haile

Elon University School of Law

Date Written: February 2, 2023

After fifty years of Title IX, the gap in participation rates between men and women in college athletics has closed significantly. In 1982, women comprised only 28% of all NCAA college athletes. In 2020, they made up 44%. Despite the progress in participation rates, a substantial gap in resources allocated to men’s and women’s sports continues to exist. On average, NCAA colleges spend more than twice as much on men’s sports as they do on women’s. This gap is even greater at schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the most elite level of college athletics. The median FBS institution spends almost three times more on men’s athletics than on women’s. This situation may get even worse if colleges are allowed to start paying their athletes, which appears a realistic possibility in the not-too-distant future. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence in the 2021 Supreme Court decision NCAA v. Alston sent a strong signal that prohibitions on paying college athletes most likely violate federal antitrust law. More recently, some states have introduced legislation that would require colleges to compensate athletes in sports that generate positive net income for their schools. While this could rectify the serious inequity of colleges making tens of millions of dollars from their athletes’ labor without those athletes being allowed to share in the financial benefits they create, it could also widen the gap in resources colleges invest in men’s and women’s sports. With very rare exception, football and men’s basketball are the only college sports that produce more revenue than expenses. Consequently, unless Title IX requires otherwise, the difference in the amount of money colleges invest in men’s and women’s sports could grow significantly if those colleges are allowed to compensate male athletes without compensating female athletes. This Article provides a detailed analysis of whether the current Title IX regulations require equal payments to male and female athletes. It concludes that they do not. Of course, the controlling Title IX regulations were drafted at a time when paying college athletes was not even contemplated, and therefore this result does not comport with the purpose or spirit of Title IX. Consequently, the Article goes on to argue that the regulations should be amended to treat payments to college athletes the same as scholarships. This would require that male and female athletes receive proportionately equal payments for their athletic services. Making this change to ensure equitable treatment of all athletes will advance the purposes of Title IX and will help to combat the “marketplace bias” that hampers the economic growth of women’s sports.

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Elon university school of law ( email ).

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Will schools finally pay student-athletes? What a historic settlement means for the NCAA and players

Could college athletes really start getting paid directly by their schools, ending decades of acrimony over the issue?

The NCAA, along with the five largest college athletic conferences, announced Thursd a y a n agreement to settle three antitrust suits brought by college athletes over having been deprived of financial gain by only receiving scholarships in exchange for their play.

Here's how it all could work.

What does the settlement say?

If approved by a California judge, the NCAA would pay out more than $2.7 billion in damages over the course of 10 years to current and former athletes that now form the so-called class of plaintiffs represented in the suit.

That group consists of 14,000 players who were enrolled as student-athletes from 2016 to 2020.

The settlement would also institute a 10-year revenue-sharing plan that would guarantee active players, collectively, up to 22% of their schools' share of media broadcast and ticket sales. Reported estimates suggest that would initially equal more than $20 million a year per school in most instances — but that figure could increase as more lucrative TV deals are signed.

If approved, this plan would start in the fall of 2025.

Yahoo Sports first reported details of the potential settlement agreement.

Aren't athletes now already earning money?

Long a source of debate in American society, the issue of whether college athletes should be paid has started coming to a head in recent years. In 2021, athletes earned the right to profit from their own name, image and likeness (NIL), potentially turning some amateur players into overnight multimillionaires.

Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, for instance, the son of NFL Hall of Famer and current Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, has NIL deals in place valued at $4.6 million, according to the NIL tracking site On3 .

Before entering the WNBA, Caitlin Clark had NIL deals in place worth $3.1 million, according to On3 data.

For the top athletes, NIL deals likely will remain in some form — giving players the opportunity to earn additional money on top of the payments they'd be getting from schools.

"Right now we are in a golden age for those players," said Darren Heitner, an attorney who specializes in sports law.

But it will be left to schools to divvy up exactly which players receive what amount of money — and there are concerns that the financial burden from the settlement agreement could actually hurt the budgets of less lucrative college athletic programs.

Paul Haagen, a law professor at Duke University, said the result could mean schools cutting programs outright that are already regularly losing money.

"There's going to be greater intensification and commercialization," Haagen said. "And the sports that can’t be commercialized will find it harder and harder to compete." 

What are the legal issues that the NCAA and the schools still face?

The landmark 2021 NIL decision did not stop the threat of suits aimed at seeking further financial relief for players — claims the NCAA and its schools say have led them to the brink of a financial calamity.

“The settlement, though undesirable in many respects and promising only temporary stability, is necessary to avoid what would be the bankruptcy of college athletics,” Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins said in a statement Thursday.

The proposed settlement is thus a stop-gap effort to limit the damages the NCAA and its schools are staring down from lawsuits charging them with illicitly depriving athletes from financial gain, Heitner said.

"They seemed to be losing case after case, so the exposure was there," he said.

Another complicating factor is Title IX — the federal statute that dictates amateur female athletes are entitled to the same rights as their male counterparts.

The NCAA has argued Title IX applies only to "opportunities" and not things of monetary value.

With the new settlement in place, that argument could become the subject of further litigation, Heitner said.

"If plaintiffs, and plaintiffs lawyers, believe there are credible claims that schools are not in compliance with Title IX, we could see schools start being sued," he said.  

The latest settlement will thus not still stop ongoing legal uncertainty for college athletics, he said.

But it does start the ball rolling for college athletes to start seeing direct payments for the first time.

Rob Wile is a breaking business news reporter for NBC News Digital.

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College sports departments gearing up for ‘economic earthquake’ with direct pay for athletes looming

FILE - Footballs stand ready before the Virginia Tech at Wake Forest NCAA college football game in Winston-Salem, N.C., Saturday Oct. 15, 2011. A settlement being discussed in an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and major college conferences could cost billions and pave the way for a new compensation model for college athletes. (AP Photo/Bob Leverone, File)

FILE - Referees try to break up an altercation between Alabama and Auburn during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, in Auburn, Ala. A settlement being discussed in an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and major college conferences could cost billions and pave the way for a new compensation model for college athletes. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt, File)

FILE - The Pac-12 logo is shown during the second half of an NCAA college football game between Arizona State and Kent State, in Tempe, Ariz., Aug. 29, 2019. Southeastern Conference and Pac-12 officials are expected to provide the final approval of a $2.8 billion plan that will settle antitrust claims and set the stage for college athletes to start sharing the billions of dollars flowing to their schools. (AP Photo/Ralph Freso, File)

FILE - Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey speaks during SEC football media days, July 18, 2022, in Atlanta. The NCAA and the nation’s five biggest conferences have agreed to pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle a host of antitrust claims,a monumental decision that sets the stage for a groundbreaking revenue-sharing model that could start directing millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

FILE - Pac-12 Senior Associate Commissioner Teresa Gould speaks during the conference’s basketball media day Oct. 12, 2021, in San Francisco. Gould later became commissioner of the conference. The NCAA and the nation’s five biggest conferences have agreed to pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle a host of antitrust claims,a monumental decision that sets the stage for a groundbreaking revenue-sharing model that could start directing millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester.(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

FILE - An Atlantic Coast Conference sign is displayed by Florida State players after the team’s win over Louisville in the ACC championship NCAA college football game Dec. 2, 2023, in Charlotte, N.C. The NCAA and the nation’s five biggest conferences have agreed to pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle a host of antitrust claims,a monumental decision that sets the stage for a groundbreaking revenue-sharing model that could start directing millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco, File)

FILE - Tony Petitti speaks to the media as he’s introduced as the commissioner of the Big Ten, April 28, 2023, in Rosemont, Ill. The NCAA and the nation’s five biggest conferences have agreed to pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle a host of antitrust claims,a monumental decision that sets the stage for a groundbreaking revenue-sharing model that could start directing millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester. (AP Photo/David Banks, File)

FILE - Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall (14), left, takes the snap from Auburn center Reese Dismukes (50) as the Auburn offense operates against Missouri on the SEC logo during the first half of Auburn’s 59-42 win over Missouri in the SEC Championship at the Georgia Dome, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013, in Atlanta, Ga. Southeastern Conference and Pac-12 officials are expected to provide the final approval of a $2.8 billion plan that will settle antitrust claims and set the stage for college athletes to start sharing the billions of dollars flowing to their schools. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jason Getz, File)

FILE - The logo for the Big 12 Conference has been applied to the field for an NCAA college football game between Sam Houston State and BYU on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023, in Provo, Utah. The NCAA and the nation’s five biggest conferences have agreed to pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle a host of antitrust claims,a monumental decision that sets the stage for a groundbreaking revenue-sharing model that could start directing millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

FILE - NCAA signage outside the headquarters in Indianapolis, Thursday, March 12, 2020. A settlement being discussed in an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and major college conferences could cost billions and pave the way for a new compensation model for college athletes. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

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Iowa State has already scrapped plans for a new wrestling facility. Texas A&M laid off a dozen or so athletic staffers. That could be the tip of the iceberg when millions in college revenue starts going directly to the athletes and away from escalating coaching salaries, facilities and growing athletic department staffs.

A revenue-sharing model outlined in last week’s $2.8 billion antitrust settlement proposal from the NCAA and the five largest college conferences would allow schools to each provide up to $21 million annually to athletes or up to 22% of the average power league school’s annual revenue. That means budget wrangling and an untold number of potentially difficult decisions are looming for athletic departments across the country.

“At the end of the day, this is an economic earthquake within the system,” said Andrew Zimbalist, economics professor emeritus at Smith College. “And the system is in a very uncertain and risky and volatile state right now.”

Realignment, the transfer portal and the explosion in name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation have already changed virtually everything about college athletics. Settling the antitrust claims over the next decade brings even more upheaval and signals the end of an amateur athletics model that dates to the NCAA’s founding in 1906.

Football and basketball powerhouses will still rake in huge annual revenue numbers, but it will now be allocated differently; the where and how is to be determined in the coming months.

“When you have a shift of revenue up to 22% things won’t remain the same,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said at the league’s spring meetings in Destin, Florida. “That predicts that people will have to make decisions. That may be any number of wide range of issues that I haven’t even begun to consider, some of which I can imagine, some of which I’m certain will look at this week and in the weeks that follow.”

Mississippi athletic director Keith Carter said some money going to the donor-backed NIL collectives “in theory will shift over to the athletic department” to boost revenue. Carter also said schools must find ways to cut costs, including putting facilities projects on hold even with new money arriving this year from the SEC’s latest ESPN contract and new $7.8 billion deal between ESPN and the College Football Playoff.

“It’s going to be hodgepodge of finding new revenues and eliminating some expenses,” Carter said. “It’s going to be definitely different at each institution and how they do it.”

MAKING CHANGES

Schools like Iowa State and Texas A&M have already made changes proactively.

Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard scrapped plans for the new wrestling facility, which had been scheduled to open in the fall of 2025. He cited the ”$20 million question” of how to account for direct compensation to athletes.

“It’s going to be a drastic change and that change isn’t going to happen overnight,” Pollard told reporters in early May. “We have a $100 million budget. We don’t have a $120 million budget.”

New Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts has already laid off about a dozen staffers. Alberts made it clear at the time the layoffs weren’t related to the $76.8 million buyout for fired football coach Jimbo Fisher, instead saying it was a “reorganization related to existing and emerging threats to our business model.”

Hefty buyouts and massive coaching contracts -- like the $13 million annual salary recently awarded to Georgia’s two-time national champion coach Kirby Smart -- mean there won’t be a pity party considering athletes’ long battles to get a piece of the economic pie.

“I think it’s easy to justify $10 million for a top coach if you’re not paying the athletes, but a couple of extra million for a coach might be money you’re not paying athletes,” said Richard Paulsen, a sports economist at the University of Michigan. “In the NFL and the NBA, the athletes are getting paid a lot more than the coaches.”

Times had already started changing once athletes were cleared to start making money off endorsements in July 2021. Big-name coaches like now-retired Nick Saban at Alabama and sparkling facilities were no longer necessarily the biggest draw for recruits and thus the most important investments for athletic programs.

“Now, if the question is you can get X dollars from one school and Y dollars from another, those things might not matter as much,” said Paulsen, whose school lost coach Jim Harbaugh to the NFL after a national championship.

CUTS ON THE WAY?

Zimbalist said athletic departments could be facing more cutbacks in staffs and changes in how much money they can keep spending on facilities.

“Some of the bigtime programs have staffs of 250-300 people and have very modern facilities and have been building more of them,” Zimbalist said. “Now there’s no way they’re going to be able to afford that.”

And that’s the wealthier college athletic departments. The impact on programs with more modest budgets remains to be seen, but Charlotte athletic director Mike Hill and his counterpart at Montana, Kent Haslam, have serious concerns. After all, Group of Five leagues (where Charlotte plays football) and those in the FCS (home of the Grizzlies) collectively are on the hook for nearly a quarter of the settlement.

“Having worked in the SEC, Conference USA and The American, I understand that this is a complex issue for our enterprise to resolve,” Hill said. “However, I cannot reconcile Charlotte and similarly resourced programs forfeiting millions in revenue that should be used to support our current student-athletes so former student-athletes — 90% of whom come from Power Five leagues whose revenue dwarfs everyone else’s — can be compensated.

“There is a reason the autonomy conferences were specifically named in the lawsuit and not the other 27 Division I leagues. As members of the NCAA, which is also named in the suit, we knew that there could be an impact on us — but it is disproportionate and disheartening.”

Haslam agreed.

“The early numbers show us losing roughly $200,000 in our distributions from the NCAA, and that’s significant for us,” Haslam told MTN Sports last week. “That’s got to be made up through ticket sales, through donations, though cost-cutting. So it’s real and it’s hitting everybody and it’s certainly frustrating.

AP Sports Writer Steve Reed in Charlotte, North Carolina and AP College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo in Destin, Florida contributed to this report.

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

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Why the public strongly supports paying college athletes.

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The Sportico/Harris poll shows a majority of people support players like Myan Williams of the Ohio ... [+] State Buckeyes earning money as student-athletes. (Photo by Gaelen Morse/Getty Images)

When student-athletes in 2021 were finally provided the chance to earn money from their name, image and likeness , some feared it would be the end of college sports as we knew it.

Fast forward two years, and the majority of Americans seem ready to let them bank even more bucks.

Nearly 70% of U.S. adults said college athletes should be able to receive direct compensation from their school when asked in a survey conducted this summer by Sportico and The Harris Poll.

“It’s about time,” sports attorney Luke Fedlam , founder of Advance NIL , said. “We have seen over the last 20 years the explosion in the commercialization of college sports. Look at the NCAA [March Madness] tournament. So much money is being made on student-athletes’ abilities. The idea that people are still coming around to is understanding and believing college athletes should receive compensation just makes sense.”

The poll, which surveyed 2,018 people nationally from Aug. 11–13, found 67% agreed college athletes should receive direct compensation from their universities, while 74% of respondents supported athletes’ ability to profit from NIL.

“I think it's good that athletes are getting their share,” Ohio University sports business professor B. David Ridpath said. “People are starting to come to the realization that not only is it inevitable, it's really the right thing to do.”

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NIL became part of the sports landscape in June 2021 when the NCAA Board of Directors lifted NCAA restrictions on athlete payments for everything from sponsorships to personal appearances.

That same month, the Supreme Court voted unanimously that the NCAA can no longer limit education-related benefits that colleges offer athletes beyond tuition, including computers and internships. As part of what’s known as the Alston ruling, schools are now allowed to annually provide athletes with as much as $5,980 in education-related compensation .

Fedlam said the amount of money being poured into and flowing from collegiate sports has made it clear they are no longer purely about amateurism and love of competition. That means the move toward paying college athletes is an inevitability, not a debate.

“If college sports were solely about education and the benefits that could come from that, college sports would look entirely different,” Fedlam said. “Do we ruin college sports when we pay tens of millions to schools for broadcast rights, when March Madness makes $1 billion, when schools on the West Coast are aligning with Midwest and East Coast conferences to earn more compensation? That’s where sports have come.”

The survey also revealed 64% of respondents think college athletes should become university employees, an idea NCAA president Charlie Baker shot down at the April LEAD1 Association’s annual spring meeting, proclaiming, “I think student-athletes want to be student-athletes, and it’s up to us to figure out how to make that work for them in a variety of environments and in circumstances that are different.”

Democrats were much more in favor of direct compensation for college athletes than Republicans (78%-56%), while people who follow college sports favored the change at 78%, compared to 56% for those who do not follow sports closely.

More than 80% of respondents ages 18-41 supported athlete payments, while people over age 58 were just 48% in favor.

Ridpath said it sounds good in theory to allow athletes to be paid while in college, but to older fans more set in their ways, it is clearly far less accepted.

“The younger demographics are much more savvy than we were because they have access to more information,” he said. “This is the reality now.”

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Equity Implications of Paying College Athletes: A Title IX Analysis

After fifty years of Title IX, the gap in participation rates between men and women in college athletics has closed significantly. In 1982, women comprised only twenty-eight percent of all National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college athletes. In 2020, they made up forty-four percent. Despite the progress in participation rates, a substantial gap in resources allocated to men’s and women’s sports continues to exist. On average, NCAA colleges spend more than twice as much on men’s sports as they do on women’s. This gap is even greater at schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the most elite level of college athletics. The median FBS institution spends almost three times more on men’s athletics than on women’s.

This situation may get even worse if colleges are allowed to start paying their athletes, which appears a realistic possibility in the not-too-distant future. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence in the 2021 Supreme Court decision NCAA v. Alston sent a strong signal that prohibitions on paying college athletes most likely violate federal antitrust law. More recently, some states have introduced legislation that would require colleges to compensate athletes in sports generating positive net income for their schools. Although this requirement could rectify the serious inequity of colleges making tens of millions of dollars from their athletes’ labor without those athletes sharing in the financial benefits they create, it could also widen the gap in resources colleges invest in men’s and women’s sports. With very rare exceptions, football and men’s basketball are the only college sports that produce more revenue than expenses. Consequently, unless Title IX requires otherwise, the difference in the amount of money that colleges invest in men’s and women’s sports could grow significantly if those colleges are allowed to compensate male athletes without compensating female athletes.

This Article provides a detailed analysis of whether the current Title IX regulations require equal payments to male and female athletes. It concludes that they do not. Of course, the controlling Title IX regulations were drafted at a time when paying college athletes was not even contemplated, and therefore this result does not comport with the purpose or spirit of Title IX. This Article goes on to argue that the Department of Education should amend the Title IX regulations to treat payments to college athletes the same as scholarships. This amendment would require male and female athletes to receive proportionately equal payments for their athletic services. Making this change to ensure equitable treatment of all athletes will advance the purpose of Title IX and help to combat the marketplace bias that hampers the economic growth of women’s sports.

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• Journal of Economic Perspectives
• Winter 2015

The Case for Paying College Athletes

• Allen R. Sanderson
• John J. Siegfried
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• L83 Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

The Case Against Paying College Athletes

• Daily Economy
• Free Markets

As March Madness comes to a close, once again we hear that college student athletes are being unfairly “exploited” by being denied salaries for playing sports. Should the NCAA and universities be pressured or forced to change its longstanding policy?

This notion, while seemingly sensible at first glance, is badly misguided. If colleges were required to pay athletes salaries, the entire fabric of amateur college sports could unravel, harming the interests of fans, colleges and — most important — players themselves. Let’s see why.

The National Collegiate Athletics Association  is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletes and organizes the athletic programs of its member colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.  The NCAA also  “helps over 480,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports.”

In its 1984  NCAA v. Board of Regents  decision, the Supreme Court ruled that “artificial limits” on the quantity of televised football games imposed by the NCAA reduced competition and violated antitrust laws. But at the same time, the court emphasized that certain other NCAA restrictions on athletes — including salary bans — were key to the preservation of the college football “product”:

“In order to preserve the character and quality of the (NCAA) ‘product,’ athletes must not be paid, must be required to attend class, and the like. … Thus, the NCAA plays a vital role in enabling college football to preserve its character, and as a result enables a product to be marketed which might otherwise be unavailable.”

The court believed that loss of amateur status will cause a popular alternative to big-time pro sports to lose its luster. But there are lots of other bad things that will happen if the NCAA drops restrictions on paying salaries to athletes.

Eliminating “no salary” rules will favor large, well-funded athletic programs over others, likely undermining already tenuous competitive balance among schools. Think of an NCAA March Madness tournament where an even-higher percentage of elite players have been snapped up by big-name schools, and “Cinderella stories” all but disappear.

It will also incentivize the shifting of large college athletic departments’ funds to bidding for big-name high school basketball and football superstars, whose presence will  attract  future lucrative contributor donations, endorsements and television deals. In addition to reducing team cohesion between stars and other players, this could eventually transform college football and basketball into little more than ugly minor leagues for their pro counterparts.

The tiny proportion of superstars who would receive a year or two of high salaries will gain relatively little, because they are destined for far larger professional contracts in the very near future. Meanwhile, the vast majority of college athletes — who never go pro — will end up losing.

The biggest losers will be the myriad scholarship athletes — young men and women alike — who compete in non-revenue producing sports such as swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, volleyball, and track and field, just to name a few. These athletes cannot realistically expect significant salaries.

Even worse, they can expect reduced funding and fewer scholarships due to the increased focus on paying big-revenue sports superstars. As such, a key quality of their college experience will be diminished as amateurism is swept aside.

Sticking with the existing NCAA rules would allow many more promising but non-superstar athletes in revenue-generating sports to develop their skills over time without pressure, enhancing their ability for some to eventually compete at the professional level.

In addition, the current rules climate already allows for many student athletes to receive endorsements, and even those who do not can develop personal connections that serve them well in their professional and personal lives, including connections derived from the university’s popularity. (Think of wealthy and well-connected alumni who are huge fans of their colleges’ athletic programs.)

Finally, it’s not clear that college athletes, who are compensated with scholarships and living expenses, are materially “underpaid” and are “exploited.”  One major economic study  of NCAA rules by economists Richard McKenzie and Dwight Lee, for example, rejected this idea.

The conclusion is clear. The NCAA has its reasons for keeping its rules against paying college athletes. These should remain, for the good of fans and college athletes.

Reprinted from Inside Sources

Alden Abbott

Alden Abbott is a Senior Research Fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He formerly served as the Federal Trade Commission’s general counsel.

Mr. Abbot has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.A. in economics from Georgetown University.

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Economists recommend paying college athletes.

The current compensation arrangement for big-time college athletics is inefficient, inequitable and very likely unsustainable, according to a new study by economists from the University of Chicago and Vanderbilt University. The article concludes that an evolution to a competitive labor market with fewer restrictions on pay for top athletes may be inevitable, though the transition will be difficult.

In their study released this week in the Winter 2015 issue of Journal of Economic Perspectives , Allen Sanderson, senior lecturer in economics at UChicago, and John Siegfried, professor emeritus of economics at Vanderbilt, write that the practice of setting a binding limit on remuneration for student-athletes – grant-in-aid restricted to room, board, tuition, fees, and books – may violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The authors argue that payment caps set by the NCAA are holding down benefits that otherwise would go to top-performing athletes, many of them African Americans from low-income families, while top coaches and athletic department personnel receive disproportionately high salaries.

Instead, the researchers recommend, schools should compensate student-athletes according to the value they provide, whether that value comes in the form of measurable revenue or more subjective benefits.

Sanderson said recent proposals by the NCAA to shift from single-year to multiyear scholarships, and to cover unrestricted meal plans and other incidental out-of-pocket costs for players, fall well short of a free competitive labor market.

Such proposals “are mainly an attempt by the NCAA to stay one town ahead of the sheriff," Sanderson said.

In addition to exploring the labor market for college athletes, the paper, entitled “The Case for Paying College Athletes” also examines why U.S colleges and universities operate large-scale commercial athletic programs, with a focus on men’s football and basketball. The authors question the rationale among many universities that such big-time programs subsidize their money-losing intercollegiate sporting ventures.

The Student-Athlete Debate

Since athletes have historically been considered students rather than employees, they have not been covered by general labor laws, says the study. Therefore, they cannot bargain collectively via union representation, nor can they apply for workers compensation.  

As a result, university athletic departments can essentially dictate many aspects of a student-athlete’s routine and engage them in long hours of practices, something that might not be possible if they had to obey general labor laws. The study claims that the NCAA is allowed to maximize its profits by steadily expanding regular-season and playoff/bowl games since the marginal operating cost is minimal.

For example, the study notes that college football started a four-team playoff in January 2015 without reducing the number of regular-season games. There are already calls to expand the football playoffs to eight or even 16 teams. Television exposure has also led to an increased number of games played at neutral sites, where both teams must travel, as well as games played on weeknights during the academic year. 

“The players have no voice in these decisions to expand the schedule, and no claim on the incremental revenues generated,” said Sanderson.

Additionally, minimum age requirements in the National Football League and the National Basketball Association restrict alternatives available to prospective college athletes, according to the study.  Such restrictions give the NCAA virtually total control over the labor market for players. Moreover, the NCAA makes it difficult for student-athletes to transfer to another institution that might be a better fit.

Such labor practices have led to a series of legal challenges. The authors list several high-profile pending lawsuits, which they believe could result in “an evolution well beyond the incremental steps taken by the NCAA.”

One case, O’Bannon vs. NCAA, would do away with wage fixing, allowing schools to pay players up to $5,000 per year of eligibility. Another involves an appeal before the National Labor Relations Board by Northwestern University, which has petitioned the body to reconsider a regional director’s recognition of Northwestern football players as university employees. 

“These lawsuits and pressures from the regulatory bodies could ultimately reduce, if not completely eliminate the monopoly power of the NCAA, the intercollegiate sports teams, and conferences,” says Sanderson.

Redirecting Scarce Academic Funding to Sports 

Contrary to the popular belief that intercollegiate athletics is profitable, the study notes that according to NCAA data, only one out of every six of the Football Bowl Subdivision universities earned a profit in 2013, a typical year, and only a portion of those profits were transferred to the academic side of their universities.

A USA Today report in 2013 also found that over $1 billion of student tuition and fees was transferred annually to athletic departments in NCAA Division I to support intercollegiate sporting ventures.

None of those institutions’ charters mentions commercial entertainment activities in their mission statement, said Sanderson. But when they incur financial losses on athletics, officials   spend more on “salaries for coaches and improving physical facilities rather than interpreting losses as a signal to redeploy assets elsewhere.”

The study notes that academic institutions subsidize athletics “with a combination of mandatory student fees, scarce general institutional funds, public monies from state governments, and contributions solicited from alumni and well-heeled donors that might have been directed to other academic purposes or toward reducing the seemingly perpetual escalation of tuition costs in higher education today.” 

The authors dispute the rationale for such subsidies, that success in intercollegiate athletics attracts larger state appropriations and private donations from alumni who might view a university more favorably, and the presence of high-profile athletic programs attracts additional applicants. Citing numerous studies and data, the study says any such gains are "meager" and fleeting."

The future of college sports

The researchers envision an arrangement where student athletes receive labor law protections, competitive compensation and more thorough medical coverage. In most cases this would require more subsidies from the school’s general fund and force university leadership to have soul-searching conversations about how much the school is ultimately willing to charge its student body to subsidize an intercollegiate sports program. It would also create Title IX implications, as there are far fewer women in revenue-generating college sports than men. Whatever happens, the researchers write, “It seems unlikely that the landscape of big-time commercialized intercollegiate athletics 10 years from now will resemble today’s incarnation, or anything seen in the last half-century.”

Liz Entman at Vanderbilt University contributed to this article.

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Should College Athletes Be Paid? Reasons Why or Why Not

January 3, 2022 

Tables of Contents

Why are college athletes not getting paid by their schools?

How do student athlete scholarships work, what are the pros and cons of compensation for college athletes, keeping education at the center of college sports.

Since its inception in 1906, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has governed intercollegiate sports and enforced a rule prohibiting college athletes to be paid. Football, basketball, and a handful of other college sports began to generate tremendous revenue for many schools in the mid-20th century, yet the NCAA continued to prohibit payments to athletes. The NCAA justified the restriction by claiming it was necessary to  protect amateurism  and distinguish “student athletes” from professionals.

The question of whether college athletes should be paid was answered in part by the Supreme Court’s June 21, 2021, ruling in  National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, et. al.  The decision affirmed a lower court’s ruling that blocked the NCAA from enforcing its rules restricting the compensation that college athletes may receive.

• As a result of the NCAA v. Alston ruling, college athletes now have the right to profit from their  name, image, and likeness  (NIL) while retaining the right to participate in their sport at the college level. (The prohibition against schools paying athletes directly remains in effect.)
• Several states have passed laws  that allow such compensation. Colleges and universities in those states must abide by these new laws when devising and implementing their own policies toward NIL compensation for college athletes.

Participating in sports benefits students in many ways: It helps them focus, provides motivation, builds resilience, and develops other skills that serve students in their careers and in their lives. The vast majority of college athletes will never become professional athletes and are happy to receive a full or partial scholarship that covers tuition and education expenses as their only compensation for playing sports.

Athletes playing Division I football, basketball, baseball, and other sports generate revenue for their schools and for third parties such as video game manufacturers and media companies. Many of these athletes believe it’s unfair for schools and businesses to profit from their hard work and talent without sharing the profits with them. They also point out that playing sports entails physical risk in addition to a considerable investment in time and effort.

This guide considers the reasons for and against paying college athletes, and the implications of recent court rulings and legislation on college athletes, their schools, their sports, and the role of the NCAA in the modern sports environment.

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The reasons why college athletes aren’t paid go back to the first organized sports competitions between colleges and universities in the late 19th century. Amateurism in college sports reflects the “ aristocratic amateurism ” of sports played in Europe at the time, even though most of the athletes at U.S. colleges had working-class backgrounds.

By the early 20th century, college football had gained a reputation for rowdiness and violence, much of which was attributed to the teams’ use of professional athletes. This led to the creation of the NCAA, which prohibited professionalism in college sports and enforced rules restricting compensation for college athletes. The rules are intended to preserve the amateurism of student participants. The NCAA justified the rules on two grounds:

• Fans would lose interest in the games if the players were professional athletes.
• Limiting compensation to capped scholarships ensures that college athletes remain part of the college community.

NCAA rules also prohibited college athletes from receiving payment to “ advertise, recommend, or promote ” any commercial product or service. Athletes were barred from participating in sports if they signed a contract to be represented by an agent as well. As a result of the NIL court decision, the NCAA will no longer enforce its rule relating to compensation for NIL activities and will allow athletes to sign contracts with agents.

Major college sports now generate billions in revenue for their schools each year

For decades, colleges and universities have operated under the assumption that  scholarships are sufficient compensation  for college athletes. Nearly all college sports cost more for the schools to operate than they generate in revenue for the institution, and scholarships are all that participants expect.

But while most sports don’t generate revenue, a handful, notably football and men’s and women’s basketball, stand out as significant exceptions to the rule:

• Many schools that field teams in the NCAA’s Division I football tier  regularly earn tens of millions of dollars  each year from the sport.
• The NCAA tournaments for men’s and women’s Division I basketball championships  generated more than $1 billion in 2019 .

Many major colleges and universities generate a considerable amount of money from their athletic teams:

• The Power Five college sports conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) —  generated more than $2.9 billion  in revenue from sports in fiscal 2020, according to federal tax records reported by  USA Today .
• This figure represents an increase of $11 million from 2019, a total that was reduced because of restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In the six years prior to 2020, the conferences recorded collective annual revenue increases averaging about $252 million.

What are name, image, likeness agreements for student athletes?

In recent years some college athletes at schools that field teams in the NCAA’s highest divisions have protested the restrictions placed on their ability to be compensated for third parties’ use of their name, image, and likeness. During the 2021 NCAA Division I basketball tournament known familiarly as March Madness, several players wore shirts bearing the hashtag “ #NotNCAAProperty ” to call attention to their objections.

Following the decision in NCAA v. Alston, the NCAA  enacted a temporary policy  allowing college athletes to enter into NIL agreements and other endorsements. The interim policy will be in place until federal legislation is enacted or new NCAA rules are created governing NIL contracts for college athletes.

• Student athletes are now able to sign endorsement deals, profit from their use of social media, and receive compensation for personal appearances and signing autographs.
• If they attend a school located in a state that has enacted NIL legislation, they are subject to any restrictions present in those state laws. As of mid-August 2021,  40 states had enacted laws  governing NIL contracts for college athletes.
• If their school is in a state without such a law, the college or university will determine its own NIL policies, although the NCAA prohibits pay-for-play and improper recruiting inducements.
• Student athletes are allowed to sign with sports agents and enter into agreements with school boosters so long as the deals abide by state laws and school policies.

Within weeks of the NCAA policy change, premier college athletes began signing NIL agreements with the potential to  earn them hundreds of thousands of dollars .

• Bryce Young, a sophomore quarterback for the University of Alabama, has nearly $1 million in endorsement deals.
• Quarterback Quinn Ewers decided to skip his last year of high school and enroll early at Ohio State University so he could make money from endorsements.
• A booster for the University of Miami pledged to pay each member of the school’s football team $500 for endorsing his business.

How will the change affect college athletes and their schools?

The  repercussions of court decisions and state laws  that allow college athletes to sign NIL agreements continue to be felt at campuses across the country, even though schools and athletes have received little guidance on how to manage the process.

• The top high school athletes in football, basketball, and other revenue-generating college sports will consider their potential for endorsement earnings while being recruited by various schools.
• The first NIL agreements highlight the disparity between what elite college athletes can expect to earn and what other athletes may realize. On one NIL platform, the average amount earned by Division I athletes was $471, yet one athlete made $210,000 in July alone.
• Most NIL deals at present are for small amounts, typically about $100 in free apparel, in exchange for endorsing a product on social media.

The presidents and other leaders of colleges and universities that field Division I sports have not yet responded to the changes in college athlete compensation other than to reiterate that they do not operate for-profit sports franchises. However, the NCAA requires that  Division I sports programs  be self-supporting, in contrast to sports programs at Division II and III institutions, which receive funding directly from their schools.

Many members of the Power 5 sports conferences have reported shortfalls in their operations, leading analysts to anticipate  major structural reforms  in the governing of college sports in the near future. The recent changes have also caused some people to believe the  NCAA is no longer relevant  or necessary.

How do highly competitive athletic scholarships work? According to the NCAA and Next College Student Athlete: $3.6 billion+ in athletic scholarships are awarded annually, and 180,000+ student athletes receive scholarships every year. Additionally, about 2% of athletes win a sports scholarship; college coaches award scholarships based on athletic ability; full scholarships are given for the top six college sports categories; and athletic scholarships are renewable each year.

The primary financial compensation student athletes receive is a scholarship that pays all or part of their tuition and other college-related expenses. Other forms of financial assistance available to student athletes include  grants, loans, and merit aid .

• Grants  are also called “gift aid,” because students are not expected to pay them back (with some exceptions, such as failing to complete the course of study for which the grant was awarded). Grants are awarded based on a student’s financial need. The  four types of grants  awarded by the U.S. Department of Education are  Federal Pell Grants ,  Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants ,  Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants , and  Teacher Education Assistance for College or Higher Education (TEACH) Grants .
• Loans  are available to cover education expenses from government agencies and private banks. Students must pay the loans back over a specified period after graduating from or leaving school, including interest charges. EducationData.org estimates that as of 2020, the  average amount of school-related debt  owed by college graduates was $37,693.
• Merit aid  is awarded based on the student’s academic, athletic, artistic, and other achievements.  Athletic scholarships  are a form of merit aid that typically cover one academic year at a time and are renewable each year, although some are awarded for up to four years.

Full athletic scholarships vs. partial scholarships

When most people think of a student athlete scholarship, they have in mind a  full-ride scholarship  that covers nearly all college-related expenses. However, most student athletes receive partial scholarships that may pay tuition but not college fees and living expenses, for example.

A student athlete scholarship is a nonguaranteed financial agreement between the school and the student. The NCAA refers to full-ride scholarships awarded to student athletes entering certain Division I sports programs as  head count scholarships  because they are awarded per athlete. Conversely, equivalency sports divide scholarships among multiple athletes, some of whom may receive a full scholarship and some a partial scholarship. Equivalency awards are divided among a team’s athletes at the discretion of the coaches, as long as they do not exceed the allowed scholarships for their sport.

These Division I sports distribute scholarships per head count:

• Men’s football
• Men’s basketball
• Women’s basketball
• Women’s volleyball
• Women’s gymnastics
• Women’s tennis

These are among the Division I equivalency sports for men:

• Track and field
• Cross-country

These are the Division I equivalency sports for women:

• Field hockey

All Division II and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) sports programs distribute scholarships on an equivalency basis. Division III sports programs do not award sports scholarships, although other forms of financial aid are available to student athletes at these schools.

How college athletic scholarships are awarded

In most cases, the coaching staff of a team determines which students will receive scholarships after spending time scouting and recruiting. The NCAA imposes  strict rules for recruiting student athletes  and provides a guide to help students  determine their eligibility  to play college sports.

Once a student has received a scholarship offer from a college or university, the person may sign a national letter of intent (NLI), which is a voluntary, legally binding contract between an athlete and the school committing the student to enroll and play the designated sport for that school only. The school agrees to provide financial aid for one academic year as long as the student is admitted and eligible to receive the aid.

After the student signs an NLI, other schools are prohibited from recruiting them. Students who have signed an NLI may ask the school to release them from the commitment; if a student attends a school other than the one with which they have an NLI agreement, they lose one full year of eligibility and must complete a full academic year at the new school before they can compete in their sport.

Very few student athletes are awarded a full scholarship, and even a “full” scholarship may not pay for all of a student’s college and living expenses. The  average Division I sports scholarship  in the 2019-20 fiscal year was about $18,000, according to figures compiled by ScholarshipStats.com, although some private universities had average scholarship awards that were more than twice that amount. However, EducationData.org estimates that the  average cost of one year of college  in the U.S. is $35,720. They estimate the following costs by type of school.

• The average annual cost for an in-state student attending a public four-year college or university is $25,615.
• Average in-state tuition for one year is $9,580, and out-of-state tuition costs an average of $27,437.
• The average cost at a private university is $53,949 per academic year, about $37,200 of which is tuition and fees.

Student athlete scholarship resources

• College Finance, “Full-Ride vs. Partial-Ride Athletic Scholarships”  — The college expenses covered by full athletic scholarships, how to qualify for partial athletic scholarships, and alternatives to scholarships for paying college expenses
• Student First Educational Consulting, “Athletic Scholarship Issues for 2021-2022 and Beyond”  — A discussion of the decline in the number of college athletic scholarships as schools drop athletic programs, and changes to the rules for college athletes transferring to new schools

According to College Strategic, Fansided, and Future of Working, reasons why paying college athletes is fair include: 1. Playing sports resembles a full-time job. 2. Sports take time away from studies. 3. Sports generate corporate profits. 4. Pay minimizes athlete corruption. 5. Pay provides spending money. 6. Playing sports creates injury risk. 7. Sports elevate school brands. 8. Pay motivates performance. 9. Scholarships reduce poverty.

There are many reasons why student athletes should be paid, but there are also valid reasons why student athletes should not be paid in certain circumstances. The lifting of NCAA restrictions on NIL agreements for college athletes has altered the landscape of major college sports but will likely have little or no impact on the majority of student athletes, who will continue to compete as true amateurs.

Reasons why student athletes should be paid

The argument raised most often in favor of allowing college athletes to receive compensation is that  colleges and universities profit  from the sports they play but do not share the proceeds with the athletes who are the ultimate source of that profit.

• In 2017 (the most recent year for which figures are available), the NCAA recorded $1.07 billion in revenue. The organization’s president earned $2.7 million in 2018, and nine other NCAA executives had salaries greater than $500,000 that year.
• Elite college coaches earn millions of dollars a year in salary, topped by University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban’s $9.3 million annual salary.
• Many of the athletes at leading football and basketball programs are from low-income families, and the majority will not become professional athletes.
• College athletes take great physical risks to play their sports and put their future earning potential at risk. In school they may be directed toward nonchallenging courses, which denies them the education their fellow students receive.

Reasons why student athletes should not be paid

Opponents to paying college athletes rebut these arguments by pointing to the primary role of colleges and universities: to provide students with a rewarding educational experience that prepares them for their professional careers. These are among the reasons they give for not paying student athletes.

• Scholarships are the fairest form of compensation for student athletes considering the financial strain that college athletic departments are under. Most schools in Division I, II, and III spend more money on athletics than they receive in revenue from the sports.
• College athletes who receive scholarships are presented with an opportunity to earn a valuable education that will increase their earning power throughout their career outside of sports. A Gallup survey of NCAA athletes found that  70% graduate in four years or fewer , compared to 65% of all undergraduate students.
• Paying college athletes will “ diminish the spirit of amateurism ” that distinguishes college sports from their professional counterparts. Limiting compensation for playing a sport to the cost of attending school avoids creating a separate class of students who are profiting from their time in school.

According to Best Colleges, Salarship, and CollegeVine, reasons why paying college athletes is less than ideal include: 1. Money may harm students. 2. Pay diminishes love of the game. 3. Pay deemphasizes academic purpose. 4. Secondary sports struggle. 5. Rich schools monopolize talent. 6. The financial benefit is marginal. 7. Setting salaries can be messy. 8. Academic requirements are substandard. 9. Other program budgets are reduced.

How do college athlete endorsements work?

Soon after the Supreme Court released its decision in NCAA v. Alston, the NCAA issued  guidelines for schools  that allow college athletes to make money from product endorsements, social media accounts, autographs, and other uses of their name, image, or likeness. This counters the NCAA’s longstanding opposition to student athletes profiting from endorsements. At present, implementation of the guidelines varies from school to school and state to state, which means athletes at some institutions may benefit more from NIL agreements than those attending other schools.

Several  NIL consultancy firms  are actively soliciting endorsements from college athletes in the aftermath of the rule change.

• Highly touted 19-year-old basketball recruit Hercy Miller, who joined the Tennessee State University basketball team in 2021, signed a $2 million endorsement deal with Web Apps America.
• University of Michigan quarterback Cade McNamara has entered into an endorsement deal with cryptocurrency company More Management that will  pay him in cryptocurrency .
• Twin sisters Haley and Hanna Cavinder of the Fresno State University basketball team have  marketing agreements  to promote Boost Mobile and Six Star Pro Nutrition to the 3.3 million followers of their TikTok account.
• Gable Steveson, a wrestler for the University of Minnesota, entered into an endorsement deal with the delivery service Gopuff; Steveson has 245,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 on Twitter.

Despite the rush of high-profile college athletes signing endorsement deals, some educators and analysts express concern about the  impact of the endorsements  on schools, athletes, and college sports.

• Schools with more favorable endorsement rules may entice student athletes away from the schools they are currently attending.
• Likewise, states that have enacted endorsement laws that provide more earning potential for college athletes may see more top recruits choosing to attend schools in those states.
• The time college athletes spend meeting the requirements of their endorsement contracts could detract from study and practice time. This can have an adverse effect on their education and athletic careers — if they are unable to maintain grade requirements, for example, they may be disqualified from playing.
• If a college athlete’s performance in the sport declines, they may be less likely to attract and retain endorsement deals. While the NCAA has banned NIL agreements based on the athlete meeting specific performance criteria, the group acknowledges that a student’s athletic performance  may enhance their NIL value .
• Because of complicated contracts and tax laws, student athletes will have to rely on agents, advisers, and managers, which may leave them vulnerable to exploitation.

From the onset of intercollegiate sports, students have benefited from their participation by learning dedication to their sport, building relationships, and being part of a team. Sports allow students to acquire many important values, such as fair competition and physical and mental health. Education should remain at the forefront of all aspects of college, including sports, whether or not collegiate athletes are paid.

Infographic Source

Best Colleges, “Should College Athletes Be Paid?”

College Strategic, “Why College Athletes Should Be Paid”

CollegeVine, “Should College Athletes Be Paid? Pros and Cons”

Fansided, “64 Reasons College Athletes Need to Be Paid”

Future of Working, “17 Advantages and Disadvantages of Paying College Athletes”

NCAA, “Scholarships”

Next College Student Athlete, “What Are the Different Types of Offers I Could Get?”

Salarship, “Should College Athletes Be Paid: Pros and Cons”

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5 takeaways from the ncaa deciding that colleges can finally pay athletes, share this article.

After more than a century of organized collegiate sports, the NCAA has determined that athletes can soon be paid by their respective colleges, per ESPN .

An agreement between the NCAA and all five of the power conferences to settle three federal antitrust cases will pave the way athletes to be compensated for their contributions instead of treated as amateurs being paid for their athletic work through scholarships for their education.

“The settlement terms must be approved by Judge Claudia Wilken, who is presiding over all three cases. That process is expected to take several months, and sources said schools likely will begin sharing revenue in fall 2025,” ESPN’s Dan Murphy and Pete Thamel wrote . “The NCAA’s Board of Governors and leaders from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-12 voted to accept the general terms laid out in a 13-page document.”

The decision has been a long time coming and has likely been sped up by the rise of NIL money in college sports with athletes now able to cash in on their name, image and likeness.

Here are five big takeaways from ESPN’s historic story on college players finally being paid by their respective schools.

The move comes from the NCAA finally setting 3 antitrust cases

Per ESPN, the NCAA and the power conferences will settle three federal antitrust cases against it, House v. NCAA, Hubbard v. NCAA and Carter v. NCAA, to the tune of $2.8 billion dollars.

“The NCAA will pay more than $2.7 billion in damages over 10 years to past and current athletes, according to sources,” ESPN’s Murphy and Thamel wrote. “Sources said the parties also have agreed to a revenue-sharing plan allowing each school to share up to roughly $20 million per year with its athletes. All Division I athletes dating back to 2016 are eligible to receive a share as part of the settlement class.”

The decision reportedly means that future athletes cannot sue the NCAA for other potential antitrust violations.

The ruling won't establish athletes as employees

While colleges will be able to pay its athletes with this ruling, Murphy and Thamel add that said athletes still won’t be considered employees of their respective universities.

“The agreement does not resolve all the pending legal issues that have revolutionized the business of college sports and destabilized the multibillion-dollar industry,” the two reported . “Athletes and their advocates are still fighting to become employees or find other ways to collectively bargain in the future, which could reshape a revenue-sharing agreement.”

One case over revenue sharing over television rights will remain

While three federal antitrust cases would get settled in this eventual ruling, one will remain over a Colorado football player wanting the NCAA to change how it restricts athletes having a financial stake in television rights revenue.

“There is at least one other pending antitrust lawsuit not covered by this week’s agreement. Former Colorado football player Alex Fontenot is suing the NCAA for restricting how it shares TV rights revenue with players,” Murphy and Thamel reported . “The NCAA and the attorneys in the House case argued that Fontenot’s claims should be consolidated with the other lawsuits because they are very similar. However, a judge in Colorado denied that request Thursday morning.”

However, that case could get settled pending how the other cases resolve.

“Garrett Broshuis, Fontenot’s attorney (who helped negotiate a major settlement on behalf of minor league baseball players in recent years), told ESPN that they are monitoring this week’s agreement closely,” Murphy and Thamel added. “They might consider opting out once they see the terms of the deal, which would make the peace the NCAA and its conferences hope they are buying very short-lived.”

Challenges remain for how this will all be implemented

Murphy and Thamel shared how some athletic directors are already seeing hurdles for how to fully implement this new reality of compensating their athletes.

“Several athletic directors told ESPN that they are hopeful the settlement lays the groundwork for a system in which success on the field is less dependent on which schools can spend the most money,” the two reported. “Sources said some of the challenges to solve include figuring out how to distribute the revenue-sharing money in a way that meets market needs while complying with Title IX laws and whether schools can regain control of the marketplace for college athletes, which has been outsourced during the past three years to booster collectives, which pay athletes via name, image and likeness endorsement deals.”

The NCAA's response acknowledged the history of the moment

NCAA & Autonomy Conferences Statement on House Settlement: https://t.co/LPMRo80zyH pic.twitter.com/FStHhEYmeZ — NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) May 24, 2024

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Point/Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes

The notion of paying college football players has been an ongoing debate since the early 1900’s. With current television revenue resulting from NCAA football bowl games and March Madness in basketball, there is now a clamoring for compensating both football and basketball players beyond that of an athletic scholarship. This article takes a point/counterpoint approach to the topic of paying athletes and may have potential implications/consequences for college administrators, athletes, and coaches. Dr. John Acquaviva defends the current system in which colleges provide an athletic scholarship that provides a “free college education” in return for playing on the university team. Dr. Dennis Johnson follows with a counterpoint making the case that athletes in these sports should receive compensation beyond that of a college scholarship and forwards five proposals to pay the athletes.

Key words: pay for play, athletic scholarships

Introduction: History of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

The idea of paying college athletes to compete dates back to what is considered to be the first intercollegiate competition. In a regatta between Harvard and Yale Universities, Harvard used a coxswain who was not even a student enrolled at the Ivy League school (5). Much like today’s universities whose appetites for appearances in corporate-sponsored “big money” football bowl events; Harvard may have used the non-student to please regatta sponsor Elkins Railroad (23).

In the late 1800’s, football played by college teams was a brutal sport but enjoyed by many fans. However, from 1900 to 1905, there were 45 players who died playing the sport (22). This prompted President Theodore Roosevelt to summon the presidents of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and threaten them with a ban unless the sport was modified. As a result of that meeting, a group of 62 university presidents convened to form the Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1906. This group evolved into the NCAA in 1910, but as a group it only possessed supervisory power (22).

College football became even more popular in the period of 1920-1940. This was a time when commercialism in the educational system was being questioned on a variety of levels. One such fundamental question was posed in 1929 by Howard Savage, a staff member of the Carnegie Foundation. He raised a question in an article entitled Athletics in American College (originally published in 1930 but reprinted in 1999) “whether an institution in the social order whose primary purpose is the development of the intellectual life can at the same time serve an agency to promote business, industry, journalism, and organized athletics on an extensive commercial basis? More importantly, the report asked “can it (the university) concentrate its attention on securing teams that win, without impairing the sincerity and vigor of its intellectual purpose” (9, p.495)? Savage also states that “alumni devices for recruiting winning teams constitutes the most disgraceful phase of recent intercollegiate athletics” (9, p. 495). In sum, the original 1929 report claimed that “big time” college sports were not educational, but were entirely financial and commercial.

Athletes during the early and mid-1900’s were routinely recruited and paid to play; and there were several instances where individuals representing the schools were not enrolled as students. For example, there is one report of a Midwestern university using seven members of its team that included the town blacksmith, a lawyer, a livery man, and four railroad employees (5). Other athletes at colleges were given high paying jobs for which they did little or no work. In 1948, the NCAA adopted a “Sanity Code” that limited financial aid for athletes to tuition and fees, and required that aid otherwise be given based on need (5). In the early 1950’s, with the threat of several southern schools bolting from the NCAA, the code was revised to allow athletic scholarships to cover tuition, fees, and a living stipend.

However, by the mid-1950’s many schools were still struggling with the issue of offering athletic scholarships. Some university presidents ultimately decided to maintain the principles of amateurism and further serve the mission of higher education. Those were presidents of universities that today make up the Ivy League. They concluded that it was not in the best interest of their universities to award athletic scholarships, and have remained steadfast even today.

After passing Title IX in the mid 1970’s, the NCAA absorbed the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and began to govern women’s sport at the collegiate level. Over the past 50 years, the NCAA has also expanded into three divisions with a multitude of championship events on a yearly basis (20). There are more than 1,300 member institutions that represent an estimated 400,000 student athletes who participate in sport (21). The result of this growth and development are enormous increases in revenue. NCAA President Mark Emmert reports the NCAA revenues for the 2010-11 fiscal year is projected at $757 million, of which $452.2 million will go to Division I members (14).

While seemingly operating in a purely capitalistic/professional atmosphere, the NCAA continues to endorse an amateurism concept in college athletics. These competing, and often contradictory, values lead some college athletes in big time football and basketball programs to question the status quo of the present system through their words and actions. For example, many athletes are still attempting to get their “piece of the pie,” albeit under the table. And so it leads to our point-counterpoint.

Point: College Athletes Should Not Be Paid

The intensity of the argument to pay college athletes has escalated in the past few years. Perhaps it’s because of the current economic climate and everyone, including amateur athletes is looking for ways to make money? Or maybe it’s because many higher learning institutions have given the public access to their annual budget and readers focus on the profit of select athletic programs? Or maybe it is due to the absurd coaches’ salaries and the money that colleges make from football bowl games and basketball tournaments? Regardless, this has magnified the fact that the athletes see none of these profits and thus begs the simple question: “Where’s my share?” Perhaps a fair question, but to understand this argument better, a healthy debate is needed. So, here are some points to consider.

Point #1: Education is Money

Colleges and universities provide an invaluable and vital service to our communities: education. A now-famous bumper sticker once read: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” To address that very slogan, the U.S. census bureau, as reported by Cheesman-Day and Newberger (7), expressed this best when they reported that the lifetime earnings for those with a college degree are over $1 million dollars more than non-graduates. Despite such a statistic, essays and op-ed columns continue to pour in from those who favor paying student-athletes while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge or accept the value of a college education. Is a college education priceless or not?

A sports-journalist in a recent national radio interview proposed that any argument against paying college athletes based on the sole reason that education is the prize is “antiquated”. But what seems antiquated and even shortsighted is the belief that paying a college athlete some (or even a lot of) money will solve all or even some of student’s long-term issues. The fear of the NCAA, as it should be, is that the mere notion of paying college athletes undermines the university’s primary purpose – education, something far more valuable than a modest annual stipend proposed by many. If it currently appears that the universities “don’t really care” about the athlete, paying them would intensify that belief, not dissolve it.

The irony in this dispute is that student-athletes do cost the university a substantial amount of money each year. For example, a full scholarship over four years can range between $30,000 and $200,000 depending if the institution is public or private (29). But let’s address this main point head on: There is an obvious lack of appreciation of a college degree from those in favor of paying athletes, and until a genuine gratitude for this concept develops, this argument will probably continue to linger.

Point #2: There Are Problems with Payment

Despite the well-documented scandals and corruption in college athletics (30), many would probably agree that paying athletes would exponentially increase the need for intense NCAA oversight – an enormous task by all accounts. Plus, there are the practical issues to consider. For example, how much should the athletes get paid and will payments be based on performance? What if the athlete gets hurt? What if the athlete is a bust and despite remaining on the team, doesn’t start or even play at all? – Issues that seem to raise far more questions than answers. But perhaps most important – What will happen to the non-revenue sports at the colleges who lose money from all of their sports programs – including football and basketball? It has been shown that only a fraction of Division I football and men’s basketball programs turn a profit (24, 20). The other Division I football and basketball programs as well as sports such as baseball, softball, golf, hockey, women’s basketball (minus a couple of notable programs), and just about all Division II sports not only fail to make money, but actually drain their athletic budgets. The outcome here would be inevitable: Forcing athletic departments to pay its football and basketball players would result in the eventual elimination of most, if not all, of the non-revenue sports. Is that what we want?

We cannot afford to be myopic on this issue. That is, there are only a limited number of programs that make big money, but yet there are hundreds of schools who absorb big losses at the cost of providing athletes a place to compete and earn a degree. The purpose of the NCAA, along with Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), Little League, and dozens of other organized forms of amateur sport is to provide a venue to play these sports – something we should not take for granted. The problem is that some have shifted in thinking that playing an organized sport is a right, whereas it still stands as a privilege.

Point #3: The University Offers More Than an Education

Concerts, lecture series by prominent people, on-stage productions, movies, intramural sports, fitness facilities, and a variety of clubs are all part of the typical university experience. Most students agree that colleges are self-contained acres of learning and socializing, all which takes place in a safe environment. It’s common for schools to subsidize the above-mentioned on-campus activities by adding fees to the tuition – which means that it’s free to a full-scholarship athlete. Other benefits to the athlete include the regular use of pristine gyms, well-manicured fields, athlete-only (and often team-only) workout facilities, sports medicine care, the opportunity to travel via away games, specialized meal plans and free foot gear and athletic attire. In addition, athletes are improving their trade from the best coaching minds in the sport; not to mention having access to some of the best nutrition and strength/conditioning personnel. And perhaps the most overlooked benefits are that the school provides the player with high-profile name recognition, a dedicated fan base, media exposure, and a competitive atmosphere with proven rivals, all of which took decades, effort and money for each institution to establish.

Point #4: The Athletic Department Has Its Role

Keep in mind that student-athletes are not employees of the university, rather they are students first and athletes second. The university can indeed make money from the sports programs; however, for those that do, the money simply goes back into the athletic program to fund the non-revenue sports (24). In fact, every year the NCAA sponsors over 80 national championships in three divisions, demonstrating the range and depth of their organization (20). While it is true that the champion in football and men’s basketball (and most other sports for that matter) seem to come from a relatively small pool of universities, it might be safe to assume that paying athletes would create an even bigger disparity since so few universities actually make money. Let’s face it, we are an underdog-loving country, and paying athletes would all but ensure that teams like Butler University, who made it to the Final Four in consecutive tournaments (2010 and 2011), will never do it again.

Point #5: Athletes Know the Deal

From the moment the full-scholarship papers are signed, each participant’s role is very clear: Schools accept the responsibility of the student’s tuition, meal plan, and boarding, while the athlete is provided with the opportunity to earn a degree, engage in college life and play their favorite sport in a well-organized, and often high profile fashion. The document signed by each student-athlete describes this agreement in an unmistakable manner. Although wordy and at times complex – a necessity due to the nature of the agreement – there’s no vagueness in the general arrangement or a hidden agenda from either party (10). A failure to honor the basic premise of any such contract would cause all forms of business – big or small – to crumble. If for some reason the university could be held liable for entrapment or some other form of dishonesty, then their athlete’s argument would stand on firmer ground. But frankly, the details of this agreement are well known by all involved, and rather strangely, no one seems to mind when signing them.

In conclusion, it should be noted that any NCAA improprieties or blatant corruption may have a carry-over effect into empathizing with the position given here. While corruption and other related-concerns are legitimate and need investigation, paying college athletes still remains a separate debate. It is vital to this process to view each NCAA issue independently and avoid making judgments on them as a whole. The position here is that, like many organizations, the NCAA should not be dismissed or discredited on one issue due to the mishandling of others. Further, if the contention is that many student athletes enter college unprepared or that athletics takes up too much time to excel (or even earn a degree), those are separate, but much needed arguments, and are not related to the issue of paying athletes.

Now more than ever, we live in an era of entitlement. At one time our country viewed the chance at higher education as a priceless commodity. However, it now seems that a college education is not held in the same esteem and worse yet, some see it as simply an opportunity to earn money. Although it is now evident that there has been a failure to convince much of the public of the true value of an education, keeping college athletes as pure amateurs remains the right thing to do.

Counter Point: Athletes in “Big-Time” Sports Should Be Paid

Introduction.

The argument that a college athletic scholarship is an equal quid pro quo for a college education has been utilized since athletic scholarships were approved by the NCAA in 1950’s. My colleague makes one point that is totally accurate – a college graduate can in fact make a great deal more money over a lifetime when compared to non-graduates. However, the remainder of the author’s points are half-truths and in reality just plain falsehoods. For instance, a “full athletic scholarships” do not provide a “free” education (as it does not cover all costs incurred from matriculation to graduation. In many cases, the university does not live up to its end of the bargain of providing an education; as evidenced by the dismal number in the graduation rates, especially among African Americans. Furthermore, the athletic scholarship is only a one-year (renewable) agreement that can be terminated by the coach or university in any given year for any reason.

In debating the pay-for-play issue in college athletics, the history of the governing body (i.e., currently the NCAA), their mission and view of amateurism, the past history of college athletes benefitting financially, and the degree to which athletes benefit from the university experience must all be examined. The counter point section of this paper addresses each point made by my colleague. Using the Eitzen (12) analogy comparing the NCAA and big-time athletic programs to the old southern plantation system will be the underpinning wellspring for the subject of athlete exploitation and the financial benefits enjoyed by the university derived from that plantation-like exploitation. An economic viewpoint will be presented to demonstrate the cartel-like atmosphere held by the NCAA while maintaining the illusion of amateurism.

Finally, five proposals that outline means to promote pay-for-play in NCAA Division I football and men’s basketball will be presented. The arguments that follow are specifically tailored for those two sports at schools who receive bonus money from the NCAA, as those universities and their coaches enjoy considerable revenue from TV contracts and sponsorships generated by bowl games and “March Madness” appearances.

Point #1: Athletic Scholarships Provide a “Free Education” is not correct

As mentioned, in the 1950’s the NCAA approved adding living stipends to athletic scholarships that previously included only tuition and fees. Today, the “full ride” scholarship can only include tuition, fees, room, board, and books. And as mentioned in the previous section, in some cases, depending on the school attended, that scholarship can be worth anywhere from $30,000 to $200,000, although the figures $20,000 to $100,000 over a four year period might be more accurate. In any case, that still does not cover the full cost of attending college.

The Collegiate Athletes Coalition (CAC) estimates that NCAA scholarships are worth about $2000 less than the cost of attending a university, as it does not account for expenses such as travel and sundries. Former Nebraska head football coach and United States Congressman, Tom Osborne (R-NE), calculates the gap between scholarship funding and the actual cost of attendance to be closer to $3,000. Even former NCAA President, Myles Brand, indicated that he favored increasing scholarship limits: “Ideally, the value of an athletically related scholarship would be increased to cover the full-cost of attendance, calculated at between $2,000 to $3000 more per year than is currently provided, I favor this approach of providing the full cost of attendance” (23, p.232).

So yes, the scholarship can be seen as pay for play, or at the very least, a quid pro quo for services rendered during a four year period. However, even with a full scholarship, an athlete will have to pay somewhere between $8,000 and $12,000 out of pocket to bridge the cost-of-living gap. Therefore, the full athletic scholarship does not provide a “free” education. Thus question remains: is the full scholarship a fair and equitable deal for the athlete?

Athlete Exploitation-The Plantation System

Eitzen (12) among others (27) makes the analogy that the NCAA operates like the “plantation system” of the old south. The coaches are the overseers who get work from the laborers (players) who provide riches for the masters (universities) while receiving little for their efforts. Perhaps slightly over-stated (obviously the athlete is not a slave, but maybe an indentured servant), the student–athlete is dominated, managed, and controlled, and they don’t receive a wage commensurate to their contribution as expressed in dollars earned by the university. Eitzen notes that athletes are sometimes mistreated physically and mentally and are often denied the rights and freedoms of other citizens. Ultimately, they have no real democratic recourse in an unjust system.

There are other similarities to the plantation analogy. Slaves were not free to leave the plantation much like an athlete cannot get out of a letter of intent (without penalty) and/or transfer without the penalty of sitting out a year. Much like the slaves who had no right to privacy, athletes are subject to mandatory drug testing (even though their coaches/masters are not tested), room checks, and limits on where they can and cannot go in the community. The athletes can be prohibited from political protests and the right to assemble. And finally, they can be subjected to mental cruelty and physical abuse (e.g., early morning torture sessions), all in order to create obedient slaves; student athletes.

Furthermore, collegiate athletics is often the only game in town for many of these athletes. For instance, football players must be in their third year of college or over the age of 21 to enter the National Football League (NFL). Basketball players, on the other hand, must attend college for one year or ultimately sit out a year before they can enter the National Basketball Association (NBA). Thus, the college game has become a “feeder system” similar to a minor professional league and it is in reality, “the only game in town.”

Point #2: Athletes Don’t Know the “Real” Deal

My colleague is partially correct in that most student athletes know that they are getting a scholarship that will allow them to go to school and play a sport. However, many don’t know the “real deal” as they generally have very little understanding they are about to enter a “plantation-like” system in which their scholarship in not guaranteed (i.e., renewable yearly) and can be terminated at any time. Student-athletes are also a led to believe that they will play and receive a college degree while possibly picking up a few fringe benefits along the way.

Take, for example, the recent stories regarding players like Reggie Bush, Cam Newton, or the players at Ohio State who received money and/or other benefits as a result of playing football. Even though student athletes know they will not get directly paid for playing, many desire and even expect some form of compensation. Slack (25) surveyed 3,500 current and retired football players in 1989 only to find that 31% had received under the table money during their college careers and 48% knew of others who had received payments. This seems to imply that while many recruits may indeed know “the deal”, they display their discontent by accepting payments or other benefits not currently allowed by the NCAA.

In reality, the statement “athletes know the deal” with regard to academic achievement and degree completion seems to lack substance. Dr. Nathan Tublitz, co-chair of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletes, an organization of 51 faculty senates whose purpose is to remind college presidents, athletic directors, and coaches that student athletes are students first. He points out that:

“…schools aren’t doing these kids any favors by admitting them when it’s unlikely that they will succeed academically. We bring 17 year-old kids, some of them from the inner city and we wine and dine them. They have female chaperones. We put them up in fancy hotels. They come here and see an incredibly fancy locker room with individual TV screens, air conditioning and videogames. They go in and see the new football stadium and the new $200 million basketball arena. They see a medical training facility that is stunningly beautiful with waterfalls, treadmill pools, and the sate-of-the-art medical and dental equipment. They come here and are treated like royalty. Until they break a leg or get put on the second string and they get set aside. Many don’t earn a degree. They don’t have the training or the skills to be independent after they leave the university. They’re lost (28, p.D10).”

When the scholarship is signed, the athlete and his family have reasonable expectations which include efforts by the coaching staff and university administration to meet all obligations of the contract. Additionally, my colleague notes, “that failure to honor the basic premise of any such contract would cause all forms of business – big or small – to crumble.” If the NCAA and athletic departments in higher education are a business, why are they allowed to act in a cartel-like fashion? And finally, do student athletes really know the “deal” when they penned their name on national signing day? It appears they don’t.

Point #3: The University Offers More than Education-It’s Possible-But Not Probable

Academic Detachment. My colleague also makes the claim that the university offers more than an education (e.g., concerts, lectures, intramurals, and clubs) in settings that enrich the college experience. Due to the plantation effect, however, many athletes are not able to take advantage of those events. For instance, few if any of the scholarship athletes would be allowed to play in an intramural contest for the coach’s fear of injury. Student athletes are also over-scheduled with study halls, practices, weight training sessions, film study, individual workouts, more practice, travel, and competition; all in an attempt to help athletes maintain focus on their sport.

Adler and Adler (1) spent five years recording systematic information regarding the athletes’ lives in a big-time college basketball program. After observing, interviewing, and traveling with them, they concluded that big-time basketball and being seriously engaged in academics were not compatible. They also found that freshmen had a period of optimism regarding academics when they first arrived on campus, but after about two semesters they found that the social isolation combined with the fatigue of training kept them from becoming involved in academic life.

Positive feedback these basketball players earned was always athletic-related and not academic. They soon learned what they had to do to stay eligible. Coaches made sure they scheduled classes that did not interfere with practices. Ultimately, the researchers realized that academic detachment was encouraged by the peer culture, and because of their social status (e.g., big man on campus), it became difficult for them to focus on academics.

Coakley (8) reported that not all of the athletes in the Adler & Adler (1) study experienced academic detachment. Those who entered college well-prepared with appropriate high school courses, strong parental support and an ability to develop relationships outside of sport were able to succeed in the classroom. It’s important to note that too many minority athletes from low socioeconomic environments struggle in academics – an issue that is often perpetuated by the coaches. For instance, Robert Smith, former running back for Minnesota Vikings and pre-med student while at Ohio State, needed two afternoon labs in the same semester. Since the labs conflicted with practice, coaches suggested that he drop them because of the commitment he made to play football. Against the wishes of the coaching staff, Smith took the classes but was forced to sit out the season as red shirt athlete; a further example of the plantation effect.

Benson (3) noted that one perspective was missing from the literature included a full expression from the black athletes point of view. Benson conducted a qualitative interview study of 12 African American students at a DI football program where the graduation rate was 31-40% for black football players compared to 60-70% of white football players. The results in this instance cannot be generalized due to the small sample size (N=12), but it does provide a snapshot of the thoughts regarding education and athletics of this group. Further, they reflect the results obtained by Adler & Adler (1).

Another major finding of the Benson (3) study was that the marginal academic performance was created by a series of interrelated practices engaged in by all significant members of the academic setting, including peers, coaches, advisors, teachers, and the student athletes themselves. It began in the recruitment, and continued through the first year. Black student athletes received the message that school was not important, and that as time passed, they had no real control over their destiny in the classroom. It was simply a matter of survival to keep the grade point average (GPA) to a point to be eligible. They all felt like the coaches did not “walk the talk” in terms of academics. They would just talk the academic game in public but then in reality they would have “fits” if classes ever interfered with the program. Simply put, student athletes learned it was a matter of survival and a basic expectation to maintain a GPA just high enough to remain eligible to compete (3).

“The Black Dumb Jock”. Harry Edwards (13) discussed the creation of the “black dumb jock” image prior to studies completed by Alder and Alder (1), Benson (3), and Coakley (8). He (i.e., Edwards) theorized that they were not born, but rather systematically created. The previous mentioned studies serve as evidence to support his statement (1, 3, 8). The exploitation of athletes is not solely an NCAA issue but a societal one. For example, Fred Butler was passed on through elementary, middle, and high school because he was a good football player. He graduated from high school reading at a second grade level and went to El Camino Junior College. There he took a number of physical activity classes while hoping to be drafted into the NFL. When no offer came, he played at California State University-Los Angeles for a year and a half. When again no offer came and his eligibility expired, he failed out of school within months with no degree, no offers to play pro ball, and no skills to use for employment. And he still could not read! (18). Similarly, Former NFL player Dexter Manley testified before a Senate Committee that he played four years at Oklahoma State University, only to leave the school illiterate. And the sad feature is that academic detachment from the university athletic department perspective doesn’t seem to be an issue because there are always more impoverished (and usually minority) kids waiting to come in and play.

Thus, student athletes in many cases cannot take advantage of the many extras offered by a college education. Why do athletes accept a diluted academic experience or the corruption of doctored transcripts, phantom courses, surrogate test takers, and tutors writing papers? Perhaps it is because they are disenfranchised under the current system, and will lose scholarships, starting roles, and eligibility if they complain. George Will argued that “College football and basketball are, for many players, vocations, not avocations, and academics are unsubstantiated rumors” (12, p.5). So do full scholarship athletes get a chance to take advantage of all the extras of the university experience? More than likely it is not the case especially when they can’t even hope for a meaningful degree.

NCAA as a Cartel. Kahn (16) examined the operation of the college football and basketball systems of the NCAA and offers lessons about the determinants and effects of supply and demand. Specifically he utilizes economic principles to calculate the value of college football player to a university. He notes that total ticket revenues for football and men’s basketball were $757 million in 1999, total value that exceeded the total ticket sales for all of professional baseball, football, and hockey that year. A figure indicating that the NCAA is a very successful business entity engaged in capitalism.

According to the cartel theory, the NCAA has “enforced collusive restrictions on payments for factors of production, including player compensation, recruiting expenses, and assistant coaches salaries; it has restricted output; and it has defeated potential rival groups (16, p. 211).” He notes, along with others (11, 15, 16, 30), that the NCAA can impose sanctions that range from scholarship reductions, elimination from post-season play to program death penalties (e.g., Southern Methodist football); and possibly even threaten a school’s academic accreditation. However, restriction of pay to players is the main way in which the organization acts to restrict competition.

Economists who have studied the NCAA “view it as a cartel that attempts to produce rents, both by limiting payments for inputs such as player compensation and by limiting output” (16, p.210). When looking at the rent values based on college football or men’s basketball players’ performances, they are paid below a competitive level of compensation based on estimates of marginal revenue product produced of these players (6). Their analysis considered the total revenue for a school and the number of players that were eventually drafted by a major professional league. Utilizing this framework they concluded that in 2005 dollars a draft-ready football player returned $495,000 to the university, while a draft-ready basketball player was worth $1.422 million for men’s basketball. And all of this compared to the approximately $40,000 paid in scholarship worth. This indicates that the NCAA does indeed use cartel power to pay top athletes less than the athlete’s market value.

Based on a workload of 1000 hours per year and an average scholarship value, economist Richard Sheehan (16) calculated the basic hourly wage of a college basketball player at $6.82 and a football player at $7.69. Coaches’ hourly wages, on the other hand, ranged from $250-$647 per hour (depending on salary). Again, using the Eitzen metaphor, the masters accumulate wealth at the slave’s expense, even though the athlete/slave’s health is jeopardized by participation (12).

Parent (23) notes the hypocrisy of the amateurism construct when looking at these capitalism issues. He notes that the former president of the University of Washington, William Gerberding, said, “As one contemplates the obvious fact that so many of the most gifted athletes are economically and educationally disadvantaged blacks, this becomes less and less defensible. I have become increasingly uncomfortable about having a largely white establishment maintaining an elaborate system of rules that deprives student-athletes, many of whom are non-white, of adequate financial support in the name of the ideals of amateurism” (p.236).

So, why do athletes tolerate this system? They do mainly because they are disenfranchised and fear losing their scholarships and eligibility if they complain. In essence, this pay-for-play discussion revolves around amateurism, as advertised by the NCAA, and its competing capitalistic drive for income. According to Tulsa Law School professor Ray Yasser, the best option for athletes to change the system for their benefit is to unite and “file an antitrust suit…against the NCAA and their universities, with the claim being that the NCAA and their universities are colluding to create a monopoly over the athlete’s ability to share in the profits generated from college athletics” (23, p.236).

While the points for maintaining the status quo were stated previously, there has been sufficient evidence presented in this section to stimulate discussion of paying players. The “play for a diploma” agreement is not happening in many cases, as the athlete failure rate indicates. Another example is national champion Connecticut men’s basketball program losing two scholarships for the upcoming season as a result of a poor Academic Performance Rating (APR) from the NCAA (11). Thus, the following pay for play proposals are being submitted for consideration.

Pay Proposals

It would appear that NCAA should get out of the commercial business of football and basketball and follow the Ivy League example of providing an environment that is truly amateur where student athletes actually are students first. That move would certainly place the student first in the student athlete term. However, it doesn’t seem pragmatic that either the NCAA or any of the major universities are in any hurry to turn away millions of dollars per year in profits. Therefore, it is time to consider some pay-for-pay proposals. California and Nebraska have already passed state legislation that would enable colleges to compensate athletes; however they are blocked by the NCAA from doing so (23). Therefore, I submit five proposals that could possibly be implemented:

• Big Ten Plan and/or Work Study Proposal: At the very least, the NCAA should follow former NCAA President Miles Brand’s suggestion and allocate athletes include a $2,000-$3,000 cost of living increase to full scholarships. Since athletes are supposedly only allowed to spend 20 hours per week involved with sport-related activities, this might actually be paid as 20 hours of work study or as a monthly living stipend. This would provide the athletes with the needed income for clothes, laundry, sundries, travel, and other small item expenses. Officials from the Big Ten are currently discussing a similar proposal that would help their athletes meet expenses not covered in an athletic scholarship. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany reports league athletic directors and university officials have seriously discussed using some of their growing TV revenue to pay athletes more. This proposal which would give athletes a $2,000-$5,000 per year living stipend also has the support of current NCAA president Mark Emmert (2).
• SEC Game Pay Proposal: The Southeastern Conference, another of the big time football conferences recently entered into the pay for play discussion. University of South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier put forth a proposal at the recent conference meetings to pay players $300 per game. The proposal was supported by several other coaches. This type of a proposal could pay athletes anywhere from $300-$1000 per game based on time played per game. Since most players do not play more than 30 minutes a game, a player could be paid on a per-minute of competition basis. At a rate of $20 per minute a player could net $600 for a game and approximately $6000-$7,000 per season.
• Professional League Proposal: Ron Woods (27) puts forth a proposal submitted by Peter Plagensa, visiting professor at Middlebury College, regarding the pay-for-play issue. He appears to agree with the likes of Stanley Eitzen that the current practice of colleges and the NCAA do in fact “amount to a little more than a plantation system” (27, p. 67). He suggests that the big time college football and basketball maintain the million-dollar industry by making them an age 23 and under professional league. This proposal would allow universities to hire players as college staff (much like the cafeteria or groundskeepers) at moderate salaries plus room and board. Universities could also grant the athletes free academic classes until they earn a degree (even after playing days are over).

“College basketball players watch the coach roaming the sidelines in his $1,500 custom-make suit. They read about his $500.000 salary and $250,000 perk from a sneaker deal. They watch the schools sell jerseys (and T-shirts) with the player’s numbers on them. They see the athletic director and NCAA officials getting rich and you wonder why they might ask; hey where’s my share? What am I, a pack mule” (17, p.46)

My colleague has argued in point #2 that paying athletes raise a myriad of other issues, such as how much should they receive, what happens if an athlete gets hurt, and so on. That is a discussion for another time. First, we must agree that it is fair to compensate NCAA Division I football and basketball athletes beyond that of an athletic scholarship; then and only then may payout details be chronicled. Note: a reminder that we are only discussing compensation for the NCAA Division I-A football and basketball players; not the athletes in the AAU, Little League or other truly amateur venues of organized sport.

Throughout the history of the NCAA, college athletes have routinely received compensation beyond that of a full college scholarship (e.g., room and board, tuition, books). While such compensation is illegal, athletes like Reggie Bush and others receive under-the-table benefits as evidenced in the Slack survey (25).

Additionally, many athletes in “big time” programs do not receive a degree for their efforts in the athletic arena. Universities routinely admit students based on their athletic skills that are academically ill-prepared for success. As seen in the research (1, 3), many athletes that aspire to be academically successful soon lose hope with the over-scheduling and pressures of sport preparation. As a result, many college athletes, a majority of which are minorities, fail out of school once coaches have utilized their eligibility.

The NCAA functions like a cartel, keeping cost down while increasing profits. Rents for a draft-ready athlete earn the university somewhere between $500,000 for football and $1.422 million for men’s basketball (16), leading to a pseudo-plantation system where the coaches oversee the athletes demanding work and controlling their schedules on and off the field. This unbalanced system allows athletes to earn the equivalent of $6.80-$7.69 an hour (12) while coaches like Nick Saban of Alabama or Mack Brown of Texas earn over five million dollars a year (4).

If the NCAA continues as a corporate entity and acting in a cartel-like fashion making millions of dollars a year, implementing a plan to pay student athletes for playing must be considered. Otherwise, America’s institutions of higher learning should follow the Ivy League schools’ example and eliminate athletic scholarships, get out of the big time sport business, and get on with providing students with a complete educational experience.

Applications in Sport

Few discussions within sport are more common or controversial than the debate to pay college athletes. Some arguments are well thought and articulated, while others lack insight and are simply driven by passion. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with a new perspective and some historical insight – all supported by the literature – regardless of their stance on this issue. Moreover, readers who may actually be heard by the NCAA may offer a position that has yet to be considered. The concession here is that despite any decision by the NCAA in the near future, we can be assured that college administrators, coaches, and athletes will continue this debate. However, their arguments may now be seen as relevant and more reasoned.

POSTSCRIPT: According to Michelle B. Hosick at the NCAA.org, the NCAA board of directors has moved on two issues discussed in this article since its submission. In April (2012), the board moved to implement a $2,000 allowance to an athlete’s full scholarship. They also voted to grant multi-year scholarships. However, both measures have been put on hold with the threat of an override vote by member institutions. On January 14, 2012 at the NCAA convention the board delayed implementation of the $2,000 supplement and sent it back to committee for revision at its April meeting. The multi-year scholarship issue will continue to be implemented on a conference-by-conference basis. And so the pay-for-play discussion continues.

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StarTribune

University of minnesota will need to pay its gophers athletes; mark coyle leading charge to figure it out.

Leaders of the NCAA and its largest conferences have agreed on a $2.8 billion settlement that is likely to lead to several things, including this: The official death notice of amateurism in college athletics.

Colleges will pay athletes directly. There's more to the NCAA's settlement of antitrust cases, but this landmark agreement to share revenue with athletes promises to have seismic effects.

Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle convened a meeting recently with his 19 head coaches to discuss what it all might mean for their department.

Yes, Coyle told the group, the Gophers will start paying their athletes if the new system gains approval.

Yes, that move would cost the athletic department a projected $21 million annually.

And yes, substantive changes will be necessary to make it work at Minnesota.

Though there are still more questions than concrete answers, the AD gave his coaches some clarity about the difficulties that lie ahead if this plan comes to fruition.

"Every school is going to have to make some tough decisions," Coyle said in a half-hour interview in his office.

To avoid getting mired in the legal weeds, the situation can be boiled down to this fact: Schools will be cleared to pay athletes most likely as soon as fall 2025 if the May settlement between the NCAA and Power Five conferences is approved by a federal judge.

That means Coyle must create $21 million in new money in his budget. The Big Ten's massive TV deals and millions more from the expanded College Football Playoff will generate additional money to ease the pain a bit, but Minnesota, like most schools, will have to find ways to curb spending, allocate funds differently, raise a lot more money or — most likely — all of the above.

Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts summed up college sports perfectly last week: "We don't have a revenue problem in college athletics, we have an expense problem."

Even the wealthiest athletic departments are grappling with how to cover this new major expense because the arms race has sucked schools into a cycle of spending to their limit. The more that revenue has increased, the more that schools have spent.

Coyle said the U's Board of Regents supports his decision to commit to revenue sharing ($21 million plus), but his bosses expect him to maintain a balanced budget.

"The financial pressure is real for a lot of people," he said. "It's real for Minnesota and real for every other school. But we're all going to have to figure out how we navigate to start doing this revenue sharing."

Details of NCAA deal

Coyle provided details and his thoughts on a few key points of what's ahead:

• College leaders are waiting for direction on how this new revenue-sharing system will mix with the principles of Title IX. This is a critical piece in understanding how that $21 million gets distributed. Will schools be required to split athlete payments evenly between male and female athletes? The many Title IX-related questions likely will be answered in court.

• Not every athlete on campus is guaranteed to be included in the revenue sharing. Title IX rulings will determine how money is distributed between men's and women's programs, but after that, schools will decide which of its programs receive revenue sharing and also how to distribute the money to athletes. Football is the principal driver of revenue for the Big Ten and individual schools, so it stands to reason that sport will receive a lion's share of the payouts.

Coyle said disbursement responsibility will fall to coaches or possibly a newly created position.

"What does our department look like a year from now?" Coyle said. "Do we have to hire a GM-type of person? Do we have to hire a talent acquisition person who can evaluate talent and say, 'Hey, we see Chip's ability at this. We think he's worth $100,000 in the revenue-share model. We think Paul is worth $25,000. We think Coyle is worth $5,000.' Those are all things we have to figure out."

• Revenue sharing will be separate from name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and investments . Coyle said the Dinkytown Athletes collective will continue to exist to facilitate NIL opportunities for all athletes, whether they receive revenue sharing or not.

The goal, Coyle said, is for revenue sharing to create "true NIL" and eliminate pay-for-play schemes that schools are using to compensate athletes. The hope is that NIL shifts more toward its intended purpose — rewarding athletes for their marketability and popularity. As it is now, schools or collectives are offering financial incentives to athletes at other schools as an enticement to transfer under the guise of NIL.

• Scholarship limits for teams are expected to go away under the new system. Football, for instance, currently is limited to 85 scholarships, women's basketball 15 and so on. Schools will be permitted to add or subtract scholarship numbers by sport. Minnesota currently supports 324 athletic scholarships. That includes equivalency sports, meaning scholarships that can be divided and shared among multiple athletes.

"When we start to figure out what our revenue-sharing model looks like, does it make sense in some sports to add scholarships? Does it make sense in some sports to decrease scholarships?" Coyle said.

The assumption throughout college athletics is that new costs of revenue sharing will prompt schools to cut nonrevenue sports. Coyle eliminated three men's programs — tennis, gymnastics and indoor track — four years ago, citing pandemic-related financial challenges and Title IX issues.

Asked if he fears schools will cut sports to shift money to revenue sharing, Coyle said, "I don't know if schools will cut sports. I do think you will see schools that cut scholarships. Fund it completely differently. Minnesota could be one of those schools. That is on the table here. I told all our head coaches — I was very honest with them, and it's the same thing I told our senior staff — we are going to have to take a hard look at how we fund our programs."

Minnesota is not alone in that regard. The most fundamental change in the history of modern college sports is on the horizon. The amateurism model that lasted for more than a century is close to extinct.

Chip Scoggins is a sports columnist and enterprise writer for the Star Tribune. He has worked at the Star Tribune since 2000 and previously covered the Vikings, Gophers football, Wild, Wolves and high school sports.

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Proposed NCAA settlement allowing revenue sharing with athletes faces possible legal hurdle

As the NCAA, major college athletic conferences and plaintiffs in three antitrust lawsuits in federal courts in California close in on a comprehensive settlement proposal that would pay current and former college athletes billions of dollars in damages and dramatically alter how current and future athletes are compensated, lawyers for the plaintiffs in a fourth case signaled on Tuesday evening that they are seeking to keep the association and the conferences embroiled in a similar litigation.

That fourth case is set for a hearing Thursday before U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado who is considering the association’s and conferences’ request to have the matter transferred to California, where it likely would be folded into the cases moving toward settlement.

Pending remaining approvals — including approvals from the courts — such a consolidation would smooth the NCAA’s path to finally resolving a set of cases that began in June 2020, but are rooted in litigation that has had the NCAA on edge for 15 years due to the continuing efforts of plaintiffs’ lawyers Steve Berman, and, more recently, Jeffrey Kessler. Earlier Tuesday, lawyers on both sides of the three cases seemingly headed toward settlement expressed confidence to USA TODAY Sports that they will prevail on having the fourth case moved to California.

Meanwhile, the ACC and Big 12 both voted Tuesday to approve the proposed legal settlement, according to ESPN. The other three remaining Power Five conferences will vote later this week. The NCAA Board of Governors also must approve the deal.

If the bid to move the fourth case to California is rejected, it could continue in Colorado. If that happens, the NCAA, the conferences and the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the cases seemingly headed toward settlement may have to deal with lawyers who wrote in a filing Tuesday evening that “it seems likely” that one of their plaintiffs “will opt out of any such settlement to continue to litigate their claims in this case … plaintiffs expect that many other athletes will opt out as well and could seek to join this case to seek better and fairer terms for athletes.”

Garrett Broshuis, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the fourth case, told USA TODAY Sports on Monday night that he and his legal team have “real concerns” about the terms of the settlement proposal that’s being finalized for the other three cases “economically and about (the proposal) potentially foreclosing options and avenues athletes have to fight” for additional rights.

According to a summary of proposed settlement terms first reported by Yahoo! Sports and ESPN and later obtained by USA TODAY Sports, the NCAA would pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle the damages claims over 10-year period and the remaining Power Four conference schools would begin sharing future revenues with athletes. There would be a cap on the percentage of total revenue of the Power Four conferences that would be shared, and while athletes could opt out of the settlement and/or challenge it legally, they likely would have a difficult time getting their terms changed.

Tuesday night’s filing described those reported terms as “alarming” and claimed that would involve “the displacement of one artificial cap on revenue sharing for another artificial cap.” It also took issue with the proposed damages payment amount and the impact of a 10-year payment plan on the present value of the proposed total of nearly $2.8 billion.

Berman responded to USA TODAY Sports by email saying:

"These lawyers have sour grapes over coming years late to these issues and not being at the table. What their pleading fails to address is that the settlement will resolve their claims such that there is nothing left to resolve in Colorado. (Their) forum to address the issues is now the northern district of California where they can present their objections to (U.S. District) Judge (Claudia) Wilken who has spent a decade on NCAA compensation issues. One wonders why they would not want to present their concerns to a judge steeped in the issues?

"And their mindset in raising objections to a settlement that they haven’t seen, a settlement thought (through) by the lawyers who prevailed in opening the rules up shows their true motive is simply not wanting to be left behind rather than to encourage what will be a revolutionary development in college sports."

Broshuis’ group initially brought their proposed class-action case on Nov. 20, 2023, on behalf of former Colorado football Alex Fontenot. In early February 2024, they added former Colorado women’s basketball players Mya Hollingshed as a plaintiff.

In the amended version of their complaint, the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote that their case “takes aim at the full cut of television and other revenues would receive in a truly open market” rather than the one that exists under the NCAA’s rules.

They are asking for an injunction that would bar any NCAA rules that prevent such an open market – basically the creation of a formalized pay-for-play system in which athletes can be paid by their schools for their athletic services. They seek to represent all athletes who played for an NCAA Division I team in any sport from roughly 2020 through a judgment in the case. And they are seeking damages covering money that they allege all of those athletes would have received – another multi-billion-dollar award.

On Dec. 7, 2023, Berman and Kessler — who are leading two earlier cases involved in the proposed three-case settlement that have been pending before Wilken — filed a similar case in California on behalf of three athletes, including now-former Duke football player DeWayne Carter.

It seeks an injunction against the NCAA’s athlete-compensation rules and damages for athletes in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball who played for schools in Power Five leagues - which includes the the about to be downsized Pac-12 - or Notre Dame. With Wilken winding down her career on the bench, it was assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg.

In January 2024, Berman and Kessler asked a national panel of judges that determines whether similar cases filed in different federal district courts should be transferred to one district to send the Fontenot case to California. After holding a hearing in late March, the panel rejected that request in early April.

Meanwhile, Broshuis and the lawyers for the Fontenot plaintiffs asked Seeborg in California to either transfer the Carter case to Colorado, stay the case while the Fontenot case proceeds in Colorado or dismiss the Carter case. A little more than two weeks after national panel’s decision, Seeborg rejected all of those requests without holding a hearing, leaving the Carter case active in California.

Now, what remains is the NCAA’s and the conferences’ request to Sweeney in Denver that she transfer the Fontenot case to California.

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Stress in Academic and Athletic Performance in Collegiate Athletes: A Narrative Review of Sources and Monitoring Strategies

Marcel lopes dos santos.

1 School of Kinesiology, Applied Health and Recreation, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States

Melissa Uftring

Cody a. stahl, robert g. lockie.

2 Department of Kinesiology, California State University, Fullerton, CA, United States

Brent Alvar

3 Department of Kinesiology, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA, United States

J. Bryan Mann

4 Department of Kinesiology and Sport Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, FL, United States

J. Jay Dawes

College students are required to manage a variety of stressors related to academic, social, and financial commitments. In addition to the burdens facing most college students, collegiate athletes must devote a substantial amount of time to improving their sporting abilities. The strength and conditioning professional sees the athlete on nearly a daily basis and is able to recognize the changes in performance and behavior an athlete may exhibit as a result of these stressors. As such, the strength and conditioning professional may serve an integral role in the monitoring of these stressors and may be able to alter training programs to improve both performance and wellness. The purpose of this paper is to discuss stressors experienced by collegiate athletes, developing an early detection system through monitoring techniques that identify the detrimental effects of stress, and discuss appropriate stress management strategies for this population.

Introduction

The college years are a period of time when young adults experience a significant amount of change and a variety of novel challenges. Academic performance, social demands, adjusting to life away from home, and financial challenges are just a few of the burdens college students must confront (Humphrey et al., 2000 ; Paule and Gilson, 2010 ; Aquilina, 2013 ). In addition to these stressors, collegiate athletes are required to spend a substantial amount of time participating in activities related to their sport, such as attending practices and training sessions, team meetings, travel, and competitions (Humphrey et al., 2000 ; López de Subijana et al., 2015 ; Davis et al., 2019 ; Hyatt and Kavazis, 2019 ). These commitments, in addition to the normal stress associated with college life, may increase a collegiate-athlete's risk of experiencing both physical and mental issues (Li et al., 2017 ; Moreland et al., 2018 ) that may affect their overall health and wellness. For these reasons, it is essential that coaches understand the types of stressors collegiate athletes face in order to help them manage the potentially deleterious effects stress may have on athletic and academic performance.

Strength and conditioning coaches are allied health care professionals whose primary job is to enhance fitness of individuals for the purpose of improving athletic performance (Massey et al., 2002 , 2004 , 2009 ). As such, many universities and colleges hire strength and conditioning coaches as part of their athletic staff to help athletes maximize their physical potential (Massey et al., 2002 , 2004 , 2009 ). Strength and conditioning coaches strive to increase athletic performance by the systematic application of physical stress to the body via resistance training, and other forms of exercise, to yield a positive adaptation response (Massey et al., 2002 , 2004 , 2009 ). For this reason, they need to understand and to learn how to manage athletes' stress. Additionally, based on the cumulative nature of stress, it is important that both mental and emotional stressors are also considered in programming. It is imperative that strength and conditioning coaches are aware of the multitude of stressors collegiate athletes encounter, in order to incorporate illness and injury risk management education into their training programs (Radcliffe et al., 2015 ; Ivarsson et al., 2017 ).

Based on the large number of contact hours strength and conditioning coaches spend with their athletes, they are in an optimal position to assist athletes with developing effective coping strategies to manage stress. By doing so, strength and conditioning coaches may be able to help reach the overarching goal of improving the health, wellness, fitness, and performance of the athletes they coach. The purpose of this review article is to provide the strength and conditioning professional with a foundational understanding of the types of stressors collegiate athletes may experience, and how these stressors may impact mental health and athletic performance. Suggestions for assisting athletes with developing effective coping strategies to reduce potential physiological and psychological impacts of stress will also be provided.

Stress and the Stress Response

In its most simplistic definition, stress can be described as a state of physical and psychological activation in response to external demands that exceed one's ability to cope and requires a person to adapt or change behavior. As such, both cognitive or environmental events that trigger stress are called stressors (Statler and DuBois, 2016 ). Stressors can be acute or chronic based on the duration of activation. Acute stressors may be defined as a stressful situation that occurs suddenly and results in physiological arousal (e.g., increase in hormonal levels, blood flow, cardiac output, blood sugar levels, pupil and airway dilation, etc.) (Selye, 1976 ). Once the situation is normalized, a cascade of hormonal reactions occurs to help the body return to a resting state (i.e., homeostasis). However, when acute stressors become chronic in nature, they may increase an individual's risk of developing anxiety, depression, or metabolic disorders (Selye, 1976 ). Moreover, the literature has shown that cumulative stress is correlated with an increased susceptibility to illness and injury (Szivak and Kraemer, 2015 ; Mann et al., 2016 ; Hamlin et al., 2019 ). The impact of stress is individualistic and subjective by nature (Williams and Andersen, 1998 ; Ivarsson et al., 2017 ). Additionally, the manner in which athletes respond to a situational or environmental stressor is often determined by their individual perception of the event (Gould and Udry, 1994 ; Williams and Andersen, 1998 ; Ivarsson et al., 2017 ). In this regard, the athlete's perception can either be positive (eustress) or negative (distress). Even though they both cause physiological arousal, eustress also generates positive mental energy whereas distress generates anxiety (Statler and DuBois, 2016 ). Therefore, it is essential that an athlete has the tools and ability to cope with these stressors in order to have the capacity to manage both acute and chronic stress. As such, it is important to understand the types of stressors collegiate athletes are confronted with and how these stressors impact an athlete's performance, both athletically and academically.

Literature Search/Data Collection

The articles included in this review were identified via online databases PubMed, MEDLINE, and ISI Web of Knowledge from October 15th 2019 through January 15th 2020. The search strategy combined the keywords “academic stress,” “athletic stress,” “stress,” “stressor,” “college athletes,” “student athletes,” “collegiate athletes,” “injury,” “training,” “monitoring.” Duplicated articles were then removed. After reading the titles and abstracts, all articles that met the inclusion criteria were considered eligible for inclusion in the review. Subsequently, all eligible articles were read in their entirety and were either included or removed from the present review.

Inclusion Criteria

The studies included met all the following criteria: (i) published in English-language journals; (ii) targeted college athletes; (iii) publication was either an original research paper or a literature review; (iv) allowed the extraction of data for analysis.

Data Analysis

Relevant data regarding participant characteristics (i.e., gender, academic status, sports) and study characteristics were extracted. Articles were analyzed and divided into two separate sections based on their specific topics: Academic Stress and Athletic Stress. Then, strategies for monitoring and workload management are discussed in the final section.

Academic Stress

Fundamentally, collegiate athletes have two major roles they must balance as part of their commitment to a university: being a college student and an athlete. Academic performance is a significant source of stress for most college students (Aquilina, 2013 ; López de Subijana et al., 2015 ; de Brandt et al., 2018 ; Davis et al., 2019 ). This stress may be further compounded among collegiate athletes based on their need to be successful in the classroom, while simultaneously excelling in their respective sport (Aquilina, 2013 ; López de Subijana et al., 2015 ; Huml et al., 2016 ; Hamlin et al., 2019 ). Davis et al. ( 2019 ) conducted surveys on 173 elite junior alpine skiers and reported significant moderate to strong correlations between perceived stress and several variables including depressed mood ( r = 0.591), sleep disturbance ( r = 0.459), fatigue ( r = 0.457), performance demands ( r = 0.523), and goals and development ( r = 0.544). Academic requirements were the highest scoring source of stress of all variables and was most strongly correlated with perceived stress ( r = 0.467). Interestingly, it was not academic rigor that was viewed by the athletes as the largest source of direct stress; rather, the athletes surveyed reported time management as being their biggest challenge related to academic performance (Davis et al., 2019 ). This further corroborates the findings of Hamlin et al. ( 2019 ). The investigators reported that during periods of the academic year in which levels of perceived academic stress were at their highest, students had trouble managing sport practices and studying. These stressors were also associated with a decrease in energy levels and overall sleep quality. These factors may significantly increase the collegiate athlete's susceptibility to illness and injury (Hamlin et al., 2019 ). For this reason, coaches should be aware of and sensitive to the stressors athletes experience as part of the cyclical nature of the academic year and attempt to help athletes find solutions to balancing athletic and academic demands.

According to Aquilina ( 2013 ), collegiate athletes tend to be more committed to sports development and may view their academic career as a contingency plan to their athletic career, rather than a source of personal development. As a result, collegiate athletes often, but certainly not always, prioritize athletic participation over their academic responsibilities (Miller and Kerr, 2002 ; Cosh and Tully, 2014 , 2015 ). Nonetheless, scholarships are usually predicated on both athletic and academic performance. For instance, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) requires collegiate athletes to achieve and maintain a certain grade point average (GPA). Furthermore, they are also often required to also uphold a certain GPA to maintain an athletic scholarship. The pressure to maintain both high levels of academic and athletic performance may increase the likelihood of triggering mental health issues (i.e., anxiety and depression) (Li et al., 2017 ; Moreland et al., 2018 ).

Mental health issues are a significant concern among college students. There has been an increased emphasis placed on the mental health of collegiate athletes in recent years (Petrie et al., 2014 ; Li et al., 2017 , 2019 ; Reardon et al., 2019 ). Based on the 2019 National College Health Assessment survey from the American College Health Association (ACHA) consisting of 67,972 participants, 27.8% of college students reported anxiety, and 20.2% reported experiencing depression which negatively affected their academic performance (American College Health Association American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment II, 2019 ). Approximately 65.7% (50.7% males and 71.8% females) reported feeling overwhelming anxiety in the past 12 months, and 45.1% (37.1% males and 47.6% females) reported feeling so depressed that it was difficult for them to function. However, only 24.3% (13% males and 28.4% females) reported being diagnosed and treated by a professional in the past 12 months. Collegiate athletes are not immune to these types of issues. According to information presented by the NCAA, many certified athletic trainers anecdotally state that anxiety is an issue affecting the collegiate-athlete population (NCAA, 2014 ). However, despite the fact that collegiate athletes are exposed to numerous stressors, they are less likely to seek help at a university counseling center than non-athletes (NCAA, 2014 ), which could be related to stigmas that surround mental health services (NCAA, 2014 ; Kaier et al., 2015 ; Egan, 2019 ). This not only has significant implications related to their psychological well-being, but also their physiological health, and consequently their performance. For instance, in a study by Li et al. ( 2017 ) it was found that NCAA Division I athletes who reported preseason anxiety symptoms had a 2.3 times greater injury incidence rate compared to athletes who did not report. This same study discovered that male athletes who reported preseason anxiety and depression had a 2.1 times greater injury incidence, compared to male athletes who did not report symptoms of anxiety and depression. (Lavallée and Flint, 1996 ) also reported a correlation between anxiety and both injury frequency and severity among college football players ( r = 0.43 and r = 0.44, respectively). In their study, athletes reporting high tension/anxiety had a higher rate of injury. It has been suggested that the occurrence of stress and anxiety may cause physiological responses, such as an increase in muscle tension, physical fatigue, and a decrease in neurocognitive and perception processes that can lead to physical injuries (Ivarsson et al., 2017 ). For this reason, it is reasonable to consider that academic stressors may potentiate effects of stress and result in injury and illness in collegiate athletes.

Periods of more intense academic stress increase the susceptibility to illness or injury (Mann et al., 2016 ; Hamlin et al., 2019 ; Li et al., 2019 ). For example, Hamlin et al. ( 2019 ) investigated levels of perceived stress, training loads, injury, and illness incidence in 182 collegiate athletes for the period of one academic year. The highest levels of stress and incidence of illness arise during the examination weeks occurring within the competitive season. In addition, the authors also reported the odds ratio, which is the occurrence of the outcome of interest (i.e., injury), based off the given exposure to the variables of interest (i.e., perceived mood, sleep duration, increased academic stress, and energy levels). Based on a logistic regression, they found that each of the four variables (i.e., mood, energy, sleep duration, and academic stress) was related to the collegiate athletes' likelihood to incur injuries. In summary, decreased levels of perceived mood (odds ratio of 0.89, 0.85–0.0.94 CI) and sleep duration (odds ratio of 0.94, 0.91–0.97 CI), and increased academic stress (odds ratio of 0.91, 0.88–0.94 CI) and energy levels (odds ratio of 1.07, 1.01–1.14 CI), were able to predict injury in these athletes. This corroborates Mann et al. ( 2016 ) who found NCAA Division I football athletes at a Bowl Championship Subdivision university were more likely to become ill or injured during an academically stressful period (i.e., midterm exams or other common test weeks) than during a non-testing week (odds ratio of 1.78 for high academic stress). The athletes were also less likely to get injured during training camp (odds ratio of 3.65 for training camp). Freshmen collegiate athletes may be especially more susceptible to mental health issues than older students. Their transition includes not only the academic environment with its requirements and expectations, but also the adaptation to working with a new coach and teammates. In this regard, Yang et al. ( 2007 ) found an increase in the likelihood of depression that freshmen athletes experienced, as these freshmen were 3.27 times more likely to experience depression than their older teammates. While some stressors are recurrent and inherent in academic life (e.g., attending classes, homework, etc.), others are more situational (e.g., exams, midterms, projects) and may be anticipated by the strength and conditioning coach.

Athletic Stress

The domain of athletics can expose collegiate athletes to additional stressors that are specific to their cohort (e.g., sport-specific, team vs. individual sport) (Aquilina, 2013 ). Time spent training (e.g., physical conditioning and sports practice), competition schedules (e.g., travel time, missing class), dealing with injuries (e.g., physical therapy/rehabilitation, etc.), sport-specific social support (e.g., teammates, coaches) and playing status (e.g., starting, non-starter, being benched, etc.) are just a few of the additional challenges collegiate athletes must confront relative to their dual role of being a student and an athlete (Maloney and McCormick, 1993 ; Scott et al., 2008 ; Etzel, 2009 ; Fogaca, 2019 ). Collegiate athletes who view the demands of stressors from academics and sports as a positive challenge (i.e., an individual's self-confidence or belief in oneself to accomplish the task outweighs any anxiety or emotional worry that is felt) may potentially increase learning capacity and competency (NCAA, 2014 ). However, when these demands are perceived as exceeding the athlete's capacity, this stress can be detrimental to the student's mental and physical health as well as to sport performance (Ivarsson et al., 2017 ; Li et al., 2017 ).

As previously stated, time management has been shown to be a challenge to collegiate athletes. The NCAA rules state that collegiate athletes may only engage in required athletic activities for 4 h per day and 20 h/week during in-season and 8 h/week during off-season throughout the academic year. Although these rules have been clearly outlined, the most recent NCAA GOALS (2016) study reported alarming numbers regarding time commitment to athletic-related activities. Data from over 21,000 collegiate athletes from 600 schools across Divisions I, II, and III were included in this study. Although a breakdown of time commitments was not provided, collegiate athletes reported dedicating up to 34 h per week to athletics (e.g., practices, weight training, meetings with coaches, tactical training, competitions, etc.), in addition to spending between 38.5 and 40 h per week working on academic-related tasks. This report also showed a notable trend related to athletes spending an increase of ~2 more athletics-related hours per week compared to the 2010 GOALS study, along with a decrease of 2 h of personal time (from 19.5 h per week in 2010 to 17.1 in 2015). Furthermore, ~66% of Division I and II and 50% of Division III athletes reported spending as much or more time in their practices during the off-season as during the competitive season (DTHOMAS, 2013 ). These numbers show how important it is for collegiate athletes to develop time management skills to be successful in both academics and athletics. Overall, most collegiate athletes have expressed a need to find time to enjoy their college experience outside of athletic obligations (Paule and Gilson, 2010 ). Despite that, because of the increasing demand for excellence in academics and athletics, collegiate athletes' free time with family and friends is often scarce (Paule and Gilson, 2010 ). Consequently, trainers, coaches, and teammates will likely be the primary source of their weekly social interactivity.

Social interactions within their sport have also been found to relate to factors that may impact an athlete's perceived stress. Interactions with coaches and trainers can be effective or deleterious to an athlete. Effective coaching includes a coaching style that allows for a boost of the athlete's motivation, self-esteem, and efficacy in addition to mitigating the effects of anxiety. On the other hand, poor coaching (i.e., the opposite of effective coaching) can have detrimental psychological effects on an athlete (Gearity and Murray, 2011 ). In a closer examination of the concept of poor coaching practices, Gearity and Murray ( 2011 ) interviewed athletes about their experiences of receiving poor coaching. Following analysis of the interviews, the authors identified the main themes of the “coach being uncaring and unfair,” “practicing poor teaching inhibiting athlete's mental skills,” and “athlete coping.” They stated that inhibition of an athlete's mental skills and coping are associated with the psychological well-being of an athlete. Also, poor coaching may result in mental skills inhibition, distraction, insecurity, and ultimately team division (Gearity and Murray, 2011 ). This combination of factors may compound the negative impacts of stress in athletes and might be especially important for in injured athletes.

Injured athletes have previously been reported to have elevated stress as a result of heightened worry about returning to pre-competition status (Crossman, 1997 ), isolation from teammates if the injury is over a long period of time (Podlog and Eklund, 2007 ) and/or reduced mood or depressive symptoms (Daly et al., 1995 ). In addition, athletes who experience prolonged negative thoughts may be more likely to have decreased rehabilitation attendance or adherence, worse functional outcomes from rehabilitation (e.g., on measures of proprioception, muscular endurance, and agility), and worse post-injury performance (Brewer, 2012 ).

Monitoring Considerations

In addition to poor coaching, insufficient workload management can hinder an athlete's ability to recover and adapt to training, leading to fatigue accumulation (Gabbett et al., 2017 ). Excessive fatigue can impair decision-making ability, coordination and neuromuscular control, and ultimately result in overtraining and injury (Soligard et al., 2016 ). For instance, central fatigue was found to be a direct contributor to anterior cruciate ligament injuries in soccer players (Mclean and Samorezov, 2009 ). Introducing monitoring tools may serve as a means to reduce the detrimental effects of stress in collegiate athletes. Recent research on relationships between athlete workloads, injury, and performance has highlighted the benefits of athlete monitoring (Drew and Finch, 2016 ; Jaspers et al., 2017 ).

Athlete monitoring is often assessed with the measuring and management of workload associated with a combination of sport-related and non-sport-related stressors (Soligard et al., 2016 ). An effective workload management program should aim to detect excessive fatigue, identify its causes, and constantly adapt rest, recovery, training, and competition loads respectively (Soligard et al., 2016 ). The workload for each athlete is based off their current levels of physical and psychological fatigue, wellness, fitness, health, and recovery (Soligard et al., 2016 ). Accumulation of situational or physical stressors will likely result in day-to-day fluctuations in the ability to move external loads and strength train effectively (Fry and Kraemer, 1997 ). Periods of increased academic stress may cause increased levels of fatigue, which can be identified by using these monitoring tools, thereby assisting the coaches with modulating the workload during these specific periods. Coaches who plan to incorporate monitoring and management strategies must have a clear understanding of what they want to achieve from athlete monitoring (Gabbett et al., 2017 ; Thornton et al., 2019 ).

Monitoring External Loads

External load refers to the physical work (e.g., number of sprints, weight lifted, distance traveled, etc.) completed by the athlete during competition, training, and activities of daily living (Soligard et al., 2016 ). This type of load is independent of the athlete's individual characteristics (Wallace et al., 2009 ). Monitoring external loading can aid in the designing of training programs which mimic the external load demands of an athlete's sport, guide rehabilitation programs, and aid in the detection of spikes in external load that may increase the risk of injury (Clubb and McGuigan, 2018 ).

The means of quantifying external load can involve metrics as simple as pitch counts in baseball and softball (Fleisig and Andrews, 2012 ; Shanley et al., 2012 ) or quantifying lifting session training loads (e.g., sum value of weight lifted during an exercise x number of repetitions × the number of sets). Neuromuscular function testing is another more common way of analyzing external load. This is typically done using such measures such as the counter movement jump, squat jump, or drop jump. A force platform can be used to measure a myriad of outcomes (e.g., peak power, ground contact time, time to take-off, reactive strength index, and jump height), or simply measure jump height in a more traditional manner. Jumping protocols, such as the countermovement jump, have been adopted to examine the recovery of neuromuscular function after athletic competition with significant decreases for up to 72 h commonly reported (Andersson et al., 2008 ; Magalhães et al., 2010 ; Twist and Highton, 2013 ). (Gathercole et al., 2015 ) found reductions in 18 different neuromuscular variables in collegiate athletes following a fatiguing protocol. The variables of eccentric duration, concentric duration, total duration, time to peak force/power, and flight time:contraction time ratio, derived from a countermovement jump were deemed suitable for detecting neuromuscular fatigue with the rise in the use of technology for monitoring, certain sports have adopted specific software that can aid in the monitoring of stress. For example, power output can be measured using devices such as SRM™ or PowerTap™ in cycling (Jobson et al., 2009 ). This data can be analyzed to provide information such as average power or normalized power. The power output can then be converted into a Training Stress Score™ via commercially available software (Marino, 2011 ). More sophisticated measures of external load may involve the use of wearable technology devices such as Global Positioning System (GPS) devices, accelerometers, magnetometer, and gyroscope inertial sensors (Akenhead and Nassis, 2016 ). These devices can quantify external load in several ways, such as duration of movement, total distance covered, speed of movement, acceleration, and decelerations, as well as sport specific movement such as number and height of jumps, number of tackles, or breakaways, etc. (Akenhead and Nassis, 2016 ). The expansion of marketing of wearable devices has been substantial; however, there are questions of validity and reliability related to external load tracking limitations related to proprietary metrics, as well as the overall cost that should be considered when considering the adoption of such devices (Aughey et al., 2016 ; Torres-Ronda and Schelling, 2017 ).

Monitoring Internal Loads

While external load may provide information about an athlete's performance capacity and work completed, it does not provide clear evidence of how athletes are coping with and adapting to the external load (Halson, 2014 ). This type of information comes from the monitoring of internal loads. The term internal load refers to the individual physiological and psychological response to the external stress or load imposed (Wallace et al., 2009 ). Internal load is influenced by a number of factors such as daily life stressors, the environment around the athlete, and coping ability (Soligard et al., 2016 ). Indirect measures, such as the use of heart rate (HR) monitoring, and subjective measurements, such as perceived effort (i.e., ratings of perceived exertion), are examples of internal load monitoring. Using subjective measurement systems is a simple and practical method when dealing with large numbers of athletes (Saw et al., 2016 ; Nässi et al., 2017 ). Subjective reporting of training load (Rating of Perceived Exertion—RPE) (Coyne et al., 2018 ), Session Rating of Perceived Exertion—sRPE) (Coyne et al., 2018 ), perceived stress and recovery (Recovery Stress Questionnaire for Athletes—RESTQ-S), and psychological mood states (Profile of Mood States—POMS) have all been found to be a reliable indicator of training load (Robson-Ansley et al., 2009 ; Saw et al., 2016 ) and only take a few moments to complete. In addition, subjective measures can be more responsive to tracking changes or training responses in athletes than objective measures (Saw et al., 2016 ).

Heart rate (HR) monitoring is a common intrinsic measure of how the body is responding to stress. With training, the reduction of resting HR is typically a clear indication of the heart becoming more efficient and not having to beat as frequently. Alternately, increases of resting HR over time with a continuation of training may be an indicator of too much stress. Improper nutrition, such as regular or ongoing suboptimal intakes of vitamins or minerals, may result in increased ventilation and/or increased heart rate (Lukaski, 2004 ). It has been suggested that the additional stress may lead to parasympathetic hyperactivity, leading to an increase in resting HR (Statler and DuBois, 2016 ). This largely stems from research examining the sensitivity of various HR derived metrics, such as resting HR, HR variability (HRV), and HR recovery (HRR) to fluctuations in training load (Borresen and Ian Lambert, 2009 ). HRR in athlete monitoring is the rate of HR decline after the cessation of exercise. A common measure of HHR is the use of a 2 min step test followed by a 60 s HR measurement. The combination of the exercise (stress) on the cardiovascular system and then its subsequent return toward baseline has been used as an indicator of autonomic function and training status in athletes (Daanen et al., 2012 ). In collegiate athletes it was found that hydration status impacted HRR following moderate to hard straining sessions (Ayotte and Corcoran, 2018 ). Athletes who followed a prescription hydration plan performed better in the standing long jump, tracked objects faster, and showed faster HRR vs. athletes who followed their normal self-selected hydration plan (Ayotte and Corcoran, 2018 ). To date, HR monitoring and the various derivatives have mainly been successful in detecting changes in training load and performance in endurance athletes (Borresen and Ian Lambert, 2009 ; Lamberts et al., 2009 ; Thorpe et al., 2017 ). Although heart rate monitoring can provide additional physiological insight for aerobic sessions or events, it thus far has not been found to be an accurate measurement for quantifying internal load during many explosive, short duration anaerobic activities (Bosquet et al., 2008 ).

A multitude of studies have reported the reliability and validity of using RPE and sRPE across a range of training modalities (Foster, 1998 ; Impellizzeri et al., 2004 ; Sweet et al., 2004 ). This measure can be used to create a number of metrics such as session load (sRPE × duration in minutes), daily load (sum of all session loads for that day), weekly training load (sum of all daily training loads for entire week), monotony (standard deviation of weekly training load), and strain (daily or weekly training load × monotony) (Foster, 1998 ). Qualitative questionnaires that monitor stress and fatigue have been well-established as tools to use with athletes (see Table 1 for examples of commonly used questionnaires in research). Using short daily wellness questionnaires may allow coaches to generate a wellness score which then can be adjusted based off of the stress the athlete may be feeling to meet the daily load target (Foster, 1998 ; Robson-Ansley et al., 2009 ). However, strength and conditioning coaches need to be mindful that these questionnaires may require sports psychologist or other licensed professional to examine and provide the results. An alternative that may be better suited for strength and conditioning professionals to use could be to incorporate some of the themes of those questionnaires into programing.

Overview of common tool/measures used by researchers to monitor training load.

A Multifaceted Approach

Dissociation between external and internal load units may be indicative of the state of fatigue of an athlete. Utilizing a monitoring system in which the athlete is able to make adjustments to their training loads in accordance with how they are feeling in that moment can be a useful tool for assisting the athlete in managing stress. Auto-regulation is a method of programming that allows for adjustments based on the results of one or more readiness tests. When implemented properly, auto regulation enables the coach or athlete to optimize training based on the athlete's given readiness for training on a particular day, thereby aiming to avoid potential overtraining (Kraemer and Fleck, 2018 ). Several studies have found that using movement velocity to designate resistance training intensities can result in significant improvements in maximal strength and athletic performance (Pareja-Blanco et al., 2014 , 2017 ; Mann et al., 2015 ). Velocity based training allows the coach and athlete to view real time feedback for the given lifts, thereby allowing them to observe how the athlete is performing in that moment. If the athlete is failing to meet the prescribed velocity or the velocity drops greater than a predetermined amount between sets, then this should signal the coach to investigate. If there is a higher than normal amount of stress on that athlete for the day, that could be a potential reason. This type of combination style program of using a quantitative or objective measurement (s) and a subjective measure of wellness (qualitative questionnaire) has recently been reported to be an effective tool in monitoring individuals apart of a team (Starling et al., 2019 ). The subjective measure in this study was the readiness to train questionnaire (RTT-Q) and the objective measures were the HRR 6min test (specifically the HRR 60s = recorded as decrease in HR in the 60 s after termination of the test) to assess autonomic function and the standing long jump (SLJ) to measure neuromuscular function. The findings found that, based on the absolute typical error of measurement, the HRR 60s and SLJ could detect medium and large changes in fatigue and readiness. The test took roughly 8 min for the entire team, which included a group consisting of 24 college-age athletes. There are many other combinations of monitoring variables and strategies that coaches and athletes may utilize.

Data Analysis – How to Utilize the Measures

Regardless of what type of monitoring tool a coach or athlete may incorporate, it is essential to understand how to analyze this data. There are excellent resources available which discuss this topic in great detail (Gabbett et al., 2017 ; Clubb and McGuigan, 2018 ; Thornton et al., 2019 ). This section will highlight two main conclusions from these sources and briefly describe two of the main statistical practices and concepts discussed. The use of z-scores or modified z-scores has been proposed as a method of detecting meaningful change in athlete data (Clubb and McGuigan, 2018 ; Thornton et al., 2019 ). For different monitoring tools listed in Table 1 , the following formula would be an example of how to assess changes: (Athlete daily score—Baseline score)/Standard deviation of baseline. The baseline would likely be based off an appropriate period such as the scores across 2 weeks during the preseason.

In sports and sports science, the use of a magnitude-based inference (MBI) has been suggested as more appropriate and easier to understand when examining meaningful changes in athletic data, than null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST) (Buchheit, 2014 ). Additional methods to assess meaningful change that are similar to MBI are using standard deviation, typical error, effect sizes, smallest worthwhile change (SWC), and coefficient of variation (Thornton et al., 2019 ). It should be noted that all of these methods have faced criticism from sources such as statisticians. It is important to understand that the testing methods, measurements, and analysis should be based on the resources and intended goals from use, which will differ from every group and individual. Once identified, it is up to the practitioner to keep this system the same, in order to collect data that can then be examined to understand meaningful information for each setting (Thornton et al., 2019 ).

Managing and Coping Strategies

Once the collegiate-athlete has been able to identify the need to balance their stress levels, the athlete may then need to seek out options for managing their stress. Coaches are be able to assist them by sharing information on health and wellness resources available for the students, both on and off campus. Another way a coach can potentially support their athletes is by establishing an open-door policy, wherein the team members feel comfortable approaching a member of the strength and conditioning staff in order to seek out resources for coping with challenges related to stress.

There are some basic skills that strength and conditioning coaches can teach (while staying within their scope of practice). Coaches can introduce their athletes to basic lifestyle concepts, such as practicing deep breathing techniques, positive self-talk, and developing healthy sleep habits (i.e., turning off their mobile devices 1 h before bed and aiming for 8 h of sleep each night, etc.). A survey of strength and conditioning practitioners by Radcliffe et al. ( 2015 ) found that strategies used by practitioners included a mix of cognitive and behavioral strategies, which was used as justification for recommending practitioners find opportunities to guide professional development toward awareness strategies. Practitioners reported using a wide variety of psychological skills and strategies, which following survey analysis, highlighted a significant emphasis on strategies that may influence athlete self-confidence and goal setting. Themes identified by Radcliffe et al. ( 2015 ) included confidence building, arousal management, and skill acquisition. Additionally, similar lower level themes that are connected (i.e., goal setting, increasing, or decreasing arousal intensities, self-talk, mental imagery) are all discussed in the 4th edition of the NSCA Essentials of Strength and Conditioning book (Haff et al., 2016 ). When the interventions aiming to improve mental health expand from basic concepts to mental training beyond a coach's scope, it would be pertinent for the coach to refer the collegiate-athlete to a sport psychology or other mental health consultant (Fogaca, 2019 ). Moreover, strength and conditioning coaches may find themselves in a position to become key players in facilitating management strategies for collegiate athletes, thereby guiding the athlete in their quest to learn how to best manage the mental and physical energy levels required in the quest for overall optimal performance (Statler and DuBois, 2016 ).

Conclusion and Future Directions

This review article has summarized some of the ways that strength and conditioning professionals may be able to gain a better understanding of the types of stressors encountered by collegiate athletes, the impact these stressors may have on athletic performance, and suggestions for assisting athletes with developing effective coping strategies to reduce the potential negative physiological and psychological impacts of stress. It has been suggested that strategies learned in the context of training may have a carry-over effect into other areas such as competition. More education is needed in order for strength and conditioning professionals to gain a greater understanding of how to support their athletes with stress-management techniques and resources. Some ways to disseminate further education on stress-management tools for coaches to share with their athletes may include professional development events, such as conferences and clinics.

Author Contributions

All of the authors have contributed to the development of the manuscript both in writing and conceptual development.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The handling editor declared a past collaboration with one of the authors RL.

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By The Learning Network

These graphs show how adults feel about college athletes being paid (beyond just qualifying for scholarships). Some respondents felt that athletes should be paid salaries by their colleges or compensated for the use of their names, images and likenesses. Others thought that paying athletes might affect gambling and encourage athletes to cheat.

On Wednesday, Nov. 16, we will moderate your responses live online. By Friday morning, Nov. 18, we will provide the “Reveal” — the graphs’ free online link, additional questions, shout outs for student headlines and Stat Nuggets.

1. After looking closely at the graph above (or at this full-size image ), answer these four questions:

What do you notice?

What do you wonder?

How does this relate to you and your community?

What’s going on in this graph? Create a catchy headline that captures the graph’s main idea.

The questions are intended to build on one another, so try to answer them in order.

2. Next, join the conversation online by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box. (Teachers of students younger than 13 are welcome to post their students’ responses.)

3. Below the response box, there is an option to click on “Email me when my comment is published.” This sends the link to your response which you can share with your teacher.

4. After you have posted, read what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting a comment. Use the “Reply” button to address that student directly.

On Wednesday, Nov. 16, teachers from our collaborator, the American Statistical Association , will facilitate this discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time.

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