Sports Policy in NCAA

📌Category: Law, Sports
📌Words: 1325
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 12 March 2021

One of the meaningful careers that have been undertaken by athletes is taking sports as a profession and nurturing their talents to achieve greater heights in life. Various sports organizations and bodies such as the NCAA have been created to cushion the sportsmen and women from exploitation by their agents and intermediaries (Fisher et al., 2017). In America, for instance, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was created as a nonprofit organization to regulate the affairs of the institutions of North America and organize athletic programs partaken by colleges and the universities in Canada and the United States.

Among the stakeholders include Reggie Bush, an all-time great and might be one of the best running backs in college history. Bush thinks that paying college athletes will destroy some people because younger students do not know how to manage their money (Davis & Shropshire, 2017). Tim Tebow was one of the best college athletes of all time. His voice is very influential in the field as well as in the real world. Tebow's jersey was one of the top-selling jerseys when he played, but he couldn't make a single dollar off sales (Holthaus Jr, 2010). Todd Gurley got in trouble in college for selling autographs for his profit. Gurley is in the NFL currently and is a great athlete. He voices why he thinks college athletes should be paid. Adrian Peterson is a firm believer in students being paid in college. He pointed out that basketball players are trying to be made to play at least two years in college, and he believes this is because the college makes money off their talent.

However, athletes from the colleges do not get paid, although there are plans from the board to have the athletes on the payroll after allowing them to get compensation from third parties that endorse them and receive money from different avenues. The board of directors unanimously voted for the policy change to change the previous policy and allowed the students to gain financial profits from using their images and names through image rights. The previous policy restricted athletes from the colleges from having any commercial benefit that would have been built from the use of their reputations and their effort both on and off the field of play.

If you pay the players, costs everywhere will go up. Tickets, food and drinks, merchandise will all be raised in price. Paying student-athletes can help them get a grip on financial awareness. This could help them in the future if they don't make it to the professional level and get a job. Stakeholders such as the colleges will not be subjected to paying the athletes directly to use their names and images in the commercial broadcasts (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). The board on the side remains glued into their opposition of applying a competitive ground that is fair by paying the college athletes in the context that it is focused on preserving a demarcation that they purport to explain a distinction between intercollegiate sports and professional sporting clearly.

Both parties, the college athletes and the governing body, are entangled in the competition that brings conflicts of interest that may affect the policy's implementation. Implementing the required changes will see athletes gaining from their participation in college sports (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). At the same time, the organization will have to cope with a reduction in incomes that they have been earning from the athletes' image rights. The move may lead to changes in the NCAA's governance structure to reduce the governing members due to a substantial amount of revenue being channeled to the athletes (Fisher et al., 2017). The policy may face hurdles in its implementation since the committee is still discussing other possible changes during their monthly meetings. The bottom line with the approach is that the athletes must gain from image rights and their names by various stakeholders who mint commercial benefits at the expense of the athletes.

The current policy has been contested in lawsuits, and the body has suggested reverting into policy changes making it almost obsolete after implementing the proposed one. Policy options that are available to the organization are three. The first one is offering players weekly or monthly allowances to facilitate their early movement for the competitions. This is due to them needing the money as a reward for their efforts in representing the universities. However, this seems to prove futile as more time might be spent on sporting activities at the expense of education (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). This could cause issues among the different sports and different levels of skilled athletes and how much the school provided as an allowance. College athletes could become part of the bidding war with colleges that offer more of a weekly allowance. However, having a weekly budget could lower the monetary burden to the athletes' families for having to support them.

The second option will translate into allowing the players to directly earn money from image rights used by their fans to make autographs by charging them. Not all college athletes would benefit from this option if they are less skilled, less known, or play a less watched sport. This option could be an issue if the athlete is in high demand, and it starts to affect his/her performance. The money made from their memorabilia could eliminate funding by the school, or a percentage of the money could be contracted to the school. The athlete could bring in more fans to the program if they can market themselves via all types of memorabilia or other means such as TV commercials. If the athlete was getting paid for their self-image, it might keep them on track to stay at the top of their game, so they continued to get money for it and remain in school.

Option three will be engaging the athletes in mandatory classes to educate them on the financial management of the incomes earned. The step will cushion the athletes from unnecessary expenditures that lead them to live broken lives. Meaning they shall acquire investment ideas from the class teaching and focus on their future financial positions. There wouldn't be an additional economic cost for this option if the curriculum had a money class that every athlete must take. The cost would already be in place for their degree. Therefore, the organizations must resort to option two, which is viable both to the athletes and the organizations in general (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). By adopting the policy option, it will not incur the expenses of paying the athletes. On the other side, the athletes will not have a direct financial contract with the organization. Revenue savings shall become eminent to both parties, and players will have their time to pursue their education by running for professional sports prematurely. 

Conclusion

As a fan of every college sport, it is personally very hard to see great players do great things on the field and get no pay in return. This makes it easier for fans to understand when great players join the NFL too early. If colleges would use any of these options, the sports world would change for the better. Although it is easy to focus on the negative side of things, there are also very great things that these options would do for the players and fans. It is important to think about the players and the way they have given up so much to be athletes in college. It is common to hear people use the expression, “playing a sport in college is like having a job.” Which, if you think about it, this is very true. Athletes have to be on time to practice, take orders from their coach, physically abuse their bodies, and make a commitment to the team. Although they do get the many perks of being on the team, there are a lot of sacrifices made by each of the players. It would be very hard for me to basically have a job, but not get paid in the end. It is obvious that people use the excuse that college players cannot be paid because they will not handle the money properly. This is why I have supplied educated options for colleges to use for this issue. 

Athletes ought to be protected whether they are from colleges or are playing professional sports. The incomes that they generate from their ventures should also be guarded through educative and investment enlightenment to cushion them from going broke at their advanced ages. Therefore, this requires that regulatory bodies cushion them from being exploited by the agents and other stakeholders of the industry.

 

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