The FBI has been investigating a subterranean recruiting scandal in college basketball for the past two years. The most successful teams in the country are in the agency’s cross hairs, and Mark Emmert, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, is shocked that there is gambling in his establishment.
Mr. Emmert says that if the claims of underground recruiting networks and impermissible benefits to athletes are true, he will initiate systemic change. The NCAA is, he says, wedded to the principle of amateurism. Say what?
More than any other organization, the NCAA has confused and obfuscated the meaning of amateurism. In its early years, the NCAA, which was founded in 1906, averred that amateurism in college sports meant athletes could get no remuneration or material benefit from playing.
According to the NCAA’s early constitution, violations included “the offering of inducements to players to enter colleges or universities because of their athletic abilities or maintaining players while students on account of their athletic abilities, either by athletic organizations, individual alumni, or otherwise directly or indirectly.” That is, athletic scholarships violated amateurism rules.
In 1948 the NCAA passed what is referred to as the Sanity Code. This legislation allowed — for the first time ever — colleges to award athletically related financial aid as long as it was limited to tuition and incidental expenses and the athlete qualified for need. Aid exceeding tuition could be granted only if based on superior academic scholarship. The Sanity Code, which stipulated that aid could not be withdrawn if a student ceased playing, was abandoned in 1950, when the NCAA membership voted not to expel colleges that had violated the rule.
Six years after the demise of the Sanity Code, the NCAA allowed athletic scholarships to cover commonly accepted educational expenses. In 1957 an “official Interpretation” defined expenses as room, board, tuition, books, fees, and $15 for laundry. Few people who attended the NCAA’s first convention, in 1906, could have conceived that by 1957 NCAA rules would allow a university to use those types of financial inducements to recruit high-school athletes.
In 1967 the NCAA moved even further from its original conception of amateurism when members began to complain that athletes were accepting four-year scholarships but deciding not to participate in their sport. One athletic director opined that this was “morally wrong.” He then added that “regardless of what anyone says, this is a contract, and it is a two-way street.”
To address that problem the NCAA passed rules that allow the immediate cancellation of a scholarship for an athlete who voluntarily withdraws from sports or does not follow a coach’s directives.
The NCAA made a total break from the traditional model of amateurism in 1973 by requiring that athletic scholarships be considered for renewal on an annual basis. That rule allows a coach to cancel an athlete’s scholarship at the end of one year for just about any reason, including injury, contribution to team success, the need to make room for a more talented recruit, or failing to fit into a coach’s style of play.
The contractual nature of this relationship and the control it gives to the coaches over the players’ behavior exhibit many of the trappings of an employment contract.
In 2012 the NCAA approved legislation that gives Division I colleges the option to award multiyear scholarships. In 2015, pursuant to various antitrust lawsuits, the NCAA extended the scope of athletic scholarships by a few thousand dollars to include the “cost of attendance.”
The NCAA has also allowed approved gifts to go to athletes. For instance, it permits players in football bowl games and the March basketball tournament to receive gifts well in excess of a thousand dollars.
An article in the Sports Business Journal in March 2012 provides some details: “For example, a senior on a team that runs the table and wins championships for the regular season, postseason conference tournament, and NCAA tournament could secure gifts valued at up to $3,780. Up to 25 gift packages can be provided to a team by its school and by its conference for participating in this month’s conference tournaments, according to NCAA bylaws.” All this in the name of amateurism.
The NCAA’s double talk notwithstanding, the concept of amateurism is straightforward. An amateur is one who is not paid to perform an activity. If we apply that idea to intercollegiate athletics, it implies that athletes should not receive a salary for playing their sport. It allows, however, for athletes to receive medical insurance and payment by third parties for use of their publicity rights. It implies, too, that the athletes, as amateurs, are students first and deserve a first-rate education. Many educational reforms follow from that concept.
The real locus of control in the NCAA is with the coaches and athletic directors, who profit the most from ‘amateurism.’
The real locus of control in the NCAA is with the coaches and athletic directors, who profit the most from “amateurism.” It is, after all, the head coaches and their assistants who get paid for the value of the players they recruit, because the players cannot be paid. So if we want to reform the morass of corruption that is big-time college basketball, we had better look beyond the NCAA.
The good news is that, while long dormant, the U.S. Congress has begun to note that college sports have lost their way. Rep. Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania, introduced a bill in the last Congress to create a presidential commission to study intercollegiate athletics and make recommendations for its reform. Taking up the cudgel, Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and his staff plan to issue a series of reports on the challenges of intercollegiate athletics.
So enjoy March Madness while you can. The FBI and Congress are coming.
Andrew Zimbalist is a professor of economics at Smith College and the co-author of Unwinding Madness: What Went Wrong With College Sports and How to Fix It (Brookings Institution Press, 2017).
