Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    Hands-On Career Preparation
    An AI-Driven Work Force
    Alternative Pathways
Sign In
News

Sonny Vaccaro Plans One Last Push Against the NCAA

By Brad Wolverton October 14, 2016
“You’ve got to have the war,” says Sonny Vaccaro of his efforts to provoke the NCAA. “Because they’ll never pay attention if you don’t.”
“You’ve got to have the war,” says Sonny Vaccaro of his efforts to provoke the NCAA. “Because they’ll never pay attention if you don’t.” Stephen Osman, Getty Images

They called him when the case went to trial, and they called him when the rulings came down. And when the Supreme Court declined this month to hear the matter of Edward C. O’Bannon, Jr. v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, reporters from the biggest media outlets called Sonny Vaccaro again.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

“You’ve got to have the war,” says Sonny Vaccaro of his efforts to provoke the NCAA. “Because they’ll never pay attention if you don’t.”
“You’ve got to have the war,” says Sonny Vaccaro of his efforts to provoke the NCAA. “Because they’ll never pay attention if you don’t.” Stephen Osman, Getty Images

They called him when the case went to trial, and they called him when the rulings came down. And when the Supreme Court declined this month to hear the matter of Edward C. O’Bannon, Jr. v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, reporters from the biggest media outlets called Sonny Vaccaro again.

Everyone wanted to know how he felt about the court’s action, which let stand rulings that found the NCAA had violated antitrust laws but allowed colleges to continue restricting payments to players beyond their full cost of attendance.

They also wondered: What was Mr. Vaccaro, a former shoe marketer turned athlete advocate, going to do next?

Anybody who knows Sonny knows that the O’Bannon case was his baby. He helped dream up the lawsuit, which pushed the NCAA to pay players for the commercial use of their images, and he lined up the plaintiffs, including Mr. O’Bannon, a former UCLA basketball star, whom he met as a teenager. Over the past half-dozen years, as the case wound its way through the federal courts, Mr. Vaccaro hardly missed a hearing, working as an unpaid consultant for Mr. O’Bannon’s lawyers.

Considering that the case has consumed so much of his life, Sonny is taking the news in stride. He once saw O’Bannon as his last hope to help players. Instead, he says, the case has inspired him to find new battle fronts in his fight for athletes’ rights.

In recent days, he has consulted with Michael Hausfeld, the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer in O’Bannon, and Charles Grantham, a former executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, about enlisting new plaintiffs to challenge a variety of NCAA restrictions.

As they see it, the O’Bannon case found the NCAA guilty of a restraint on trade, so all the other NCAA restraints are up for debate. That includes limits placed on high-school athletes as well as rules restricting players’ rights once they are enrolled in college.

Mr. Vaccaro is also collaborating with Kenneth Feinberg, a lawyer who specializes in alternative dispute resolution, on the Former College Athletes Association, a group they helped set up in 2011 to negotiate with colleges over potential new benefits for players. And he plans to step up his work with current athletes to help them organize.

“I’m ready now, I can rally. And they’re more vulnerable than ever,” Mr. Vaccaro says of the NCAA. “If I get an audience, I feel I have a chance to win.”

Boycotts and Rallies

Mr. Vaccaro, who is 77, helped shape college sports into the big business it is today. As a former executive with Nike, Adidas, and Reebok, he signed wealthy athletic departments to multimillion-dollar marketing contracts, providing his companies exclusive rights to outfit players.

ADVERTISEMENT

But as the money got bigger — the NCAA now brings in almost $1 billion a year — Mr. Vaccaro found it harder to justify the fact that none of it was going to the players, outside of their scholarships. (He was accused of using his influence to steer players to certain colleges, a charge he has denied.)

In 2007 he quit his $500,000-a-year marketing job and began railing on hypocrisies he saw in the NCAA’s system. Since then he has spoken at more than three dozen colleges, encouraging students to join his fight against the association. (On Monday he will talk to students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.)

He hopes to expand his audience, moving from business and law schools into major-college locker rooms. When football players at the University of Missouri at Columbia said they planned to boycott a game last year over a university leader’s response to racial incidents, it planted a seed.

“I would have loved to go down there and speak on the back of a truck,” Mr. Vaccaro says. If a protest like that ever happens again, he says, he wants to be there.

ADVERTISEMENT

College athletes have demonstrated in a variety of ways, including by kneeling during the playing of the national anthem to protest racism. Two years ago, football players at the University of Oklahoma sat out practice to protest leadership problems at a fraternity whose members had been captured on video chanting racist slurs.

In 2013 dozens of football players, including the entire starting offensive line at the University of Georgia, wrote “APU,” for “All Players United,” on their wrist tape in support of plaintiffs in the O’Bannon case and other federal lawsuits arguing for improved treatment of players.

Some athletes, seeking to eliminate what they considered “unjust” NCAA rules that create academic and financial hardships for players, have run into roadblocks. In 2014, when football players at Northwestern University tried to unionize, coaches and administrators campaigned against the idea.

Mr. Vaccaro hopes to counter such measures by enlisting other people to educate players about their rights. His job, he says, will be to provide the spark.

ADVERTISEMENT

“You’ve got to have the war,” he says, of his efforts to provoke the NCAA. “Because they’ll never pay attention if you don’t.”

‘Arbitrary’ Limits

His latest idea is to challenge restraints he sees on high-school athletes, who he says must abide by NCAA rules before they even commit to a college. For example, he says, why are Division I recruits limited to five official visits? He wants to know what’s behind such a limit, which he considers arbitrary, and what right colleges have to restrict athletes from more paid trips to different campuses.

He also questions the scholarship limits outside of the major sports, which often leave players with little aid. For example, he says, why are colleges allowed to distribute only the equivalent of about 13 scholarships in men’s track and field when many teams have more than three times as many athletes?

Even benefits that wouldn’t seem to cost colleges much money, such as a room in a residence hall, are limited outside of the so-called revenue sports like football and men’s and women’s basketball. With all the money flowing into the major programs, he says, there’s no reason why every athlete shouldn’t get free lodging, if not room and board.

ADVERTISEMENT

And if colleges are allowed to cover thousands of dollars in travel expenses for the parents of college football and basketball players whose sons play in prominent bowl games or NCAA championship events, why can’t programs provide the same allowances for the parents of runners and wrestlers?

NCAA restrictions on player transfers are problematic, too, Mr. Vaccaro says, particularly in men’s basketball, where some 40 percent of Division I athletes either change colleges or drop out by the end of their sophomore years. Under current NCAA rules, players who change colleges lose a year of eligibility. The rules governing players, Mr. Vaccaro says, should not differ from those for coaches, who can leave without such penalties.

David vs. Goliath

In recent years, the wealthiest NCAA programs have signaled an increasing openness to providing more benefits to players. As a result, the association is not likely to go even further and eliminate its restrictions on players unless it is forced to in court, says Mr. Grantham, the former head of the NBA players’ union, who is now director of the Center for Sport Management at Seton Hall University.

That should keep lawyers like Mr. Hausfeld busy — assuming Mr. Vaccaro can find more players willing to attach their names to lawsuits. Mr. Vaccaro has deep connections in youth basketball. But he knows the challenge of finding plaintiffs, understanding the risk it poses for players who are still competing.

ADVERTISEMENT

But there are signs that some of the most-talented high-school athletes are willing to exert their power before they enter the NCAA system, says Ellen J. Staurowsky, a professor of sport management at Drexel University who has written extensively about players’ rights.

In some cases, she says, star recruits have tried to negotiate scholarships for their teammates. And a growing number of high-school athletes have reneged on their verbal commitments to colleges without facing repercussions.

“I wouldn’t underestimate the power of athletes,” says Ms. Staurowsky, who co-founded a faculty coalition that has pushed for college football and basketball players to be paid. Through social media, many young athletes have learned the importance of expressing their views and controlling a message. But they are also realistic, she says, knowing that colleges often limit them from speaking out once they sign their letters of intent.

“They know that door’s going to shut,” she says, “once they do the deal.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Ms. Staurowsky, who has known Mr. Vaccaro for nearly a decade, says she would also not underestimate his impact. As he proved in the O’Bannon case, she says, “it took something to get to the right lawyer, and it took something to encourage players to sign onto the case.”

Whether any of the new challenges he is proposing have legs, however, is unclear.

“At this point, it’s still a David versus Goliath thing,” Ms. Staurowsky says. “It’s winnable, but you have to hit it just right.”

Brad Wolverton is a senior writer who covers college sports. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @bradwolverton, or email him at brad.wolverton@chronicle.com.

A version of this article appeared in the October 21, 2016, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
Athletics
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
Brad Wolverton
About the Author
Brad Wolverton
Former senior writer Brad Wolverton covered college athletics at The Chronicle beginning in 2005, focusing on the confluence of money and sports on campus. His research highlighted allegations of academic misconduct, reports of coaches’ meddling in medical decisions, and concerns about a rapid rise in athletics donations.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

Court’s Refusal to Hear O’Bannon Case Leaves Player-Pay Issue Unsettled
How the O’Bannon Ruling Could Change College Sports
Amateurism Goes on Trial, and Sonny Vaccaro Is Still on the Case
The Gospel According to Sonny

More News

Marva Johnson is set to take the helm of Florida A&M University this summer.
Leadership & governance
‘Surprising': A DeSantis-Backed Lobbyist Is Tapped to Lead Florida A&M
Students and community members protest outside of Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, on Tuesday, April 23, 2024.
Campus Activism
One Year After the Encampments, Campuses Are Quieter and Quicker to Stop Protests
Hoover-NBERValue-0516 002 B
Diminishing Returns
Why the College Premium Is Shrinking for Low-Income Students
Harvard University
'Deeply Unsettling'
Harvard’s Battle With Trump Escalates as Research Money Is Suddenly Canceled

From The Review

Illustration showing a valedictorian speaker who's tassel is a vintage microphone
The Review | Opinion
A Graduation Speaker Gets Canceled
By Corey Robin
Illustration showing a stack of coins and a university building falling over
The Review | Opinion
Here’s What Congress’s Endowment-Tax Plan Might Cost Your College
By Phillip Levine
Photo-based illustration of a college building under an upside down baby crib
The Review | Opinion
Colleges Must Stop Infantilizing Everyone
By Gregory Conti

Upcoming Events

Ascendium_06-10-25_Plain.png
Views on College and Alternative Pathways
Coursera_06-17-25_Plain.png
AI and Microcredentials
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin