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Wednesday, March 28
Play-for-pay: Not yet, but soon?
By Tom Farrey
ESPN.com
In the days leading up to the final NCAA Tournament of his respectable college career, Allen Griffin thought of bringing glory to his school, NBA scouts to his doorstep, and financial prosperity to his stretched-thin family that includes a 2-year-old son and an unemployed grandmother in Brooklyn who raised him after his mother died 15 years ago.
"Right now, I have nothing to offer but my love and support," he said.
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FOUR BARGAINS
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Shane Battier
Duke
Yearly Scholarship
$33,365
Yearly 'Value'
$396,500
Battier could have made $1.5 million playing the past four seasons with 'revenue sharing' in NCAA.
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Charlie Bell
Michigan State
Yearly Scholarship
$18,196
Yearly 'Value'
$345,666
Bell could have made $1.3 million over the past four seasons with 'revenue sharing' in NCAA.
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Loren Woods
Arizona
Yearly Scholarship
$16,103
Yearly 'Value'
$508,333
Woods could have $2 million playing the past four seasons (at Arizona) with 'revenue sharing' in NCAA.
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Lonny Baxter
Maryland
Yearly Scholarship
$18,443
Yearly 'Value'
$376,166
Baxter could have made $1.4 million playing the past four seasons with 'revenue sharing' in NCAA.
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Griffin is not complaining. He is grateful for the opportunity provided him by Syracuse University, where, as a private school, his yearly scholarship costs the school a hefty $30,000 a year. He plans to graduate in May with a degree in sociology that he hopes will someday lead to a job in counseling athletes.
But the fact remains that if Griffin were treated as an employee of Syracuse instead of a "student-athlete" -- a public-relations term created by the NCAA in the 1960s to keep athletes from being treated by the government as workers -- he and his family would probably be financially set for life by now.
That's how much revenue an elite college basketball program generates.
Do the math. In the major professional sports leagues, players usually get slightly more than half of all revenues to share among themselves. In the NBA, through agreement with its players' association, the players' share is 61 percent -- a ratio that is used to set the salary cap for teams each season.
Syracuse basketball generated $9.6 million in revenue last season, according to a report filed by the school with the U.S. Department of Education (see chart). If its 12 scholarship players divvied up 61 percent of that money, their average "salary" would be $488,000 -- or roughly $458,543 less than each athlete is currently being "compensated" for in the form of tuition, books, room and board.
Over a four-year college athletic career, that means the average Syracuse player is theoretically "underpaid" by more than $1.8 million. Or enough for Griffin to never work again, if he so chose.
"Wow," Griffin said, when told of the crude calculation. "That's something to think about."
And the powers that be are thinking. With a new, $6 billion deal with CBS to televise the men's NCAA Tournament set to begin soon, the NCAA is carefully exploring brave new ways to allow more dollars to flow the way of athletes before their college careers are finished -- without specifically paying players for their contributions to the bottom line.
The organization has proposed offering elite players a $20,000 annual stipend in the form of a loan. The NCAA Division I Management Council will vote in the fall on the program, which would be open to about 100 elite athletes in selected sports. In February, NBA commissioner David Stern offered to pay for the loans and forgive the players of any debt if they made it in the league.
Another proposal under consideration by the NCAA is to allow athletes to play college ball after brief, failed careers in the pros. Even if that option would be attractive to only a few players, it represents a dramatic shift in the basic philosophy of the NCAA, which traditionally has punished athletes for receiving even the slightest of financial benefits prior to their college years.
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“ |
I
give it two to five years. Everyone's
saying college basketball is declining. The top
players are going early to the NBA. They have to
do something to keep them. ” |
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— Syracuse's Allen Griffin,
on NCAA paying players |
The NCAA's maneuvering comes at a time when more money than ever is changing hands in college basketball. That fact is never more obvious than on the eve of the Final Four, an event that in many ways -- network television, corporate advertising, high ticket prices, lavish official parties -- has become indistinguishable from its professionalized big brother, the NBA Finals.
"Every time the NCAA does something to make itself more commercial, it increases the risk that some judge will strike them down," said Gary Roberts, a Tulane University law professor and expert on anti-trust law and NCAA liability.
Here's what Roberts means: Historically, judges hearing challenges to the way the NCAA does business generally have respected the NCAA's ideals of amateurism and education. They have accepted the argument that, in order to keep those ideals viable, special restrictions have to be placed on athletes.
The problem is, the money flowing through college basketball makes the sport look less like an amateur event each year. Thirst for dollars has led conferences such as the Big Ten to add postseason conference tournaments in recent years. Between travel, mandatory media sessions and games, players on Final Four teams will miss half of their class time this month.
That scenario eventually could create a problem for the NCAA if an athlete sues the organization for not allowing him to share more in the revenues he helped generate.
"I could construct a very plausible anti-trust case against the NCAA," Roberts said.
Then again, judges can also be sports fans -- and their March Madness may be the best thing going for the NCAA member schools in their desire not to pay athletes outright. "I've seen judges do all kinds of idiotic things to make sure their favorite schools aren't hurt," Roberts said.
Paying athletes some form of salary above the value of their scholarship grant likely would cause them to be treated as employees, costing an athletic department an extra $2 million a year for insurance, taxes and workers' compensation, said Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College (Mass.) professor and author on NCAA financial issues.
Additionally, such a format begs profoundly difficult questions: Should the starting center get more money than his bench-bound backup? How would schools and players agree on compensation levels? Do schools only pay players in revenue-producing sports? Would Title IX law mandate demand that a women's cross-country runner also be compensated?
In the current system, schools use the profits from men's basketball to pay for scholarships and expenses in sports that make little or no money, such as cross-country.
"We can only afford so much," said Jake Crouthamel, Syracuse athletic director. "We can't be everything to everybody. The well has a bottom."
But the athletes who fill that well with revenue are getting antsy. In October, the Student Basketball Council (SBC) -- a group of 47 player representatives organized by the National Association of Basketball Coaches -- proposed to explore ways that athletes in that sport could benefit from the new CBS contract, including outright payments.
That dreamy notion never went much further, lost amid the hectic demands of the season. A key advantage the NCAA has in fending off pay-for-play schemes is that the chief beneficiaries, the athletes, are too distracted to mount a serious challenge. They are more focused on catching the eye of NBA scouts, and then after no more than five years they are gone.
Still, Griffin, a member of the SBC, is confident the NCAA will be forced to share its loot with players before too long. He's banking on the value of the entertainment they provide.
"I give it two to five years," Griffin said. "Everyone's saying college basketball is declining. The top players are going early to the NBA. They have to do something to keep them."
For now, though, the NCAA's house of cards is proving to be among the sturdiest in amateur sports.
Tom Farrey is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn.com
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