When's payday for collegians?

• Author: Sanderson, Allen
• Position: Compensation for student athletes - Sports Scene

THE CURRENT COMPENSATION arrangement for big-time college athletics is inefficient, inequitable, and very likely unsustainable, according to our study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. An evolution to a competitive labor market with fewer restrictions on pay for top athletes may be inevitable, though the transition will be difficult.

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. Payment caps set by the National Collegiate Athletic Association 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. We recommend schools compensate student-athletes according to the value they provide, whether that value comes in the form of measurable revenue or more subjective benefits.

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 mainly are an attempt by the NCAA to stay one town ahead of the sheriff.

Moreover, colleges and universities falsely claim that they operate large-scale commercial athletic programs-with a focus on men's football and basketball--largely to subsidize then other money-losing intercollegiate sporting ventures. In other words, the lesser sports--lesser in the sense they are not as popular with paying fans.

Since athletes historically been considered students rather than employees, they have not been covered by general labor laws. Therefore, they cannot bargain collectively via union representation, nor can they apply for workers' compensation. As a result, university athletic departments essentially can dictate many aspects of a student-athlete's routine and engage these individuals in long hours of practices, something that might not be possible if general labor laws were in force.

The NCAA also is allowed to maximize its profits by steadily expanding regular season and playoff Bowl games. The regular season, once a standard 10-game slate, now often stretches to 12 or 13 games. Powerful conferences, like large conglomerates, swallow up the smaller fish to form Super Conferences, which often are split into two divisions...