In July, Stanford football players elected representatives and formed the first player-led chapter of the College Football Players Association. The CFBPA’s ultimate goal is collective bargaining on a conference-by-conference basis. From Ernest Cooper, a Stanford linebacker and one of the team’s elected representatives:
“As a Power 4 college football player you’re working out year-round, you’re getting paid …. I don’t see why people wouldn’t see us as employees.”Just a few days later, the Oregon State women’s basketball team collected enough signatures to seek an election with the United College Athletes Association. They have filed a petition with the Oregon Employment Relations Board. From the university, which is opposing the effort:
“Playing on a college basketball team is not service performed for hire …. Student athletes at OSU matriculate to obtain and [sic] education and voluntarily pursue basketball as part of that experience.”Last year, over 100 women’s basketball players wrote to Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey asking for a formal way to be heard on the rules that govern their sport. Neither agreed to meet.
The Senate is about to weigh in against these athletes’ efforts, with the Protect College Sports Act (the “PCSA”), which has been taking up valuable debating time in the House and Senate. The two lead Senators on the bill are Republican Ted Cruz from Texas, and Democrat Maria Cantwell, from Washington state. Both have very sharp elbows and have used them to move this legislation.
It passed a procedural hurdle last week, by a 74–24 margin, to proceed to a full vote, which will happen shortly. Populist politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were opposed, but the “aye” column included most of the Senate, including some surprising center-left supporters, like Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and co-sponsor Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
It’s worth saying upfront that it is weird that Congress is focusing on this topic to the exclusion of most other things. There are massive cost increases in health care, a war in Iran driving up prices, risky problems with artificial intelligence technology and financing, and on and on, but Congress is spending its time on… college sports.
There have been countless commercials during football season promoting this legislation. Nick Saban has made his case before the Senate and on ESPN GameDay. Amazon, Paramount, and Disney are on the Hill lobbying. Even Deion Sanders has joined the bandwagon. All of them say that college sports, a $20 billion industry and growing, are in chaos. Ted Cruz even went on ESPN GameDay, and was hilariously booed with “Ted You Suck!” chants as he pitched this legislation for ten full minutes.
Still, this lobbying campaign isn’t the sole reason Congress is focusing on college athletics to the exclusion of everything else. Another reason is that, as BIG often chronicles, the superrich tend to have their priorities addressed in our political system. And the superrich love college sports. For instance, billionaire Larry Ellison, who is right now financing the Paramount-Warner takeover, and owns TikTok and Oracle, is deeply involved in the University of Michigan’s athletic department finances, because his sixth wife is an alumni of the school.
For decades, wealthy alumni, known as “boosters,” have played a part in funding college sports, as a sort of passionate high-end hobby. Key here was that the athletes didn’t get paid, which not only reduced costs but also contributed to an endless series of scandals involving athletes paid under the table.
But this whole system got a rude awakening in 2021, when the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the NCAA’s request for “immunity from the normal operation of the antitrust laws” in its landmark NCAA v. Alston decision. It did so at least in part based on the NCAA’s admission that it “enjoy[ed] monopsony control” and was “capable of depressing wages below competitive levels.” Justice Kavanaugh wrote that “[t]he NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.”
The Alston decision created a sea change in college athletics, forcing the NCAA to abandon a long-standing ban on athlete compensation within days of the opinion’s release. Before 2021, universities were only allowed to award scholarships and certain “education-related” benefits like tutors and laptops. The result was coaches and administrators earning millions while the athletes on the field brought home nothing beyond a scholarship. It was a blatantly unfair and exploitative system. The Alston decision forced the NCAA to make a change.
Today, athletes can sign name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) deals with sponsors like Nike and Gatorade. Boosters frequently set up funds to bring in star players. And starting in 2025, schools can pay athletes directly via revenue-sharing, named for the athletic department revenue that funds it. Revenue-sharing is currently capped at $20.5 million per school, but a report published by The Athletic shows that the biggest programs are spending over $50 million a year on their rosters.
Alston also ushered a wave of lawsuits challenging other NCAA rules, including those limiting the number of transfers, restricting eligibility for older players and professional athletes, and capping the amount of prize money tennis players can collect. These have frustrated coaches, administrators, and some fans alike. And it changed the way universities finance athletics, since traditionally they cross-subsidize revenue-generating sports with those that don’t bring in enough cash.
Given the massive changes in college athletics wrought by the Alston decision, universities began a big lobbying campaign. Enter the Protect College Sports Act. To its proponents, the PCSA restores balance to college sports, putting the NCAA back as the governor of the system. It limits revenue sharing, regulates NIL deals, and imposes uniform rules on transfers and recruiting. It also grants an antitrust exemption to schools to pool and sell media rights. The idea here is to “fix” college athletics and make it more sustainable. Senator Cantwell’s office even released a financial report during the first PCSA procedural vote claiming that her bill will put an end to “unsustainable athletics spending [] amplifying the broader fiscal pressures facing higher education.”
But there’s a reason athletes and labor unions are opposed. The truth is, the PCSA is the culmination of a 5-year, multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign by the NCAA to secure an antitrust exemption that will allow it to unilaterally set the rules governing athletes’ compensation and eligibility.
by Matt Stollar, BIG | Read more:
Image: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images via[ed. College and professional sports are Big Business personified. Reminds me of record companies and how they treat 'talent'. See also: AI Is an Elite Crime Spree (BIG).]
