Shadiamond Harvey

May 14th, 2017

Strategic Management

Based on research, there has been a constant feud between NCAA and athletes on

whether or not the athlete should be paid for their talents, which dates backs back to the 1950s

and later. The feud between NCAA and athletes had led to many lawsuits against NCAA and the

creation of a unions led by the students, who were bargaining to have NCAA change their rules.

The ethical standards in the case at hand is in regards to the rules of the NCAA, whether the

athletes are being treated fairly and why the athletes are not compensated for their talents outside

of their scholarship proceeds regardless of the sport played or gender of the athlete. NCAA

stands as compliance oriented organization who enforces rules, which are treated as a minimum

benchmark for ethical conduct based on established principles, rules and enforcement guidelines

to guide the universities in their oversight of the athletics department as well as penalize those

failing to regulate their own misconduct. Unethical behavior is supposedly closely monitored by

NCAA by objective setting and strong enforcement of standards of conduct. NCAA highly

recommend that universities and colleges implement and enforce their own compliance and

control as it is the university and/or college responsibility to ensure compliance is followed. The

framework and guidelines established by NCAA serves for how collegiate sports program should

behave and offer consequences for non-compliance.

NCAA generates hundreds of millions of dollars regularly through college sports in

which they regulate, based on the article, majority of the revenue is generated through NCAA’s

Division I men’s basketball tournament, marketing and broadcast rights and ticket sales. Only a

portion of the revenue generated is distributed to the Division I member schools. This means the
student athletes never see any of the revenue generated from their talents on the basketball court

as NCAA has ruled compensation as prohibited. Observers of the sport believe and argues that

the, “NCAA exploited the student athletes whose performances made revenue generating

sporting events possible, despite the financial support provided to member universities”. Greed

seems to be the driving force of the unethical strategies and behaviors in college sports, from the

NCAA to the universities. NCAA implemented rules that, “student athletes were no longer

guaranteed four years of compensation since their scholarships could be revoked for lack of

performance on the field….considered illegal payments for all student athletes. Students were

prohibited from entering into contracts with professional teams, salaries for participation in

athletics, prize money, benefits from agents, agreements with agents, or any financial assistance

based on athletic talent or sports participation”. NCAA covered all basis to ensure athletes were

not compensated by any means, which eventually led to the money scandals. For example, SMU

they were paying students in advance to commit to the university by providing rent-free lavish

apartments and things of that nature to ensure they retain a top recruit. At SMU since they were

a high-ranking university they easily covered their tracking for a number of years until their

unethical practices were discovered and put them under investigation, in which the Governor

knew of their unethical and illegal practice which is clearly defined by NCAA as prohibited. It

seems like the high-ranking universities should have taken a stance against NCAA to voice their

opinions to find a way to compensate their athletes outside of scholarship money, which could

avoid some of the unethical and illegal transactions that took place. Since there were so many

that occurred dating back to the 1980’s there should have been discussions on how to meet in the

middle to resolve their issues.

 “Pay for play” is essentially a system where high-ranking boosters or school officials

provide under-the table money to a recruit or his family in order to secure the recruit’s

commitment to play football for the school in question. Currently, the pay-for-play rule is not

active but it has been in various discussions about making the pay-for-play rule legal,

specifically in football. Besides NCAA Men’s Basketball, Men’s Football is the next sport that

generates millions of dollars in revenue each year, as football is one of the most popular sports in

the United States. Due to the number of injuries each year by football players, pay-for-play is

thought of as a popular way to compensate and allow the athletes to benefit from the sport of

football while in college since the risk of injury is high. It’s been reported that football players

are known to more prone than any other sport to have head injury (which leads to concussions)

and broken bones leaving some athletes with some permanent damage. Since football players

have a very small chance of being drafted in the National Football League, the pay-for-play

payment is thought of as the perfect way for student athletes to benefit from playing a popular

sport while educating themselves.

The sources of revenue for universities to fund athletic scholarships is from ticket sales from the

sporting events, and from marketing and broadcasting rights from championship events. Another

source of revenue comes from the distribution of NCAA revenues to member colleges and also

state appropriation to university budget. Member institutions of NCAA also collected revenues

from ticket sales, concessions, royalties and licensing fees, broadcast fees, and direct institution

support. The cost of the scholarships covered books, tuition, and room and board. The value of

pay provided to Division I and Division II athletes amounted more than $1.5 billion is 2013.

Besides, the final award to students depends on which Division their school was a member of.

For example, universities belonging to Division I schools the football department would be
awarded 85 full scholarships in comparison to the Division I schools were only awarded 65

football full scholarships.

According to the research conducted by Drexel University, the college scholarship did not cover

the complete cost of attendance or other living expenses students would require such as

transportation, school supplies and books. It was reported that more than $3,000 per year would

be needed to by students to cover the additional expenses. Colleges and universities who are

members of the NCAA, probably cannot afford to pay their football players outside of the

scholarships that are awarded. NCAA and their member colleges and universities should create

a strategic plan to be able to cover the full cost for the student athletes to go to college and to

allow payment to the student for compensation. The amount of revenue that’s generated should

be equally divided to amongst the universities, students, then the remaining would go to NCAA.

The argument in the article that states, the student athletes are being exploited is pretty accurate

and clearly unfair to the athletes who work hard on the field to make their university or college to

shine and more importantly, make money for the school and NCAA.

The amateurism and financial assistance policies of the NCAA does not seem ethical and pretty

unfair to the student athletes. Paying the athletes for their talent is a good idea and is fair, or

allowing the athletes to benefit from the endorsements offered by popular brands or professional

sports could be a fix to the feud. It the players are compensated based on their performance on

the field then it would probably increase performance as most individuals perform even better

when they are paid for their work. Without the athletes on the field playing the sport then

NCAA would not be in existence and the universities and colleges who are members of NCAA

would not receive as much funding but due to the popular demand for sports and athletic

departments everyone wins and benefits from the revenue that’s generated.
References:
Strickland, A. J. and Moody, Garrett. NCAA Athletics: Are its Amateurism and Financial
Assistance Policies Ethical?