In light of the scandal at Penn State, which reveals how big-time college sports often overwhelm the core values of higher education, Congress should closely examine whether the NCAA is running a not-for-profit enterprise or a commercial entertainment empire. Follow this link to read the Christian Science Monitor article
I have always believed that colleges and universities that treat athletes like employees should have to pay them and provide other employment benefits. Under common law, an employee is a person who performs services for another under a contract of hire, subject to the Follow this link to read the US News and World Report … Read more
Big-time college football has changed significantly since I played decades ago. Millions of dollars rain down from ticket sales, luxury suites, media rights, corporate sponsorships, and sales of licensed apparel. Conferences are realigned to penetrate new target markets. These changes, however, raise serious questions about the future of sport in higher education. Follow this link … Read more
I have always believed that colleges and universities that treat athletes like employees should have to pay them and provide other employment benefits. Under common law, an employee is a person who performs services for another under a contract of hire, subject to the other’s control in return for payment. The unionization movement at Northwestern … Read more
It is hard to see the forest for the trees in college sports these days. Antitrust lawsuits and the debate over whether college athletes should be compensated as employees have obscured that fact that only a small group of highly commercialized athletic programs are controlling the NCAA. Follow this link to read the Chronicle of … Read more
The plantation analogy is hyperbolic, but universities at the most athletically competitive levels are routinely admitting athletes, some of whom can barely read or write, and subjecting them to physical and psychological demands that deny them the education necessary for upward mobility in a society that is becoming increasingly stratified. Follow this link to read … Read more
During the summer of 2014, the NCAA considered a proposal to give the five richest conferences (Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and Southeastern Conference) within the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I legislative autonomy. In response, the Drake Group, a national organization of college faculty and others released a position statement that … Read more
The American public’s seemingly unbounded love of college sports entertainment at any cost can be readily exploited by skilled marketing professionals to the long-term detriment of the integrity and health of higher education in America. The incremental cost of such exploitation to build an ever bigger college sports entertainment enterprise amounts to the cost of … Read more
As suggested in “Telling the truth on campus,” the presidents of our Catholic colleges and universities could be moved to solicit advice from their faculty and others on the place of the value-distorting, sports entertainment business in their schools. They might even go so far as to provide independently verifiable evidence that their athletes are … Read more
“Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires,” Obama said in his State of the Union address—no doubt unaware of tax subsidies for numerous millionaire coaches and NCAA cartel as well as conference officials. »Read more