The Mirage of Amateurism

NCAA tournament provides last illusions of college sports as it once was

I don’t remember the exact year when high-definition television became mainstream.

10 years ago? 15? Doesn’t matter. Enough time has lapsed and we can’t imagine returning to the previous format. How were we entertained by “The Sopranos” in 2002? On standard television. When Tony and the gang were whacking ‘nemicos’ we couldn’t make them out so clearly. But we didn’t know any better. Now we know. HDTV is the gas-powered engine of the 21st century.

Watching the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this spring, the viewing experience is as compelling as ever.

There are players, coaches, fans, announcers, cheerleaders. Upsets. Buzzer-beaters. For those of us who attended a college playing in the tournament, there’s that boost of comradeship around love of school and mascot (which begs the question…would you rather be a Zippy or a Blue Jay? This year, Zippy won big). All of it harkens back to a more innocent time when all parties were tugging from the same small rope when it came to the relationship between fans and players—the rope of affinity, of fellowship. Of amateurism.

At least they aren’t like the pros, in it for the money!

That’s gone. The professionalization of amateur sports is a century in the making, but it seems its actual birth has happened quite suddenly.

We forget it’s been just over 10 years since the first court ruling opened the door to pay-for-play. In 2014, a district court judge in California ruled in favor of the plaintiff in O’Bannon v. NCAA. The plaintiff, former UCLA men’s basketball player Ed O’Bannon, initially sued the NCAA after noticing his likeness marketed for a video game. He first took legal action in 2009. It wasn’t until seven years later that all the appeals ran out, the Supreme Court ultimately ruling in O’Bannon’s favor.

That case certainly served as a legal precedent, but the ruling did not open the legal floodgates for Name, Image and Likeness reform, at least not right away.

It took another three years for the same judge in the O’Bannon case, Claudia Wilken, to rule on another class action suit stemming from the initial ruling. When the NCAA appealed, two more years went by before the landmark Alston ruling in 2021. In that case, the NCAA closely guarded the organization’s “amateur rule” as if it were 1959, that athletes are only entitled to a free education. The Supreme Court disagreed, unanimously upholding Wilken’s 2019 ruling. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued the money quote saying the NCAA’s antiquated amateur worldview “should not be a cover for exploitation of the student-athletes.” Kavanaugh greased the wheels for future cases when he stated how continued challenges to professionalism would be struck down using the same legal principles as Alston and the lower courts before.

All their legal challenges rejected, the NCAA was left with no choice other than to approve what we now know as NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) for athletes on July 1, 2021. That case has proved to be the catalyst, the ignitor, for the redefinition of collegiate athletics, where putting ‘student’ before ‘athlete’ is now officially a misnomer.

In the three-plus years since, we’ve seen an almost constant cascade of court decisions, all of them on the side of giving more money to the players.

The most recent: on St. Patrick’s Day, terms of another antitrust suit against the NCAA originating in Tennessee and Virginia make it legal for recruitable athletes to get paid. That five-or-four-star quarterback contemplating offers from Alabama, Ohio State, and Tennessee? Sold to the highest bidder! No need to paint over pay-for-play with awkward quotes from teenagers about education and facilities. When asked why they chose school X, it’s perfectly fine to say, “they paid me the most.”

Since the Alston case, the NCAA refused to capitulate on affirming play-to-play inducements for high school recruits. Of course, anyone who follows the sport knows it’s been going on, absent of enforcement. Now, yet another judge says stop with the patronizing. The jig is up; we’re making it illegal for the NCAA to put up obstacles to athletes receiving their fair value in the marketplace.

Just around the corner: Monday, April 7, a courtroom hearing will be held in California, one that is expected to drive a final stake into the heart of collegiate amateurism.

A judge is expected to release terms of the House settlement. Terms of the deal would allow schools to directly pay athletes in NIL compensation up to $20.5 million per school. For the first four years of NIL, athletes’ payments came largely through collectives, entities allegedly separate from the university. The House settlement is the gateway ruling to legal professionalization.

We are a long way from Kansas, Dorothy. And we’re not going back.

When watching the Final Four this weekend, the broadcast by CBS will feature glowing stories about the players involved. They’ll all say wonderful things about the university, the program, and coaches. And to some degree, the comments will be genuine. But take them with a grain of salt.

The basketball players at Auburn, Florida, Houston, and Duke (yes, Duke) are there because that school paid them to be there. They’d probably be somewhere else if someone had paid more.

Look, I’m still going to enjoy the games. That won’t change. Just know the jersey they are wearing is a rental.

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