In
the realm of “news that is not news” we have this shocking revelation—some
college basketball players may be receiving money! This is a shocking
discovery to the coaches (who make millions of dollars) and the athletic
directors (ditto) of the major college powerhouses. How dare the pristine
world of college basketball be sullied by filthy lucre! “What about the
resplendent joys of pure amateurism?” ask the coaches from their summer
homes in Gstaad or Corsica.
It’s an iron law of economics—money abhors a vacuum.
College basketball generates billions of dollars of revenue for major programs,
not to mention the money wagered on March Madness brackets. The idea that
coaches, or boosters, or agents would not divert a slim trickle of that amount
to the players responsible for a program’s success is Pollyannaish in the
extreme. Add in the fact that many of the top recruits are from
less-than-wealthy homes, have little interest in academe, and have visions of
million dollar contracts and shoe endorsement deals dancing in their heads, and
the idea that such players will happy exile themselves to playing for free for
a year becomes as fanciful as the Easter Bunny.
Those who support the “one and done” policy that the NCAA and
the NBA have developed argue that there is an inherent benefit of exposing
young men to higher education. They argue that these young men are not
unpaid, but instead paid in exposure to the ideas and concepts they learn about
in the classes they take while attending college.
As Dorothy Parker once said, “You can lead a horse to water but
you can’t make hi8m drink/You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make
her think.” I’d find this line of reasoning more credible if I could also
remember a large number of news conferences where star athletes announced that
they were forgoing the NBA draft to complete their BA degree. If anyone
remembers a single news conference like that, let me know because I can’t think
of one. If a young athlete wants to use his basketball skills to leverage
admission to a prestige college, great; but these student-athletes aren’t going
to be those who will be “one and done” in the first place.
Another argument for the one and done policy is that 18 year old
boys coming out of high school aren’t mature enough, aren’t physically
developed enough, to compete in the NBA against 25 year old men. That
would be a reasonable line of argument if it were true that no high school
graduates had ever succeeded entering the NBA directly from high school.
And none have.
Except for Lebron James. And Kobe Bryant. And Kevin
Garnett. And Moses Malone. And . . . oh heck, here is Wikipedia's list of high school draftees.
It is really hard to argue that high school players can’t succeed in the NBA
when you have Lebron James as the literal poster boy for direct from high
school eligibility.
Another problem with the one-and-done system is the fact that
the NCAA prohibits student-athletes from having agents. On the one hand,
agents might invariably tell students to skip playing for free at school and
start earning money, for both themselves and the agent, in the NBA. But
agents who want to maximize their income might advise players who are truly
unprepared for the NBA to stay in school in order to develop their game, in
effect getting free career development advice from someone like Coach K at Duke
or Tom Izzo at Michigan State. This might be an objective source of
advice, unlike family members whose opinion is uninformed and who have a higher
incentive to get the kid into the NBA (and making money) as soon as possible.
I previously suggested two reforms for college football.
One, if you aren’t going to pay students for playing, at least pay them for
practicing. Most student-athletes are unable to earn money at part-time
jobs on campus because of the time commitment for practice, so treat their
practice time as the equivalent of a part-time job that would give them some
money for buying pizzas or making trips home during breaks. Second,
student athletes have complete control over their names and images, and any use
of a player’s name or image for profit needs to reimburse that player.
Perhaps the money could be put in a trust until the player leaves college, but
the NCAA can’t sell the rights to a player’s image without the permission of
that player, and agreeing to play for the team is not consent.
I don’t know how these would apply to basketball players.
Football players are trapped in college for three years, while one and dones
only have to pretend to be a student for one semester or two quarters (the
players who know they are headed for the draft can blow off their Spring
classes and just lie around dreaming of their NBA contracts). I don’t
think the money from a part-time job or selling the rights to a player’s name
would give them enough money to dis-incentivize accepting $100,000 under the
table (allegedly).
The biggest irony in all this is the call by people such as Lebron
James for the NBA to stop using the NCAA as a minor league and to pay
players more for playing in the “G League.” The irony is that it is
called the “G League” because Gatorade bought the naming rights to what used to
be the Developmental League (D League). Once again, someone else (the
NBA) is making money off the backs of unpaid or underpaid players.
College is a great place for people who want to be there.
For a young athlete who is forced to spend one year playing for free instead of
making millions of dollars, it is not a great place to be; saying he is getting
paid with an education is meaningless when he’ll be leaving after one year.
Money being funneled to players under the table cannot be stopped so long as
there is so much money on the table and the people responsible for that money
are forced to play for free. The NCAA cannot stop being a corrupt system
so long as there are billions of dollars floating around and players who want
some of that money.
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