Supreme Court rules against NCAA in compensation fight with college athletes | Hacker News Reader

Supreme Court rules against NCAA in compensation fight with college athletes

cnbc.com

29 pointsshivbhatt15 comments

More interesting, I think, is the critique given by Kavanaugh regarding the NCAA's business model in general: condemning the idea of making billions in revenue off of essentially uncompensated student-athlete labor. It's nice to see the court recognize that the entire thing is exploitative.

I'm tired of the argument that it gives the students exposure to pro league recruiting. Just because they are students, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be directly compensated for their work (and the NCAA wants to even bar them from forms of indirect compensation!). When it comes to the idea of employment as an athlete, the NCAA is not materially different from, say, the NBA.

Are athletes students or are they employees? I would bet that none of these athletes are paying tuition and have special privileges in regard to course work so they trade this for that, playing for the school. Let's just stop pretending that they care about getting a degree and revoke their student status. They can be full time employees if they want to get paid.

> Are athletes students or are they employees?

They are absolutely not classified as employees, and it's not by the choice of the players, it's the policy of both the NCAA and the individual colleges, a position they've defended in court:

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/college-football-players-_1_b...

> I would bet that none of these athletes are paying tuition and have special privileges in regard to course work so they trade this for that

And the NCAA has put a large number of restrictions on what kind of compensation can be offered, which is precisely what this court case is about.

Unfortunately for the NCAA, the courts finally figured out they're illegally leveraging their position as a monopsony and colleges must be allowed greater latitude in providing additional benefits.

> Let's just stop pretending that they care about getting a degree and revoke their student status. They can be full time employees if they want to get paid.

I'm sure a lot of players would love that. As full-time employees they'd be eligible for things like minimum wage and employment benefits, among many other things, that they're currently cheated out of because of the NCAA's position that these athletes are students and not employees.

The NCAA exists to cheat them out of worker's comp. The whole Stu-dent Ath-o-leet farce is just a CYA operation that got way out of hand.

I suppose grad students can also be paid for TA'ing a class, maybe that is way you mean.

I find it ridiculous. If you want to pay them, then they shouldn't get free tuition. Free tuition is part of their unspoken 'pay.'

Graduate students often get payed both a salary and free tuition.

No journal forbids collages from paying their grad students in order to publish said students, which is what the NCAA is doing.

> They can be full time employees if they want to get paid.

I think a lot of them would take that deal, if it's offered. They can always come back to school after their sports career is over. Right now they get a shitty education (because who has time to study when there's practice?) and no pay.

Citations Needed just had a great episode on this [1].

[1] https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-136-the-ungratefu...

Just going to throw some knowledge in here before we get too many people lamenting that college should be about education and how money could be better spent elsewhere. Most universities pay for their athletics programs through tickets to events, money from wealthy donors, and sponsorships. In most cases, if you took away the athletics from a university you'd just be removing a source of entertainment for students, alumni, and fans. For most, there would be a net zero change in how much is spent on the university.

Another thing to remember is that 99% of all student athletes are never even going to sniff being a professional athlete. Most don't even really have professional leagues they can join. These athletes are getting a huge opportunity to get college paid for and, hopefully, gain an education that benefits them later.

The outliers - like Alabama, Miami, USC, Notre Dame, etc. - are just that. They make millions and reap those rewards at the expense of the smaller schools who can't keep up with the Joneses. This ruling, even though it is fair to athletes, will have major repercussions on the state of college sports, and without a major overhaul of the system we will see cutbacks in many programs as we saw when Title IX - another fair ruling - went into effect.

good thing, that form of legal slavery and exploitation is getting taken down. college coaches and assistants and athletic directors make a killing. and what do the students get ? meals ? while the superstars surely get cars and maybe 100k of cash. But that ain't enough. Run the bill up. Pay up. While at it, they should cut down the salaries of admins and increase pay for adjunct professors.

If there was anyone else left that thought Universities were about education this should wake them up.

Sports are fun, but they are not the purpose of higher learning. Why are people worshiping these athletes and so obsessed with NCAA? They already get a bunch of free stuff from the University. They want to make money, go play pro at 18. Universities are not for profit, or they aren't supposed to be, so they should not be getting paid.

> Universities are not for profit, or they aren't supposed to be, so they should not be getting paid.

I don't know what country you're from, but in the US many colleges and universities are absolutely private, for-profit institutions.

You might have a personal, ethical disagreement with that, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.

In fact, I'll bet most of the major, well-known institutions you can think of--MIT, Princeton, Brown, NYU, etc--are private, and for-profit.

If they are private and for profit then why do they get public tax dollars? That should end immediately.

Also many universities are public and not for profit.... you know the main ones that actually have well known sports teams... not uh MIT.

Even those public institutions are not fully publicly funded and rely on donations, tuition, and a variety of other revenue streams to operate. Those streams may include revenues generated from sports, which means those athletes playing for schools with highly successful programs end up playing a key role in ensuring their schools are financially stable.

As noted in this article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristidosh/2017/06/12/the-bigge...

> At many universities I polled, the university and athletic department split licensing revenue 50/50. So, even if the sweatshirt sold in the bookstore is specifically branded for the football program, that money is divided between the university and athletics.

If you want a fully publicly funded system with no private dollars flowing in to support it, elect politicians who will make that happen.

Unfortunately, in the US, that's simply not the way the system works today.

what bunch of free stuff do they get ? meals ? tuition ? let's say a texas resident attends UT ? they're already eligible for free tuition if coming from a low income family ? mind you the football program at big schools like texas, uf are generating around $70m in revenue yearly. how much are the scholarships for 30ish students ? hell let's say everyone on the team all 53 students have a full scholarship ? and if you attended a public state school, you already know those athletes don't attend classes at all. they have people do their homework etc and take easy majors meant for them. So yeah the whole student athlete thing is a farce Pay the students what they're worth. Given that they'll likely never achieve the level of impact or fame they do while in college.

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