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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

> 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...

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