Photo: “Money” by 401(K) 2012 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Recently, on an episode of “The Shop,” Lebron James’s HBO Series, California Governor Gavin Newsom, signed a bill into law that will allow college athletes in the state of California to receive endorsement deals and profit off of their name and image. When the bill goes into effect in 2023, it will allow athletes to make endorsement deals with businesses outside the NCAA, and potentially profit of off their jersey sales. Several other states including New York, Florida and Washington have proposed bills to allow college athletes to be paid.
The most game-changing bill was the one filed in New York. The bill allows athlete endorsements, but also requires colleges to divide 15% of ticket sales revenue and disperse it equally to all student athletes at the college. The New York bill would effectively turn college athletes into professional athletes. The decades of national dialogue on the issue of paying college athletes, have finally become something more than just debate.
For the first time in history, NCAA athletes will be paid. I sat down with athletic director of West Chester University, Terry Beattie, and had a conversation about how it would effect WCU if Pennsylvania passed a bill to pay college athletes.
Do you think there is any model of paying college athletes that would work for WCU?
“Honestly, I don’t know where WCU would find the dollars to pay our student athletes. Our scholarships are limited to begin with, so not even all of our student athletes are on scholarship; a lot of them are paying the full price. We are in a much different situation at West Chester than the Dukes and North Carolinas of the world, who have revenue coming in. I don’t see how West Chester could do that. The California bill looks at some different ways of paying college athletes that wouldn’t cost the university, its athletes benefiting from external sources, not internal. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in California and throughout the country.”
The New York Bill takes 15% of revenue and pays it equally to the college students. Are you saying this wouldn’t work at WCU because funding is already tight?
“Yes […] there wouldn’t be much of any revenue, our sports here at West Chester aren’t generating enough revenue to sustain the sport. Even with football ticket sales and parking dollars, that’s not enough revenue to cover the expenses of football. It would be difficult because it would take away a lot of operating dollars. Football and Men’s and Women’s basketball are the only sports that charge admission ticket prices, but those ticket prices don’t cover the cost of travel, meal money and scholarships. We’re not making money, the dollars that are coming in after expenses are helping supplement scholarships or operating expenses.”
So if New York’s model is not economically possible for D2 schools like WCU, how would you feel about a model like California’s, where students can profit from external endorsement sources?
“I think that’s an interesting avenue to go down. They’re not being paid by the university, it’s just allowing students to use their image and likeness to generate some income. I’m not well versed on the bill, but you think about a Zion Williamson from Duke last year who certainly could have earned compensation for all the attention he brought to Duke. At our level, yeah, there’s probably some [athletes who would profit from endorsements], but it’s much different. D2 is a much different world. We have corporate partnership deals with local businesses, in which the dollars help support our general athletic scholarship, which is shared among all 24 of our sports. [Under the California model] “Joe Smith’s Car Dealership,” instead of having a partnership with the athletic department that benefits all of our athletes in some way, could instead go to one athlete. A corporation could choose to give [money] to one or two student athletes instead of benefitting the whole 600. If you see advertising signs at Farrell Stadium or Hollinger field house, those dollars aren’t going to just football or basketball, they’re benefiting everyone in some way.”
What do you make of the push to pay athletes at D1 universities like Alabama or Clemson that are making millions of dollars on their athletic programs?
“I think it’s something that needs to be looked at. It’s been a part of a conversation for years and years. I’ve been in college sports for 28 years and that’s how far back, and maybe even before that, that there’s been this conversation. I think these bills are gonna make the NCAA look at certain things, and maybe the goal of the bills is to put some pressure on the NCAA to make some adjustments. It’s probably time for a change but it can’t be state by state, it has to be an overall NCAA change. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see some [national rule change] come out of the NCAA in the next few years, so it doesn’t become this state has one set of rules, and this state has a different set of rules.”
Chatting with Director Beattie made me realize that D2 and D3 schools are problematic when it comes to the discussion on how to pay college athletes.
Last year, the D1 Men’s Basketball Championship (the NCAA’s single biggest money maker) made $977.7 million. $74.1 million of that money went towards funding D2 and D3 athletics. The remaining $903.6 million is used to fund D1 sports and various other NCAA expenses. The NCAA already uses most of its revenue to fund D1, D2 and D3 programs, so if every single athlete had to be paid (like in the New York model) the NCAA would be forced to cut funding to a lot of its programs.
Allowing college athletes to be paid seems to be the direction things are headed, whether the NCAA likes it or not. Instead of letting individual states pass laws that may actually hurt D2 and D3 programs, the NCAA should implement a system to compensate athletes that works for everyone.
Jacob Gassler is a student at West Chester University. JG889087@wcupa.edu