The NCAA issued a memo today that says if a state passes a law or a rule that allows payments to student-athletes, then the NCAA rule should take precedence. Otherwise, the NCAA will prosecute the school.
The rules on which the memo is based are foolish and out of touch with reality, of course, but it's another level of foolishness to issue a memo that doubles down on these rules.
As a bit of background, this payment that the NCAA is outlawing is a payment made by the school, or a booster associated with the school, to pay the student-athlete for the use of their name, image, and likeness, or NIL.
The term "NIL" seems to me to just be a euphemism dreamed up by a judge or rulemaker somewhere that makes it sound like it’s not a salary. That it’s not the same thing as paying a pro athlete for their professional services. The Lakers pay Lebron for his NIL. Oh and they pay him to play basketball too. They just call that a salary with bonuses. NIL should just be called a salary, with some bonuses, for student-athletes. Am I wrong?
Without getting into whether you think schools should be able to pay student-athletes (because that train is already down the track, my friend), I am more interested in the aloof and head-in-the-sand decision by the NCAA to publish a memo that says “hey we have rules! You better follow them!”.
These NCAA rules, and the memo they issued, is like when the clown-man-villian in Air Bud is trying to convince the golden retriever to come to him and not to Josh. You’re a mean clown, bro, and you are not living in reality—Buddy wants to get properly fed for once!
So if the NCAA says they will fine or sanction a school (or an affiliated booster) for paying a student-athlete for their services, how do you think that will turn out? Do you think the football programs at Alabama or Texas need the NCAA? If the NCAA prosecutes Alabama for one of its boosters paying the star quarterback, what will be the penalty? Steep fines? Suspension of players and coaches? Cancelling games?
What will inevitably happen here, if the NCAA’s rules are not revised, is that these schools—all of them—will leave the NCAA and start their own association, or multiple associations, with more favorable rules. Rules that take into account, oh I don’t know, reality?
I don’t know if the disbanding of the NCAA will be a good or bad thing, just like I don’t know if schools being able to pay student-athletes a salary is a good or bad thing, or how we will look back on it thirty years from now.
But what I do know is publishing a memo that supports rules that aren’t grounded in reality is bad PR. It’s a fiat issued by a dictator who is clinging to power when the citizenry has already moved on.
So long as you believe the free market is the best way we know how to run an economy, which is a debate for another day, then we might as well get on the train of playing star athletes for the revenue they bring to a school. And what does Alabama, or Georgia, or Oklahoma, need the NCAA for? What does the NCAA do for the school? Look over its shoulder and fine them when they pay an athlete?
From a legal standpoint, an organization, just like the one you work for, can limit what you do. An association you belong to can do the same. If you break a rule, you can be fired, or kicked out. On the flipside, you can quit a thing if you don’t like a rule or think it’s unfair.
In the same way, the NCAA can enforce rules. But if the rules suck, the schools can quit.
Marquette’s water polo team needs the NCAA. USC football does not need the NCAA. We will gather around the tube to watch Ohio State v. Michigan on that Saturday whether the NCAA logo is emblazoned on the field or not.
The memo the NCAA issued is out of touch, but you know this already. The Big Ten, the SEC, hell, even the ACC or the Mountain West Conference, does not need the NCAA anymore. The NCAA should (and probably will) change the rules that are described in this memo, or it will die.
On its face, the NCAA is within its right to have rules and say they are going to enforce them, and to punish its members (i.e., the schools) for violating them. But just because they are within their right to say it doesn’t mean they should. You can either get on the train or get out of the way.
Paying student-athletes is here to stay. Any rules to prohibit these payments are out-of-date, a fool’s errand, to put it gently. Rules like this are expected from a tired and worn-out bureaucracy that is the NCAA. But it takes a special dose of foolishness to issue an edict that clings to these archaic rules.
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