Cartel Behavior and Amateurism in College Sports - Essay Example

Surprisingly, those working hard to produce the rents are African-American athletes while the whites come out as the beneficiaries. This discourse takes an in-depth critique of Lawrence Kahn’s article and in the process evaluates facts that he outlines. The paper also separates facts from fictitious information in the article. Critique Lawrence Kahn explains that African-American athletes produce the rents benefited by white Americans. He mentions that the African-American sportspersons spent their rent on facilities, head coaches salaries, and nonrevenue sports.

The football programs earn revenue from accounting profits. This also happens in the field of basketball. Evaluation of the role of NCAA appears at two levels. One extreme end is people who believe that efforts by NCAA to restrict payments to sportspeople enhance the value of sports by upholding amateurism. The other group holds that NCAA is a cartel that restricts compensation to sportsmen and women. Since its inception, the NCAA has been controlling the capacity for its members to access televised games.

This started in 1984. This is a typical characteristic of a cartel where it prevents members from accessing and doing business with other competing firms in the industry. This is to avoid a share of the rents produced by sportsmen and women. The cartel wants to enjoy all the money. This is the reason that informed the formation of College Football Association (CFA). The behavior of NCAA towards is enough proof that it is a cartel. Cartels thrive on threats and sanctions. The NCAA threatened to expel any school and higher institution of learning that would sign a different contract following CFA’s readiness to negotiate a different and parallel contract with NBC.

Threats by NCAA amounted to schools under CFA loosing on the revenue from the basketball tournament. This is total tyranny. In the modern liberal market, business associations and companies cannot thrive on threats and financial embargos. Finally, the NCAA succeeded in enjoying all the revenues generated from football television rents. The change in broadcasting rights appeared for the first time in college sports following a successful court petition by the University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia.

Cases in the judiciary point to the fact that indeed the NCAA is a cartel. Courts proved in 1995 that it was engaged in backroom dirty tricks to limit salaries for assistant coaches. An association existing for the welfare of members such as NCAA needs to engage making lives for their members. However, NCAA does the reverse. It is very difficult to comprehend what good is in limiting a pay for members and proudly claim to be generating a fair playground for your members. Lawrence Kahn cannot purport to justify the role of NCAA to limit compensation as efforts towards enhancing sports by maintaining amateurism.

Kahn explains the value of amateurism by stating the large of members in NCAA makes it difficult for it to put ceilings on earnings of sportsmen and women. He holds that a possibility of NCAA failing to prevent a competitive market among players due to the high number of members is farfetched. This point by Lawrence Khan does not hold water. NCAA is cartel and members of such an association have to operate within the rules. Therefore, the rules apply to all irrespective of the size of membership.