NCAA Facing Legal Challenges Over Health and Compensation Policies - Research Paper Example

NCAA Facing Legal Challenges Over Health and Compensation Policies Introduction The area of this research is related to legal challenges the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has been facing over health and compensation policies, as players are taking legal recourse against the NCAA for not rewarding them justifiably and the NCAA is taking a lenient view of the injuries to the players. This research is an attempt to find out whether there is some truth in the current and ex-players blaming of the NCAA for ignoring their health issues while earning billions in revenue through commercialisation of sports. Players have taken the legal recourse and initial outcomes are encouraging. In the light of the fact that multibillion-dollars are involved in college sports these days, this research will analyse and review current literature to know how much responsible is the NCAA for the poor conditions athletes have been pushed towards and whether court decision can provide some respite to the players. Review of Literature Gregory (2013, July 24) reports that the NCAA has limited player rewards up to the value of an athletic scholarship. The main issue relates to putting on hold the compensation to the student athletes, while the other stakeholders, including schools, coaches, and administrators have benefitted heavily from the college-sports enterprise. Another big issue is related to ethics concerning current college players claiming their rights in the NCAA’s revenue pie on the lines of professional players. If the judge certifies the current players, according to Gabe Feldman, director of Tulane University’s Sports Law program, game will change as the risk to the NCAA’s amateurism model would be nearer than expected (Gregory, 2013 July 24). Another serious legal challenge faced by NCAA is related with past athletes, affirming that the NCAA was lax on injuries. They are also asking class-action status, and at the same time, internal NCAA documents seem to be supportive of former players’ claims on concussions, causing reputation loss to the organisation. NCAA director of health and safety, David Klossner, was targeted for adopting a concussion policy, and one staff member has gone to the limit of comparing him with a cartoon character for Klossner’s conduct on concussions (Gregory, 24 July 2013). Four years back, former college-basketball star Ed O’Bannon along with video-game maker EA Sports and the Collegiate Licensing Company took to legal recourse against the NCAA, challenging its right to earn income by showing video games, depriving the players of any benefit from the income pie. Although the case was not given class-action rank by the judge of the federal court, Claudia Wilken, yet she granted the plaintiffs permission to enlist present college players to the complaint. As per a survey on internal aspects of NCAA in 2010, 50% of the respondent schools needed not an athlete who suffered an injury and needed a physician. Nearly 50% of the schools stated they’d take back athletes to the same game if they had experienced an injury. Baseline testing was employed by just 68% of the schools; of such schools that didn’t, 70% stated that cost of testing was a hurdle in not taking baseline testing, while 48% respondent schools stated that the procedure involved too much time (Gregory, 2013 July 24). Incidentally, Klossner has affirmed in a 2013 deposition that NCAA colleges didn’t need to present their concussion-control plans to the NCAA. Klossner was questioned over whether the NCAA thought of taking disciplinary action against institutions over concussion-control measures. His reply was in negative. Things are happening differently, as the South Carolina’s football team was not awarded scholarships because players were given hotel rooms at reduced rates last year; NCAA counts it as an “improper benefit.” From a different perspective, schools are never penalised for putting at risk a player’s long-term health. Leading newspaper journalists, such as Nathan Fenno of the Washington Times and Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News, have analysed the internal functioning of these reports very minutely. NCAA is vey forthcoming in clarifying its stance, as it talked to a spokesperson of the Associated Press, claiming that “student-athlete safety is one of the NCAA’s foundational principles. The NCAA has been at the forefront of safety issues throughout its existence.” Legal tussles abound in these cases. Feldman remarks, “The NCAA is being sued for not paying college football players, while making light of the risks of playing college football...The optics are bad, to say the least” (Gregory, 2013 July 24 para. 12). One of the past players, DeMars who has won the show’s 2009 Audience Award for producing a movie, Adjust Your Color: The Truth Of Petey Green, telecasted on PBS’ Independent Lens program, remarked, “The NCAA was originally founded on the principles of protecting and benefiting the health of the student athlete (Gregory, 2013 June 10 para 6).” According to DeMars, rather than paying salaries to athletes, NCAA should on the lines of Olympic athletes allow college athletes to attain individual sponsorships and market their likeness openly. Healthcare of student athletes is a major cause of concern for DeMars, as injuries have escalated the cost of healthcare. It is expected from the schools to distribute a bigger part of the income from television on the health care of the unsalaried players who have been the mediums of their financial bonanza (Gregory, 2013 June 10). Off late, a number of media reports have appeared how the University of North Carolina created a list of classes purposed for football and basketball players, a good number of them were studying at grade school level. The management and coaching people knew well that they were there but sidelined them and permitted practically illiterate players to graduate with a UNC degree on the pretext that when all others are doing it, why not they? (He, 2014 April 3) The report on UNC’s behaviour brings to notice something that should be clear: the free education that many athletes get is below the level. The revenues they help to build are far greater than the benefits they get while in school. Only selected ones of college athletes make it to the professional level, but the coaching people of the major programs do not talk over this fact randomly during recruiting trips (He, 2014 April 3). The North-western football team made another dig at a system that is old and not-dependable. The players are not expecting salaries, but cost-of-attendance stipends and long-lasting medical benefits for those injured during their careers. The time has arrived to appreciate and acknowledge the commercial aspect of college sports and reward athletes for their job (He, 2014 April 3). Giandurco (2014) talks about a decision taken by the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) those football players at North-western University can make a union, as they fulfil the criteria of employees. As per the Board, the compensation given to players, which includes scholarship and stipend, offers them the right to bargain collectively. Like Football, basketball should also be seen in the same light. The NCAA earns in billions each year from men’s basketball and football. Hopefully, if this decision is not overruled, this will apply to both games at all schools. Hunger (2014) has written a special report in the USA TODAY Sports on coaches getting windfall gains in the NCAA system. The UCLA’s new coach, Steve Alford has received $2.6 million in yearly rewards from UCLA, besides an $845,000 signing bonus to compensate his acquisition and taxes when he departed from the University of New Mexico. On the contrary, players participate in UCLA on scholarships that include tuition, lodging and boarding only, while other expenses more than $4,000 a year in living and miscellaneous remain unpaid, as reported by the school's latest financial report to the NCAA. When it comes to coaches - Kentucky's John Calipari, Florida's Billy Donovan, Wisconsin's Bo Ryan and Connecticut's Kevin Ollie - are taking an average of $3.1 million from their schools for this season. All these coaches have also been awarded $850,000 in bonuses this year, which is quite sufficient to pay a $4,000 cost-of-attendance needed for 212 scholarship athletes. At the same time, college athletes who play as amateurs and cannot be compensated under NCAA rules, assisted Division I schools earn about $11 billion in revenue in 2012-13. A research by USA TODAY Sports indicates, with higher than $4.8 billion going to the 55 wholly public schools among the six power conferences (Big Ten, Pac-12, South-eastern, Big 12, Atlantic Coast and Big East, as framed at the time). These schools formed 16% of the Division I membership but took 45% of the earning, the analysis reveals (Hunger, 2014). Implications As per the report of Hunger in The USA Today Sports, it reveals the presence of a financial gap between Alford, UCLA’s new coach and his players, which has become a national trend: College scholarship athletes bear to pay thousands in out-of-pocket costs, while coaches' salaries and income from college sports are increasing in leaps and bounds, as revealed in a USA TODAY Sports analysis. The school’s financial report for the year’s Final Four shows a bridge between their scholarships and the total expenses of participation, which is near to $2,300 to $5,400 a year (Hunger, 2014). The present mechanism of college sports - where amateurism and business purpose come together - is heading for a changeover. For student-athletes, the major issue is to find a solution of the "cost-of-attendance" difference, a leading issue for some federal legal fraternity as well, which needs to be resolved to bring economic justice to the system (Hunger, 2014). The major stakeholders, the school authorities need to clarify whether they are into business pursuits or are educational institutions, serving the cause of education. UCLA forward Tony Parker shared his view, stating that “It'd be cool for them to give a little back to the players...But whatever the NCAA does, you have to support them because those are our bosses.” Top officials such as UCLA athletics director Dan Guerrero and Chancellor Gene Block are not forthcoming in expressing their views on the leading issues (Hunger, 2014 para. 15). The NCAA perspective So far, the NCAA has braved the court challenges with its might because of the sole working argument that athletics is secondary to its leading aim of education. Controls related to athletes' eligibility, thus, are part of the NCAA's proclamation to safeguard the academic integrity, and non-profit, tax-freed status - of its members. At the same time, one should not forget that this secondary mission of NCAA is doing brilliantly well by investing not only on highly rated coaches and athletic directors, but also on new stadiums, locations and practice facilities. An $11 billion business is almost double of the NBA, more than Major League Baseball and is relatively nearer to the NFL (Hunger, 2014). It needs to be analyzed how the estimated figure of $11 billion is formed. It includes income from all sources, such as student athletics fees and monetary aid given to the athletics department by the university. Universities recoup some of the funds, as it is required that the programs must pay for every scholarship. For near about half the public schools, the value of institutional support is way beyond the scholarship payments. Somewhat 20% of public-school athletics departments revert back the funds to their universities. One need to comprehend how the NCAA labelled “generated revenue,” is built up. It accrues from funds schools derive from TV rights, ticket sales, sponsorships and charities, which indicates that it is the leading driver of income generation in college sports. The generated income from 55 public schools reached to $4.5 billion in 2012-13, a high of $734 million, or 19%, only in four years. When it comes to payment made to coaches in various sports, it increased 26% across the same time. A comparison between Basketball coaches and their football counterparts reveals that Football leads in coaches payments -- as 50 of them earned nearly $2 million for the 2013 season, as per the released database of USA TODAY Sports in November (Hunger, 2014 para. 21). The argument of NCAA officials, in their defence that the NCAA, top of all, offers a very high standard of education to the athletes needs to be questioned. Michael Hausfeld, the major attorney in the O'Bannon case, counter, “That would mean that the $11 billion is provided to the educational institutions to, in large part, increase the academic training and careers and success of these athletes, as well as other students. ... That money is not being used to improve the academic standing of these athletes. It's going for bigger stadiums, more high-paid coaches, better training facilities, more assistants.” There is no counter-statement from the NCAA. It prefers to remain silent because it has already explained its perspective (Hunger, 2014 para. 24). Conclusion The NCAA is rightly criticised by critics for paying huge salaries to coaches, which is a proof that a college sport is majorly a business for all other than the players. Rules cited to control the economic freedom of student-athletes are not coming in the way of educational mission; neither do they offer any educational benefit to the schools (Hunger, 2014). The NCAA needs to learn from the example set by the NLRB for their decision that players can make unions. Whether the game is football or basketball, some parity needs to be initiated. The lead taken by the North-western University to consider players as employees is the setting of a new milestone. It is worth appreciation the comments made by the U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., who last year presented a bill, necessitating colleges with high-income sports to provide a package of gains to student-athletes, on the prevailing set up, “I think it is out of balance right now...In state after state in this country you see the highest-paid state employee is actually a coach. So the bottom line is that always brings in the question: Can these schools do more? I believe that they can. Should the schools do more? I believe that they should” (Hunger, 2014 para 8). The comments made by Robert Carey, an attorney with Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, who has filed a number of lawsuits against the NCAA, over Alford's deal is another proof of “the problem in collegiate sport. On the one hand you've got a coach out there in a hyper-competitive market being paid enormous sums because what he's bringing to the enterprise is valuable, but the more valuable component, the student-athletes - the ones who in any other context of sports are paid the most - can't even get enough to get their school completed. And that's just not right” (Hunger, 2014 para 13). It is in the wider interests of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to heed to the legal challenges and resolve the issues faced by athletes. References Giandurco, V. (2014, April 2). Outlook. NLRBANANAS – Minuteman News Centre. Retrieved 5 April, 2014, from http://www.minutemannewscenter.com/articles/2014/04/02/fairfield/opinion/op_ed/doc533c335a287c6581143144.txt Gregory, S. (2013, June 10). Ex-USC Football player: how my coach called me a “motherf—-r” for going to class. [BLOG]. Keeping Score. Retrieved 5 April, 2014, from http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013/06/10/ex-usc-football-player-how-my-coach-called-me-a-m-r-for-going-to-class/ Gregory, S. (2013, July 24). NCAA facing legal challenges over health and compensation policies. [BLOG]. Keeping Score. Retrieved 5 April, 2014, from http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013/07/24/its-high-time-for-college-sports-hypocrisy/ HE, J. (2014, April 3). Student athletes should be paid. Yale Daily News. Retrieved 5 April, 2014, from http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/04/03/student-athletes-should-be-paid/ Hunger, A. (2014, April 4). Special report: Coaches hit jackpot in NCAA system. USA Today Sports. Retrieved 5 April, 2014, from http://www.thetowntalk.com/usatoday/article/7208877&usatref=sportsmod Read More