The Plot to Disrupt the NCAA with a Pay-for-Play HBCU Basketball League

June 22, 2017 8:20 AM

"The multibillion-dollar college sports industry exploits African-American athletes and has left historically black schools behind. Some people think there's a better way."
posted by goatdog (24 comments total)

Given the smaller roster sizes compared to other sports and NBA's existing willingness to draft players almost right out of HS, I think this is the right way to force NCAA's hand into at least having the National Championship-level teams as semi-professional.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:45 AM on June 22, 2017

It is a great idea.
About 30 seconds after it gets taken seriously, the NCAA will issue a ruling that any school that sponsors or supports a pay-for-play league team will forfeit the privilege to have its other student athletes compete in NCAA-sponsored events/leagues due to 'competitive advantage' or some BS. And that will be that.
posted by splen at 8:47 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is a neat idea, but also a complex and politically fraught one. I think the more likely scenario is that the NBA eventually just throws up their hands and lets high school graduates play in a slightly altered G league.

Even that is going to face fierce resistance from vested interests at the collegiate level.
posted by selfnoise at 8:48 AM on June 22, 2017

It won't work, because what we have here is a classic chicken and egg problem. For the league to succeed, they need elite talent, the sort of players heading to the pros. But to get those players, they need to reassure them that the league will provide them with the coverage and competition that will get them to the pros. Which requires securing elite talent...

The NCAA cartel has endured because there's no real point to break anyone away, let alone the Power 5.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:49 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I wish them the best, there needs to be some sort of shakeup to improve the situation for college athletes. I also fear this will, through no fault of the well-meaning parties involved who have been dealt a rough situation to try to improve, lead to not a small increase in racist and ignorant comments regarding both HBCUs as well as the populations they serve in general.

I hope they can rise above that sort of thing as well as face down any/all blockades and stumbling blocks that the NCAA is bound to throw in their path.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:49 AM on June 22, 2017

About 30 seconds after it gets taken seriously, the NCAA will issue a ruling that any school that sponsors or supports a pay-for-play league team will forfeit the privilege to have its other student athletes compete in NCAA-sponsored events/leagues due to 'competitive advantage' or some BS. And that will be that.

So they make a parallel NCAA that they pay for from the huge pot of money that college basketball swims in.
posted by Etrigan at 8:50 AM on June 22, 2017

So they make a parallel NCAA that they pay for from the huge pot of money that college basketball swims in.

A pot of money primarily controlled by the Power 5, who have no reason to leave the NCAA. There is really only one solution, identified by Jeff Kessler - get the NCAA and the Power 5 ruled a wage fixing cartel. Once you do that, and strip them of their ability to set wages to the cost of school, the problem solves itself, as schools start treating top players as employees in order to compete.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:59 AM on June 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

So they make a parallel NCAA that they pay for from the huge pot of money that college basketball swims in.

It 'works' for a 16 team basketball league. It doesn't scale to track and field, swimming, etc. If I was an athlete in any non-pay sport I'd go to the NCAA to compete against the ~300 other schools for real championships, not just 15 other schools with admittedly lesser talent. Of course, if you start paying those non-revenue-generating athletes then you're really in a money sinkhole that no basketball league can dig you out of. (Football, perhaps).
posted by splen at 8:59 AM on June 22, 2017

This would be great for the players and the HBCU, but if we're in the market for a pony I'd rather one that addresses the even bigger problem of the intermingling of big-money sports and higher education.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:04 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I love the idea of this plan, though I'm not sold on the idea that it should be restricted to HBCUs. I agree that the current NCAA plantation system is deeply racist, and I get the argument being made that HBCUs stand to benefit from a plan like this, but surely so does any bottom-tier Division 1 school.

I also foresee NCAA-member universities (and the powerful alumni thereof) putting significant pressure on accrediting bodies to deny or revoke accreditation for higher ed. institutions with "professional sports" programs.
posted by dersins at 9:55 AM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Didn't we just cover how something like this didn't work out ?
posted by k5.user at 11:13 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Tie merchandising paybacks to graduation. That, and a guaranteed minimum salary while you are at the school that matches the base pay of any other student job (their job would be to get paid to play - cap it at the equivalent of a 20-hour per week work-study salary. Side benefit: Schools that want to juice their recruiting could theoretically bump up the minimum student pay... which would help non-athletes too.)

You go to college to play, you graduate, you get a cut of the profits earned by the school while you were a player.

You leave early to go pro? No payout. School keeps it.

Either way, you don't end up broke all through school while the school itself makes bank off of your efforts.

Aside from what everyone else has already said about the HBCU plan, I have another concern. How many times have we seen a young player end up flat broke in no time at all post-career? From what I've seen and read about the financial impact of being very rich very young, it's pretty safe to say that the very last thing we want to do is to start giving players tens of thousands of dollars a year right out of high school. Every student athlete should be required to take a course on money management. You really want to make an impact? Instead of my hypothetical flat payout after graduation, pay them back by putting the money into a retirement fund.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:24 PM on June 22, 2017

You leave early to go pro? No payout. School keeps it.

This idea needs to go die in a fire. If the money was made on their likeness, they get to have it. Period. Anything else is anti-worker.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:05 PM on June 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

We cannot both pretend that the players are in college to earn an education and also overlook the fact that many of them leave well before graduation despite getting a scholarship to attend. There are a lot of players who are there to play, not to learn, which is one of the reasons some people hate college sports - your favorite university is serving as an NBA/NFL farm team, not a place of higher education.

I'd much rather see money in that case left to the school, preferably to be earmarked for an academic scholarship.

Everything about academia is anti-worker. Have you seen the rate of pay in the humanities?
posted by caution live frogs at 1:22 PM on June 22, 2017

I'd much rather see money in that case left to the school, preferably to be earmarked for an academic scholarship.

Then you're advocating stealing the fruits of their labor, under the reprehensible guise of reallocating them to someone more "worthy". Which is a despicable position to hold.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:54 PM on June 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

I have a much simpler plan that will curb the abuses of college and professional sports teams alike. Ban all sports. More realistically though, it makes no sense that college athletes can't be paid a competitive wage. That would be like saying that an undergrad studying STEM can't have a paid job in a laboratory.
posted by runcibleshaw at 3:13 PM on June 22, 2017

My suggestion is much more modest but also much more practical, and without some uncomfortable racial dynamics. (And it scales to all college sports).

College sports players get lifetime free tuition. Finish college after your playing days, if you're one of the many players who don't graduate. Get a masters, or a PhD, or two. (Different from scholarships because there's no limit on the number, and it doesn't include room and board.)

There's minimal marginal cost to universities, and it encourages rather than discourages academics. Could do it tomorrow, with very little administration. For bonus points, schools would agree to honor each others free tuition for athletes, though that might take a bit longer to work out.
posted by msalt at 6:18 PM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

msalt, I'm not totally sold on this, but I think at minimum, the schools would have to pay for tuition if the student leaves after say, 2 years, or leaves early. They're making bank of the student, the least they can do is shell out for another school.
posted by Hactar at 6:41 PM on June 22, 2017

The ideal would be a universal transferable right to free tuitition at any Division 1 NCAA university, but I can imagine there would be some difficulties setting that up and it might be scammable. (Find the smallest, athletically weakest sport and get on its worst team briefly then transfer to Berkeley or something.)
posted by msalt at 9:10 PM on June 22, 2017

Didn't we just cover how something like this didn't work out ?

Er... no? You realise that HBCUs are actual colleges, right?
posted by hoyland at 4:28 AM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

OK, I guess I don't understand. Couldn't the NBA have a minor league independent of all universities? Put the teams in non-NBA cities (Buffalo, Cincinnati, Baltimore, etc.) to get money from NBA-starved basketball fans. Why do these guys have to go to college if basketball is all they want to do?

And then let universities have a university basketball league stocked with regular university students who are enthusiastic about basketball but expecting to become accountants and the like after graduation.
posted by pracowity at 11:29 AM on June 23, 2017

Why do these guys have to go to college if basketball is all they want to do?

And then let universities have a university basketball league stocked with regular university students who are enthusiastic about basketball but expecting to become accountants and the like after graduation.

The NCAA's new March Madness TV deal will make them a billion dollars a year is why universities are okay with the current system.
posted by Etrigan at 11:33 AM on June 23, 2017

That's why universities like the deal, but why does the NBA like it? Why doesn't the NBA cut the universities out and keep the minor-league (university) basketball money all to themselves?
posted by pracowity at 11:37 AM on June 23, 2017

Because running a league costs money, especially when you have to pay your players. The NCAA is the perfect system for them - they get a farm system, but without any of those pesky "labor issues".
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:43 AM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]