Should College Athletes Be Paid?

The Topic:

In this seminar, you will explore the economics of college athletics and debate whether college athlete should be paid.

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Readings:

  1. Andy Staples, “Ed O'Bannon v. the NCAA: A complete case primer.”: Link to Reading
  2. Patrick Hruby, “The Gold-Plating of College Sports.”: Link to Reading
  3. Jonathan Chait, “Fixing College Sports: Why Paying Student Athletes Won’t Work.”:Link to Reading
  4. Jeffrey Dorfman, “Pay College Athletes? They’re Paid Up To $125,000 Per Year.”: Link to Reading
  5. Kyle Tucker, “As college athletics costs grow, student fees rise.”: Link to Reading
  6. “Introducing the George Welsh Indoor Practice Facility.” (Optional): Link to Reading
  7. “Louisville's Kevin Ware Terrible Leg Injury HD”: Link to Reading
  8. Barry Petchesky, “Jadeveon Clowney Shouldn’t Play Until He Gets Paid.” : Link to Reading
  9. Oregon University, “Photo Gallery: Football Performance Center”: Link to Reading

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is the role of NCAA athletics in American higher education? Should U.S. universities and colleges have athletics programs? For context, in most other societies there are no organized sports in higher education.
  2. Perform a Stakeholder analysis for the National Collegiate Athletic Association as a whole. I encourage you to think broadly of who is affected by this organization, both in first and second order effects.
  3. Frequently, athletic directors point to the self-sufficiency of their programs and argue that athletics program revenues “flow back” to the university at large. What do you make of this claim? Can you think of more indirect ways that sports benefit their schools?
  4. Are the NCAA and its member schools engaging in collusion by maintaining amateurism? Should student-athlete compensation be permitted but capped? Can universities come together to agree to control athletics costs in other areas, such as agreeing to spend a maximum on sports facilities?
  5. As the student athlete fair market value data quoted in the Hruby article suggests, paying athletes market wages would have a profound impact on the collegiate athletics financial model. If you are a college football program’s administrator, how would you respond to these challenges? Where would you find the funds to finance the football team? Would you just get rid of the team completely? Eliminate other sports programs?

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Suggestions?

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Created:

Added by Mike Lenox, February 2017.