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David Greene, Narrating: This is "In Conversation" from Apple News.
I'm David Greene, filling in for Shumita Basu.
Today, the big business of college sports.
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For the next few weeks, I'm going to be filling in for Shumita
while she is out on maternity leave.
You might recognize me, or at least my voice,
from "NPR's" "Morning Edition," if you listened.
I was a co-host there for many years.
Since leaving "NPR" in 2020, I've been working on, well,
a whole bunch of different projects.
And one thing that I've been digging into recently
is sports.
I've always been a diehard sports fan, but more and more,
I've been exploring sports through a more journalistic lens,
talking to professional athletes, analysts, industry experts.
So, that's gonna be my focus for the next few weeks.
And for this episode,
we're talking about money and college sports.
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For more than a century,
amateurism has been a cornerstone of college sports,
meaning student athletes were, well, considered just that, amateurs.
They played for the love of the game, for pride in their school.
And according to NCAA rules, they could not be paid to play.
But over the years, collegiate sports,
specifically men's basketball and football,
have become massive moneymakers,
massive revenue generators for many colleges and universities.
We're talking about billions and billions of dollars.
Kevin Blackistone: They've made so much money recently that in the past year,
they've been able to pay their head football coaches,
on average, $6.2 million a year.
Greene, Narrating: That is Kevin Blackistone.
He's a frequent panelist on "ESPN,"
also a columnist for "The Washington Post."
So, where do the rest of those billions and billions of dollars go?
Blackistone: The athletic directors,
who often have multimillion-dollar salaries.
They go to the conference commissioners,
who also make multimillion-dollar salaries.
They go to pay for these athletic departments.
It is not unusual for these coaches, athletic directors,
and conference commissioners
to have access to things like private jets or maybe even a private helicopter
to get them to fly out to see
the latest high school football recruit that they want to see.
Greene, Narrating: In addition to being a longtime sports commentator,
Kevin is a journalism professor at the University of Maryland,
which happens to be a Division I football school.
He told me he can see the brand-new training facility
built for the football team from his office.
And I asked him if those new facilities were a little nicer than his office.
Blackistone: [LAUGHS] You know what?
I would not hesitate to say that the football practice facility
with offices and everything could be the nicest on campus right now.
Greene, Narrating: So, what about the athletes?
Where is their cut in all of this?
Facing backlash a few years ago, the NCAA instituted a policy
that allows athletes to make money off of their brands.
But that's totally separate from the money
that's being generated by these institutions.
So, now, the NCAA is under pressure again,
facing a slew of lawsuits over compensation for these athletes.
The NCAA argues that paying players would fundamentally change
the whole nature of amateur sports.
Kevin told me a hugely important factor in all of this is race.
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Blackistone: One of the reasons I got into journalism
was to study and write about and report about social issues.
I wanted to bring that lens to sports as well,
because not a lot of people were doing it.
Greene: Mm.
Blackistone: And we have to understand what it is that we're, we're watching.
And I think people are uncomfortable acknowledging
the critique of college sports as a plantation economy.
Greene: Mm.
Blackistone: And the reason I bring up the plantation economy
is because the laborers in college sports who generate the bulk of the revenue
are Black males who play college football and college basketball.
Those are the two sports that are behind the billion-dollar industry
that college sports have become.
And as a friend of mine always says,
there are two types of sports in college athletics.
There are revenue-generating sports, football and basketball,
and there are expenditure sports, which are basically every other sport.
Maybe not women's college basketball.
It is from the largesse of the labor of Black males in football and basketball
that allow those sports to live.
Greene: Mm.
Blackistone: And so, if you step back and think about it,
these Black males are out in the field of football and basketball
generating all these revenues
for the house on the hill to be able to prosper
doing all the other things that happen there.
None of which are things that those Black male laborers participate in.
That is the critique, the plantation economy critique,
that you can apply to college sports today.
Greene: Wow.
That's, that is, that's heavy.
I mean, just listening to you describe that,
it makes me feel like, you know,
we talk so much about racial justice in our country.
It sounds like this is one massive, unacknowledged facet of that
that we're just beginning to acknowledge now.
Blackistone: Absolutely.
This is a Black male issue.
This is a racial justice issue.
It's an economic justice issue.
It's all of that.
Um, a number of years ago,
10 years ago or so, maybe a little bit more,
Shaun Harper,
who at the time was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania,
a Black professor, and he's now at USC,
was studying the experience of Black male athletes
at predominantly white institutions, particularly the Power Five schools.
And there was one thing that he mentioned in his research that just stung me.
And that was the fact that, and this is still true today,
no more than 3% of undergraduate enrollees are Black males.
But upwards of 50 and 60% of the rosters of football teams and basketball teams
at those same schools are Black males.
Greene: Wow.
Black males represent a tiny percentage
of the people who are coming to these schools,
but they represent a majority of, of the players on the field
in those big sports.
Blackistone: Exactly. Which to me means that, for the most part,
they wind up on college campuses
not to be part of the class of students who are there to be educated,
but are really just part of this college athletic industrial complex
that needs to generate massive amounts of revenue in entertaining us with sport.
Greene: Well, I want to be really, really specific.
I mean, you talk about college football, you talk about college basketball,
how those are the big revenue generators.
Um, those are separate things, right?
I mean, the idea of a student athlete in some sports, on some college campuses,
I mean, that, that still exists, right?
Blackistone: Sure.
Greene: We're talking predominantly about these big time sports…
Blackistone: Right.
Greene: …these big revenue generators at bigger schools.
Blackistone: Right.
We can still mythologize sports on smaller campuses,
but the cameras don't go there [LAUGHS] for the most part.
I mean, "ESPN" has expanded its net for content,
and now they are showing far more competitions
between smaller schools and high schools, I should add,
thank you, LeBron James…
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…than ever before.
But for the most part, the balance between
the mission of the university and athletics
is considerably different.
Greene: Well, I mean, can you just lay out…
You know, you, you're at the University of Maryland.
Blackistone: Yeah.
Greene: You're at a Division I basketball and football school.
Blackistone: Yeah.
Greene: I mean, how much of a job is it really to be an athlete versus a college student?
Blackistone: Sure.
Well, a number of years ago, we were putting on a symposium
here at the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism,
where we were talking about just that.
What is it really like to be a college athlete at this level?
Greene: Yeah.
Blackistone: And we had a panel discussion with some coaches and players.
And I'll never forget, we went to a Q&A with the audience,
and one of the football players was a lineman.
And a young woman stood up in the audience,
and she told the player that she resented him.
And she said, "I resent you because I have to work three jobs
in order to pay my way through the University of Maryland.
And you play football, and you get all of these benefits."
Greene: Mm.
Blackistone: And the football player responded to her by telling her, he said,
"Well, I understand your point of view, but I just want you to know
that I've been on a gurney four times for playing football."
Greene: Wow.
Blackistone: For having to go in and get some sort of operation.
And he said,
"Those surgeries and that rehab has cost me time in the classroom.
And should my dream of becoming an NFL player not work out,
I need to lean back on the education
that I'm supposedly getting here at the University of Maryland."
He said, "So, you may have to sacrifice time
or you may have to figure out a way to piece together enough money
to continue your education here at the University of Maryland."
He said, "But I'm giving my body.
I have to persevere in a different sort of way."
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Greene, Narrating: It is stories like this one that make Kevin and others say
that these athletes need to be paid.
I mean, keep in mind, the vast majority of college athletes
are not going to make it to the NFL or the NBA.
According to the NCAA,
less than 2% of college basketball and football players are going to go pro.
Blackistone: For this period of time that they're in college,
this is an opportunity for them to start earning money.
You know, if we believe that education, particularly college education,
gives you that much greater chance to step up one rung
when it comes to social and economic mobility,
then if we grant these athletes
that extra four or five years head start on stepping up,
I think that's a good thing.
Greene, Narrating: And the NCAA seems to be getting the message.
In 2021, under huge pressure,
they decided to allow players to earn money
through what is known as name, image and likeness.
A lot of people call this NIL.
It gives players the opportunities to make money off their brands.
And for some student athletes, NIL has been great.
LSU's women's basketball champion Angel Reese's NIL earnings
are estimated to be around $1.7 million.
Blackistone: Angel Reese copyrighted her nickname, Bayou Barbie, and is cashing in on that.
Greene, Narrating: Shedeur Sanders, a quarterback at the University of Colorado,
has deals with tons of companies,
including Beats by Dre, Nike, Mercedes-Benz, Gatorade, Smoothie King.
[START SMOOTHIE KING COMMERCIAL ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Shedeur Sanders: It's Shedeur Sanders.
I'm partnering with Smoothie King to get you my favorite smoothie,
the Shedeur.
[END SMOOTHIE KING COMMERCIAL ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Greene, Narrating: Sanders is making an estimated $4.7 million from his NIL deals,
but only a handful of extremely elite and popular athletes
are making that kind of money.
Most NIL deals aren't that lucrative.
Plus, Kevin says another problem with the system is that
it is not at all well-regulated.
Blackistone: These are really state rules, and there are a bunch of states
that don't have any rules for NIL to govern it.
And where there are no state rules,
it's been left up to individual colleges and universities
to come up with their own rules.
So, as you can see, it's a patchwork.
Greene, Narrating: Another issue that's come up under NIL are what's known as "collectives."
Collectives are groups that technically operate
independent from the schools they're supporting.
Roughly 200 of them exist today, and the way they work…
they collect donations from supporters of a college team,
and then they funnel that money to college athletes using NIL deals.
Kevin says there are a lot of problems with these collectives.
For one thing, they're unregulated and have little transparency.
Already, there's at least one example of a student signing
a multi-million dollar NIL deal with a collective that just fell through.
At its core, though, Kevin argues that the problem with NIL
is that this system operates totally separately
from those tens of billions of dollars
that are being brought in by the institutions.
Blackistone: When we talk about name, image and likeness,
this is not about revenue sharing.
This is not about the redistribution of wealth.
This is not about health care.
It's not about workers' compensation.
It recognizes none of that.
Greene, Narrating: So, I asked Kevin,
if he could reimagine this system, how would he do it?
What would be a better version of what we have now?
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Blackistone: My remedy for years has been to acknowledge
that college football and college basketball,
to a large extent, are businesses, and they're big business,
and that they don't necessarily have a real place on the college campus.
And I would like to see, and I think we're getting there,
that the athletic departments for the biggest schools that we have,
that bring in all this money,
that pay out these million-dollar salaries,
should incorporate.
And that they should pay right fees back to the universities
at which they are already associated to use those facilities,
to wear the colors of those schools and the names of those schools
and cut their own television deals just like the NFL or the NBA or the WNBA,
and treat their laborers
like the employees of the institutions that they are.
Greene: You're talking about, like, almost separate leagues,
like a National College Football League, a National College Basketball League,
and, and treating players like employees.
Blackistone: Exactly.
Exactly, that's my remedy.
And then people say, "Oh, what about Title IX?"
Greene: Which we should say is, is a law that's in place to make sure
there are not inequities between women's sports and men's sports.
So, if we're only talking about
men's college basketball and college football,
then what about Title IX?
I mean, how do we make sure that women playing volleyball,
women playing basketball
are enjoying the fruits that athletes in these separate leagues are enjoying?
Blackistone: So, I go back to the beginning of our discussion.
There are two types of sports.
There are revenue-generating sports and there are expenditure sports.
There would still be money in rights fees to pay for the crew team,
to pay for the men's and women's tennis team,
to pay for the women's volleyball team.
Greene: So, a team in the National College Football League
affiliated with the University of Michigan
would have to pay Michigan rights fees to be affiliated…
Blackistone: Sure.
Greene: …and the University of Michigan could use that money to pay for other sports.
Blackistone: Other sports.
That's one of my suggestions.
And then people will say, "Well, what about the education of the athletes?"
Rather than tying an athlete's eligibility to a classroom
where he or she is going to have to find the time
to balance with their athletic responsibilities,
why not give them the opportunity, as an employee of this corporation,
to pursue higher ed as they see fit,
and not have it tied to their athletic performance.
Greene: So, if a high school kid is dreaming of playing football,
they could think, "Here are my choices.
Like, I could go to a smaller school that's not involved in this big money,
and I could play football and be a student athlete,
as much as that's possible."
Blackistone: Mm-hmm.
Greene: "Or if I'm good enough,
I have the chance to be 19 years old and just get a job playing football…"
Exactly.
"…affiliated with a university
and figure out my education totally separately."
Blackistone: Sure.
And get tuition remission like any other employee on the campus.
Greene: I guess I'm, I'm following the logic here.
And I see how it takes care of confronting exploitation
that we've seen for so long,
especially in these big revenue-generating sports.
I guess here's my question as a, as a sports fan.
Blackistone: Yeah.
Greene: If we basically create, like, the minor leagues of the NFL,
which is this National College Football League…
Blackistone: Mm-hmm.
Greene: …am I going to be as excited to watch that?
Because part of the appeal…
Blackistone: Oh! Oh, yes, you are.
Greene: …part of the appeal
was this fantasy that I'm watching, you know, college students on the field…
Blackistone: Right.
Greene: …which made it separate from the NFL, separate from the NBA.
And, and maybe that's what we just need to confront,
but will it be as, as money-making?
Blackistone: Oh, yeah.
You know what?
I like to get out and be a fan.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, maybe this job hasn't jaded me that much.
So, a few months ago, a buddy of mine went, and I went,
to Alabama, Tuscaloosa, to the Tennessee-Tuscaloosa game.
Bought tickets, go down there to take in this game.
David, I've been to a gazillion college football games
and a gazillion NFL games.
And like I said, I'm just going in as a fan,
the experience as a fan.
100,000-plus people in the stadium for this game.
The adulation for the, the laborers on the field
before the game was unbelievable.
It had a little NASCAR vibe to it.
I don't know if you've ever been to a NASCAR event,
but one of the cool things that NASCAR does is before a race,
they allow fans to basically go into the garages
and meet their favorite drivers and crew chiefs.
Greene: Yeah.
Blackistone: A very fan-friendly event.
It was basically like that at Alabama.
You could go down on the field before the game
and walk around the stadium
and watch your favorite college players warming up.
And if you had a special pass,
you could walk inside the gate that cordoned off the field
and get even closer to them.
Greene: That's not going to go away, you're saying.
Blackistone: That's not going to go away.
And those 100,000-plus people that showed up for that game that day
did not all go to the University of Alabama.
They grew up in Alabama, rooting for Alabama.
And so, I don't think that they're going to care one way or another
whether or not, you know, the, the star running back
is a paid employee of the university or is studying communications.
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Greene, Narrating: I am going to say, I am not quite as convinced as Kevin is
that this is not going to change things a lot
and change the fan experience.
But, uh, I trust Kevin.
And, you know, though Kevin has thought about all of this a ton,
he will be the first to say that we're not likely to see a change
like a National College Football League come anytime soon.
He is, though, pretty optimistic that a wave of lawsuits this year
could mean that very soon athletes are going to be paid.
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Blackistone: You know, I think the most critical case right now in college sports
is Johnson v. NCAA,
which is slowly meandering its way through the federal courts.
I think it's in a district court right now in Philadelphia.
And it's a lawsuit brought by a former Villanova football player,
Trey Johnson,
and another few Division I student athletes,
arguing, once again, that the idea of the student athlete is a myth,
and that, in fact, college athletes should be considered employees
subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
And so far, their case has not been shot down.
And this is just the latest salvo.
I should also point out, going to Northwestern,
that the attempt…
I can't remember now how long ago, maybe 10 years ago,
for members of their football team to unionize
was originally given the green light
by the Chicago Regional Office of the National Labor Relations Board.
And then it was shot down when it got to the National Labor Relations Board.
Well, the head of the Chicago National Labor Relations Board
at that time, which greenlighted it,
is now second in charge of the National Labor Relations Board.
And the person for whom he works has stated on more than one occasion
that she believes that college athletes are in fact eligible
to be viewed as employees and treated as employees.
Greene: Mm.
Blackistone: So, I think the pendulum has swung in the favor of acknowledging
that college athletes are employees.
Greene: And what onus should we put on ourselves as fans?
I mean to say, like, I mean,
you used a phrase earlier that really stuck with me.
We have to know what we're watching.
And that makes me now go into any college football
or college basketball game that I'm watching
with a sense of responsibility.
Like, I feel like you're saying, "It's okay to watch and be a fan,
but you need to acknowledge what's happening."
Blackistone: Yeah, I mean, I think we have to bring pressure
to bear upon those who can make decisions
to change the structure of college athletics.
And so, how do you do that?
Well, if you live in a district
where your congressperson is on Capitol Hill
saying that paying players would be the ruination of college sports,
you let them know that, no, it wouldn't be,
because I'm still going to go to the game.
And I'd feel a lot more comfortable
knowing that the star wide receiver is getting a paycheck,
and maybe even more importantly,
has some sort of healthcare or workers' comp
should he get hurt in a game and not be able to continue playing.
Greene: Your message to sports fans is don't contribute to a plantation economy
without demanding change to do what you can to make that go away.
Blackistone: Absolutely.
I'm, you know, I'm not telling anybody to turn away from the games.
I would be hypocritical if I said that.
I fully admit, I am, I am addicted to sports,
and I'm not turning away from college sports.
It is spectacular.
But it can be a lot more equitable.
And we can treat those athletes with a higher level of well-being
than we do now.
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Greene: Kevin, it's always great talking to you.
Thank you so much.
Blackistone: Thanks for having me, David.
Greene, Narrating: You can find Kevin Blackistone's columns for "The Washington Post" on Apple News,
and we'll include a link to his latest on our show notes page.
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