Under New NCAA Rule, College Athletes Can Profit From Their Talent
The NCAA is giving college athletes a chance to profit from their hard work and talents on the field. Here’s what that might mean for college sports fans.
In this country, the line between amateur and professional sports is marked by the NCAA, the association of colleges and universities that govern the fields and courts and pools for collegiate athletes.
For a very long time, the assumption in college sports has been that players shouldn’t get direct financial benefit from playing. Scholarships and food allowances aside, there has been a longstanding bright line that prohibits college players from enriching themselves.
“By allowing individuals to start capitalizing on themselves, some will make more than others, but it will be a free market.” – David Schwartz, DS Baseball
But, an NCAA announcement this week will change much of that. Student athletes will soon be able to profit off the use of their names, images and likenesses: something pro athletes have made a lot of money doing. There are a lot of questions, though, about how this change will unfold on campuses across the nation, and whether this is truly opening the door to the broader conversation about compensation for college athletes.
Sports Illustrated writer Michael Rosenberg and David Schwartz, president and CEO of DS Baseball, which represents professional baseball players, come on Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson to unpack what’s going on with the NCAA.
“Telling someone that they have to pay someone to play sports for them, people will argue both sides of that,” says Rosenberg.
Schwartz adds that, “Because of Title IX, if you were to start paying players, it would be very difficult to just start paying some of the players. But by allowing individuals to start capitalizing on themselves, some will make more than others, but it will be a free market.”
