Read this in the Washington Post and see if it reminds you of any major college of which you might be aware:
The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s long-standing policy prohibiting profit-sharing with college athletes effectively allows wealthy White students to profit off the labor of poor Black ones.
That’s the stark conclusion of a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper uses revenue and expense data for college athletic departments to trace the flow of billions in annual revenue generated by NCAA sports, particularly basketball and football.
The fiction of the student-athlete (a label invented to avoid workers’ compensation law and paying players) has created a situation in which the major revenue sports — basketball and football — are dominated by Black athletes. That income — and it’s become enormous at several dozen universities thanks to TV contracts — has produced huge increases in coach and administrative pay and lavish facilities but precious little in the way of benefit gains for athletes. The money DOES support other non-revenue sports.
The students playing those sports tend to be Whiter and hail from wealthier neighborhoods than those who play football and basketball. Black students constitute nearly 60 percent of the rosters of football and basketball teams, and just 11 percent of the rosters of all other sports. Similar racial dynamics are apparent among coaches. Football and basketball players also came from neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty and lower incomes than students in other sports.
The net result: White athletes and coaches profit off the labor of Black athletes, who receive no additional compensation for the considerable revenue they generate.
Here’s the full paper. Lots of data to chew on.
