man, just how corrupt can one system be?
Numerous criticisms have been lodged against the NCAA. These include, but are not limited to:
As of 2014 the NCAA reported that it had over $600 million in unrestricted net assets in its annual report.[54] Due to its tax exempt status as a non-for-profit[55] the NCAA is not required to pay most taxes on in income that larger corporations are subject to. While this business model has been challenged during court cases, the NCAA has ultimately emerged victorious.[56] During 2014 the NCAA also reported almost a billion dollars of revenue, contributing to a "budget surplus" of over $80 million.[54] Due to its status as a non-for-profit additional money earned that is unspent is "budget surplus" instead of "profit". It received over $700 million during that same year from licensing TV rights to its sporting events.[54]Along with income generated from its sporting events, the NCAA also earns money through its endowment fund. Established in 2004 with $45 million, the fund has grown to over $380 million in 2014.[57]
Player compensation?
The NCAA limits the amount of compensation that players can receive. This rule has generated controversy, in light of the large amounts of revenues that schools earn from sports from TV contracts, ticket sales, and licensing and merchandise. Several commentators have discussed whether the NCAA limit on player compensation violates antitrust laws.
Numerous criticisms have been lodged against the NCAA. These include, but are not limited to:
- In 1998, the NCAA settled a lawsuit from former UNLV basketball coach, Jerry Tarkanian, for $2.5 million. Tarkanian sued the NCAA after he was forced to resign from UNLV in 1992. The suit claimed the agency singled him out while he was at UNLV from 1973 to 1992. During that time, the university was penalized three different times by the NCAA. Tarkanian said "They can never, ever, make up for all the pain and agony they caused me. All I can say is that for 25 years they beat the hell out of me". The NCAA said that it regretted the long battle and it now has more understanding of Tarkanian's position and that the case has changed the enforcement process for the better. In the 1970s a Nevada judge stated that the NCAA's evidence against Tarkanian was "total 100 percent hearsay without a scrap of documentation in substantiation. The evidence shows that every fundamental principle pertaining to the plaintiff's due process rights was violated".[66] Don Yaeger wrote "Public records suggest (Tarkanian's) case was the worst investigation ever conducted by the NCAA, rife with intimidation of athletes, bigotry ... slipshod work, creative note-taking and untruth by an investigator and vindictiveness by a disgruntled former coach".[67]
- In 1977, prompted partly by the Tarkanian case, the US Congress initiated an investigation into the NCAA.[66] It, combined with Tarkanian's case, forced the NCAA's internal files into the public record.[68]
- In 2013, the NCAA was criticized for denying Georgia offensive lineman Kolton Houston his eligibility for violating the drug policy. Houston tested positive for the anabolic steroid norandrolone that was given without his knowledge to recover from shoulder surgery during high school, but the banned substance remain trapped in the fatty tissues in his body. Despite a huge decline in the substance level to the point where Houston does not gain a significant advantage for using the drug and proof that he had not been reusing it, he remained ineligible. Houston would then undergo dangerous operational procedures to get under the threshold to regain his eligibility, which goes against the mission for the NCAA to help out students. The NCAA is being heavily criticized for maintaining their rigid standards and not making an exception for Houston.[69]
- In 2009, the NCAA was criticized for suspending Paul Donahoe's NCAA eligibility after it was made public that he had appeared on pornography website Fratmen.[70]
- Several people, notably including former Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly, and NPR's Frank Deford, have criticized the NCAA for its inflexibility.[vague][71][72]
- Ben Wetzler, a baseball player for Oregon State University, was selected in the fifth round of the 2013 MLB Draft. Wetzler did not sign, opting to return to Oregon State for his senior year.[73] The Phillies reported Wetlzer and Jason Monda of the University of Washington, their sixth-round pick who also did not sign, to the NCAA for violating the rule against using a sports agent during financial negotiations, which is "something that reportedly happens all the time".[74][75][76] The NCAA suspended Wetzler for 11 games, which is 20% of the Beavers' season.[74][77] He is scheduled to make his season debut on March 2 against the Wright State Raiders.[78]
As of 2014 the NCAA reported that it had over $600 million in unrestricted net assets in its annual report.[54] Due to its tax exempt status as a non-for-profit[55] the NCAA is not required to pay most taxes on in income that larger corporations are subject to. While this business model has been challenged during court cases, the NCAA has ultimately emerged victorious.[56] During 2014 the NCAA also reported almost a billion dollars of revenue, contributing to a "budget surplus" of over $80 million.[54] Due to its status as a non-for-profit additional money earned that is unspent is "budget surplus" instead of "profit". It received over $700 million during that same year from licensing TV rights to its sporting events.[54]Along with income generated from its sporting events, the NCAA also earns money through its endowment fund. Established in 2004 with $45 million, the fund has grown to over $380 million in 2014.[57]
Player compensation?
The NCAA limits the amount of compensation that players can receive. This rule has generated controversy, in light of the large amounts of revenues that schools earn from sports from TV contracts, ticket sales, and licensing and merchandise. Several commentators have discussed whether the NCAA limit on player compensation violates antitrust laws.
- After losing the 1953 case The University of Denver v. Nemeth, where it was found that a student and athlete was owed workers' compensation, it has been argued[by whom?] that the NCAA created the term "student-athlete." Andrew Zimbalist, in his book Unpaid Professionals (1999), claims the term was invented to prevent similar future litigation losses.
- In 2007, the case of White et al. v. NCAA was brought by former NCAA student-athletes Jason White, Brian Pollack, Jovan Harris, and Chris Craig as a class action lawsuit. They argued that the NCAA's current limits on a full scholarship or Grant in Aid was a violation of federal antitrust laws. Their reasoning was that in the absence of such a limit, NCAA member schools would be free to offer any financial aid packages they desired to recruit the student and athlete. The NCAA settled before a ruling by the court, by agreeing to set up the Former Student-Athlete Fund to "assist qualified candidates applying for receipt of career development expenses and/or reimbursement of educational expenses under the terms of the agreement with plaintiffs in a federal antitrust lawsuit."[58]
- In 2013, Jay Bilas revealed that the NCAA was taking advantage of individual players through jersey sales in its store. Specifically, he typed the names of several top college football players, among them Tajh Boyd, Teddy Bridgewater, Jadeveon Clowney, Johnny Manziel, and AJ McCarron, into the search engine of the NCAA's official online store, and received the players' jerseys as primary search results.[59] The NCAA took down player jersey sales immediately following the incident.[60]
- Former NCAA President Walter Byers, in his book Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes, summarizes his criticisms of the NCAA's operation by stating that "Today the NCAA Presidents Commission is . . . firmly committed to the neo-plantation belief that the enormous proceeds from college games belong to the overseers (administrators) and supervisors (coaches). The plantation workers performing in the arena may only receive those benefits authorized by the overseers."
- The National Collegiate Players Association (NCPA) is a group started by former UCLA football players with the purpose of organizing student-athletes. Their goal is to change NCAA rules they view as unjust. Two of the rules they focus on include raising the scholarship amount and holding schools responsible for their players' sports-related medical injuries.[61]
- In March 2014, four players filed a class action antitrust lawsuit, alleging that the NCAA and its five dominant conferences are an "unlawful cartel". The suit charges that NCAA caps on the value of athletic scholarships have "illegally restricted the earning power of football and men's basketball players while making billions off their labor".[62] Tulane University Sports Law Program Director Gabe Feldman called the suit "an instantly credible threat to the NCAA."[63] On September 30, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that limiting compensation to the cost of an athlete's attendance at a university was sufficient. It simultaneously ruled against a federal judge's proposal to pay student athletes $5,000 per year in deferred compensation.[56]
- Northwestern University's Division One Football team was the first NCAA team to unionize in 2014.[64]
- South Park, in the episode "Crack Baby Athletic Association" (s15e05), made oblique reference to the NCAA and compared its rules to slavery.[65]
