The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), since its formation in 1910, has arguably been the world’s premier national amateur sport organisation. Only now, in the wake of the Northwestern players union dispute and the O’Bannon vs. NCAA court case, is it being exposed for what it really is: a greedy and exploitative capitalist organisation, whose revenue is made on the back of effectively slave labour. The NCAA makes a killing in profits each and every year and yet the workers at the bottom of the food chain, the players make nothing apart from scholarships provided by universities. If they were a listed company, they would be found guilty of paying below the minimum wage, but because the NCAA is a “non-profit” they get away with it. Worse than this, the NCAA in their rulebook state that student athletes are prohibited from working for a wage, even though a normal student, even an academic scholarship one can work. This means that for many students living in poverty, their only hope is to be a star and make it big time into the NFL. This is a stunning example of the failure of our capitalist system of which sport is a microcosm.
My take is that the level of the NCAA’s exploitation is such that the players have become modern day slaves with such oppressive rules that a player can’t be given money from a friend for lunch or clothes. This is a scandal that must be resolved with the players in mind. Any other resolution would lead to more oppression of players already burdened with studies and caring for themselves and often families. The NCAA’s control of players’ identity through video games and merchandise is beginning to be tempered only now through the fight by people like Ed O’Bannon, a former UCLA Bruin basketballer.
The widespread crimes committed and the shocking retrograde rules put in place by the NCAA have led me to believe that the NCAA should be destroyed and collegiate sports should no longer be the pathway to professional sport. Through a club-oriented system as opposed to a school-oriented system, the lead-in leagues would be professional but with lower pay than the top flight leagues, a massive improvement on the dreadful conditions faced by student athletes in America today.
Finally, having been a massive Alabama Crimson Tide football fan before I saw the harrowing oppression that goes on in collegiate sports around the USA, it made me want people to know that their innocent amateur sport they love so dear is anything but innocent and just another part of the fascist capitalist world we live in.
The Paddy File 