Interview with National College Players Association
The Slate "Hang Up and Listen" podcast interviewed Ramogi Huma, the President of the National College Players Association yesterday.
He discussed briefly the Association's goals, the "APU" slogan, and how they generally wanted to attain those goals. Notably, he said they weren't advocating for a full free market, but weren't against it either. It's probably 15 minutes in and worth a listen.
NCPA Goals:
- Stipend for scholarship athletes to cost of attendance
- Lifetime health insurance coverage for sports-related injuries
- Commitment to allocate funds for concussion research, tracking, and treatment
September 24th, 2013 at 11:29 AM ^
Ramogi Huma is just one guy. He created this organization, and a website. And a bunch of press releases.
Who else is associated with this organization? Is there a Board? Do they have any resident fellows, scholars, officers, etc.? What is Ramogi Huma the "President" of, exactly?
This is a kind of social media triumph, isn't it? The creation of a cause out of little more than than Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:33 AM ^
No kidding he's just a guy, but he's been able to drive at least something from an organizational standpoint and get his goal out to the larger world.
As for who's involved...a bunch of players are involved and they've gotten their message to the larger world successfully. Who gives two shits who the resident scholars are? Anyone can find a crappy academic to support their cause. Look at a lot of issue groups out there. You can find anyone to say anything for a price or a name drop.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:49 AM ^
and you become a "member."
Did you see a real list of the members anywhere?
September 24th, 2013 at 12:05 PM ^
You're right. Any worthwhile organization charges for membership and its website lists every member. I guess I should disavow myself of the Disabled Veteran's of America. They're only a few years old and were started by a guy who was passionate about getting American veterans access to health benefits. He's probably a dick.
Do you really expect athletes to be public about affiliating with a group like this? Some percentage of coaches would almost certainly be vindictive pricks about their players joining.
What is so bad about people having a belief and then standing up for that belief?
September 24th, 2013 at 12:46 PM ^
Was that last question rhetorical? Section 1 knows a few things about standing up for a belief. Over, and over, and over, and over...
September 24th, 2013 at 11:40 AM ^
Well, the website says they have 17,000 members from 150 campuses. Not sure why an advocacy organization would need a resident scholar to be effective. I mean it couldn't hurt to have a respected economist to point out that the NCAA is basically the textbook definition of a cartel, but I think that's pretty much common knowledge anyway.
I am impressed at the variety of arguments you are able to muster in support of the status quo. Why make your unpopular opinions known when you can just critique the organizational chart of the group fighting for change?
September 24th, 2013 at 12:00 PM ^
I think you should be impressed by the number of arguments in favor of the status quo, or better yet a return to pre-Title IX times, when you didn't make a $60m budget for 30 sports dependent on the cash cow of college football.
I'd also like to be fair. I'd support the NCPA, if it were really behind these sorts of changes:
- A shorter season, with no bye weeks and no games on Labor Day weekend;
- No marketing of individual players in any way shape or form, most particularly in the realm of video games;
- An entirely new level of emphasis on student-athletes as students first, and athletes second;
- A massive de-emphasis of televised games, including reductions in game scheduling for purposes of televising games;
We should not be profiting off of collegiate football players. Paying players, and giving them a union, and agents, and marketing rights just drags us all away from the notion of student-athletes.
Seriously, people; I'd like to see the B1G become much more like the Ivy League, than the NFL-Junior.
As far as protections for student-athletes who are injured: Does anybody have a good case-study in how any student-athlete was left hurting or in distress as a result of a football or basketball injury? I don't have much of a problem with four-year scholarships, health insurance for players, etc. Although I'd always want to watch out for unintended consequences with any changes to the status quo.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:02 PM ^
No one needs a case study to know that players are left with lifetime lingering injuries after even 4 years of football.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:11 PM ^
College football is a voluntary activity. I'd strongly urge anyone who did not accept the risk of injury, to not play at all.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT PROTECTING STUDENT-ATHLETES FROM THE GAME OF FOOTBALL. If that were the case, I am not sure why Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Ohio Wesleyan, Capital, Lehigh, Lafayette and Slippery Rock would maintain football programs.
WHAT THIS IS ABOUT, IS A CLASS OF SPORTSWRITERS AND AGENTS AND WANNABES, who want to redistribute the large amount of cash circulating in major college football.
And I'd rather see the cash (and all of its hidden negatives) taken out instead of advancing the progress of professionalism in collegiate athletics.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:23 PM ^
I think you really believe that, but I have a hard time understanding why. The status quo is that these people are making gobs of money for the schools and then the schools have colluded via the ncaa to limmit their compensation in what appears to be a blatant and long standing violation of anti-trust legislation. You are arguing for some utopian arrangement that, as ZL pointed out, never existed. College athletes are absolutely being exploited and the proof is staring you right in the face if you're willing to look instead of rant about agents and wannabes.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:27 PM ^
I just want to make the additional point that the voluntary nature of the activity is irrelevant. Working in a factory is voluntary too, but if you get hurt on the job your company's insurance still has to pay a worker's compensation claim. Furthermore, it would be illegal for your company to make an agreement with their competitors to never pay their workers more than X amount (which is exactly what NCAA member schools have done with scholarship atheletes).
September 24th, 2013 at 12:36 PM ^
... and you probably won't have a Worker Compensation claim if you get hurt doing any of them. Unless you are the instructor, getting paid, by an employer.
"Employment" has absolutely no place in collegiate student-athletes. If the athletes feel like employees, then something is wrong and we should change it to make it more "student" and less "athlete."
September 24th, 2013 at 12:56 PM ^
Well, typically rock climbers aren't members of massive organizations that they've signed exclusive contracts with in exchange for compensation (scholarship). So it's not really an analagous example. I had the impression that you were a lawyer. This stuff is so obvious that it seems like you're being intentionally disingenuous.
You can say that football players aren't employees, but the reality is that they make a shitload of money for their organizations and receive (limited) compensation in exchange. Semantics aside, that sounds like an employee to me. And colluding to limit compensation is illegal in the absence of an anti-trust exemption. What you're proposing would require federal legislation (i.e. changes to Title IX and anti-trust laws). That seems unrealistic, so the result will be the further exploitation of college athletes.
September 24th, 2013 at 1:06 PM ^
I am not in favor of massive profiteering by anyone off of student-athletes. If that is what people find so offensive, then I say let's make sure there is no profiteering. I'd like to see the football money machine reduced, not growing.
Again, back to the Ivy League; nobody is complaining about paying Ivy League players. The complaints are about players at Alabama, LSU, Georgia Tech, UCLA, Ohio State... and Michigan.
That tells me there is somthing wrong with Alabama, LSU, Georgia Tech, UCLA, Ohio State and Michigan.
For the record; I don't want to see any student-athletes "exploited." I want to see them have fun playing a game that they love. They devote a lot of time to football, and they get a nice benefit. But I'd like to see that exchange (football-for-scholarship) reduced to a very low level. I don't want to see it upped to full-scale payment-for-play.
September 24th, 2013 at 2:11 PM ^
Having nothing to distribute would infact be an equillbrium point and would lead to an equitable distribution, but it's certainly not an efficient one. I guess it's just some sort of ideal that compels you to choose that point as the solution, but I doubt that many parties involved (players, fans, schools, cable companies, apparel producers, etc.) are in line behind you.
September 24th, 2013 at 2:30 PM ^
"You can say that football players aren't employees, but the reality is that they make a shitload of money for their organizations and receive (limited) compensation in exchange."
By the dictionary definition - yes. By the legal definition, not so much:
Employee - a person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed.
How do you feel about a GSRA? They aren't university employees - but they make money for the university and receive compensation in exchange.
"GRSAs are admitted to the university, not hired by it, and perform research for academic credit and to obtain a degree. The services they perform for the university are an integral part of the educational program. The faculty advisor is not their employer. He or she is their tutor, mentor and colleague. And any stipend the GSRA receives from the university is for financial support. It is not dependent on the intrinsic value of the services provided or the skill of the recipient."
September 24th, 2013 at 3:21 PM ^
Thankfully, Bry Mac provided a handy link to an academic article that makes an argument that they are employees based on common law and statutory standards. So, yes, they do meet a legal definition of employee.
September 24th, 2013 at 5:32 PM ^
The GSRA's that are definitely not employees are employees under that standard also...
September 24th, 2013 at 5:42 PM ^
Ok, so does that mean the standard is wrong? I mean, I don't know that much about GSRAs, but their mere existence doesn't contradict the legal reasoning laid out in the article.
September 25th, 2013 at 3:46 PM ^
From the article:
"Because university students who receive academic scholarships and perform services as teaching or research assistants appear to satisfy the common law test for “employee,” the question has arisen whether they are such under the NLRA. To analyze this question, the Board has developed an additional statutory test for this setting. Under this test, students are deemed employees only if they satisfy both the common law right of control test and the Board’s additional statutory test. For many years, graduate assistants at American colleges and universities have sought to organize and bargain collectively, arguing that they are “employees” under the Act. And, just as the NCAA seeks
to characterize grant-in-aid athletes as something other than employees, so, too, universities have sought to classify graduate assistants as something other than employees. During this period, a body of analogous doctrine, culminating in Brown, has addressed whether students who receive compensation from universities for services while also enrolled as students are employees under the NLRA. In its 1974 Leland Stanford Junior University decision, the Board directly addressed whether graduate research assistants were “employees” within the meaning of § 2(3) of the Act and held they were “primarily students” and, therefore, not employees."
A very strong legal argument can be made that the same applies to athletes.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:57 PM ^
You might want to give this a read. They make a pretty compelling case that (at least in terms of the NLRA), student athletes are employees:
http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/26…
September 24th, 2013 at 1:00 PM ^
See, even a football playing dog knows an employee when he sees one.
September 24th, 2013 at 1:22 PM ^
I like Bob McCormick very much; I had him for a class in law school. One of the nicest guys on the faculty.
The answer to him is simple; if the current relationship between student-athletes and member institutions of the NCAA have the hallmarks of employment relationships, then change those relationships. So that they are less "employment."
Nobody was ever worried about payments for swimmers, divers, gymnansts, wrestlers, golfers, tennis players, etc. The only people crusading for payments to collegiate athletes are the self-interested people who want a piece of the football/basketball pie.
September 24th, 2013 at 1:30 PM ^
Divers don't generate pie, so they already get 100% of the pie. Or 0% of the pie. I think division by zero is involved, so it may be infinity% of the pie. Regardless, there is no pie.
$30k per year for a diver seems like more fair than $30k per year for Devin Gardner.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:43 PM ^
They put their bodies on the line to create that atmosphere you so love. I don't understand what's so repugnant about wanting health care for injuries related to the time you played football for the university when those lingering effects have an impact after you've left?
September 24th, 2013 at 12:57 PM ^
on the line for you and me.
College football players are playing a game they love, and I hope that they are mostly loving it all. If they aren't, we should fix it for them.
I don't want to get too far into the weeds on disability insurance for college football players. In principle, I wouldn't oppose it. The cases are so freakishly rare; if run by a private insurer, I'm not sure I'd oppose it. I also don't think a guy with sore knees when he is 65 after having played college football is a disability worth discussing in terms of any "abuse" of student-athletes.
I say again for the umpteenth time; if anybody is worried about the over-professionalization of student-athletes, without compensation to those athletes, let's fix the "over-professionalization" part. Make them students again. Don't make them part of a National Football Development League.
September 24th, 2013 at 1:32 PM ^
I get injured playing during the second to last game during my senior year. No eligibility left and I'm ready to graduate. I get treatment until May but it's no where near what is needed. You're okay with that person being kicked to the curb?
September 24th, 2013 at 11:08 PM ^
you'll be told that this bit of utopian silliness is beside the point because it will not happen, no matter what. The choices are between exploitation and basic fairness. There is no third option.
Why would it matter if the disability insurance for college football players were provided directly by University hospitals rather than run by private insurers? It seems to me that *that* is wanting to spread cash around to people who don't need it.
September 25th, 2013 at 7:27 AM ^
*that* is so that the University, which is all too prone to political pressure, doesn't become a gigantic all-purpose disability insurer to hundreds or thousands of retired football players.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:15 PM ^
Let's be clear, the huge budgets are there because schools choose to create those huge budgets. Michigan doesn't need a new softball field, baseball field, crew facility, etc. Michigan chooses to build those facilities regardless of Title IX. Furthermore, Title IX is law, so if you like scholarship athletes, then you are going to have to deal with girl scholarship athletes.
The idea that college sports should deemphasize is great in principle. In reality, it's not going to happen. Too many people like to watch the games, which creates demand, which means huge amounts of money are going to flow in somehow.
Players have never been noble student athletes striving for some notion of amateur idealism. In Fielding Yost's and Fritz Crisler's day, a lot of schools would recruit local factory workers to play as ringers. In the 60s, schools would just stockpile players with no intent to ever play them. In the 80s, players were testifying before Congress that they left college illiterate. That's the status quo.
I happen to enjoy the games, but am increasingly conflicted by the poor treatment of the players by schools. Anything that pushes schools to improve that treatment is a win for me.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:28 PM ^
I can't think of any other organization that does more to push back against fake student-athletes, and the underground payment of student-athletes, and academic fraud in collegiate athletics, than...
...the NCAA.
They could do more, with more help from member institutions, to police big time college athletics. I'd like to see them do more, not less, of that sort of policing.
I don't think that there has ever been a time when college athletes have been better treated than they are now. If I have any dissatisfaction with the status quo, it is that college football is too big, with too many time demands on student-athletes, and that athletes are too removed from the rest of the student body. Paying college football and basketball players who are members of a players' union does nothing but make all of that much worse.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:11 PM ^
Because no labor movement has ever effectively limited the number of hours its members had to work. That's why everyone in the civilized world still works 16 hour days. Duh.
Can you exit the fantasy world please? Real talk.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:38 PM ^
the huge budgets are there because schools choose to create those huge budgets.
Agreed. Somehow people all over the world and throughout history have managed to play sports without $100 million budgets (plus $100 million donations). The University created these obligations; it was a choice.
I think Dave Brandon said that there are 900 student athletes. That means we spend around $100,000 per student-athlete per year, and Ross' donation adds another $100,000. Wow.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:49 PM ^
Including two-year institutions, about 800 colleges have football teams. Of those there are 119 in the Bowl Subdivision, and those at the bottom of the FBS pretty much all have money problems just keeping up.
So let's round off and say that 80 universities pursue big-time all-out football budgeting on a major, competitive scale. That's 1 in 10.
It really is high time to reconsider the place of big time college football. I want the costs lowered, and the high profile de-emphasized. I don't care about Michigan on EA Sports, or on ESPN3, and I don't want football to effectively be forced to pay for women's softball to fly to California to play five games.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:58 PM ^
Are you aware that this isn't a realistic option? I think you're making your vision of the perfect the enemy of the good.
September 24th, 2013 at 1:59 PM ^
I'd agree with you there. However, this isn't going to change anytime soon.
In the meantime, the disparity between players and the coaches they play for is increasingly enormous. Early on, you could probably make the argument that coaches and administrators were essentially living upper middle class lifestyles, so there was no real money to pay players without sending the staff into starvation. Today, the average head coach is making well over $1MM and assistant pay at the big schools is exploding too.
If the money somehow went away, I would be all for your idealized world. However, the money isn't going away. Players are spending 40+ hours each week on football activities during the season, which accounts for about 50% of the normal school year. The NCAA and their football requirements basically prevent them from holding part-time jobs and having internships.
These guys are asking for a stipend up to Federal Cost of Attendance, which basically amounts to subsistence living with multiple roommates, and health insurance. Given the huge amounts of money in play right now, these basic things are reasonable costs for a school to play on the biggest stage.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:15 PM ^
I have the impression that the case studies are legion. Taylor Branch wrote an Atlantic article in 2011 that contained multiple examples. Here's one:
Waldrep was paralyzed: he had lost all movement and feeling below his neck. After nine months of paying his medical bills, Texas Christian refused to pay any more, so the Waldrep family coped for years on dwindling charity.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:41 AM ^
As I am sure you're aware, the issue of players' right is not exactly new, but the NCPA has been around for a while actually and the group does indeed have some structure (I know Dennis Dodd wrote an article or two about campaigns by the players' council, for starters, and that in itself is a substantial group).
Actually, one of the more recent pushes has been to have independent concussion experts on the sideline and to get the conferences to give money to head trauma research. The Pac-12 has worked with them to a certain extent on limiting contact practices to only a couple per week.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:58 PM ^
"Clarity" is great, but this is an era where one person with an internet connection and a hosting account can accomplish a lot, especially if they are tied into a cause that resonates with a lot of people.
AFAIC, anything that brings us closer to ending sham-ateurism is a step in the right direction, and is to be applauded. And if the guy with the website makes a few bucks with adsense to compensate for his time, more power to him.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:28 AM ^
Protection against concussions?!? Health insurance!?! I don't know about you guys, but I've had it up to here with these entitled brats. Put some ice on it crybabies! The players are ruining my fantasy of college football as purity. It's not like players have gotten benefits routinely since time immemorial. Players never used to take steroids. Realignment isn't about money. I can't hear you! LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA!!!!
September 24th, 2013 at 11:33 AM ^
These are reasonable goals.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:47 AM ^
This is fantastic. Like everyone else, they deserve to get whatever they can for themselves on the open market, not what we deign to allow them to have. The only reason they have this ridiculously bad arrangement is that they have had no negotiating power and have to take whatever the other party magnanimously thinks they should have; the solution is to organize.
They should add to that list:.
- Guaranteed 5 year academic scholarship (many non-athletes need 5 years, and they don't have the demands of the football team)
- Letters of Intent guarantee them the scholarship: AFAIK, the LOIs only require the student to stop talking to other schools, but put no requirements on the school to accept them.
- The right to change schools between seasons with no restrictions. Everyone else in America can change jobs (edit: or schools) to a place that is better for them; why should the backup QB waste his very limited time in college sitting on the bench?
- No games from Thanksgiving to the bowl season, the way the Big Ten used to do it. The students should get to go home for Thanksgiving and focus on school for awhile.
Nothing would make me more proud than to see UM players take the lead on this. In fact, it's almost a little embarrassing that the leaders and best are sitting in the background.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:49 AM ^
Actually, the interview discussed that California has mandated its schools allow students to stay on scholarship in case of injury and mandated an extra year on scholarship (ie 6 years) if the school's graduation rate doesn't meet a certain threshold.
September 24th, 2013 at 11:59 AM ^
Remember, college football is for the students who are playing, not for us. If you think, 'this will ruin college football', then IMHO you are missing the point.
If the NCAA is not going to pay them and insist these are legitimate programs of academic institutions which happen to make money, and not for-profit businesses with unpaid employees, then they need to structure things with the student-athletes needs as the absolute top priority, and as the second priority make money where they can. You can see my suggestions in my earlier post.
Who determines the student-athletes needs? I'd say the student-athletes, not 40-70 year old college administators and coaches, are the best -- and only -- voice. Again, they need to organize and stand up for themselves.
September 24th, 2013 at 2:46 PM ^
College football is for the football players? What? Are movies for the actors that perform in them?
September 24th, 2013 at 3:12 PM ^
College football is for the football players? What? Are movies for the actors that perform in them?Yes, when the film is made by students as part of a film class. The University of Michigan is a school, not a business in the entertainment industry. Football is a program in the school, for the students. I happen to enjoy watching them play, but I'm just along for the ride. Also, because I haven't paid the students for their entertainment services, they owe me nothing. Start paying them and we can start complaining about the service we receive. Maybe Gardner would give me a refund for the Akron game.
September 24th, 2013 at 12:19 PM ^
bullet points 1 and 2.
3 I think has enough going on right now, I don't think it needs to be hammered further.
Bullet point 1 - Would something like 2,000 a semester really be so terrible to give to the major revenue producing athletes? If we're talking about 10,000 a year, that's a little silly, but a small stipend for groceries seems reasonable.
Let's look at a guy like Taylor Lewan. His diet requires something like 6000 calories a day.
Let's say he's taking in 2000 calories from protein, 2000 from carbs, and 2000 from fat. For convenience sake, let's say all the protein is from boneless skinless chicken breast: it's cheap, it's easy, it's healthy. That's 500 grams of protein - that's 5 pounds of chicken breasts every day. at 1.99 a pound, on sale if you're REAL lucky, that's 10 dollars a day just in chicken.
2,000 a semester would be 4,000 a year. Barely more than the 3,650 Taylor would be spending solely on chicken.
Bullet point 2 seems reasonable - and could potentially create jobs for an unemployed actuary like myself. Win win!
September 24th, 2013 at 1:20 PM ^
I'n not sure food costs is a good example for schools like Michigan. One of my daughter's worked for the food services for Oklahoma State University that served the football team and men's and women's basketball teams (lunch and dinner only--for some reason they didn't do breakfast). If the athletes wanted chicken breast, that was availabe. But other sources of protein included several beef, seafood, and pork opitions every day as well. And, of course, they could eat as much as they wanted. Given their appetites and the kind of food served, I suspect any private restaurant would be out of business failrly quickly unless they were charging $35 per person per meal. Now if they chose to live off campus where it was inconvenient to get to their cafeteria, then maybe they would have to scrape by with chicken breasts instead of crab legs and steak.
September 24th, 2013 at 2:17 PM ^
I absolutely hate the notion that these players are out there starving since they don't have enough resources to get food due to the system. If the players don't have money then thats on them. Training table and meal plan for athletes in dorms, the stipend for rent (around $1,000) given to students living off campus should provide plenty of food. My rent, including utilities, right now is under $700 a month and could be much cheaper if I didn't need to live right on campus. So they'd have $300 a month to spend on food and what have you. If that $300 isn't enough then boo hoo take out a loan like the rest of us.
As a student-athlete who has to pay dues to be on my team, provide my own equipment (bikes aren't cheap, I've spent nearly $3,000 in the last 2 years and I have lower end stuff), buy my own uniform, pay to enter every competition in which I represent the university against schools with varsity athletes, plus worry about tuition, rent, food, etc its really hard to feel bad for them. We burn over 1,000 calories a day during the week and up to 5,000 calories on our long weekend rides, so we're no strangers to having to eat a lot too.
Oh, and as of right now freshman/sophomore cost of attendance for out of state (which all athletic scholarships are billed as) is $53,490 a year. But wait, most football players take spring/summer classes too so they can take lighter loads during the season. There's another $12,777. So $66,267 in free education per year for underclassmen. Upperclassmen cost $56,328 per year plus $13,464 for spring/summer. So $69,729 for upperclassmen.
So your average 4 year football player gets $271,992 in free education. Plus plenty of tutoring resources not exactly available to the rest of us. But yeah, nope, these players get aboslutely nothing in return for playing football... Come on.
September 24th, 2013 at 3:33 PM ^
Seems like you're upset that no one wants to pay to watch you ride a bike.