Will the NBA Help Clean Up the NCAA’s Mess?
College sports (particularly football and basketball) have become a big money business in the United States. Since university athletes are amateurs, they are not able to earn money as the professionals do. This has led to a number of problems for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which oversees college sports in the United States. Scandals at NCAA school have become such a regular occurrence that some instances are reportedly being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Attracting top athletes without paying them salaries
With millions of dollars at stake in television contracts, ticket sales, and merchandising, how does a university athletic program attract the top young players in the country without being able to pay them? Here’s your scholarship, here are your Nikes or Adidas, here’s a brand new workout facility, and that’s about all we can offer you. None of those are unique since most top programs have the same things.
Former University of Louisville and Kentucky coach Rick Pitino. One of the best coaches in college basketball, but he's often followed by a trail of slime and scandal. Creative Commons via Wikimedia by Adam Glanzman.
But there are tricks to use. The shoe companies have paid assistant coaches and who knows where that money ends up? The University of Louisville’s basketball program allegedly had an assistant coach who paid for strippers and prostitutes to entertain its players and potential recruits. The University of Missouri couldn’t legally pay a top player to come to school there, so it hired his father as one of the highest paid assistant coaches in its history. Local alumni who are big fans are often called boosters; they have provided free cars, rented luxury apartments to players at below market rate, given free merchandise or free meals at local restaurants, taken them on free trips, and no doubt have been a conduit for cash payments to athletes as well.
Sources: WKYT (above) and baylorlariat.com (below).
This is not a new problem. You can go back decades. Many universities have had easy classes for athletes to take (or that they didn’t even need to attend), though authorities have cracked down on those. I have a friend who has taught at a big university and for many years there was an expectation (reinforced by administrators) that he would “go easy” on grading top athletes. Lots of people have stories about things that the most popular athletes did on their college campuses; normal students would have been disciplined, but not them. For example, at the University of Maryland before he was a high National Football League (NFL) draft pick in 1984, star quarterback Boomer Esiason was known to drive his truck on sidewalks and across lawns on campus, parking right in front of his classes or anywhere he wanted. He had a free pass so no one bothered him.
The Age Limit, One and Done Schools, and G-League Development
But the issue has become more acute as the money in college sports has increased. The stakes are higher. Every win brings you closer to a championship, but buying a sandwich for the wrong person can bring you NCAA penalties for “recruiting violations”. Since the NBA has a minimum age limit of 19, some athletes attend college for one or two years before declaring themselves eligible for the NBA Draft. This has led to some university programs as being known as “one and done” programs which recruit the top athletes and design their programs around their short expected durations on campus (there is no illusion they are there for an education).
NBA teams are using their own G-League teams (formerly D-League but now G- due to a sponsorship from Gatorade) for player development rather than merely for backup roster depth. In that way, it is becoming slightly more like Major League Baseball (MLB). College has never been an expectation for baseball, which has an extensive minor league player development system.
The D-League became the G-League after a sponsorship from Gatorade.
However, some NBA teams still do not have G-league teams of their own and the system should be much better developed if the NCAA is not getting the job done as a training ground. Perhaps there can be roles for both.
In truth, it’s hard to know if the lines make sense anymore between amateur and professional. In American football, colleges are used as training grounds for pro athletes. It is expected that most players will attend universities and their playing experience there will help develop their skills so that the cream of the crop will be ready for the NFL. In basketball, the expectation of everyone attending college no longer exists; some high school players (notably LeBron James) went directly to pro without attending college.
LeBron James as the nation's most promising high school athlete. Sports Illustrated cover.
Professional teams and sports agents can get into trouble for having contacts with players too early. The University of Southern California (USC) found that out again the hard way when the news broke that a sports agency had made payments to some USC athletes and/or their parents and/or their advisors (in basketball this time, after the school thought it finally had cleared its myriad football violations from years past). The payments were a paltry $2,000, but that’s as illegal as $2 million. As columnist Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times rightly articulated:
The most corrupt party in this deal is clearly an NCAA cartel that lines its pockets with little regard for the financial welfare of its athletes…Considering the billions of dollars that NCAA basketball players bring their schools, they should be paid at least $2,000 a month to supplement their scholarships. This entire FBI investigation, which could bring down celebrated coaches and players across the country, is silly.
I agree with him on all of that except for the last part. The FBI investigation could have some silver lining if it forces any resolution of the key problems. But I’d give the NBA a better chance of leading the NCAA out of its mess.
NBA to the rescue?
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Creative Commons via Wikipedia by Keith Allison.
Adam Silver, commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), seems to recognize that the current system is too rigid to survive. He’s also wary of losing an opportunity to foreign pro basketball leagues (from Australia to Lithuania), which can provide promising young U.S. players with income to play until they are old enough to be drafted by the NBA. Why can’t the NBA do the same?
According to ESPN and other sports media, it sounds like the NBA and NCAA have begun that discussion. This discussion is the most positive step forward for the NCAA in years. Let’s hope they create some flexibility on the age limit and allow athletes more mobility between amateur and pro sports (and, if needed, back again). Universities can be great places for young people to get solid educations and develop athletic skills, but even as the sports market has continued to grow, the NCAA has strangled any innovation with its greed and rigidity.
The Ball brothers have been playing in Lithuania, which in a sense robs the NCAA and NBA of the opportunity to feature their skills. Source: SBNation.
I hope the NBA’s foray into this issue prompts the NCAA to tackle its problem more comprehensively. Letting players move more interchangeably between NCAA college teams and the NBA’s G-league teams would be a great start. And if the age limit is an impediment, then they should consider whether setting that at 19 makes any sense. The NFL should follow the NBA’s lead in creating a more practical partnership also.
So many acronyms! If the NBA, NCAA, NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, any other pro sports, and the FBI ever get together for a joint meeting, they can call it the Alphabet Soup Summit and get the entity formerly known as Google to sponsor it. Or maybe Campbell’s Soup would pay them to call it the C-Summit or Soup Summit instead.
Alphabet Soup. Source: Creative Commons via Flickr.com by Mealmakeovermoms.
Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/usc/la-sp-basketball-scandal-plaschke-20180223-story.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/nba/index.ssf/2018/03/nba_stepping_in_ncaa_basketbal.html
Top image: NCAA.com
Great piece @donkeypong. I actually wrote a piece about the NBA's announcement earlier in the week about changing up the "one-and-done" rule. I completely agree that the NBA likely has more power over youth basketball players than the NCAA and that some change needs to be made.
I think it needs to change in a few different ways. First, the NBA has to reduce the age minimum to enter the NBA draft to 18, or have graduated from high school after four years. This will allow the LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett level players to enter the league immediately, but will also give other guys the ability to get drafted young and be developed by NBA level coaching in the G-League. Next, the NBA has to increase the funding for the G-League. As of right now, the G-League players are barely making a living wage and that has to change if the NBA wants to be able to keep talent in the US from going to foreign pro leagues. Lastly, the NBA needs to enact a rule that if a player decides to go to college, they cannot leave for the NBA until they have been in college two full years. It works well for baseball and would work nicely for basketball as well.
If the NBA goes with those changes, it will solve multiple issues and will hopefully clean up the NCAA at least a little bit.
Very good post. Upvoted and commented. I think we're on the same page that some changes are needed and the age limit is a great place to start.
Thanks @donkeypong. Changes are definitely needed and it has to come from the NBA or the NCAA won't do anything.
Nice work, but when you add up all the Schools sports teams apparel, ticket sales, tv deals, concession, parking passes, for all the sports in college america are in the High billions, heck Education spending is almost a trillion. So much money, it is too tempting for people.
I guess 'millions' is too conservative...
Personally, I think that although this system has its flaws is still more efficient than other countries, the NBA is the basketball league with more level in the world, the same happens with the MLB. Here in Venezuela we do not see the basketball or baseball of other countries, only the American, because they are indeed the most competitive and best developed leagues. So our teenagers try hard to reach them.
They do create a very entertaining product.
No doubt!...:)...
The basketball and baseball is a very exciting and entertaining event
There's no system without flaws, so basketball and baseball in the USA isn't an exception but then there's a lot of competition in the system.
The NBA was built on top of some capitalism: generally speaking, statistically speaking, competition entertains more than anything else: it rises and rises, more and more over time.
I believe this is totally wrong and unacceptable and I wonder what the school authority dis to that coach. How would you hire stripers for minors. He needed to be arrested for that.
Sorry to diviate a bit but honestly this man looks very much like Sylvester Stallone
Maybe they SHOULD care – as "caretakers" of the sport – but the league simply cares about the quality and the profitability of the league.
You can pull all the statistics you want about the viability of prep-to-pro, look at all the anecdotal information, but the pros want to minimize risk when selecting players, and the best way to do that is to delay the age as much as possible. The more information they have – the less exposure. Wherever athletes go after high school – be it NCAA, developmental league, or abroad – the NBA intent is clear: add as many years as possible after age 18 so that the players can get seasoning/experience, and the NBA scouts can gather information.
Corruption in the NCAA? The NBA doesn’t care. And here’s the easiest telltale sign – when was the last time the NBA punished a player for NCAA violations?
As another poster pointed out, when you have an industry generating so much money based on the efforts of players who are penniless, corruption is inevitable. Paying the players isn’t foolproof – you’re simply raising the thresholds.
Good luck, NCAA.
Yes, but at some point, the consumers and advertisers speak out and tell them they need to pay the players. As for the NBA, I think it's in their self-interest also to create a more efficient and effective college system that feeds into the NBA's own player development.
@dokeypong, That would be excellent sport league post. I think have some errors with every USA league sports, But NBA is top classy level basketball league. I've heard before and will better effective in future.The NFL season began Thursday night after narrowly averting labor disaster. The NBA is mired in a lockout. Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement ends in December followed by the NHL next summer. And the NBA is on the clock. The start of the upcoming season will be in jeopardy if the league doesn’t reach a labor deal soon.
Offcourse it’s an issue to be solved not only there in USA but we here face the same problems, athletes are given promises by the university or colleges and they don’t keep there promises to that extend. Basketball and soccer if we know about both of the games is because they are the most famous games in USA, if they are not taking proper measurements for there athletes then where the hell would they go, they try hard to make good position in there teams, to make it to the professional teams but unfortunately because of the lake of promises been kept from management sides there hard work go in vain.. cricket is mostly played in our country and players face exactly the same problems, authorities say we’ll provide you with this and that but at the end there is no such thing.. shame on all of them.. thanks for sharing your views on this @donkeypong, literally i feel the same
Very interesting post on sports in America where basketball and others game are very famous and earning like insane at the same time violating the ethics and taking away the rights and opportunities of getting education from thise players who doesn't event complete school or college...Money has corrupted sports and people and brands are playing very good trick by just sponsoring to get more advertise of their brand to be become more sellable in the market..The big benefits goes to brand and owner but not to players and they are bring being fooled.
I hope things will change in sports in America and have proper management and rules @donkeypong
Yes and the universities have become complicit in terms of making a lot of money without their amateur athletes being paid at all. It seems very greedy at the moment.
I still assume the NBA do one of one factor if they want to free themselves from any mess university sports may also make for them:
Yes, they'll probably find some middle ground like that. Hopefully, they strike a better balance and try to help everyone.
Any NBA fan who believes the league needs to rescue elite basketball prospects from the corrupt NCAA should, at the very least, acknowledge that the NBA is a major reason the NCAA is so mired in scandal.
If the NBA intends to solve the problem, it ought to at least be willing to name it. Silver’s initial foray into the quagmire — and the league’s lack of action to this point — is not encouraging.
This problem isn’t going to be solved by a new NBA summer camp for elite prospects, or two-way G League contracts for 18-year-olds. It’s going to require big, bold reforms from the NBA, the NCAA, or both. That should almost certainly include a repeal of the NBA age minimum. And really, given the age minimum is the biggest cause behind the current mess, rescinding it should be the starting point for the NBA’s plan of action.
It's a start. Hopefully, it leads them to create something more workable overall.