On Oct. 29, the National Collegiate Athletic Association Board of Governors voted to allow players to profit from their own name, image and likeness once the three divisions can reach a decision on how exactly this will work. The NCAA suspects this could go into effect as early as 2021. At this point, I believe the NCAA Board of Governors itself was among one of the only entities in the world that believed college athletes should not be able to profit off of their own image and likeness. It is common sense, right? Every other person in the world can make money off themselves, so why would collegiate athletes not be given the same rights? This does not mean athletes will be paid millions of dollars to run events, but if an athlete runs a summer camp they should be entitled to the same couple of hundred bucks that everyone else is entitled to, given the billions of dollars the NCAA makes off the athletes’ free labor every year.
The bottom line here is good for you, NCAA. You finally did something right. This decision came way too late, and probably only came because of public pressure. But at least the NCAA made some progress. Players, many of which have been quoted complaining about a lack of time to study and a lack of money for basic needs, will finally have a chance to make some money off the field.
Any sense of good progress was stopped last week. The NCAA announced that Ohio State star defensive end Chase Young had been suspended for at least one game and as many as four games. The “crime” Young committed was borrowing money from a family friend in order to buy his girlfriend a plane ticket to the 2018 Rose Bowl, which he paid back in full. The family friend also had no affiliation with Ohio State University. To summarize, Young asked to borrow some money as a college student that could not afford a plane ticket to California and was suspended by the NCAA indefinitely. The NCAA rules committee should be focused on busting people for getting paid under the table, or other serious infractions, not busting guys like Young.
It seems at this point for every step forward the NCAA makes, it also takes two giant leaps backward. After approving players being allowed to profit from their own name and likeness, it seemed the NCAA was finally seeing the light. But after its recent decision on Young, it seems to be the same old story for the billion-dollar machine. The hypocrisy of the NCAA never ceases to amaze me.
