So this is what reparations look like. My bad. Not supposed to use that word.
Still. In the antiquated governance of college athletics, we’ve (finally) entered into the beginning of the Big Payback. Where after more than 100 years of building programs, institutions, universities and a multibillion-dollar American business model on the backs of highly gifted student-athletes, with only offering restricted, penalty-infused scholarships in return, the NCAA has decided (finally) to pay its athletes out of its own pockets, wallets, bank accounts and slush funds.
Basically un-illegalizing the corrupt system of servitude it put in place more than a century ago to make college athletics a close-to-free labor market for its ill-gotten gains. So in a ‘‘we must avoid this going to trial at all costs’’ settlement made Thursday, the NCAA not only decided to pay it forward but also to pay it back in the form of billions to the approximately 14,000 student-athletes it had ‘‘used’’ since 2016 to build its current empire.
Oh, happy day, right? Hallelujah? Thank you, Jesus? Not so fast. Before we jump to a ‘‘free at last’’ conclusion that this a sincere move on behalf of the NCAA to right the forever wrongs when it comes to wealth equity between infrastructure and laborers or that this is the NCAA’s way of avoiding losing much larger sums of money by not allowing one of the three cases at the center of it making this decision (House vs. NCAA, Hubbard vs. NCAA and Carter vs. NCAA) go to trial, this settlement is more about the NCAA regaining some (if not all or a great majority of) control it had lost and was continuing to lose in today’s new era of economics in college sports.
This is strictly about the NCAA, as one of the most powerful governing bodies in America, not allowing the current financial ecosystem to move forward without it. This, at the end of the day, is all about all the NCAA knows: power and control.
It’s very important in this moment not to look at the fact that this change of heart and direction has happened but why it has happened. And understand that this is about survival more than it is rectitude and righteousness.
Had a settlement not been reached, going to trial potentially — according to reports from Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports — could have cost the NCAA around $4.2 billion because of the triple multiplier of antitrust laws attached to the three cases and $20 billion in antitrust back-damage pay that could have bankrupted them.
This is also the NCAA creating its own constitutional amendment to regain the leverage it was continuing to lose with the openness of name, image and likeness deals and pay-to-play. About it losing legendary coaches in football and basketball to early retirement because it became too difficult for them to be successful the way they once were because they were incapable of adapting their ‘‘systems’’ to the free-market changing of the guard in college sports, which includes the transfer portal. It’s about the shift in dynamics that gave student-athletes some form of equilibrium outside of things the NCAA didn’t have its hands in; about it forging this historical pivot to make collegiate sports under its command in America great again.
What did Kendrick say: ‘‘Bear with me for a second, let me put y’all on game/The settlers was usin’ townsfolk to make ’em richer/Fast-forward, 2024.’’ Yeah, that.
This was the NCAA doing what the NCAA does. It saw power slipping away from it in a way it never expected. The game shifted right in front of it, but it didn’t feel it until it was almost too late. And earthquakes, when it came to college athletics, were always man-made. By the men who owned the land.
But back in February, when U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker granted the injunction that barred the NCAA from applying its decades-long regulations on any potential name, image and likeness deals student-athletes could make and barred it from enforcing any of its ‘‘rules of restitution,’’ it knew its power was ending. While this might be the official beginning of the end of amateur athletics at the D-I level in American sports, the NCAA had to find a way to maintain some authority over the playing field. This $2.77 billion revenue-sharing settlement is what it came up with.
Only time and future circumstance will tell how brilliant a move this is or, if once all of the legalese and terms are figured out and established, this ends up being a zero-sum concept. So far there are no concrete answers, just a conclusion. One that none of us can fall victim into thinking in principle, purpose or intent is something that it is not. One that benefits one more than the other.
The NCAA simply established a direct-deposit arrangement for its athletes. It simply minimized the middle persons without removing them, so that it can remind the boosters, the brands, the companies, the media and all adjacent resources who could invest in those athletes while they were participating in college athletics who still had command over all of this.
A very funny thing about this is how in the language used by the NCAA to define its own guiding principles, the word ‘‘fairness’’ is one of the three pillars (‘‘academic success’’ and ‘‘student-athlete well-being’’ being the other two). Fairness, the quality of making judgments that are free of discrimination; fairness, conformity with rules and standards; fairness, the act of treating people equally or in a way that’s right or reasonable. Sound like the NCAA to you?
Until you remember that reparations has nothing to do with fairness.
