Today's guest columnists are professors and authors Nathan Kalman Lamb and Derek Silva.
Morally indefensible.
That's the premise of our upcoming book The End of College Football: The Human Cost of the National Gamebased on lengthy interviews conducted with 25 former big-time college athletes (mostly from the Power Five who have now transitioned to the Power Four without the Pac-12).
While we sympathize with the fact that this sport is beloved for many things, from its brilliant and quirky traditions to its deep cultural significance in many parts of the United States, we believe that the sport is loved by fans. The exploitation and harm they cause far outweighs the pleasure they bring to participants. It defines its practice.
Let's start with the basics. Famously, college football is one of the most egregious sites of economic exploitation in American society today. Despite recent moral panic about how name, image, and likeness (NIL) liberalization is ruining sports, 42 athletic departments expect to generate more than $100 million in revenue in 2021-2022. Despite the increases, the fact remains that universities continue to not directly compensate campus athletic workers. We are responsible for creating that value.
Instead, the revenue generated by players is funneled into the hands of official athletic department officials, with 36 head football coaches making more than $5 million a year, 66 assistants making more than $1 million, and 51 athletic directors making $700,000 a year. In addition to the above, 21 people will receive it. Strength coaches receive more than $500,000. In fact, at Ohio State University, he has an astonishing 2,158 athletic department employees. None of them are soccer players. The athletes we spoke to were acutely aware of this fact and deeply resented it.
The dynamics of this system are further exacerbated by racial inequality. A disproportionate number of college football players are people of color, especially Black people, including his 55.7% of players from Power Five schools. But in 2019-2020, only 5.7% of students at these schools were black. This is important not only because of how much money these players make, but also because of who receives the profits.
Ted Tatos and Hal Singer estimate that black football and men's basketball players lose $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion annually in racial wealth transfers to white coaches, administrators, and athletic officials. But black football players who attend predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and are victims of this egregious wage theft also say they have to endure constant microaggressions from other students and faculty who suggest they don't deserve to be there. These sacred academic spaces are a horrifying example of adding insult to injury.
In fact, academic achievement is an issue that usually doesn't get enough discussion in conversations about exploitation and harm in college football. According to the logic of the NCAA system, education is, in a very direct sense, a reward for athletes, a wage provided in the form of scholarships. Nevertheless, our interviews revealed that the education that athletes receive is the poorest replica of the educational experience enjoyed by their non-sporting peers.
Academic clustering (driving athletes into “easier” non-STEM classes), time-of-day practice schedules that limit class choices, weekday travel for games, and summer training that prevents the possibility of international travel or internships. Universal policies such as this mean that the academic experience of college football “student” athletes is shaped and limited by the obligations of the sport. And that doesn't take into account the harsh reality that a 40-hour work week in football creates such fatigue that it becomes almost physically impossible to concentrate in the classroom. So while athletes may receive “rewards” in the form of scholarships, the educational experience they receive bears no resemblance to what the university is accredited to offer.
We now arrive at perhaps the most important moral argument against college football. It is the fact that this sport must literally be understood as a form of human sacrifice. For every 2.6 years he plays soccer, he doubles his chances of contracting CTE, a devastating neurological condition. The game, as it is currently structured, does not allow its participants to escape harm.
The players we spoke to described the horrors of enduring physical violence, including head injuries and other physical harm, while playing college football. The harm is often compounded by coaches requiring them to play through pain and conflicts of interest, which prevents medical personnel from providing proper care. Universities, as institutions dedicated to the education and development of the young people they serve, simply cannot knowingly expose them to this level of harm. It is fundamentally at odds with the mission of higher education.
But the players signed it, right?
Based on conversations with players, we argue that this common sense assumption ignores the harsh reality of what we and others call structural coercion. This is a system of racial capitalism that creates structural barriers to access to higher education and class mobility for too many people, especially Americans. color. Thus, college football is simultaneously rational as a potential means of improving opportunity and life chances in a society that is irrationally lacking in such means. and A forced (constrained) choice.
So what should you do? We offer two answers.
In the short term, we believe unionization and collective bargaining are the best options, and we have some optimism about Dartmouth men's basketball's recent efforts. If college football players are going to have to continue to make great sacrifices for their college athletic departments, they should at least have the right to negotiate their terms.
However, that is just a mitigation measure. In a real sense, we have a moral obligation to end the damage college football has done. Such an outcome requires tangible compensation for all those who have given so much to the sport so that many of us can experience the financial and emotional benefits. We also need to build a better society with true racial equality, universal access to higher education and health care, and more opportunity for all.
A society where soccer is not needed at all.
Nathan Kalman Lamb is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick. Derek Silva is an associate professor of sociology and criminology at King's University College, Western University. They are co-hosts (with Joanna Melis). the end of sports The podcast and its co-authors The end of college football: The human cost of a national game.
