Wilson: Some student-athletes deserve compensation

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is one of the most exciting sporting events of the year.

It’s also the time when the injustice of Division I sports becomes most evident.

During March Madness, nationally broadcast games take place in sold-out arenas and football stadiums with millions of people watching every moment on television. Yet the players responsible for all of the action and excitement receive none of the ticket or television revenue, which Time Warner Cable and CBS paid around $771 million per year for in 2010 when CBS extended the NCAA men’s tournament’s broadcasting rights for 14 years, beginning with the 2011 tournament.

Such ridiculousness might cease to exist soon because of the federal court case former UCLA player Ed O’Bannon brought against the NCAA three years ago, which has continued to gain steam. In 2010, O’Bannon moved to expand the suit’s realm to all active Division I athletes. And two months ago, a judge ruled that O’Bannon and the others wronged by the NCAA — including NBA Hall of Famers Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson but in reality, a majority of all Division I athletes ever — could go after some of the money generated from their games broadcasted on TV.

O’Bannon requests that money generated by TV get split evenly between the athletes and the NCAA and that one-third of video game revenue go to the athletes, meaning a majority of the profits still stay with the NCAA. But NCAA President Mark Emmert, who makes more than $1 million a year, and his underlings still fight this proposal. U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins is currently reviewing the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Current college players are aware of how the system uses them.

Mercurial junior Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson addressed as much in the lead up to his team’s first tournament contest against Wisconsin.

“I’m trying to get paid here soon because I’m tired of doing all this stuff for free. And this is where you make your money, the NCAA tournament,” Henderson said.

He’s right in two ways: Players improve their pro prospects by playing well against top opposition, and the NCAA makes money off its crown jewel regardless.

Indirectly, the latter is how O’Bannon got the idea to sue the NCAA in the first place. In 2006, he saw that a video game featured the 1995 UCLA team he won the national championship with.

O’Bannon wants players to receive royalties from video game and TV appearances in which they, their image or their likeness are used. EA Sports’ NCAA basketball video game series was discontinued in February 2010 not long after O’Bannon took the NCAA to court.

Coincidence? Probably not.

Because of the NCAA’s rules prohibiting student-athletes from earning money from their sports, some basketball players have bypassed college since the NBA implemented the 2006 one-and-done rule, which requires players to be 19 years old and at least a year removed from high school to enter its ranks. Current NBA player Brandon Jennings spent a year playing professionally in Italy and high schooler Aquille Carr, who originally signed to play for Seton Hall, plans to play overseas instead.

But not all current high-level college athletes are good enough to go pro, and that shouldn’t rob them of their right to receive compensation for the service they provide.

Former Lehigh player Gabe Knutson, who helped his team upset second-seeded Duke in last year’s NCAA tournament, tweeted at Jay Bilas, a former basketball player at Duke and current analyst at ESPN, last Monday asking for a free copy of Bilas’ book “Toughness.” If Knutson didn’t pay for the book while still a student-athlete, he probably would’ve gotten in trouble courtesy of the NCAA and its often-arbitrary rules.

“Now that the NCAA no longer owns me, can I get a free copy of #toughness?” Knutson asked Bilas. “Big men gotta stick together haha.”

Statistics show that college athletes in the two most profitable sports — football and men’s basketball — can be worth millions of dollars.

According to a recent academic study, the average Division I men’s basketball player has a fair-market value of roughly $1.06 million over the four years he plays, not including the full scholarship. That figure increases at Bowl Championship Series schools such as Pitt to $1.5 million.

According to Michael McCann, a legal analyst and sports law writer for Sports Illustrated and director of the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for Sports and Entertainment Law, O’Bannon isn’t proposing that athletes receive compensation while they are in school, but that money should become available to them in a sort of trust upon leaving school.

This way, the sacred status of the student-athlete wouldn’t be compromised should O’Bannon win his lawsuit.

As it stands, when athletes sign up to play NCAA sports, they sign a waiver that keeps them from making money the next four years from their achievements, allowing others to reap the benefits.

“For lack of a better term, you are signing your life away,” O’Bannon said in a recent New Jersey Star-Ledger column. “They get all the revenue, and you can’t even get a job on campus to pay your expenses.”

“A 17-year-old kid doesn’t know what he’s doing, and to sign something of that magnitude without legal representation is manipulation the second you’re handed the pen,” O’Bannon added. “When you sign a letter of intent, you just want to play ball — that’s where my mindset was.”

The trial begins July 9 of next year. Until then, let the NCAA enjoy its silly commercials and catchphrases as the time approaches when its foundation, built on hypocrisy, will crumble.

Write Jasper at jasperwilson@hotmail.com.