Since the beginning of college sports, the athletes competing have been considered to be amateurs, meaning that they are unpaid. On top of this, the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) has set rules that prohibits the athletes to make money off of their name, image, or likeness. Meaning that these athletes can not make money off their talents outside of their scholarship money. In recent times, both of these issues are being questioned as to whether or not they should apply to today. Like I have mentioned in previous posts, back in October of 2019, the NCAA voted unanimously to allow college athletes to be compensated for their names, images, and likenesses. California governor Gavin Newson also signed a bill that would allow college athletes within the state to get paid for endorsement deals and hire sports agents.
The NCAA is responsible for 1,113 schools and over 460,000 athletes. This includes athletes of both genders that are playing for schools both small and large. This brings up the question, “Should there be some kind of equality regarding gender and school size if college athletes were allowed to make money or be paid?”
On June 23, 1972, a civil rights law named Title IX was put into effect. Title IX states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Title IX was developed to ensure equal opportunities for both male and female athletes. It is basically saying that the same number of opportunities will be given to both male and female athletes. Before Title IX there was a very big discrepancy in the number of opportunities for male athletes compared to those available to female athletes. This was enacted because at the time female athletes had far less opportunities compared to males. Furthermore, there were limited numbers of scholarships offered to women to play college sports when compared to male athlete scholarships. As a result of this, there were only 30,000 women playing sports compared to 170,000 men. This was created to help even out those imbalances.
An example of how Title IX works can be seen between the baseball and softball programs here at UC Davis. This past fall, the baseball program finished construction of a new covered batting cage. To meet all the requirements of Title IX in building the cages, the baseball team had to make the cages available to the softball team a certain number of hours, to ensure equal opportunity. There have also been numerous cases where universities have been sued for allegedly discriminating against women’s sports and not having the same number of equal opportunities as the men.
The Title IX regulations have put a fear in college athletic programs. Often times I think it has caused the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction instead of just providing equal opportunities for both male and female athletes. Why is this issue even brought up when it comes to paying college athletes? The fear is that it could somehow violate the equality of benefits for male and female athletes. If pay was based solely on an athlete’s image and ability, the male athlete might very well be given many more opportunities than a female athlete based on the college sports that bring in the most money and media attention. Would this all fall into a violation of Title IX somehow? In a graph provided by an article in Business Insider, it lists how much each collegiate sport makes in revenue on average. Four out of the top five are male sports and the last four sports listed are female. If college athletes were able to profit off of themselves, obviously the athletes playing the sports that are more popular and bring in the most money would be given more opportunities to profit. Based off of this graph, this would cause the gender factor to heavily favor the male athlete. Would these athletes be restricted on how much they could make due to Title IX violations? Why does this even matter? It all goes back to the current debate surrounding the issue of paying college athletes are not. How will they make a decision that is fair and equitable for males and females, small schools and large schools? The decision, whatever it may be, will affect all college students in some capacity.
Work Cited
Berri, David J. “Paying NCAA Athletes.” Marquette Sports Law Review, vol. 26, no. 2, Spring 2016, p. 479-492. HeinOnline, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/mqslr26&i=511.
STAUROWSKY, ELLEN J. “College Athletes as Employees and the Politics of Title IX.” Sport and the Neoliberal University: Profit, Politics, and Pedagogy, edited by RYAN KING-WHITE, Rutgers University Press, NEW BRUNSWICK, CAMDEN, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY; LONDON, 2018, pp. 97–128. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2050wq3.8. Accessed 4 Mar. 2020.
“Title IX Enacted.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 16 Nov. 2009, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/title-ix-enacted.
“Title IX.” Know Your IX, http://www.knowyourix.org/college-resources/title-ix/.
