David Michael Miller
In an interview last week UW Chancellor Rebecca Blank said two noteworthy things about college football.
First, she said that she wished there could be a cap on the salaries of college football coaches. And second, she admitted that that would require a legal exemption to federal antitrust law that just wasn’t going to happen in the current environment.
While she may not have intended it this way, the two statements combined argue for paying college football players in the 60 or so biggest programs, including the UW.
Blank was quoted as saying, "Coaches are being paid, especially in a couple of big sports, increasingly like professional leagues. It immediately raises the question of, 'Why aren't your athletes being paid similarly?'”
She went on to say, "If I could redo this, I would try to get some sort of antitrust exemption here and say, 'We run a college sports program — and college sports programs are different. And we do have the right to cap salaries, given the salary levels that exist elsewhere around the university.'
By admitting that it would take an exception to antitrust law in order to limit coaches’ salaries, Blank was also implying that it would take an exception to limit what the players could earn as well. And, so without an exception in place, the current cartel situation in which the compensation of college players is strictly limited must be an antitrust violation. This is pretty much the case being made right now by one of the nation’s top antitrust lawyers, Jeffrey Kessler, on behalf of college football players.
The second part of Blank’s statement is equally interesting. By admitting the reality that it’s just not politically possible to limit the compensation of popular coaches, she makes a good case for paying the players what they’re actually worth. Instead, players are limited now to relatively small scholarships that are worthless for many players who don’t get degrees. A fair system would pay the players just as their coaches are compensated — in cash that they are free to use for tuition or anything else they wanted. The amount would be determined by the free market, just as it is now for coaches.
If we can’t limit the millions that coaches make, how can it be just and equitable to limit what players can get? Shouldn’t players get a much larger share of the millions they produce — at great risk to their personal health — for their schools and for the NCAA? How can the current system possibly be thought of as fair or fitting for a great university?
The obvious reality to anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in the current system is that college football players who play for schools in the “power five” conferences are professional athletes. They’re playing in front of huge paying crowds both in the stadiums and on television. Their images are used to sell products that richly benefit their schools as well as billion-dollar apparel companies. And the football programs they participate in are part of minor league player development leagues for the NFL.
The great University of Wisconsin is about “sifting and winnowing” to find the truth. The truth with regard to the young men who play football for the UW is as plain as can be: They are professionals who produce millions for their school, and yet they don’t receive anything close to the level of compensation that their work justifies.
Maybe Chancellor Blank just stumbled on that truth, or maybe her comments were a clever precursor to a move toward justice. It would be great if she would join the Kessler case with a friend of the court brief. But one way or another it would be a wonderful thing if my alma mater led the way toward fairness and a recognition of reality by supporting efforts to pay the players what they’re due. It would be in the best tradition of this university.
