Storm clouds are thickening over College Sports World.
Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, predicts that Division II and Division III intercollegiate programs will become club sports if current pay-for-play practices continue. A so-called donor collective is paying a Michigan State athlete $750,000. University of Utah scholarship football players are driving $61,000 trucks. Men’s basketball players at Dartmouth want to unionize. Conference alignments have shifted without regard to tradition and common sense.
When the skies finally clear, will we recognize the landscape? What’s more important, will America care?
Baker, the former Massachusetts governor, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington last week. The committee is looking into the name-image-likeness (NIL) conundrum that has roiled college sports for two years, after a 2021 Supreme Court decision effectively eroded years of resistance by the NCAA, which had restricted athletes from getting paid for the use of their names, images and likenesses. Athletes can now receive compensation ranging from a few dollars to six figures depending on their popularity.
In addition, those so-called donor collectives are raising money from alumni and boosters and directing those funds to athletes without oversight from any authority. The New York Times reported in a front-page story Oct. 22 that pay for play under the guise of NIL is becoming the norm in the Power Five conferences — Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast, Pac-12 and the Southeastern Conference.
The average starter at a major college football program is making about $103,000 a year, the Times reported citing Opendorse, a company that processes payments from collectives to players. Every football player at Texas Tech receives at least $25,000 from the Matador Club collective. Ohio State athletes are getting cars as well as cash.
Long gone are the days when tuition, room and board were sufficient inducement for a high-school athlete. Now, financial compensation is a critical factor. Even Division I athletes at universities outside the top tier Power Five conferences — like the University of Rhode Island, Bryant University and Providence College — are benefiting from collectives.
Evidently Baker does not see athletics teams from smaller colleges surviving in that climate.
“I think it’s pretty clear that Division 2 and Division 3 schools would get out of the interscholastic collegiate sports business and turn themselves into club sports,” he told the senators.
Club sports? Like basketball players appealing for funding from the student activities office? Or football players staging fundraisers to pay for a road trip? Is Charlie serious?
I wanted to know how the athletics directors of the four Division III colleges in Rhode Island and South Coast Massachusetts felt about Baker’s comments. Last week I called and left messages. Don Tencher at Rhode Island College and Sean Sullivan at Salve Regina University did not respond. Dana Garfield at Johnson & Wales University and Lori Hendricks at UMass Dartmouth, through their spokeswomen, declined to comment.
But in Waterville, Maine, about 230 miles northeast of Providence, the athletics director at Colby College expressed concern.
“There’s a significant amount of uncertainty in NCAA sports. I think what he said could be possible,” Mike Wisecup told me.
Possible? Sure. Probable? I’m not so sure. Take Colby. (Full disclosure: I am a Colby baseball alum from the days when grass was grass, not turf, and bats were wood.) The college announced last weekend that it had reached its $750 million Dare Northward capital campaign goal and was extending it to $1 billion. A key component of that campaign was improved athletics and recreation facilities, including new turf complexes for baseball and softball, new fields for soccer, lacrosse and field hockey, and a $250 million athletics and recreation center that is home to varsity basketball, ice hockey, swimming and diving, track, and squash. Students as well as athletes have access to those facilities plus a 10,000-square foot fitness center and a climbing wall.
Colby did not make that investment to be known for its club sports. Varsity excellence in Maine, in the New England Small College Athletic Conference — perhaps the most competitive Division III conference in the nation — and in the U.S. was the goal. Results are encouraging. Last year Colby produced 19 All-Americas, 43 Al-NESCACs and 12 NCAA Tournament teams. Colby finished 59th in the ranking of 440 DIII programs, up from 169th in 2020.
What happens to Division I football will not have an immediate impact on Division III for this significant reason: Revenue from men’s Division I basketball supports Division III athletics, roughly $35 million per year through 2032, according to terms of the eight-year contract extension between the NCAA and CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting System Inc.
Of that total, 75% — about $26.2 million — supports 28 DIII national championships. The remainder goes toward “nonchampionship programming, educational resources and initiatives,” according to the NCAA. The NCAA receives no money from the college football playoff or bowl games.
Keep in mind, just 5% of colleges turn a profit on sports, Baker testified. Most of that profit is from lucrative television deals for football.
“We make no revenue off of our teams in any way, shape or form,” Wisecup said with a chuckle. Rest assured, NESCAC football players are not driving $60,000 trucks or collecting $100,000 from donor collectives.
Still, he worries.
“Once precedent gets set and is defended in court and people interpret the law, then the effect cascades down,” he said.
A clever lawyer might argue that because DIII athletes wear their school’s uniform, represent the school, are partly responsible for their school’s ranking and are an extension of the school’s brand, they should be considered employees, he added.
The NCAA has struggled for years to deal with the issue of pay-for-play. Now its president, Baker, is handing the ball to Congress for a resolution. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy urged him to be careful about involving Congress.
Do Americans really care about college football players receiving six-figure incomes or the keys to a $60,000 truck? Apparently not. The respected Pew Research Center reported last week that 62% of Americans follow professional or college sports “not too or not at all closely.” Another 21% follow sports “somewhat closely.”
Think about those numbers. Slightly more than eight of 10 Americans are not sports fans or are casual fans at best. Answering another question, nine of every 10 Americans said they talk sports once a week or a few times a month, Pew reported.
Researchers surveyed 11,945 American adults. If they reflect the national attitude toward sports, then all this anxiety over pay-for-play may not be worth the mental energy, or the Senate’s time.
Special recognition for former Brown QB Dennis Coleman
Let’s close this piece on an upbeat note. Fifty years ago, Dennis Coleman of Brown and Marty Vaughn of Penn made college football history. On Oct. 6, 1973, at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, they became the first African-American quarterbacks to start against each other in a Division I football game. Penn prevailed, 28-20.
Coleman was the runner in coach John Anderson’s tandem quarterback system. Pete Beatrice was the passer. The Bears finished 4-3-1 that season, their best finish since 1964.
Coleman, a longtime East Greenwich resident and prominent sports lawyer for the Boston firm Ropes & Gray, and Vaughn, a successful business executive, will be recognized at the Brown-Penn game Friday night in Philadelphia. The Ivy League recognized them last winter.
Mike Szostak can be reached at mszostak@thepublicsradio.org.
