If you don’t have money on the game, maybe the 3-point shot has made basketball boring. Maybe the league should move the 3-point line back a few feet. A Vox video by Edward Vega.
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The Supreme Court will begin hearing cases again on October 4th, the first Monday in October, while 2021 NCAA fall sports seasons are well under way. A spring SCOTUS opinion by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh suggests the court and the “amateur sports” monopoly may have a showdown before June.
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.”
More:
How US college sport became an $8bn inequity racket. And why it may fall,” Bryan Armen Graham, The Guardian
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The college basketball finals are about to decide the new championship team. Each year the 32 Division I conferences are paid millions by the NCAA based on what teams get into the “March Madness” tournament and how far they advance. Last year’s payout was $216 million. The 2018 tournament television and marketing rights brought in $844.3 million, mostly from TV contracts with CBS and Turner Sports. The TV deal grows annually, and will pull in $8.8 billion in 2024.
The league makes millions. Colleges make millions. Coaches make millions. Players make nothing. For decades, universities have claimed that not paying their ballplayers preserved their “student-athlete” purity, something more difficult to rationalize when their hoopsters drop out, leave for the NBA after a year or graduate despite illiteracy.
More recently, the NCAA justified this situation by citing a clause of the 13th Amendment that allows unpaid prison labor. This jaw-dropping argument is compounded when you realize that the purpose of the 13th Amendment was the abolition of slavery in the United States, and Division 1 college athletes are overwhelmingly African American.
The chorus to reform the obvious economic inequity has been joined by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), whose office has issued a report on the unjust situation. Maybe colleges will end the scholar-athelete sham and get out of bigtime sports altogether, letting the pros run their own development leagues. The NBA has already started their G League as a new entry ramp to the pros.
If you’re horrified that the future of college basketball will be decided by lawyers, know this: lawyers patented basketballs and hoops back in the last century.
More:
“College basketball’s murky swamp of misbehavior,” George F. Will, Washington Post
Related:
“How Classifying Athletes as Employees Can Save Colleges Money,” Derek Helling, OZY
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It’s almost March, when America’s thoughts turn to college basketball. NCAA March Madness alone earns $900 million for the NCAA, and big university athletic programs and their coaches reap lucrative rewards from sports, but collegiate basketball and football players are unpaid, being considered “student athletes.” In answer to a pending lawsuit, the NCAA justifies this situation by citing the clause of the 13th Amendment that allows unpaid prison labor. This jaw-dropping argument is compounded by the fact that the purpose of the 13th Amendment was the abolition of slavery in the United States, and Division 1 college athletes are overwhelmingly African American.
The suit against the NCAA was brought by former Villanova receiver Lawrence “Poppy” Livers on behalf of all athletic scholarship players, who are required to play in sports by the terms of their agreements. A previous suit failed because it also included “walk-on” players without such binding scholarship agreements. Livers vs. NCAA claims sports scholarship athletes, like students in work-study programs, should be considered university employees and compensated.
More:
“The NCAA Says Student-Athletes Shouldn’t Be Paid Because the 13th Amendment Allows Unpaid Prison Labor,” Shaun King, The Intercept
Related:
“Four Years A Student-Athlete: The Racial Injustice of Big-Time College Sports,” Patrick Hruby, VICE sports
“Your March Madness Bracket Is Exploiting Student-Athletes,” Dave Zirin, The Nation
“When will NCAA be done exploiting athletes?” Editorial Board, Charlotte Observer
“The NCAA Must Change the Rules in Order to Solve College Basketball’s Existential Crisis,” Andy Staples, Sports Illustrated
“Let High School Players Go Straight to the NBA Again,” Sean Cunningham, RealClearLife
“The NCAA,” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, 2015 (20:53)
“What Would Happen if the Players Ran College Basketball?” Ray Glier, Ozy
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After an Associated Press analysis projected that North Carolina’s HB2 “bathroom bill” limiting LGBT protections will cost the state more than $3.76 billion in lost business, the state’s Republican legislature voted to repeal HB2 but puts state legislators in charge of public restrooms. The new measure, HB142, forbids local governments from passing nondiscrimination ordinances covering sexual orientation and gender identity until the end of 2020. “It’s not a perfect deal, but it repeals House Bill 2 and begins to repair our reputation,” said Governor Roy Cooper, who signed the bill on Thursday.
Why the rush to yesterday’s sloppy compromise? The NCAA set a Thursday deadline for HB2 repeal; without that, the state would lose hosting rights at all NCAA tournaments through 2022. The ultimatum is convincing, since North Carolina lost the league’s March Madness tournament games this year due to the discriminatory law. NCAA is reviewing the new law to see if it passes muster.
HB 142 apparently doesn’t repeal HB2’s other repressive elements, which bar Tarheel State cities and counties from adopting minimum wages above the $7.25 level, except for government employees (must be a lot of cousins on those county payrolls). The law also limits how people pursue claims of discrimination in state courts, forcing these matters into the federal court system. There’s a lot of things in the new bathroom bill that still doesn’t smell right.
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North Carolina’s “Bathroom Bill” has cost it two rounds of 2017’s “March Madness” Division I men’s college basketball tournament games. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has relocated those games and six other championship events out of the state due to the North Carolina state law known as HB2, which requires people to use public bathrooms based on their sex as designated on their birth certificates. The law, which also nullifies local laws protecting the civil rights of LGBT citizens, had already lost Charlotte the NBA All Star Game and millions of tourist dollars. The NCAA decision is arguably a bigger blow to the Tarheel State, where college basketball has deep roots and a wide following, and Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are legendary contenders. This won’t help North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory’s reelection bid, either.
Here are the NCAA championships North Carolina is losing to bigotry:
More:
“NCAA Moves Championship Events From North Carolina, Citing Anti-Gay-Rights Law,” Marc Tracy and Alan Blinder, New York Times
“NCAA had enough of NC inaction on HB2,” Luke DeCock, Charlotte Observer
Related:
“North Carolina’s HB2 Is Not Just a ‘Bathroom Bill,'” NotionsCapital
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The editors of Foreign Policy magazine have prepared their brackets for the annual “Democrats vs. Dictators” March Madness series. Like every season, anything can happen. Just remember those big upsets in last year’s “Arab Spring” round.
“Democrats vs. Dictators: 2012,” Foreign Policy blog
Related:
U.S. Patent No. 6,092,806, “100 Point NCAA Basketball Tournament Prediction Game” (1998).
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Is it madness to expect 40 percent of college athletes to graduate? The way NCAA basketball coaches responded to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, you would think so. Mr. Duncan proposed that schools with 60 percent drop-out rates be banned from the “March Madness” of the NCAA championship tournament.
Mr. Duncan has some credibility when it comes to hoops. He was co-captain of the Harvard team (yes, he graduated) and was a pro in Australia. He believes that gifted athletes with no interest in academics should be able to turn pro out of high school, but thinks college basketball players should be successful in the classroom if not on the hardwood.
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