Who runs college sports? Not the colleges. Not the players. Not the government. As you probably know, it's the NCAA (the National Collegiate Athletic Association), a private non-profit organization. Ostensibly, it promotes fair play among student athletes. It also oversees an industry that handles billions of dollars every year, has millions of customers, and has brand loyalty out the wazoo, all with practically no government oversight.
So why hasn't anybody tried to privatize college football? That would further several goals of the Money Party--show that capitalism works in every situation, reduce the size of government (since many schools are government entities), and deny funds to education.
In a capitalist world, sports teams would be free to hire any player of any age for any amount of money; they would play as often as they liked against whoever agreed to play them; anyone anywhere could start, buy, sell, trade, or dissolve a team. Only the market would limit what the players and the operators could do. In the real world, though, the operators would have to agree (for instance) on schedules with each other, as well as on rules and penalties so that the players could train properly. The NCAA does so by including school sports directors as members, and they help define the rules.
Once they started to coordinate their efforts, the operators could spend all their money on the best players and start playing. After a while, though, the operator with the most money would win most of the games, the public's interest would decline, and attendance would drop. They would need some kind of artificial limit to keep their teams competitive with each other. The NCAA does it by sharing revenue between schools.
Even with revenue sharing, one team could have a better team by hiring more players. They must set a maximum team size and make it tougher for players to even try out. The NCAA does it by setting eligibility requirements.
With their competitive teams, the operators can hold games every week of the year. Except that players would become injured more often. And star players would rotate in and out due to fatigue. They would have to limit the number of games per year, maybe concentrate them during a particular season. The NCAA, of course, sets schedules.
Finally, they'd want to keep another group from forming and cutting into their market. The NCAA claims that it's voluntary and doesn't discourage competition, but then, who could possibly compete? If someone could put together a private minor-league football system, don't you think it would have happened already?
So the NCAA doesn't follow the teachings of capitalism. In fact, it has all the distinguishing marks of a cartel: collusion, side payments, limiting supply, and barriers to entry. And there's one more thing about college sports that isn't capitalistic at all.
The core values of the NCAA, according to their Web site, are learning, balance, spirit, community, fair play, and character. All very commendable, but I take exception to the "fair play" part. That's because college athletes are indentured servants.
To put true capitalism into action, instead of just talking about it, you must allow college-age athletes to offer their skills to the highest bidder. Education has always come second for athletes, so why maintain the fiction? If a player wants to attend school, he can do it on his own time and with his own money. An athletic scholarship is just a euphemism for slavery. The school forces the athlete to work without pay (and it is a job), while the school (and the NCAA) reaps all the rewards. An axiom of capitalism is that you, not someone else, gain the benefits of your own abilities and efforts.
The current system doesn't really work for anybody involved. Either the athletic side or the academic side has to change ... or both can change. And that is the first part of my master plan.
College sports programs should have the option to spin themselves off from their colleges. Once they do, they become businesses in their own right. They can rent their facilities from the school or buy them over time, which continues the financial support that sports programs have always provided for schools. They can continue to use the school's symbols by paying a licensing fee, or they can develop their own symbols. They can even become a minor-league team for a professional team, a type of arrangement already in place in baseball.
As for the NCAA, these new private programs can still belong to it and still participate in all the same activities. We've already seen that the system needs some kind of oversight. All I'm suggesting is that we do away with the injustice of "amateur" athletes.
The employee athletes will have more time for training, since they don't have to attend classes. They will get the same amount of money from the program, but paid directly to them instead of as a scholarship. They may get food and lodging as part of their compensation package, or they may take cash instead. Since they'll be treated as adults, they'll have to act as adults, meaning they won't have (or need) all the restrictions of living in an athletic dorm. If they behave in a way that negatively impacts their performance or the image of the team, the team can always fire them.
With this one change, everyone can get what they want and deserve. The only real difference is that athletes get the money they earn. Of course, that means less money for the schools ... which leads to the second part of my master plan.
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