Survey: 70% of Blacks Think College Athletes Should Be Paid

In a recent survey taken by yourblackworld.com, over 70% of the African-American respondents say they believe college athletes should be paid. Roughly 14% of the respondents say they should not be paid, and another 15.3% said they weren't sure.

Additionally, 72% of the respondents said that the NCAA's compensation policy is racist. Most of the coaches earning millions from the NCAA are white, while many of the players who hit the court every day are African American. Also, most of the executives, commentators and others earning the wealth of the league are white, while the family of an athlete who is found to earn money suffers significant penalties for the infraction.

The majority of black survey participants also felt that players should be allowed to unionize. When asked if NCAA athletes should be allowed to form unions, 58% of the respondents said "yes." Some, including Leo Gerard, international president of the United Steelworker's Union, has referred to the NCAA as a "virtual sweatshop" and has advocated for the unionization of college athletes.

Finally, the majority of black respondents also felt that playing college sports inhibits the ability of college athletes to get a good education. When asked, "Do you feel that playing college sports hurts the ability of the athlete to get a good education?" 54% of the respondents said "yes."

With March Madness coming up, the black community must ask itself hard questions about whether or not the compensation scheme for the NCAA actually makes sense. This year, March Madness ad revenue is going to be over 30 percent higher than the ad revenue earned from the entire NBA and Major League Baseball postseasons. In other leagues with revenue at this level, the workers earn millions of dollars for their labor. In the NCAA, half of the families of black college athletes are living in poverty, while coaches and their families live a life of luxury.

The NCAA's business practices are illegal in most other industries. If, for example, this form of compensation were to be used in the retail industry, Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama would immediately conduct anti-trust hearings and accuse the industry of significant labor rights violations. But the NCAA is given a pass, primarily because they argue that they exist solely due to an educational mission.

The problem with the "educational mission" argument (which I've seen after spending the last 20 years on a college campus), is that education is often put to the side in favor of athletic endeavors. Coaches who graduate players are fired and regularly replaced with coaches with lower graduation rates and higher winning percentages. Athletes are taken out of class in order to play in ESPN games on school nights when they should be studying. In fact, many athletes have their majors selected by "academic advisors," whose job it is to keep kids eligible for play. It is not until he graduates that the athlete finds that his general studies degree has almost no real value in the marketplace. According to one of my friends who played football at a school in the South, "You would have thought we were all going to be generals in military with all the general studies majors we had on our team."

The bottom line is that the NCAA has become a business where education becomes secondary to maximizing profits. What's most interesting, however, is that even if educational equity were achieved, the trade would still be unfair. I am as much of a fan of education as anyone (I am, after all, a college professor), but if given the choice between a $2 million salary to feed my hungry family and free tuition, I'd have taken my pay and paid tuition out of my own pocket. Athletes and their mothers should have the same rights as coaches. It's time to end the NCAA's system of apartheid.