NCAA tries to keep some semblance of power with agreement to pay college athletes

So this is what reparations looks like.

My bad. Not supposed to use that word. Still. In the antiquated governance of college athletics we’ve (finally) entered into the beginning of the Big Payback. Where after over a hundred years of building programs, institutions, universities and a multibillion-dollar American business model on the backs of highly gifted student-athletes, with only offering restricted, penalty-infused scholarships in return, the NCAA has decided to (finally) pay their athletes out of their own pockets, wallets, bank accounts and slush funds.

Basically un-illegalizing the corrupt system of servitude they put in place over a century ago to make college athletics a close-to-free labor market for their ill got’em gains. So while in a we must avoid this going to trial at all costs settlement made Thursday, the NCAA not only decided to pay it forward but also pay it back in the form of billions to the approximately 14,000 student-athletes they “used” since 2016 to build their current empire.

Oh happy day, right? Hallelujah? Thank you, Jesus? Not so fast. Before we jump to a “free at last” conclusion that this a sincere move on behalf of the NCAA to right the forever wrongs when it comes to wealth equity between infrastructure and laborers or that this is the NCAA’s way of avoiding losing much larger sums of money by not allowing the one of the three cases at the center of them making this decision (House v. NCAA, Hubbard v. NCAA and Carter v. NCAA) go to trial, this settlement is more about the NCAA regaining some (if not all or a great majority of) control that they’d lost and were continuing to lose in today’s new era of economics in college sports.

This is strictly about them as one of the most powerful governing bodies in America not allowing the current financial ecosystem to move forward without them. This, at the end of the day, is all about all the NCAA knows: power and control.

It’s very important in this moment to not look at the fact that this change of heart and direction has happened, but why? And understand that this is about survival more than it is rectitude and righteousness. Had a settlement not been reached, going to trial could have potentially (according to reports from Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports) cost the NCAA around $4.2 billion due to the triple multiplier of antitrust laws attached to the three cases and $20 billion in antitrust back damage pay that could have bankrupted them.

This is also the NCAA creating their own constitutional amendment to regain the leverage that they were continuing to lose with the openness of NIL and pay-to-play. About them losing legendary coaches in football and basketball to early retirement because it became too difficult for them to be successful the way they once were because they were incapable of adapting their “systems” to the free market changing of the guard in college sports — which includes the transfer portal. It’s about the shift in dynamics that gave student-athletes some form of equilibrium outside of things the NCAA didn’t have its hands in; about them forging this historical pivot to make collegiate sports under their command in America great again.

What did Kendrick say: “Bear with me for a second, let me put y’all on game/The settlers was usin’ townsfolk to make ‘em richer/Fast-forward, 2024.” Yeah, that.

This was the NCAA doing what the NCAA does. They saw power slipping away from them in a way they never expected. The game shifted right in front of them but the landscape faulted at the same time and they didn’t feel it until it was almost too late. And earthquakes when it came to college athletics were always man-made. By the men who owned the land.

But back in February when United State District Judge Clifton Corker (Tennessee) granted the injunction that barred the NCAA its decades-long regulations on any potential name, image and likeness deals student-athletes could make and barred the NCAA from enforcing any of its “rules of restitution,” they knew their power was ending. While this may be the official beginning of the end of amateur athletics at the D1-level in American sports, the NCAA had to find a way to maintain some authority over the playing field. This $2.77 billion revenue-sharing settlement is what they came up with.

Only time and future circumstance will tell how brilliant of a move this is for them or if once all of the legalese and terms are figured out and established this ends up being a zero-sum concept. So far there are no concrete answers, just a conclusion. One that none of us can fall victim into thinking in principle, purpose or intent its something that it is not. One that benefits one more than the other.

The NCAA simply established a direct deposit arrangement for its athletes. They simply minimized the middle persons without removing them so that they can remind the boosters, the brands, the companies, the media and all adjacent resources who could financially invest in those athletes while they were participating in college athletics who still had command over all of this.

A very funny thing about this is how in the language used by the NCAA to define their own guiding principles the word “fairness” is one of the three pillars (“academic success” and “student-athlete well-being” being the other two). Fairness, the quality of making judgments that are free of discrimination; fairness, conformity with rules and standards; fairness, the act of treating people equally or in a way that’s right or reasonable. Sound like the NCAA to you?

Until you remember that reparations has nothing to do with fairness.

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