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The Dartmouth
July 15, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Haynes: Student-Athletes Do Not Exist

In Tuesday night's presidential debate, both candidates espoused the virtues of the free market system. "Let the market work" was a common refrain from both sides; even Barack Obama, that inimitable socialist and architect of government takeovers, championed the prosperity-creating virtues of the free enterprise system. Yet American capitalism contains many misaligned incentives and improperly valued commodities. A frequently ignored example bears great relevance to college students: The NCAA criminally undercompensates athletes, locking them into a relationship reminiscent of indentured servitude.

Let's get this out of the way first: College athletes should absolutely be paid. I can see the objections forming on the readers' lips already money corrupts the integrity of college sports; student-athletes are students first; salaries would drive a wedge between college teammates; and so on. What of the scandals intermittently rocking college sports, opponents will surely say? Do we really want more houses or cars being purchased for the next Reggie Bush or Maurice Clarett? These objections obfuscate the real issue. Yes, corruption does run rampant in college athletics. Cases such as those of stars like Cam Newton, who allegedly received under-the-table payments, distort individual player value, amateur status and the close bond of teammates. These issues represent symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself, though. "The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some athletes are getting paid," Taylor Branch of The Atlantic wrote. "More of them are not."

This idea, on its face, seems antithetical to higher education. College's value lies in learning: You hone your skills to increase your sense of self-worth and maybe your future value in the job market, too. Notions of college as intimately linked to self-discovery and growth warp our perceptions of college athletics. The NCAA uses this convergence of naivete and nostalgia to lull fans, media and the student-athletes themselves into complicity. Terms like "student-athlete" evoke images of the innocence of college sports those early days of yore when Dartmouth was actually good at sports. Modern college sports could not be more different commercialism and money infect universities, athletic departments and recruiting at an unprecedented level.

Several examples effectively illustrate this point. Despite the slow growth of the economy over the last four years, college athletics have hardly been affected. The Southeastern Conference became the first billion-dollar college sports conference in 2010; the Big 10 followed closely behind, at around $900 million. This money enriches everyone except the players themselves coaches, university administrators, apparel companies and even video game companies make millions. Think about your favorite college sports video game. Tim Tebow types draw fans to the game and generate record profits, while EA Sports conveniently sidesteps amateur status by labeling such players things like "UF QB #15." The University of Florida compensated Tim Tebow for his services surely worth millions with a $40,000 a year scholarship.

This process remains the most insidious aspect of the university-student relationship. Collective-bargaining agreements and the threat of lockouts by labor constantly threaten the professional leagues. The NCAA, by locking its labor into the "student-athlete" relationship early in the process, created the most one-sided labor-management relationship in American capitalism. Labor gets no benefits. They consistently lose worker's compensation suits and their athletic commitments diminish the value of their education. Encouraged to take easier classes to remain eligible, athletes at big SEC schools and the like major in "communications" at a shocking rate.

Finally, most of the revenue originates from only a few players: the stars themselves. This fact makes the NCAA's omnipresent "most of us will go pro in something other than sports" commercials all the more hypocritical. Most student-athletes will, indeed, go pro in something other than sports. The NCAA makes millions, however, off a tiny sliver of the overall population largely football and basketball players from poor urban areas and does not compensate them at all. The indentured servitude metaphor may not be the most accurate as Branch writes, colonialism might be better. NCAA administrators, coaches and regulators paternalistically profess deep care for their athletes' well-being while reaping profits the athletes never see. Chris Webber, while a student at Michigan, famously could not afford to buy his own jersey at the university store. What sort of free market is this?