Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports

Although many of the problems facing college athletics today have been around for decades, the explosion of money and media attention has so raised the stakes that college sports is on the verge of self-destruction, argues Zimbalist (Baseball and Billions), a professor of economics at Smith College. The National Collegiate Athletic Association was formed in 1905 to address the problem of violence in college football. Between 1890 and 1905, Zimbalist reports, 330 students were killed playing the game, and President Theodore Roosevelt was threatening to intervene. But as Zimbalist convincingly argues, the NCAA's record of regulating intercollegiate athletics has been spotty at best. In his view, the NCAA is nothing more than a cartel geared toward protecting the association's own interests, as well as that of its largest members. By only tinkering with its well-established system, he charges, the NCAA has never effectively dealt with such longstanding problems as low graduation rates, point shaving, illegal payments to athletes (by alumni, agents and others) and gender inequality (although Zimbalist does allow that the NCAA has grudgingly made some progress enforcing Title IX, the 1972 law that mandates that collegiate women have the same access to sports as men). Zimbalist, who knows his way around the locker room and a balance sheet, provides a compelling case for the need to reform college athletics. (Sept.)