Erosion of the Idea of Student-Athlete Amateurism - Part 2

From Sportico: While testifying before a Senate Judiciary Committee last month, new NCAA president Charlie Baker sought to make the case that it isn’t just the association that opposes college athletes becoming employees of their institutions. The athletes, Baker submitted, are almost entirely in opposition, as well. Relying on seven months’ worth of personal experience, Baker told lawmakers he had “talked to probably a thousand student-athletes since I got this job, and I haven’t talked to one yet [who] wants to be an employee. I think that’s important.”

The under-oath comment set off the BS detectors of NCAA skeptics inside and outside of college sports, including that of UCLA senior backup quarterback Chase Griffin. “I think, in the literal sense, what Baker said is impossible,” said Griffin, who has become a leading advocate for college athletes profiting from their play. Griffin recently launched a newsletter called The Athlete’s Bureau, designed to “amplify the perspectives” of college athletes.

Baker’s anecdotal testimony was recently contravened by the findings of Bill Carter, a sports marketer who runs the NIL consulting firm, Student-Athlete Insights. Last week, Carter publicized the results of an email survey he says he conducted with a panel of 1,086 current college athletes, in which 73% were “in favor” of becoming employees of their institutions and more than half were “interested” in joining a college athlete union. In a telephone interview, Carter acknowledged that his poll is not to be taken as a scientific survey, but said its revelations are likely to be much more representative of where college athletes stand on the employee question than what Baker conveyed to senators.

In last month’s hearing, Baker didn’t elaborate how he had determined, through interactions with athletes, the unanimity of their anti-employment sentiment. For example, was he simply extrapolating athletes’ disinterest by them not bringing the subject up? Had he regularly solicited their interest in the matter and, if so, in a dispassionate or open-ended manner? And what kinds of athletes had he been speaking to? Recently, Sportico has repeatedly asked the NCAA for further clarification about Baker’s claim to Congress—as well as the association’s lack of more rigorous insights into the question of where athletes stand on the matter of employment, direct compensation and unionization. 

The NCAA’s response has been largely tangential. Initially, its communications department provided copies of letters sent to members of Congress by Cody Shimp, chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), as well as four commissioners of HBCU conferences, which advocated against college athletes obtaining employee status. When pressed further about what Baker said he gleaned from his personal athlete interactions, the NCAA suggested that he was basing his assessment on the formal positions of the SAAC groups...

Full story at https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college-sports/2023/ncaa-president-baker-athlete-employment-consensus-1234746285/.