Why Revenue Sharing is Not Enough
Sharing Money and Sharing Power are Not the Same Thing
This is a free online newsletter for Jason Stahl, Executive Director of the College Football Players Association (CFBPA). If you are a past, present or future college football player, I ask that you consider becoming a member of the CFBPA. For a short YouTube introduction on the CFBPA, click here. Members of the general public who would like to support the CFBPA can donate at this link or volunteer at this link.
As we close out the summer of 2024 in the business of college athletics, one noteworthy change has happened: the administrative decision-makers of college athletics have very publicly dropped their long-standing objection to revenue sharing with college athletes. As part of a settlement for a cluster of antitrust class-action lawsuits, college athletics administrators have agreed to begin sharing some of the billions of dollars of revenue generated by college athletes with those college athletes. Additionally, they’ve also agreed to back payments for former college athletes who were denied their right to monetize their name, image and likeness. If you want to read more about these cases, I’d recommend reading this report by Michael McCann in Sportico.
This is a welcome development in that the fourth plank on our seven-point Platform for Change is about the necessity of revenue sharing for the workers of college athletics. Whatever happens with these cases — whether the settlement ends up being approved or not — decision-makers have agreed that athletes need to be directly compensated from the revenue they produce. They cannot go back on this and so direct revenue sharing from the NCAA, the conferences and the schools will come regardless of what happens with these cases.
I say this as it now appears that the settlement of these cases is on unstable ground. In their first hearing before Judge Claudia Wilken, who would have to approve the settlement, she expressed skepticism about parts of the settlement which attempt to take existing money away from college athletes — especially college football players. Essentially, one element of the settlement seeks to regulate and stop the flow of money from booster-backed “collectives.” These organizations have sprung up in the past three years and give fans a direct way to share NIL money with players. While individual collectives have many problems—as we see from this story in Bloomberg about a collective associated with Michigan State Athletics—some individual collectives are doing great work. At their best, they work on behalf of fans to support players and also can be a place players can go to if they are in need of other types of assistance.
Because of this, Judge Wilken expressed enormous concern over the part of the settlement that seeks to reign in collectives saying “taking things away from people is usually not that popular.” She’s right about this and, as such, players are right to be wary of this part of the settlement. Thankfully, Judge Wilken ordered the parties to “go back to the drawing board” and re-write the settlement so it doesn’t take away NIL opportunities from current college athletes.
Shockingly, though, the attorney for the NCAA said that removing these elements from the settlement would not be accepted by their client. Indeed, just this week, attorneys for both sides on the case said they are not going to amend the settlement in the way the judge wants. Instead, they feel that “clarifying” it will be enough. We’ll see what Judge Wilken ultimately does, but her initial comments made clear that she saw this from the player’s perspective and so hopefully she will continue to insist on the removal of this language from the settlement.
Whatever ends up happening with these cases, I think it is worth exploring this moment for what it says about college athletics. To me, this moment shows that the NCAA and college athletics administrators are fine with sharing money (provided players don’t have input into how much) but what they really don’t want to do is share power with college athletes. For decades, college athletes were subject to total control over the terms and conditions of their work as athletes. Over the past ten years, that control has slipped and many administrators—who prefer to think of college athletes as “kids” to be dictated to—simply don’t like it.
In this instance, they see money from fans/boosters going directly to athletes whereas in the past it would have gone directly to athletic departments for whatever purposes they wanted. Thus, they are trying to retake control over boosters through this settlement. If the settlement is to move forward, the judge should continue to reject this reassertion of power and control over college athletes.
Then, whatever happens with the settlement, athletes need to continue to get organized into players associations to finally engage in real power sharing as equals in the form of collective bargaining agreements that athletes themselves have actually negotiated. Only then will athletes have a direct voice in how, and how much, revenue gets shared and in the myriad of other issues that are not addressed by this settlement. For college football players, this means negotiating the health, safety and welfare protections at the center of our platform.
To this end, in the month of October, the CFBPA will be highlighting the issue of college football player health. The NFL and its player union the NFLPA have shown that enormous advances can be made through collective bargaining agreements which focus on improving player health and making the game safer. In October, we’ll show why and how college football is light years behind the NFL on the issue of player health. By illuminating this issue, we’ll also show how the CFBPA and collective bargaining can begin to move college football players to the same level as their NFL counterparts. This education campaign will be done at this newsletter and in traditional media outlets. We’ll be adding key advisers who can bring clarity to the reforms needed in the world of player health. Additionally, we will be interviewing Alumni Members at our YouTube channel to further highlight first-person player stories. So be sure to subscribe to our channel and watch our first three Alumni Members of the Month while you’re there. The stories of CFBPA Alumni Members Mike Dotterer, Mike Quartey and Shannon Griffith all highlight their own experiences with health and safety during their playing days.