The legal fights on how long athletes should be eligible to play in college get more and more bizarre.
First, there were players, while still in college, petitioning for one more year and finding friendly state judges willing to give that to them.
Now, there are football players who finished their college career, turned pro but got cut in preseason camp, wanting to return to a college squad and – again – finding friendly state judges willing to assist.
What will be next? Will professional players who are released after a couple of years sue to get back into the college game, where they could still make a bundle of money?
All of this madness is the result of the professionalization of college sports, and the inability of the NCAA, the conferences and the individual schools to agree on how to deal with its consequences.
The NCAA tried to resolve some of the eligibility brawl by adopting a rule in June that allows athletes to play five seasons over five years. A group of athletes, however, objected that the new rule only applied to those who graduated from high school in 2023 or later. They sued to have it backed up to 2022 and to not exclude those who had already signed with pro teams from returning to the college game.
Staying in school has become more attractive for college athletes since name, image and likeness deals and revenue sharing entered the financial equation. The sports purists used to worry about the “one and done” phenomenon, especially in basketball, in which the best players would come to campus for one season before bolting to the riches of the NBA. Now, with compensation deals for college players reaching into the millions of dollars, it’s becoming more likely that all but the best athletes will want to prolong their stay in college and avoid a cut in pay.
The NCAA and the major conferences are firmly opposed to letting professional athletes return to play college sports. The Southeastern Conference, for example, said in a statement that allowing this to happen “will blur the line between college and professional sports, create significant competitive equity concerns and reduce opportunities for high school and current college athletes.” That sounds persuasive, but it’s disingenuous.
The line between college and professional sports has already been obliterated, thanks in part to the greed of the conferences and their member schools, which left their ethics at the door in pursuit of richer television deals, higher gate proceeds, larger enrollments and more generous alumni donations. The schools enrolled athletes who had no business in college and looked the other way as boosters lured players with under-the-table deals. NIL just made all of this legal and expected.
Nor is there any real equity in college sports. The four megaconferences, particularly the SEC and Big Ten, have destroyed that by hoarding the most prestigious and richest programs.
As for looser eligibility rules jilting some players out of an opportunity, that is true, but the schools have not shown this concern to be a priority before. Plenty of true student-athletes have lost out of scholarships and playing time over the years by schools bending their academic rules for more gifted players.
Some believe the only way to fix the broken system is through federal legislation, such as the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act, which is currently pending in the Senate. There is reason to be skeptical, however. Just to get through committee, some of the bill’s provisions had to be watered down to overcome the opposition of the SEC and Big Ten, which want to protect their dominance.
Any college sports that are major revenue generators have become nothing more than professional entertainment enterprises. They only masquerade as something more noble than that.
