Why Collegiate Athletes Could Have the NCAA, et al. Singing a Different Tune

Why Collegiate Athletes Could Have the NCAA, et al. Singing a Different Tune

Journal article

54 pages

0736-7694

The exponential growth of intercollegiate athletics over the past quarter century has led to the financial viability of NCAA Division I football and men’s basketball as bona fide businesses generating revenues comparable to professional sports. The financial success of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its members has concurrently called its practices into question, particularly those rules that restrict compensation to college athletes.1While the NCAA purports to preserve “amateurism” by limiting an athlete’s income to no greater than “cost-of-attendance,” the NCAA and its member institutions reportedly earn upwards of $11 billion per year. The seeming inequity has sparked a movement by former college athletes to pursue multiple legal actions against the NCAA, its members and licensees under theories of, inter alia, antitrust, right of publicity, conspiracy, labor and employment, and unjust enrichment in order to level the playing field.

Published in : Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law, vol. 33, no. 2 (2015)

[New York City, New York] : Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, 2015.

eng