Like many college students, I go to bed hungry sometimes.
Unlike student-athletes that go to bed hungry sometimes, I don’t generate millions for my university.
The NCAA changed a rule Tuesday that provides student-athletes with the access to unlimited meals, different from the previous three meals a day plan. The issue was changed, or at least further brought to light, after Connecticut guard Shabazz Napier said on a national stage that he went to bed starving.
The move was a change in the right direction. NCAA president Mark Emmert called the old rule “absurd” and student-athletes now have the access to meals they have rightfully earned. The income that student-athletes generate, namely from college football and college basketball, entitle them to – in this case literally – their share of the pie.
Unfortunately when it comes to the NCAA, there are still plenty of other rules that don’t make sense. The food rule does not go far enough in the change that is needed for the rights of a student-athlete.
People are free to think what they want about whether student-athletes should be paid for their service or if players should be able to unionize. Those issues can, and will, play themselves out eventually in court.
What can’t be ignored any longer is the hypocrisy of the NCAA profiting over individual players, but student athletes not being able to profit using their own image. Players can’t appear in commercials, sell their own individual tickets, sign autographs for commission or sell any apparel with their name attached to it.
Under the NCAA and the universities, student-athletes don’t own their name. Meanwhile both entities are perfectly happy with being able to sell generic knockoff jerseys and have commercials on major sports networks immediately after national championship wins to sell T-shirts and rake in hundreds of millions of dollars.
Why is this issue so important now?
NBA commissioner Adam Silver repeated over the weekend that raising the NBA’s age minimum to 20 is his top priority, adding that the NCAA should without a doubt get a seat at the table. The NCAA will jump at any opportunity it can take to exploit its freshman stars such as Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker for longer.
The players, on the other hand, wouldn’t have anything to gain from this maneuver. All it does is restrict another year of development, which excels if the player actually plays in the NBA per a Kevin Pelton article on ESPN, and restricts the player’s marketability for another year, as was the case for Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart.
If the NBA is going change the age limit, it’s time for the NCAA to allow its athletes to start being able to profit off their own name. It should already be time.