After years of pressure, NCAA moves to allow college athletes to make money

Judy Woodruff:

It is a game-changer for college sports.

After years of pressure in and out of court, the NCAA moves to allow college athletes to make money.

John Yang helps explain.

John Yang:

Judy, beginning tomorrow, college athletes across the country will be able to make financial deals that capitalize on their celebrity, what's called name, image and likeness.

Even before today's NCAA vote, Iowa basketball player Jordan Bohannon introduced an apparel line, and Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz unveiled a trademarked logo.

It's a big departure for the NCAA's long-held stance that student athletes should only get scholarships and stipends.

Kevin Blackistone is an ESPN panelist, journalism professor at the University of Maryland, and a sports commentator for The Washington Post.

Kevin, thanks for being with us.

Name, image, likeness, what exactly does that mean? What are athletes going to be able to do starting tomorrow?

Kevin Blackistone:

Well, they will basically be able to do what colleges have been doing with them for eons, and that is take their name, their fame, their jersey numbers, nicknames, and turn them into some dollar bills to stick in their back pocket.

It is a major step. But it is also a step that I think the NCAA has been pushed to do by so much litigation that it's lost in court and by the pressures being brought upon and by — not only by student athletes, but by a lot of people who represent student athletes.

John Yang:

You write in The Post that you don't think this is enough, The Washington Post.

You say that, for one thing, this money isn't coming out of what — of the college coffers. It's not taking away anything from what they're collecting.

Kevin Blackistone:

Right. Exactly.

And that's the thing that kind of gets me that I can't take my eyes off. The real problem is, is that these players, most of whom, by the way, are Black males when you talk about the revenue-generating sports of basketball and football, are generating gazillions of dollars for the NCAA.

Well, the NCAA, through this decision, which was pushed by the Supreme Court about a week ago, is still not giving up any of that money to the athletes. Basically, what they're saying is, you know what, you want to earn money on your own, then go out there and do it?

Just like you and I, when we were growing up, and we wanted to earn a few bucks by cutting the neighbor's grass. That's basically what they're allowing them to do. And so they're still not getting any workers' comp benefits. They're still not getting long-term health care, which are really the things that they need as college athletes in order to really survive and thrive in this particular game.

John Yang:

The NCAA's argument is that not giving the athletes more money, not giving them anything beyond scholarships, is what distinguishes their product.

What do you say to that?

Kevin Blackistone:

Well, I think it's bogus.

Basically, what the NCAA is still doing and what the courts basically allowed them to do because they really didn't rule on this, is to say that the college game is an amateur game.

And that is what is hogwash. Everybody who goes to a college game is either handing over money or making money, everyone except the athletes who everyone goes to see. And that's really what needs to be fixed.

So, maybe this is a foot in the door of fixing that problem, but that right now is all it is. And unless and until that gets fixed, I'm hard-pressed, as a fan and as a journalist, to really celebrate all what has happened in the past week.

John Yang:

As you noted, the NCAA really has been pushed into this. There were state laws about to take effect tomorrow. They wanted to level the playing field, as it were, across the country.

Last week, the Supreme Court punched big locals in their amateurism argument. Do you think we're going to see more?

Kevin Blackistone:

I think that, down the line, we're going to see more.

I think that there will be more smart lawyers who will be able to bring more lawsuits against the system that exists. And I think that the fact that now you are basically saying, OK, these athletes really aren't amateurs because they are able to earn some money off of have the sport that they play really is going to take the cover off of what's been going on in college sports for a very long time.

You know, the funny thing about this is, John, is that the architect of the modern NCAA, Walter Byers, basically wrote a confessional, a memoir back in the mid 1990s called "Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploitation of the College Athlete."

He explained everything he did with college sports and pointed out the problems with it. And finally, now, all these years later, people are coming to grips with it. And these athletes need to be treated like the employees of the industrial complex of higher education and athletics combined that they really are.

John Yang:

Kevin Blackistone, thank you very much.

Kevin Blackistone:

Thank you.