Duke Mathematics Department



Christian RogersMath 89S: Game Theory and DemocracyProfessor BrayNovember 8, 2012The Dark Side of Money in Collegiate Athletics College is typically an important time in a person’s life. It is when people finally begin to assert their independence, meet new friends, and take steps that will define the course of the rest of their lives. In addition to all these exciting events, there is also a great deal of stress, especially for student athletes. Student athletes not only have to worry about completing their course work and finding time to hang out with friends, they also have to balance rigorous practice schedules into their routines. The demands placed on these young adults can be brutal and crushing. Some student athletes simply cannot handle the pressure, or worse, they are unable to deal with success.Some talented collegiate athletes are certainly at an entirely different level when compared to their peers. Their skills are unmatched. They garner praise from hundreds of thousands of loyal fans, but at the same time they also face enormous pressure to perform at the same level consistently. Our course all this fame and increased pressure may not always seem as though it is worth it to such gifted athletes. Why should they work so hard, when all they receive in compensation is praise that can so easily be transformed into contempt within a matter of a single game? Why should they risk hurting themselves in college when it could destroy their career in professional sports? All these different drawbacks make it very tempting for athletes, especially talented ones, to accept illegal donations from agents who seek to recruit them. These agents offer money, favors, and other promises to talented athletes in order to make sure that they will come and play for certain teams once they graduate from college. Sometimes, athletes may even drop out of college in order to compete sooner. However, these actions are considered highly illegal. Official NCAA regulations state that an athlete cannot compete if he or she has “accepted money, transportation, or other benefits from and agent or agreed to have an agent market your athletics ability or reputation in that sport.” Unfortunately, there are many athletes who partake in such illegal actions, and several are unlucky enough to be caught.In 2010, Reggie Bush, a professional football player who at the time played for the New Orleans Saints, underwent an investigation for having accepted illegal benefits such as a “vehicle, rent free house, airline tickets, hotel rooms, cash, limousine service, furniture, and appliances” from a sports agent name Lloyd Lake during his collegiate career at the University of Southern California. During the investigation, it was discovered that the allegations against Bush were indeed true. As a result, the USC football program faced many penalties including no postseason for two years, the loss of over 30 scholarships over 3 years, and the loss of their wins in the 2004 and 2005 season, including their Orange Bowl victory. In addition, Bush had to return his Heisman trophy that he had been given while at USC and had to repay the money he had been given by the sports agent. Bush’s lack of restraint from being able to accept illegal benefits while in college not only hurt him, but it hurt many other people involved with USC. The penalties ruined football for many current and future USC players and fans. In the big picture, the punishments levied against Bush were trivial. As a huge football star with more than enough money to spare, the fines and returning of the award meant seemed to mean very little to him. He even attempted to distance himself from the university to avoid the problem. The only people who were really hurt were not even involved. As Bush’s situation demonstrates, the selfish actions of a single person can have devastating effects on many innocent people and that the NCAA should pursue other means of regulating college athletics.The question that now comes to mind is how can we possibly prevent student athletes from being tempted to accept illegal gifts and benefits? There are several routes that could be taken to prevent such results. Option one is that the NCAA could create more strict policies for offenders who violate the rules of the NCAA. Hopefully this would be more of a deterrent, but it would most likely be ineffective because there will always be some elaborate plan that people can use to circumvent regulations. Another option would be to let colleges pay the players, especially the more talented ones, for their performance. A third option would be having the NCAA lighten its restrictions and permit college athletes to receive payments from agents and companies who wish to sponsor them. The second two options are the options that seem to produce the most controversy, but taking a moment to look at the facts suggests that they are not altogether unreasonable.During the 2011-2012 school year, almost half a million collegiate athletes from over one thousand schools competed in over twenty NCAA sports at all levels. These athletes helped to generate $10.6 billion dollars worth of revenue for the NCAA last school year. The two major sources for this revenue were ticket sales and annual rights agreements between the NCAA and the individual schools. However, annual expenses for the NCAA last year only totaled $707 million, which means the colleges in the NCAA were able to net a profit of $900.893 billion. With so much money coming in from the sports programs, it seems logical that colleges could feasibly pay some of their more talented players in order to remove any temptation to accept illegal gifts. On the other hand, these profits varied widely amongst the individual universities and among different sports programs. For instance, the University of Texas at Austin had the most profitable football team in college sport last year. They managed to make $68,830,484 in profits. The average D1 collegiate football team only managed to earn $10 million in profits. The profits from other sports are even lower. This means that athletes at certain schools or in certain sports would be put at an unfair disadvantage because their school or sport is not as lucrative. In addition, what does it say about an athlete’s morals and discipline when they need to be bribed in order to avoid engaging in illegal activity?The third option regarding lighter NCAA restrictions could potentially be a solution. Agents are going to attempt to offer athletes various gifts regardless of the rules, so it would be in the best interest of the NCAA to allow them to do it publicly so people would be aware of exactly what was transpiring. In addition, the NCAA would have to use fewer resources to police athletes and schools, so it provides an economic benefit as well. Each option has its pros and cons and all are certainly controversial. In an attempt to get a better idea as to people’s opinions on each option, I decided to take a poll. To get the best results, I made sure to poll a variety of people including student athletes, normal students, teachers, and even coaches. For the first part of my poll I presented the following question:Currently, college athletes are not allowed to be paid a salary or be given stipends by a school in return for their performance on the field, court, or in the pool. However, it is perfectly acceptable for colleges to offer full rides to athletes of their choosing. What is your opinion on the subject? (rank the options from 1 to 3, 1 being the highest)_____A. I think college athletes should be given an additional salary in addition to whatever the school gives them, whether it is scholarships or equipment_____B. I think that current NCAA standards are acceptable and athletes should not given any extra salary in addition to whatever the school provides them_____C. I think that college athletes should receive no special treatment from schools, whether it be scholarships, equipment, or other exclusive privilegesI kept the options basic because the issue is complex and there are many additional components and variables that can be considered when answering this question. By keeping the possible responses in a simple form, I also hoped to make it easy for people to understand the differences between the various options. The results from my poll can be found in table 1 presented below:Table 1 – Sorted Margin of Victory MatrixBACB01517A-1507C-17-70To determine the winner from the sorted margin of victory matrix, one must simply add up the totals from each row. The winner in this case is therefore, choice B with 32 points. The results reveal that most people want to keep to the status quo (option B). Paying the athletes more (option A) was second while the option for reducing student athlete benefits (option C) was last. I found that most athletes and students who interacted with athletes often tended to be more supportive of paying the athletes. Coaches and teachers tended to be more neutral, while more academically oriented students who seemed indifferent to sports tended to vote to reduce the benefits of student athletes. Based on such results it seems that most people are against changing the current system. People therefore believe that the benefits from changing the NCAA regulations are either not worth the effort or possible risks. People were against players receiving payment from colleges, but I wanted to see how they felt about athletes being paid by agents and other sponsors. I surveyed the same group of people I had the first time and posed the following question to them: Under NCAA regulations, college athletes are not allowed to play if they “accept any pay for promoting a commercial product.” Do you think that college athletes should be allowed to promote or advertise products and be compensated? (check one)____ A.Yes ____ B. NoThe results from this portion of the poll were 15 votes for no, while only 8 votes for the yes option. Again, the resounding answer to my question was no. People simply did not want to change the current NCAA regulations. It was certainly a more lopsided result than I would have expected for such a question. Although the various options presented could be practical solutions, there are many reasons why people would choose not to support them. Some may not believe athletes deserve any extra benefits or privileges while others may believe that money may have a negative influence on the character of a student athlete and athletic team as a whole. They could possibly believe that paying players saddles them with huge responsibility that the players may not be mentally prepared to take on. Whatever the reason, people again suggested that they would like to keep the current NCAA regulations. Money always seems to cause problems, and college athletics is no exception. Unfortunately there is certainly no quick and easy solution to help repair the problems and loopholes of NCAA regulations, but with time hopefully they can be solved. It will be a long process, but one that is very possible.BibliographyBryant, Howard. "No Losers in the Reggie Bush Scandal." ESPN. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <. "Summary of NCAA Regulations - NCAA Division I." NCAA. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <;."NCAA College Athletic Statistics." Statistic Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <, John. "Don't Forget True Villain in USC Mess: Reggie Bush." NBC Sports. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <;. ................
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