College football continues to corrupt our universities. At least we could pay the players

More than ten years ago, I wrote that it was time to get football out of our universities because the sport was corrupting the universities’ mission. Not surprisingly, I got a lot of pushback about that, but I’ve continued to make this point, both here at Forbes and in The New York Times.

This weekend, I watched a college football game for the first time in years. I was struck by how much worse things are–and by worse, I mean driven by money.

Don’t get me wrong. Football is entertaining for its millions of fans, and college football is extremely popular, especially for those who live in cities without a professional team. I’m not so naive as to think people will give this up.

The problem is that major college football is a professional sport where everyone makes money except the main participants: the players. Worse, the players are being told by their coaches, assistant coaches, athletic directors, and university presidents that they’re getting a great deal. We give you free education! And you get to play football for our great team, and everyone will cheer for you!

If this is really so great, then why don’t the coaches work for free? College football coaches are paid multimillion-dollar salaries, usually far higher than anyone else at the same university, even the university president. The average salary of NCAA Division I coaches this year is $1.75 million, and some coaches make over $10 million. In most states, a football coach at a public university is the highest-paid state employee.

But the players get zero. This situation, to put it bluntly, is unethical. Universities with large football programs are profiting handsomely off the unpaid labor of their own students.

Universities have been told this before. In 2011, civil rights historian Taylor Branch wrote a ground-breaking cover story in The Atlantic titled “The Shame of College Sports,” As Branch wrote then:

“Big-time college sports are fully commercialized. Billions of dollars flow through them each year. The NCAA makes money, and enables universities and corporations to make money, from the unpaid labor of young athletes.”

That was 11 years ago. The situation has only gotten worse.

What’s striking about watching a college football game on television, as I did this past weekend, is the degree of commercialization of the sport. The game is interrupted constantly with advertisements from sponsors, and the stadiums are decorated with ads as well. ESPN has a large, professional team of announcers covering every aspect of the game. The television work is highly coordinated and professional, with many cameras covering every angle of every play.

There is a LOT of money in college football.

I listened to interviews with some of the (winning) players after the game. They were excited, and they praised their coaches and fellow teammates as they were supposed to. They seemed to believe that the game they’d just won was supremely important, and that their performance (an upset victory) was meaningful and even “historic” (as one player said).

But it wasn’t. Football is just entertainment.

What’s especially sad, to me, is that nearly all of these players are getting short-changed on their education. They spend most of their time on football for a good portion of their year, despite the laughable pretense by the NCAA that these are “student athletes.” They’re athletes, certainly, but they don’t have time to be students, not during football season. The universities (and especially the football coaches) just don’t seem to care, despite their continual protestations to the contrary.

Only 1.6% of college football players make it into the NFL. Or to put it another way: at the end of their college years, 98.4% of college football players will be spit out into the real world, with poor job prospects because they didn’t focus on their education.

And it’s actually even worse than this. We’ve learned in recent years that football carries serious risk of permanent neurological damage, due to repeated blows to the head that happen to many players. It’s a violent contact sport, and the ever-greater size of today’s players has made it much more dangerous than in its early years in the mid-20th century. (I wrote about this too, back in 2019.)

Universities could start to fix this unethical situation by paying the players what they’re worth. Here’s one idea: if universities are seriously concerned about the education of these young men, they should separate their football programs from their education programs. Teams could pay to license the university’s name, hire and pay players, and pay fees to use the football stadiums. (Football fans claim that the sport makes a profit, and if this is true, the teams should do just fine in this scenario.) The athletes could be offered full 4-year scholarships that they could use after their playing years were over, or perhaps in the off seasons, so that they would be able to truly focus on their education.

But meanwhile, as The Atlantic‘s editors put it over 10 years ago,

“the real scandal is the very structure of college sports, wherein student-athletes generate billions of dollars for universities and private companies while earning nothing for themselves.”

Pay the players. That’s the only way to fix this.

College football season is starting up. Why do universities support a sport that harms their student athletes?

For those of us in academia, September means a new school year, and all of the excitement and energy that students bring as they return to campus. Strolling around, you can feel the energy in the air.

September is also the beginning of the college football season (in the U.S.). For many students, alumni, and other fans, watching the game each week is one more fall activity they look forward to.

But now, thanks to a rapidly growing body of new research, we know that football can severely harm and even kill its players. Not right away, but years later, through a brain disease called CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. This is a frightening disorder that gradually destroys brain cells, causing memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, and progressive dementia. Many former players die very young, in their 40s or 50s, after first suffering for years.

CTE is caused by repeated blows to the head, events that are common to football. It has grown worse in recent decades as the players have gotten bigger and stronger. Improvements in helmet technology haven't helped, and they might even have made CTE even worse, because the helmets allowed players (by their own admission) to use their heads as battering rams.

Two years ago now, a large medical study of football players' brains showed that an appallingly high percentage of those players had CTE. In that study, Boston University scientists led by Jesse Mez and Ann McKee found CTE in the brains of 110 out of 111 former NFL players (99%), and 48 out of 53 college players (91%).

As the BU scientists themselves pointed out, the former players and their families may have suspected something was wrong, and that may have motivated them to participate in the study. Thus the extremely high proportion of deceased players showing CTE in this study is certainly an overestimate. But as I wrote at the time:

"is it okay to ask young men to play football if the risk of permanent brain damage is only 50%? What if it's just 10 or 20%? Is that okay? Is football that important?"

Clearly, the answer should be no. University presidents are constantly, even obsessively, worrying about the safety of their students. Campuses have many programs in place to protect students from crime, from sexual harrassment, from emotional distress, and more. And yet every fall, they willingly–no, enthusiastically–subject the 100 or so students on their football teams to a serious risk of lifelong, life-threatening brain damage. This simply should end.

For an especially poignant story, watch this short video about Greg Ploetz, who played on the 1969 national championship football team at the University of Texas, and who died in 2015 after years of worsening dementia:

As his daughter says in the video,

"If [today's football players] knew what he went through, and what we went through as a family, there's no way that people would decide to keep playing." 

Perhaps universities could take a cue from former Baltimore Ravens player John Urschel, widely considered the smartest player in the NFL, who was pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at MIT while simultaneously playing pro football. Two years ago, Urschel quit, because he was worried that brain damage would destroy his ability to think clearly. And just one week ago, Indianapolis Colts' star quarterback Andrew Luck retired early because football had "wrecked his body and stolen his joy."

Brain damage may be happening to much younger players too. A study from the University of Washington last year found that 5% of youth football players aged 5-14 had experienced concussions each season. Three years ago, a mother sued the Pop Warner youth football organization after her son committed suicide at age 25. An autopsy showed that he had CTE, and the mother argued that his brain damaged was caused by his years playing youth football. The Pop Warner organization settled the suit for close to $2 million, but other lawsuits have been filed since.

As I and others have written, football and its promise of big-money television contracts has corrupted our universities. While universities build ever-bigger football stadiums and pay coaches exhorbitant salaries, they force the players to play for free. Now we know that players face a much more direct threat: long-term brain damage.

Let me ask university presidents this question as bluntly as I can: how much brain damage is acceptable for your football players? If your answer is "none," then it's time to get football out of our universities.

Football has corrupted our universities. Time for it to leave.

The University of Maryland, College Park began their first
game of the season by honoring their teammate Jordan
McNair, number 79, who died during a May 2018 practice.

The University of Maryland, where I was a professor for six years, is embroiled in a football scandal that started with the tragic death of a young player, Jordan McNair, who died of heat stroke during practice. On an especially hot day in late May, the coaches were driving the players too hard, and when McNair collapsed, they failed to immerse him in cold water, which might have saved his life.

This past week, as the results of a 192-page inquiry were being leaked to the press, the university's Board of Regents has been meeting this weekend to decide what actions to take. According to the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, the board is considering whether to fire the coach, DJ Durkin (who has been on administrative leave since early September), the president of U. Maryland, Wallace Loh, and the athletic director, Damon Evans.

The University of Maryland has made one mistake after another with its football program, as I've pointed out again and again. Let's look at a timeline:

2010: in virtually his very first major decision as president, Wallace Loh approved the hiring of a new coach (Randy Edsall) and a $2 million payout to the old coach (Ralph Friedgen), who was pushed out a year early. This was at a time when the entire university system was in the midst of a 3-year hiring and salary freeze, which included unpaid furloughs (basically, pay cuts) for almost all employees. Not for football, though.

2011: UMD doubled down: in order to invest more in football, the university eliminated 8 other varsity sports, all of them sports that are healthy for students and that don't carry any risk of permanent brain damage. Here's what they cut: men’s cross-country, indoor track, outdoor track, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, women’s acrobatics and tumbling, women’s swimming and diving, and women’s water polo. Loh's argument at the time: "should we have fewer programs so that they can be better supported and, hence, more likely to be successful at the highest level? Or, should we keep the large number of programs that are undersupported compared to their conference peers?"

It pains me to read these words again. Is this what "successful" means for a major university? That its football team wins a few more games? Meanwhile, hundreds of students who played those other sports, all of which likely enriched their lives and their health, were left without teams.

2012: Maryland left the ACC, to which it had belonged for over 50 years, and joined the Big Ten conference, a move that was supposed to make more money. Never mind that it would require the players to travel much longer distances for games at other schools in the Big Ten. Never mind the $50 million exit fee to leave the ACC.

2015: Deja vu! Maryland football was still losing, so they fired the coach again, giving him a $4.7 million payout from state funds, to hire another new coach, DJ Durkin. The coach they fired, Randy Edsall, was the guy who was supposed to take the Terrapins "from good to great." That worked out well, didn't it?

2017: How is that team doing, anyway? Overall record 4-8, tied for dead last in the Big Ten's eastern division. What was it that president Loh said again about being successful at the highest level?

2018: Under coach DJ Durkin, a team practice on a very hot day causes the tragic death of a young player, Jordan McNair.

This slow-moving disaster illustrates what I've pointed out before:

• Universities have no business trying to run a big-time sports entertainment business–and make no mistake, that's what NCAA Division I football is.
• They're often very bad at it, as Wallace Loh and UMD have illustrated.
• Universities treat players as indentured servants: they refuse to pay the players for their work, and they often spit them out after four years without even providing a proper education. This undermines their core mission, which is educating and nurturing their students. (Read Taylor Branch's compelling exposé in the Atlantic for much more on this topic.)
• Making matters even worse, we now know that there's a serious risk that football players will suffer chronic traumatic encephalopathy later in life, a permanently disabling form of brain damage.

The bottom line: football is corrupting our universities, and it needs to go. This doesn't necessarily mean that fans must lose their favorite college teams. Here's one possible solution.

Football fans, including state legislators and university administrators, like to claim that football makes a profit. Let's suppose that's true: then it will do just fine as an independent business. Get football out of the universities, and make it a privately-run minor league for the NFL (which it already is, in effect). Let each team pay fees for use of the university's name, the stadium, practice fields, and parking on game days. Then the football club can pay its coaches whatever it wants, and it will have to pay the athletes, who are disgracefully paid nothing right now. And the university will still have its team, but without the corrupting influence of money. Even better, universities won't have to pretend that they are providing a first-class education to the players, while padding their coffers at the players' expense.

Let's end the farce of having university presidents try to manage large, commercial sports programs. Let them get back to focusing on research and education, topics on which they actually have some expertise.

I'm not naive: I don't think any major university is going to get rid of football any time soon, despite the growing evidence that football carries a major risk of brain damage to the players. This has only happened once, when the University of Chicago eliminated its football program in 1939, and brought it back in decades later as much-reduced program, now in NCAA Division III. The university itself has remained a powerhouse, routinely ranked in the top universities in the country academically.

Meanwhile, the Maryland Board of Regents is trying to decide what to do. If they read the timeline above, they'll know what I think: get rid of the whole lot, including the football program, and get the university back to its real mission.

Alabama versus Clemson prediction: both teams will lose

Monday evening's college football championship game features two powerhouse teams: undefeated Clemson (14-0) versus perennial football power Alabama (13-1). With all the media attention on this game, expected to be one of the most-watched college football games ever, it's easy to find predictions for the winner. CBS has six experts all predicting an Alabama victory. SBNation lists Alabama as a one-touchdown favorite.

My prediction is different, and I'm 100% positive that I'm correct: both teams will lose. Don't get me wrong: the teams will play each other, and one of the teams will score more points, so the game itself will have a winner. But in this money-washed extravaganza, with coaches, schools, and television networks hauling in tens of millions of dollars, none of the players will be paid a single dollar.

Imagine this: the 100 players on each team's roster have spent their year entertaining millions of fans. They have played their hearts out on the field, risking injury (including the possibility of a life-altering concussion) in every game, all while pretending to be full-time college students pursuing an education. The pretense that they are "student athletes" is what allows the NCAA and the universities to maintain the fiction that players should not be compensated for their efforts on the field.

Don't get me wrong: there will be plenty of winners in Monday's game. The coaches, conferences, and colleges have already won. Alabama's head coach Nick Saban will be paid $7,087,481 this year. Clemson's coach Dabo Sweeney makes $3,305,200. Alabama and Clemson's assistant coaches make $1,500,000 and $1,404,807 respectively. USA Today calculated the total payroll of the football coaching staff for the four teams in the final two playoff games: $35,981,491, not including bonuses.

It's not just the football coaches who have won big. Athletic directors and their staffs have cashed in handsomely too. As the Washington Post reported a few weeks ago,

"In a decade, the non-coaching payrolls at the schools [in the five wealthiest athletic conferences], combined, rose from $454 million to $767 million."

The Post also compiled numbers showing that 34 football teams had staff payrolls above $1 million for non-coaching staff. Clemson has created an "associate athletic director of football administration" who alone makes $252,000.

But wait, there's more. The athletic conferences in which Alabama, Clemson, and the other major football powers play have been rewarding themselves handsomely, paying their commissioners from $2.0 to 3.5 million. As the Washington Post put it:

"As a reward for making an industry fueled by unpaid athletes more lucrative than ever, the men who run these conferences have enjoyed staggering pay hikes doled out by the leaders of many of America’s largest universities."

Much of this money comes from television contracts; the Wall St. Journal explains that the ACC (Clemson's conference) has a $3.6 billion contract with ESPN that lasts until 2027. ESPN is paying another $7.3 billion to televise the playoff and bowl games. None of that money goes to the players upon whom the entire enterprise depends.

When you watch the game on Monday (or any college football game), think about all that money going to the coaches, administrators, conference commissioners, and staff, while the players get nothing. The universities participating in this lucrative enterprise should be ashamed: they are making millions off the backs of unpaid athletes, while hiding behind the pretense that they are providing the athletes a fair return in the form of a college education. As I've written before, this is nonsense. Universities have been corrupted by the lure of cash, and they seem to have forgotten that they are in the business of educating students, not providing sports entertainment.

So yes, you will see some winners on Monday. They're the guys on both sidelines wearing headsets, making multi-million dollar salaries. After the game, they'll drive their expensive cars to their multi-million dollar homes. The players will return to their dorm rooms.

As for me, I find it increasingly difficult to enjoy watching college football. Every time a player gets shaken up by a hard tackle, I'm reminded that their playing careers are woefully short, and this might be the last time they have the chance to play in front of such a large audience. I think about how they'll feel 10 or 20 years from now, when they're limping around on bad knees while their former schools have long forgotten about them.

Colleges need to pay the players. And while they're at it, they can take steps to make sure that these students get a real education, such as offering free tuition, room, and board to the players for at least four years after they stop playing football. Until they do, all the players lose.