Can a Collegiate Athlete Earn and Income From Other Sources
Yes, but not by using their image, likeness, or association with the college they attend.
First and foremost, I can say being a Div1 athlete, I understand more than anyone the challenges of collegiate student-athletes. I literally would starve after doing 2-3 hour weight room workouts. I can remember having nothing but a one BIG snickers bar to eat all day.
In the past, the NCAA has penalized students for any type of income-generating while being a collegiate athlete. Athletes were allowed to work during summers but unable to generate any kind of income during the regular school year for basic types of necessities, like toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, and other essentials like underclothes and personal care.
As you know, these types of standard needs can cost at least 60 – $150 per month. You add in the strenuous academic schedule athletes must maintain in addition to an 8 hour day filled with athletic meetings, practice, weight training, and you will be hard-pressed to find time to work at typical jobs such as Mcdonalds even if you could.
Importance of Income Outside of Sport
But things are slowly changing. It would seem that the NCAA and colleges would work together to, at the very least, provide the extra income for basics. Still, there has been a monopoly and Gestapo type of mentality towards student-athletes, creating something viable outside of sport.
Still, as you will see in the cases below, one could assume athletes have been forced to only look at themselves as college athletes with the only possibility for success as being a pro athlete.
As you will read in the cases below, you will see that as athletes tried to create an income and business based on sound marketing and education practices, they were met with quite a bit of resistance.
Most Recent 2019 NCAA Ruling on Student-Athlete Pay
In October for 2019, THe NCAA agreed to allow student-athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness. Think about this for a moment a student-athlete is not permitted to benefit from their picture and vision, but the NCAA and college programs somehow have more of a right to the benefit of student-athletes’ likeness. And people have not blinked an eye for years.
In Late 2019, The organization’s top governing board voted unanimously to allow college athletes to be compensated. However, the NCAA’s Div 1AA, D2, and Div 3 must still create their own rules and regulations on the issue.
NCAA Student-athletes must be treated closely to non-athlete students’ standards; athletes must not be treated as employees of their athletic program universities, and there should be a “clear distinction between college and professional opportunities,” the NCAA said.
In September of 2019, California became the first state to pass a law that would allow college student-athletes to get paid for endorsements and acquire sports agents.
NCAA is Changing
The NCAA is trying to “change” and beginning the process of allowing student-athletes to make income off of their name, their image, and their likeness,
The decision is a massive change in ideology and control for the NCAA, which had a history of penalizing any type of expression of freedom with a firm hand. Remember Terrell Pryor and the Ohio State athletes that were suspended for traded autographs for tattoos.
I live in a suburban area with a high concentration of whites, and I can say that many students in this high school are committing more significant actions that go unpunished.
Fair Pay to Play Act
In September, Gavin Newsom signed the “Fair Pay to Play Act,” The new law will allow student-athletes players to be compensated for their name, their image, and their likeness. Senate Bill 206, Titled “Fair Pay to Play Act,” would also stop universities within the state from revoking or deleting scholarships from student-athletes who decide to pursue endorsement deals and other opportunities.
Progressive California is the first state to allow and pass a law that allows college athletes some freedom to make income from their talents in addition to endorsement deals and hire sports agents.
In response, the NCAA said California schools and others that allow athletes this freedom may not be eligible for national championship bowl games.
They continued to by using the Consitution and said California’s law is still “likely unconstitutional.”
Their state reads “We urge the state of California to reconsider this harmful and, we believe, unconstitutional bill and hope the state will be a constructive partner in our efforts to develop a fair name, image, and likeness approach for all 50 states,” This statement came directly from Stacy Osburn NCAA Director of communications.
Taxing the Income of Collegiate Athletes
The response to the Californias Fair Play Act and the changing scope of college athletics has been met with new resistance.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said scholarship money received by college student-athletes who receive endorsement income should be looked at like income and income that is taxed.
“If college athletes are going to make money off of their likeness while in school, their scholarships should be treated as income,” Burr said on his Twitter account.
Senator Richard Burr has indicated he plans to lead legislation that taxes athletic scholarships for college student-athletes who choose to “cash in.” as he put it in his word.
Cases of NCAA Penalizing Student-Athletes for Owning a Business
In the summer of 2017, the NCAA dealt a ruling on Donald De La Haye, a UCF kicker that was making income on his YouTube channel. Donald De La Haye, after failing to come to terms with the NCAA, he left the college after he didn’t agree to the waiver that UCF and the NCAA agreed on.
Another case includes a Texas A&M track & field athlete Ryan Trahan, who owns a water bottle company and has 14,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. The NCAA demanded he applies for a waiver to continue to operate his business, in addition to not mention either his athletic connection texas A&M.
The NCAA also clarified that they did not receive a waiver from Texas A&M and that student-athletes could run income-generating businesses as long as the company had nothing to do with their athletics reputation. Does this mean the NCAA owns an athlete’s athletic reputation or athletic ability? A great question to ask.
The NCAA suspended Marvin Austin of North Carolina along with other UNC athletes for the NCAA called receiving improper benefits and hanging out with former UNC players in the NFL.
Let’s say you are one year off ahead of your best friend in college. You get drafted to the NFL and send your buddy some gear, shoes, and a couple of hundred bucks well that’s a violation.
De Bryant was suspended for most of his season in 2009 at Oklahoma State for apparently failing to tell the NCAA about his relationship with NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders. Deion has and is a big-time development coach for young players in the texas and Florida area. So the NCAA decides who you can talk to.
Most Recently, names Wisweman must sit games because they received 11,500 from Penny Hardaway to help his parents move. This happened while James was a high school player. This led to the NCAA penalizing James for 12 games, and him ultimately deciding to sit the rest of this 2020 season and declare for the NBA Draft.
Jalen Green of PRofilic Prep in April of 2020 decided to foregone playing the in NCAA and instead of agreeing to participate in the NBA G Leagues Developmental Program.
Ways NCAA Players Can Make Income
1. Cost of School attendance.
The NCAA and universities say this is all that is needed for student-athletes, and this is the necessary additional scholarship money. Now many college athletic programs are providing all or some of their athletes with a couple of extra thousand dollars a year through the cost of attendance. Some coaches publicly worried that other schools’ price of attendance numbers were inflated for competitive reasons, and the money would impact recruiting.
In all honesty, this provides a quality of life that was not afforded in past years. I can say that athletes do have it a lot better than the 90s and early 2000s, but with the money that is being made, athletes should get a portion of that.
2. Pell Grants.
The federal government provides educations financial aid to all students who show a need for money to attend university. The maximum Pell Grant award is $5,000 – $6500 per student-athlete. Student-athlete needs to meet income standards, but this is not a guarantee. Many athletes from so-called middle-class homes may not receive quality. Under the updated NCAA rules and regulations, a student-athlete who gets Pell Grant income may also receive “cost of attendance monies” or the value of a full scholarship plus the Pell Grant, whichever is greater.
3. Pro money in a different sport
In the NCAA’s rules and regulations of amateurism, you can be deemed an amateur in one sport while also a professional athlete in another. A professional athlete paid in one sport can also play another college athletics sport, receive income and scholarship monies. In a different sport and receive a scholarship—Russell Wilson, Bo Jackson, and Deion sanders all qualified under this rule.
4. Bowl gifts/postseason awards
A football player can receive gifts valued up to $550 from a bowl game and up to $400 by his college. There are additional gifts like visa cards for student-athlete players. In other sports, the NCAA grants school the ability to give awards to underclassmen $225 each, seniors $425, for annual participation. Additional awards for winning a national championship include $415 max per player, and winning a conference championship $325. If you earn a national recognition award such as the Heisman Trophy, that award is worth up to $325, MVP of a bowl game, or all-star contest $350 an award. Team awards based on NCAA rules and regulations include the most improved player, most minutes played, and MVP for $175.
5. Free injury insurance
An NCAA athlete can borrow against future earnings from a lender for loss-of-value insurance in case of a severe injury.
6. Prize money income based on performance
In tennis, a player can get up to $10,000 per year in prize award money before or during university. The prize award money can only come from the organizer’s sponsor of a tennis event in which the tennis player participates.
Once the $10,000 is hit, NCAA rules and regulations state the tennis player can still acquire additional money if it does not go over their expenses for participating in the tennis event.
NOTE: In other college sports other than tennis, such as track and field student-athlete can receive the prize money from an organizer sponsor based on performance or finish as long as the amount of money does not exceed the cost to participate in the sport.
MY ASSESSMENT: So basically, you cannot earn any income unless you ass in a bunch of additional costs to participate that you did not spend to keep the money you made from you finish.
7. Money for training and international competition
A student-athlete can get expenses paid for by the (USOC) United States Olympic Committee to cover development training, coaching, facility usage, equipment, apparel, supplies, comprehensive health insurance, travel, and room and board.
Expenses for Olympic Events are allowed if the college athlete doesn’t miss class or conflict with university competition. Athletes can receive apparel, clothes, footwear, and other commemorative items for participating in the Olympics or another international event through a national governing body. A company or local community members may provide expenses and other non-monetary benefits to an athlete’s family to attend national team competitions.
8. Student assistance fund
The NCAA provides money to each school to help student-athletes who have special financial needs. Some of this can go to clothing. The NCAA allows schools to pay family travel expenses for the men’s and women’s basketball Final Four and the College Football Playoff Games. Again but everything is a case by case circumstance evaluated by the NCAA.
9. Outside of Sports Employment
The NCAA grants and allows players to have paying jobs. The payment cannot be for athletic ability or publicity but rather than an athlete’s public presence. An athlete can be employed by the university, another school, or organization to work in a camp or clinic as a counselor.
10. Self-employment
The National Collegiate Athletic Association rule still says an athlete may establish a business only if their name, their photo, their appearance, or athletic reputation are not used to promote the business. Yes, you read that correctly. Most entrepreneurs use their name, likeness, and photo. The reality is colleges, and the NCAA uses player likeness to make revenue. There is further ambiguity as the NCAA now tackles each case on an individual basis where they will revoke or grant waivers for students athlete entrepreneurial. A former NCAA wrestler name Joel Bauman wrote a book about his experience “Indentured: The Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA,”
My Personal Experience
My personal experience is one that included a full Div. 1 scholarship in which leverage not four years of collegiate football and three years of Collegiate track and field, and additionally, I graduated in MIS with an emphasis in computer science.
I can say that while my scholarship covered room, board, tuition, books, and some meals. I still went without eating on a few occasions, and additionally, without necessary living essentials on many times, it ends up working out.
Again, I most definitely could have used extra funds even if it came on an athletic department issued a card that allowed mine to purchases food and personal hygiene necessities.
Like many athletes, I had hope and expectation. The only motivation I had was that I would one day play in the NFL, and all of this struggle would be over. I ate my one meal for the day, an oversized Snickers bar, and a 32-ounce bottle of water. Do I think players should be compensated, absolutely they should walk away with something other than a piece of paper that has value, but only if recognized by those that value it?
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