College Athletes: Debating Payment and NCAA's Role

There will always be debates on whether college athletes should be paid or not, but the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) came up with a fair and right way to award athletes for what they deserve. The beginning of the case study mentions that “The possibility of a future collegiate athletic scholarship was a motivating force to excel for many families and youth athletic competing in Pee Wee, Little League, middle school, and high school sports.” I agree with this statement considering that many athletes have a dream of playing for college one day, as a child. However, throughout the years there were many issues dealing with illegal ways of college athletes being paid.
Considering that there are different divisions of college

athletics, known as D1, D2, or D3, they had to decide how much and how many athletes receive scholarships to be fair. Mentioned in the article, “Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools were allowed to provide 85 full scholarships in football, whereas Division 1 Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) schools were restricted to 65 equivalent full scholarships.” Only Division 1 and Division 2 schools provided athletes with scholarship money and there were many different ways as to how the schools generated revenue. The article explains that “NCAA revenues were generated from television, and marketing right fees, primarily from the Division 1 men’s basketball championship events.”
Therefore, there were many different efforts to pay players in the year 2014, after hearing about the scandals involving impermissible benefits. A good point was mentioned in the article about how college football was more like a job that athletes spent over 50 hours a week preparing for. The case study mentions “In 2014, Northwestern football players had formed the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA) and filed a case with NLRB in which they argued that they were, in fact, employees of the university and not student athletes and thus had the ability to form a union.” The decision was made that they did have a right to unionize and the ruling was enticed by mid-2014.
Introduction
The SWOT analysis and Porter’s 5 Force Model are both very useful techniques when analyzing the issues regarding the NCAA Athletics Casey Study.

First, we will get a better understanding of the SWOT analysis by considering the strengths and weaknesses that are internal to the athletic organizations mentioned in the article, and study the opportunities and threats commonly more relatable to external factors. Second, Porter’s 5 Force model will give us a better idea of how the rivalry dealing with the different divisions in college football are all focused around the bargaining of the suppliers, bargaining of the customers, threat of new comers, and threat of

substitution.
Analysis and Arguments
Considering that the SWOT analysis stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, there are many different ways we can understand the issues with NCAA athletics when compensating athletes. “The first two letters in the acronym, S (strengths) and W (weaknesses), refer to internal factors, which means the resources and experience readily available to you.” (businessnewsdaily.com) Therefore, a big internal factor of NCAA athletics were the strengths and weaknesses of how the revenue was generated for the athletes. The article mentions that “The NCAA distributed $497.6 million to Division 1 schools in the 2013-2014 academic year.” It is important for these athletic organizations to have a steady force of income for the athletes, and offer investment opportunities for supports of the programs, as well.
“External forces influence and affect every company, organization and individual. Whether these factors are connected directly or indirectly to an opportunity or threat, it is important to take note of and document each one.” (businessnewsdaily.com) Therefore, the opportunities and threats that came along with paying athletes caused issues with illegal scandals and payments. There are many opportunities for Division 1 and Division 2 athletic programs to reward their athletes in a legal way, yet there were many different payment scandals that occurred over the years.
The article mentions that “the first source was what was deemed “pay for play” which was high-ranking boosters or school officials provided under-the-table money to a recruit or his family in order to secure the recruiter’s commitment to play football for the school in question.” Therefore, these opportunities were how some schools rewarded their players but with illegal opportunities comes threats that could cause very negative effects on the organizations. For example, Southern Methodist University got caught in a scandal, which ended in a severe punishment for the program known as “the death penalty”. “The death penalty essentially crippled the SMU football program for the next 20 years” mentioned in the article.
Furthermore, Porter’s 5 Forces Model is a good way to answer questions about the different factors that cause rivalry in an organization.

First, the threat of entry of new competitors “encompasses the challenges surrounding if new competitors were to enter the same industry, causing issues on how would the profitability be affected?” (business-fundas.com) Considering that each year there are new players to come in and out of a school, there is always threat of competition between athletes. It is important that the NCAA creates contracts with the athletes. The article mentions that “in 1973 student athletes were no longer guaranteed four years of compensation since their scholarships could be revoked for lack of

performance.”
The second force in Porter’s Model deals with “the threat of substitute products or services: this is captured to understand to what extent there is a possibility of the industry’s product or services being substituted by some other category of products or services” (business-fundas.com) This issue can relate to NCAA Athletics because there can always be different threats that relate to the athletes and the service they are providing to their team. If the athletes feel as though they are not getting funded for what basically seems like a full-time job, they may lack their effort on the field. The article mentions that “The debate over possible compensation for football became more widespread in 2014” therefore, there were many threats of products and services that supporters invested in.
Considering that there are many people who invest their time and money into college football, the third force is important to bargain with the customers and buyers who support the organization. “This force tries to estimate the degree of bargaining of post-facto relationships that may be empowered due to the dynamics of the relationship.” (business-fundas.com) If the NCAA organizations gets caught in scandals, they may lose customers and investors for their union. The article mentions that “in 2014, the NCAA was fighting a unionization movement at Northwestern University that was led by former quarterback Kain Colter and it faced various lawsuits challenging its amateurism and financial assistance policies, which barred student athletes from receiving compensation for sports participation.”
The last force of Porter’s Model is the bargaining power of suppliers. “This force tries to explore the impact of the bargaining power of the industry’s suppliers and how much they can force the industry to share the benefits of value creation through this bargaining power.” (business-fundas.com) The NCAA Athletic organizations are responsible for supplying their athletes with compensation for their performance. Therefore, the initial threat that could cause issues for the organizations deals with whether or not the suppliers are continuing to reward the college athletes. Factors mentioned in the article were “financial aid, including full cost of attendance and scholarship guarantees, academic support, particularly for as-risk student athletes, and other support such as travel for families, free tickets to athletic events and expenses associated with practice and competition (such as parking)” It is important for the industries to understand their bargaining power when dealing with athletes.
Summary and Conclusions
After reading this case study, I was able to get a better understanding of how difficult it is for the NCAA to reward college athletes for their performance because of the issues throughout the years. Also, I never realized how college football is more like a job for the students rather than a sport. The entire section of the article about Denard Robinson who was a former Michigan quarterback really showed how his day is revolved around football. The article stated, “The day finally concluded at 10:30 p.m. nearly 16 hours after it began.” Therefore, I do believe that these athletes should be rewarded for their time and energy that is put into preparing for their games.
Overall, there were many issues stated in the article about scandals that involved payment plans for student athletes. Many schools thought that they could get away with is but clearly they did not. The numerous ways that the players were paid illegally is going to ruin it for the players that are paid legitimately. The NCAA is responsible for making sure that players are not being paid at an amateur level and that they are getting paid fairly. Unfortunately there will always continue to be scandals involving how athletes continue to get paid, but it is important that the NCAA is made up of ethical leaders who can try to put an end to this.