Interesting that Cory Booker is still claiming that athletes are being exploited, but is not offering a solution. As we've discussed here ad nauseum, the only two choices appear to be providing the NCAA or someone else some antitrust protection so they can impose some guardrails, or doing it by allowing the athletes to unionize, which has its own set of problems.

My suspicion at this point is that there will be no solution, and the whole thing will just implode, leaving a relatively small number of schools competing in the arms race, and the rest essentially operating at a far lower level of competition, where the scholarships are solely need-based, or something like that.

Jeff82 said:

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Interesting that Cory Booker is still claiming that athletes are being exploited, but is not offering a solution. As we've discussed here ad nauseum, the only two choices appear to be providing the NCAA or someone else some antitrust protection so they can impose some guardrails, or doing it by allowing the athletes to unionize, which has its own set of problems.

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I wish someone would exploit me the way high-end MBB and football players are being exploited at the moment . . .

But in terms of the "two alternatives" let's be a bit more precise, as I think those are part of a single unified solution that for whatever reason our elected representatives can't grok. If players are being paid as professional athletes then we need to mirror the structure that already works fine for MLB, the NFL, the NBA, etc.

Basically, Congress grants the NCAA gains an anti-trust exemption so that it can come up with actual enforceable caps (currently the $20.5m cap is completely illegal). You come up with a new enforceable cap that is negotiated with a players organization or "union" representing the interests of the students.

Problem at the moment is that under the existing laws only employees can unionize. And if you designate student-athletes as employees then all hell breaks loose because 10,000 state and federal regulations get triggered, none of which were designed with college athletics in mind (OSHA, over-time laws, NLRA issues, etc.). Plus of course then all of the student's "benefits" immediately become taxable income. Which means tuition, food, academic support, housing, etc. And since the students don't have the money to pay these taxes, the school would have to pay them on their behalf which is itself "taxable income" for the students and then the school would have to pay for the student's taxes on THAT money too. Etc. A financial disaster.

So what the SCORE Act really needs to do is (i) grant the NCAA some form of anti-trust exemption and (ii) provide that students can organize as a group of non-employee affiliates and collectively bargain and thereby qualify for the non-statutory exemption to the anti-trust laws. You need both to make this work.