College Sports Business News - The Publication for College Sports Administrators

This past year has been one of the most controversial years for the college sports industry. Unprecedented media deals spurred conference realignments. NCAA violations and criminal investigations led to sanctions against prominent programs and the resignations/terminations of legendary coaches. NCAA President Mark Emmert took office at a momentous time and he has been trying to navigate the organization through a maze of opportunities and challenges. Some of his attempts have been right on the money and at other times he has sat on the sidelines as conference commissioners, college presidents and athletic directors acted with only their institutions’ vested self interest in mind. 

In trying to forge progress and change, Emmert faces incredible obstacles including his relative lack of power. However, he does have the bully pulpit of his presidency available to him and he needs to continue to use it.

In the spirit of contributing to the discussion about how college sports can be conducted legally, equitably, fairly and profitably here are my ten suggestions for reform. Some of them are already in the pipeline of change and others need to be discussed more thoroughly.

1. In virtually every sport reduce the number of games that can be played in a season and limit the number that can be played during the school week. Student-athletes are simply missing too much class time, which hurts academic progress and graduation rates.
2. Eliminate freshman eligibility for all student-athletes who are considered special admits; and, define that term as any student-athlete who would not have been admitted to the institution but for the fact that they were athletes. If you don’t have the grades and are not academically prepared you need a one year period to acclimate to college life and the academic workload.
3. Connect post-season eligibility and both NCAA and conference revenue distribution with academic/graduation success and rules compliance. Simply put, succeed academically and play within the rules or incur immediate competitive and financial penalties.
4. Allow a full athletic scholarship to cover the full cost of attendance as defined by each school’s financial aid office. There is no need to set a national limit since the schools already define what that amount is given their geographical location and academic offerings.
5. Change scholarship offers from one year renewable awards to multi-year scholarships, which could include graduate degrees. If education is the goal why shouldn’t schools be free to offer scholarships that cover more than a bachelor’s degree? Some schools will decide to do so and some won’t offer graduate degrees, but in either case the free market would be making the decision.
6. Grant student-athletes the legal right to their image and likeness following their graduation. Simple economic fairness demands that compensation should be paid to student-athletes for the commercial use of their images.
7. Provide college athletes with the opportunity to enter into contracts to pursue marketing and endorsement opportunities while in college. Why can students with music scholarship earn money playing professionally for the local symphony, but athletes cannot earn money off of their skill or reputation while in college?
8. Provide student-athletes with the opportunity to engage agents/attorneys as they assess professional sports opportunities. Lucrative financial opportunities come across seldom in life and when they do all of us need to be advised appropriately about our marketability and options by true professionals and not by uninformed committees on campus whose interests may vary from those of the student-athlete.
9. Simplify the rule book. Major violations need to be limited to ethical misconduct on topics such as academic integrity, but punishments must be swift and substantive including financial penalties and post season ineligibility. The current rulebook is indecipherable to just about every athletic administrator and coach.
10. Limit institutional athletic spending to some multiple of the amount the institution academically spends per student. There is no reason that athletic profits shouldn’t be spent on institutional priorities other than athletics. This constraint would be a way to slow the arms race and allow the institution to benefit from the media money being spent in college sports.

By Dave O'Brien, CSBN Editor

Dave O'Brien J.D. has been a college sports executive and educator for over 25 years.  He served as a Division I athletic director at Long Beach State University, Temple University and Northeastern University for 16 years (1991-2007). 

O'Brien is currently the Director of the Sports Management Program at Drexel University where he also teaches at the undergraduate, graduate and law school levels.  In addition to his academic position, O'Brien is the managing partner of the O'Brien Sports Group which provides a wide range of consulting services to the college sports industry, including NCAA rules compliance, risk management audits, business support services, executive recruitment, training workshops and more. He is also an editor of College Sports Business News.

O'Brien is active nationally in sports law matters as co-author of a monthly column on college sports law issues published in College Athletics and the Law and as a consultant on sports topics including pay equity, retaliation, harassment, Title IX, and coaching contracts.  

Prior to becoming an athletic administrator, O'Brien served in a variety of roles in higher education, which included assistant to the president for legal and legislative affairs at Montclair State University and the assistant vice president for administration and finance at Long Beach State.  He also served on the legislative staff of the New Jersey Senate and practiced law in New Jersey. 

O'Brien is a graduate of Moravian College and Seton Hall Law School, and has also attained certification from the Sports Management Institute as part of its inaugural class. He can be reached at dobrien@collegesportsbusinessnews.com