COLUMBIA, Mo. — The last famous No. 3 to play football for Georgia never concerned himself with signing jerseys or mini-helmets for cash. He wasn’t irritated when fans wearing his jersey number walked past him, wondering why the term “royalties” never came up when he signed his national letter of intent.
“If anything I felt like it was just an honor that people were wearing my jersey,” said former Georgia quarterback D.J. Shockley, who played on the school’s last SEC championship team in 2005. “I wasn’t thinking about profiting off my name. But everything’s changed now — the kids, the money, social media. I understand where kids are coming from now. They need to get something.”
They all need to.
Todd Gurley, probably the best college football player in the nation and certainly the best on Georgia’s roster, didn’t play Saturday. He may not play another college football game in his career. Why? Because the NCAA, the “non-profit” with the $5.64 billion contract with ESPN for the college football playoff and the $11 billion deal with CBS and Turner Sports for the NCAA Tournament, insists collegiate stars like Gurley are amateur athletes.
Gurley is being investigated for profiting off his name by signing memorabilia items for money. It’s one of many areas the NCAA considers verboten. Only because of multiple losses in court, other pending litigation, the NLRB giving clearance to Northwestern student-athletes to unionize and general public humiliation has the organization begrudgingly started to change.
The value of athletic scholarships will be increased to come more in line with “cost of attendance.” There will be annual stipends of $2,000 to $5,000. (Big schools and little schools are struggling to find a happy medium.) Meal plans have been increased because, as it turns out, kids like to eat on weekends. (Go figure.)
But the NCAA isn’t about to tell Gurley and others that they’re free to get paid to attend autograph shows. That’s a problem. Schools presidents are concerned that opening that door will lead to a relative Wild West — read: millionaire booster pays running back $100,000 for his signature — and they have a point.
But there needs to be a component that allows athletes to share in their wealth because they generating millions of dollars for universities and college sports has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. There are at least 70 head coaches with seven-digit salaries and 17 are paid in excess of $3 million per year.
The chase for television revenue also has destroyed regionalism and tradition in college athletics. Maryland didn’t leave the ACC for the Big Ten because it was a better academic fit, it left for money. Conferences are bowing to every whim of TV executives for bigger checks, the academic calendar be damned.
Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski has concerns about player compensation getting out of control. But even he admitted, “If I were an athlete today, I’d probably say, ‘I want more stuff.’ I understand that.”
But he added, “I’ve read quotes from kids about how much they appreciate what they’re given and that college prepares them for the rest of their loves. We’re losing all that. It can’t be all about, ‘I’ve got to get my mine now. It’s not realistic and it’s not sustainable.”
There has to be a way to share the wealth. What would the problem be with universities hosting group autograph shows for their athletes? Charge admission and divide the revenue.
When Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray was injured last season, he immediately started doing autograph shows, knowing his college career was over. While teammates were practicing in Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl, Murray was signing items at $35 a pop at mall sports memorabilia store.
“I know people say, ‘Oh, you get a free education,’” Murray said. “But I could’ve stayed in state and, based on my academics from high school, gone to school for free and then got a job and made money myself.”
Shockley: “I remember talking to Aaron last year and him saying, ‘Now I can make money off my name. Most of the kids today think that way.”
Sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler filed a class-action suit against the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences (SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific 12) in March, effectively trying to make every college athlete a free agent. The suit asks that athletes be treated like other students who aren’t subject to educational or financial compensation caps.
The recent ruling in the Ed O’Bannon anti-trust case, which is being appealed, opened the door for the increased stipends. But it was a mixed decision. It allowed a trust fund to be set up for athletes from other revenue of at least $5,000 but with a cap, to be determined, and that money isn’t payable until the player leaves college. The NCAA also can prevent athletes from seeking individual endorsements or selling the rights to their image.
That’s the problem. It’s their image. If a chemistry major could profit off some discovery he made, what’s to stop him?
Bobinski said the O’Bannon decision left athletic directors confused. “There’s no sense of clarity right now,” he said.
The only clarity: Those who largely generate the revenue see little of it. If Gurley is found to have knowingly broke rules, he’ll pay the price. But it would be easy to understand his position.
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