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A documentary that examines how college sports in America became a billion dollar enterprise built on the backs of its unpaid athletes.
Growing up in Dublin, Ireland, I was not exposed to American football or basketball. I was aware of them, I had seen them on TV from time to time but back then, soccer and Gaelic football were the sports we played and watched. When I got the chance to review “Schooled: The Price of College Sports”, and in researching it, saw that it was mainly about American football and basketball, I wasn’t overly thrilled. You see, I’m not a sports person in any way whatsoever, I don’t watch them and I don’t play them although occasionally a few friends and I will kick a ball around together. In Ireland, we call it football. In the States, it’s called soccer. Well, I settled down and pressed PLAY and my dislike of sports aside, I found this film to be such an eye-opening experience. I’ve never been to a Friday night football game but have to admit, I’ve always loved the energy and atmosphere, just in passing a stadium with a game being played. Family and friends and neighbors supporting each other, that feeling is simply electrifying. This film was made for one reason: to brand the NCAA as a nefarious and corrupt institution prohibiting rights from the players the movie views as laborers.
Throughout the film, we meet players, coaches, administrators, investigators and attorneys and they all tell us their differing opinions on the NCAA and college sports in general and their stances on what they do and what they believe in. Jonathan Franklin played football at U.C.L.A. in California from 2009 to 2012 and has become one of the most celebrated players in the University’s history with over 4400 yards but he was never allowed to go out partying or go drinking with friends and was constantly aware of what he said and did because, as he states, “everyone’s always watching” and because he was representing the school and its image, just one hiccup could cost him his scholarship. These universities are making so much money every year through football and basketball games, yet the players, while technically students and having to study other subjects on top of their football or basketball training, don’t get paid. They struggle at times just to be able to put food in their fridges but are hailed as heroes on the field, even having their likeness and names put into video games, of which they get no royalties whatsoever. Yet their coaches and trainers pull into the university parking lot every day in a brand new Lexus or BMW.
Arian Foster played football for the University of Tennessee and loved playing every game and afterwards, having hundreds of people wanting to take pictures with him and have his autograph but to then go back to his dorm and realize that he had nothing to eat or drink, that’s when reality set in. He had absolutely nothing to show for the great performance he gave on the field. Some players sell drugs to make money, others sell their football rings to have an income but yet none of them would dare say anything about it to the University at the risk of being fired. College Sports is big business. Every year, the universities playing them, pull in over $12 billion. It’s proven to be an incredibly stable industry with a rate of growth that outpaces blue chip companies like McDonald’s and Chevron. Yet out of all the schools in the NCAA, a small fraction of them are responsible for generating the lion’s share for that revenue. But where do the riches come from? A combination of ticket sales ($1.6 billion), donations ($1.5 billion), Television contracts ($1.2 billion), Corporate Sponsorship deals ($0.5 billion) and royalties from licensing and merchandise ($0.5 billion).
Operating as untaxed, non-profits, and with no shareholders, these schools run up unbelievable expenses, spending every dollar they earn and then some. In most states, the highest paid public employee is a college football or basketball coach, with earnings into the millions. The pressure to win has lead to a college sports arms race, as schools renovate and re-renovate evermore lavish facilities to attract the nation’s top talent. Governing the whole affair, the NCAA National Office generates a gigantic sum, from its annual March Madness tournament. But the biggest profits to be had by college sports, are in the hands of private companies, such as AT&T, Coca-Cola, Nike and LG, to name but a few. Licensors, apparel manufacturers and television networks don’t usually disclose their contracts, but estimates dwarf the rest of the industry combined. And at the center of it all, in return for fueling this enormous industry, the student athletes are promised something priceless: a free education! Every year, athletes must re-sign scholarship papers and attest that they are amateurs and swear to obey the NCAA rules prohibiting payment.
The dictionary defines the word amateur as “a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons.” The NCAA defines amateurism as whatever the NCAA wants amateurism to be. So what does this mean? It means that the NCAA can continue to make billions of dollars every year and pay the faculty and the coaches and the assistant coaches and trainers yet not pay the young athletes whose faces and jersey numbers bring in the actual crowds because, as the NCAA says, “they’re amateurs.” Not knowing much about sports didn’t prevent me from becoming so mad at learning about all of this. Of course, some of these players go on to play professionally and make huge sums of money for being great players but also endorsement deals from apparel to sports drinks and video games but the majority of them, never make it professionally. Mary Willingham, a former UNC learning specialist who exposed their decades-long scandal that had athletes getting ‘A’ s in no-show classes, claims the issue is that students are not getting the education they were promised. “It’s the adults that are failing the students”, she states. There is an awful lot to consider here and it is uncertain if anything will change but at least somebody has the audacity to bring it all out into the open. Very Highly Recommended.
In stores November 19th
