“Money is always there. But the pockets change.”- Gertrude Stein
Thus I begin my post alongside one of my favorite quotes of all time. Specifically, now that we are less than a month away from football season, sports fans across the country, and especially the Deep South are beginning to get very excited. I live in a southern suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. Alabama is a state not quite large enough to support its own NFL franchise, so the college game has always had to suffice. Not that anyone complains. The tradition is simply too rich. Atlanta, two and a half hours drive due east has the Falcons, who consistently underachieve. Nashville, dead on three hours drive north has the Tennessee Titans who have fared a little better, but as yet, have also failed to win the Super Bowl.
I was weaned on college football, unsurprising because both of my parents have degrees from what we call “The University” in this state, specifically the University of Alabama, located in the small college town of Tuscaloosa, which is about 45 minutes drive west from Birmingham. At least MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and I hold that much in common.
College football is a religion down here that one really has to see for oneself to fully understand. Weddings have to be planned around football schedules. Huge parties are pitched for those who don’t have the money to purchase a ticket themselves. Fans with deep enough pockets tailgate prior to entering the stadium to see the game. During football season, this still largely poor and lamentably backwards state places its entire self-esteem in the success or failure of its gridiron teams. I say again: one has to be born here to really get it. And despite seeking to enforce a massive case of cognitive dissonance for years, college sports’ governing body, the NCAA, has finally been forced to get off of its high horse and listen to the truth.
Here’s a fact: despite the fact that college football players are supposedly “scholar-athletes”, good players have been being paid and monetarily reimbursed (under the table, of course) since the beginning of the sport. Some programs are better than others in concealing their transgressions. It reminds me of an old baseball cliche—if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t trying.
Back in June, the unthinkable happened. No, it wasn't simply the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unanimously about anything. Rather, it was the fact that in a precedent-shattering decision, the SCOTUS revealed what we’d known all along. The National Collegiate Athletic Association had been wrong.
So-called student athletes who should have been, in the NCAA’s reckoning, happy as a pig in slop for getting a free college diploma while literally punishing their bodies, week in and week out, risking career-ending injuries while being officially unpaid in order to chase a dream. Making it to the pros, with the hopes of making millions of dollars, is tantalizingly dangled in front of largely poor, largely Black players who, should they even stay in school long enough receive their degrees, are likely to be the first person in their family to achieve one.
The NCAA got handed a mammoth loss Monday when all nine Supreme Court justices sided with former college players in an ongoing dispute about player compensations.
Justices on both sides of the aisle, who rarely agree to anything, were unanimous on one core issue: The NCAA sucks and the system is broken. In his concurring opinion on the decision Justice Kavanaugh wrote the following:
“Traditions alone cannot justify the NCAA’s decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated. Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate.”
In closing he added “the NCAA is not above the law.” It was a harder-line opinion than that of Justice Gorsuch, who wrote on behalf of the court, but the result is the same: The NCAA as we know it will be forced to change.
Much can be said about this new precedent, but I want to discuss a related topic.
For at least the last twenty years, the most successful, most financially wealthy, most imposing conference in college football is the Southeastern Conference (henceforth, the SEC). In 1992, the ten team league expanded to twelve and, splitting itself into two divisions of six teams each—was the first conference to embrace a conference championship game. In 2012, the conference expanded again from twelve teams to fourteen. Now, by 2025, two long-time power programs, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas will expand the SEC to sixteen teams.
Long-time observers of college football will note that the college game resembles the pro game more and more with each passing year. This is due to many factors, a major one being Alabama’s acquisition of likely the best college football coach ever to blow a whistle, Nick Saban, who has won not one, not three, not five, but six National Championships since 2007. His first Crimson Tide teams were known for their aggressive and dominating defensive play, but in his second act, Saban has embraced a high powered offensive attack that won him last year’s National Championship. Old school Tide fans like myself remember slightly-above-average offenses with game manager quarterbacks. No longer.
Now, there’s no telling what hath God wrought. The SEC is now as powerful as a Category 5 hurricane. And it doesn’t stop there. Serious discussions regarding expanding the current four team playoff system to twelve games are underway. Though some protest an extended season, I argue back that Division II and Division III teams have played twelve game playoffs for decades, with no complaints from anyone. This has been a long time coming, and indeed, coaching legends like Joe Paterno of Penn State and Paul “Bear” Bryant of Alabama sought to push the issue fifty years ago.
Pandora’s Box has been officially opened. Returning to how I began this post, college players now have the ability to be financially compensated. Forbes is less than enthused, but I’m all for these reforms.
If you’re into major college football and basketball, here’s a preview of the mantra you’ll hear often by July 6, 2022, slightly after the first anniversary of the NCAA’s ruling (with a mighty shove from several states) allowing college athletes to profit from the use of their name, image or likeness.
We can be hypocrites or capitalists, but not both. And eventually, the system will sort itself out. But one thing is for sure—nothing will ever be the same again.