StarTalk Radio - Show Me the Money: Is it College Athlete Payday?

Episode Date: February 28, 2020

Should college athletes be getting paid? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice investigate this hotly debated question alongside author Ellen Staurowsky, EdD, and economist Andrew Zimbalist, PhD. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/show-me-the-money-is-it-college-athlete-payday/ Photo Credit: Keenan Hairston from Raleigh / CC BY-SA. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, also serving as your host. We're coming to you from my office at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. And in this episode of Sports Star Talk, I've got my two co-hosts, Gary O'Reilly. Gary. Hey.

Dude. Good to be here. In the house. Chuck Nice. Hello. In the house. Yes. You know what today's topic is?

It is college athletics. Now, why should we care in this particular moment? California recently signed into law the power of students to profit from endorsements, to basically become pro in these ways that pros have always made money. So this has sent a ripple across the country. So it's interesting whether or not there's money. It might be interesting how much money there is. If there is money, is it a little?

So it's just gesture money. Is it a lot? To completely remap the landscape of college sports and, quote, amateur sports. So we need more expertise than what we have here to address this. So we have on video Dr. Ellen Starowski. Ellen, welcome to StarTalk. Well, I'm happy to be here. And so let me get your ID correct here.

You're a professor of sports management at Drexel University. And in particular, you have expertise and interest in social justice issues in sport. And you recently co-authored a paper, The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sports. Where would a paper like that get published? That was actually a report that we did for the National College Players Association. Okay, cool. And what is the price of poverty in big time? Well, for Division I football player, it's about $700,000. For Division I basketball player, it's about $1.5 million.

Wow. Whoops. Wait, wait. Are you saying that would be their share of the total revenue that otherwise is changing hands to watch them play? Yes. And those were dollars from 2015. So we're trying to update that study. So it's going to be more than that in today's dollars. Wow. Wait a minute. But I don't watch college football to watch every player on the field. Usually there's a few marquee players that are attracting me to my eyeballs to the ads of the show.

So what would it mean to say that's how you would evenly divide it when probably that's not how it would actually happen in practice? Well, you know, I mean, in theory, if we were to have a fair market for college athletes, we would also have a players association to go along with that, which is desperately needed. And so we would have a situation where we would have collective bargaining,

which would establish some kind of a baseline in terms of what players might expect. And then beyond that, that's where you would see marquee players getting more and players who are really on the journey getting, you know, getting a baseline amount. So this would be like a players union is what you're saying. Yeah, or a trade association. Trade association, yeah.

You guys have some questions? Yeah, we do. Is this move where you see finances come into college athletics, is that really just going to enable the larger athletic programs and to the detriment of the smaller colleges? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of conversation about that right now. In terms of what the California bill is addressing, the California bill is really interesting from the standpoint that it's not talking about dollars that exist within college athletic programs. It's talking about the opportunity of individual athletes to benefit off of their names, images, and likenesses.

And what we're beginning to understand, just even in the passage of the bill, is that the value of athletes is far more than what people really, really think about. who was a viral sensation back last spring. She had no opportunity to monetize off of that popularity that she yielded from those viral moments. And so, you know, that's a sport where there's a kind of a doomsday prediction that if we open up the market, that these sports are going to be hurt. But the plain fact of the matter is that they're in social media age where we know that young people have the opportunity to be hurt. But the plain fact of the matter is that they're in social media age

where we know that young people have the opportunity to be social influencers. They're all a matter of things that they could be involved in that they're prevented from doing because of NCAA rules. And this goes beyond the concept of a players association because now they'd be monetizing their value outside of the school system in ways that has nothing to do with their actual performance on the field. Correct. And the other piece of the California bill is it would provide for athletes to have the opportunity to have an agent or a representative. There it is.

That's what's key. Yeah. So how does this kind of relate or kind of hearken back to uh when olympic players were supposedly supposedly all amateurs and it's like okay you can't be pro and be olympic and then what you started seeing uh was you would have the olympic player on the wheaties box which was the very first way they made money yeah which is what's happening to these college players now you see olympic players uh who are able to monetize their name and likeness to an extent where it becomes an entire cottage industry a la uh what's

the guy that swims what's the big swimmer from mich Michael Phelps, a la Michael Phelps. So, you know, are we looking at that kind of similar track for these NCAA athletes? I think we are. And I think what, to me, what you're asking about is sort of the fallacy of amateurism. Right. That the world is not going to come to an end

if athletes begin to get paychecks, if they begin to have their value recognized. Walter Byers, who was the executive director of the NCAA, kind of famously said that amateurism was a tool of control. And he's right about that, that it was economic camouflage for an exploitative system. And that really is what it's about. It's really more about a narrative rather

than being um and a rule structure that controls players it's it's not really about this ideal that we sort of have come come to think that it is yeah plus plus chuck in many of the examples you gave they would go on the weedy box weedy's box only after they performed in the olympics as amateurs in the old days in the old days, they transitioned to that rather than did that en route. And then when it got completely open, I mean, for me, the birth date of that was when the NBA started playing in the Olympics. And it was like, there it is. That's when it was over completely.

Yeah, that was the end of it. Clearly, we're done here. Yeah. Professor, you touched on the female gymnast who wasn't able to monetize. And you've made me think, if this pattern comes through and it gets spread across the country, just how will it impact female athletes in college programs? I think it really has the potential to allow for much more mobility within the market than what we see right now. And it's an interesting year for us to be talking about this because of the women's national team, the women's soccer national team that really captured everybody's imagination.

But all along the way with women's sports, we see over and over and over again epiphanies that women's sports are interesting and exciting, that they are a tremendous commercial entity. And I think that in college sport for so long, we've had people who've just said, well, women's sports aren't that important. Nobody's really interested in them. Nobody's going to invest in them. And I think by expanding the market, what we're going to see is we're going to see that there's been kind of a suppression of this entire system.

The system that's exploited male athletes has famously also been discriminatory in terms of women. And it all comes down to sort of the same root cause, which is about economic power. I think these laws are actually going to impact the sport industry in an important way in terms of women and in a positive way in terms of women. Do you think it'll be positive in terms of exposure for different sports? You know, for instance, I would say the Williams sisters kind of elevated women's tennis to a superstar type level. You know, you had superstars before them, but you never had the interest in women's tennis the way you did after these individual players took such prominence. So do you think that could happen for women's sports on the college level if you see a certain, you know, rise of individuals who, you know, gather a

following, does that help everybody? Or does it just help the person who's like, I'm famous now, you know? Yeah. I know there's a real fear about that, right? That somehow if we have some people who are famous and we've got other people who aren't, that's going to hurt the system. But I mean, when you look across all forms of entertainment, you see that there are differences in terms of celebrity levels. And so I think that we're going to see an elevation of the entire system if we do this. And if we look at, you know, if we look at the NBA, for example, a lot of those teams pretty much key off of a couple of meet marquee players. And there's a lesson to be learned there because we follow teams that we know. The personalities we know.

And so in terms of women's sports, the more you can market women and have them be familiar to a viewing audience, the more like that audience is going to grow. Plus with tennis being a solo performing sport, you're not mixed in with a whole team and have to figure out who's who. It's already individualistic.

It's already individual. You get the focus built into the sport itself. Right. Right. There's a finite pool of money in terms of the brands and who would be endorsing a college program. And it's historically gone to the college program.

Now they're going to look at it being diverted into the hands of the athletes. They're not going to take that lying down, are they? There must be some kind of pushback. And do you actually see this ending up in court where the college programs fight back against the athletes? Yeah. Well, and there's been an epic battle going on that way

for many, many years. Just to your point, you know, the O'Bannon versus NCAA case had to do with the fact that the NCAA was stripping the athletes' rights for endorsements. And we see several other lawsuits right now that are building on the outcome of O'Bannon. So the NCAA has very much actively tried to prevent this kind of thing from happening. But I think what we're really talking about here is a 21st century view of college sport, that this is a multi-billion dollar industry, that sport nation as a whole from youth sport all the way through, youth sport is a

15 billion dollar industry. So we have these very archaic governance structures that really need to come into the 21st century and in the process, stop stripping athletes of fundamental rights that every other citizen in the United States would otherwise have. That's how I'd respond to that. So a quick question. When you look at baseball, baseball has a farm system. There's A, AA, AAA baseball, baseball has a farm system. There's a double A, triple A baseball, and they're all professional and they feed the pros. And that's a time-honored system.

When you think about modern football, the NFL just sits there fat and happy waiting for an entire other system to develop their players that they then recruit. Can you foresee a future where college athletics is not really part of college? It's just a farm system for the NFL or for the NBA. Can you foresee an analog to that as emerging from this kind of change? Yeah. Well, I think in some ways, the college system really is the developmental league in terms of the NFL. And I would say that there's been collusion at the top, you know, from the standpoint that if you look at the NCAA and if you look at the NBA, for example, and the one and done rule, you know, that rule, while it's an NBA rule, is something that is really negotiated between the head of the NCAA and the NBA.

But there's no player rep at the table on that. There's already this unrecognized developmental system in place. And I think what will happen over time, I hope, is that we'll get better at naming things for what they are. And what we'll have as an outcome is we'll have a fairer system. We'll also have a safer system. You know, we've got athletes who are competing at the college level who don't have the benefit of the kind of health care that they should. Your listeners may be familiar with Jordan McNair's story,

a young man from Maryland football that tragically passed away flat out for negligence. If we recognize this workplace as a workplace that requires that there be player advocacy, then I think we go a long way towards addressing all these other issues. Or the limit that the NFL

feeds money into the college system, knowing that that's the feeder system for them into the college athletics. Could be. Yeah. We got to wrap it. We got to wrap it up. So thank you very much for being on StarTalk. And it's good to know that you're out there and we'd like to keep you in our

Rolodex because we'll probably hit this topic more in the future with your permission. It's been a real pleasure. So when we return more on the moving frontier of money in college athletics on StarTalk Sports Edition. We've got on private video channel. What do we have? Andrew Zimbliss.

Andrew, welcome to StarTalk. Good to be with you. Thank you. Yeah, fans of sports and money and the business of college sports will all know your two books. One from early 2000s, Unpaid Professionals,

Commercialism and Conflict in Big Time College Sports. You're just looking for trouble. Just a couple of years ago, unwinding madness. What went wrong with college sports and how to fix it? You are the man for this segment because we want to know, what are we to think about these recent trends? And I guess California is leading these trends.

What do they do? They passed a law that allows college athletes to profit from endorsements. And so where do you fit? This sounds like that's exactly what you've been trying to get to have happen for two decades now. Okay, well, first of all, as most things in the world, this is really a very complicated matter. And I don't think that there are simple solutions. the world, this is really a very complicated matter. And I don't think that there are simple solutions. But California, once again, is leading the United States in progressive change. What actually happened is Governor Newsom at the end of September signed a bill that made it illegal

for California's colleges to prohibit athletes from receiving publicity rights income, or sometimes called names, images, and likenesses income. So that means that they can now enter into endorsement contracts. They can sign contracts with video game companies, which will use their avatars to produce video games and basketball or football. They can do a number of things. Some of them potentially can be earning tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars from this. More typically, the college athletes won't be earning a lot of money. But this opens up at least one avenue whereby the college athletes can be remunerated for their talents. Of course, the NCAA, going back to 1905 when it was started, has proclaimed amateurism to be the rule of the day,

not allowing students to receive pay directly for their athletic abilities. Of course, the concept of being an amateur used to carry quite a bit of currency in decades past. For example, Olympic athletes, you had to be an amateur. That was the whole thing. And somehow you were tainted if you were professional. We are so past that culturally, emotionally, internationally, that isn't it about

time that such a change has occurred? Well, so the Olympics began in the 1980s to open that up. And in 1992, they passed a blanket rule that said athletes can be paid. We're not playing the amateurism game anymore. I think one of the reasons why this is more complicated in college sports is that college sports are college and the sports part is supposed to be extracurricular and the athletes are supposed to be students first and be getting an education first. Says who? Yeah, what a crazy idea. Where'd you come up with that notion? You know, so when we talk about athlete exploitation, it's really happening, I think, on two different levels. One is that the vast, the overwhelming vast majority of the athletes in FBS, which is the top level of football, and Division I basketball,

the overwhelming majority of those athletes are being cheated out of an education. They're being exploited. They're being offered an education. They're being told that the scholarship that they get that might be on the market might be worth $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 a year, that they're getting that for free. That's supposed to come with an education. So they're not getting that, the vast majority of them. That's problem number one. Problem number two is that college sports has become, as everybody knows, unbelievably commercialized. You have college coaches, you have dozens of college coaches getting over $5 million a year. Keep in mind that a typical college president might be getting $500,000 or $600,000 a year, let alone what us lowly professors

might be getting paid. These college coaches are making out like bandits. The assistant coach, many assistant coaches these days getting millions of dollars. Conference commissioners are getting paid millions of dollars. So there are a lot of older white males, and sometimes these days, minority males as well, who are doing very well on the top of the system. And the college athletes,

the ones who are producing the product, are not getting paid. Now, so the question is, should we abandon amateurism altogether and just kind of make it into professional sports? Or should we do something else? If you believe in the college model, and we're still enveloped by the college model,

then I think we have to find some compromises that will allow athletes to be paid for certain things, but not others. This new bill in California, and by the way, there are now 28 states that have either introduced such a bill or are about to introduce the bill. And there are two bills in the U.S. House of Representatives and another one that Senator Murphy and Senator Romney are working on in the Senate. And the question is, what is it that we mean by an amateur, really? We shouldn't let the NCAA define amateurism for us, because they change their mind every two or three years, what amateurism means. And I can, if we had a few hours, I can go over

every single change they've made going back to 1905. We don't have the time. But amateurism, I think, fundamentally means you do an activity for the love of the activity. It comes from the Latin amateur, which means to love. And if we're talking about amateurism in that sense, which I think is the common use of the term, then we should say athletes shouldn't be paid a salary. They're not employees. They're students. They shouldn't be paid a salary for what they do on the basketball court or the football field. But if there's a third party that wants to employ them to use their fame, their notoriety to promote a product or something else, then that's not getting paid for playing the game. And that should be allowed.

So I think we have to work on the margins here to preserve the basic model. Now, if that's not good enough, if there's still people who are going to cry, there's terrible exploitation going, then we should just professionalize it. We should take college sports at the top level and make it into minor league basketball and minor league football. Let's break down some numbers if we can. You're a former professional footballer in the UK. And I skipped

the college scenario, went straight into professional soccer at the age of 18. You're like LeBron James. Look at you. Aren't're like a LeBron James. Look at you. Aren't I? It's all LeBron. This was before the Bowman decision. Oh, yeah, way, way back in the day.

Because looking at you, you look like you probably were playing last year. Oh, you're my new best friend. What can I say? So are we going to make any substantial difference to a college athlete's life with the sort of figures that could potentially come into their lives? Well, what are those figures? Yeah. What are the figures that could potentially come into their lives?

We have college coaches, as I mentioned before, who are getting paid $7, $8, $9 million a year. Plus, they're allowed to earn outside income. Plus, they have perquisites galore. And you have the top 10 football teams in college football today, each one of them earning $130 million and above, all the way up to over $200 million. College basketball is much lower. There you're talking about $20, $30, $40 million at the top level. How much are these athletes worth? Well, at the pro

level, and practically all the pro leagues in the United States, the athletes get roughly 50% of the revenue. So if the athletes were to get 50% of this amount of revenue that are being generated, the star quarterback and the star halfback and linebacker and so on, they'd be getting a million, two, $3 million a year. Now, keep in mind, by the way, keep in mind that at the top football level, you have 85 scholarship athletes. How many of them are actually playing during the course of the year? Probably 30 or 40 of them. The NFL has 45 active people on their rosters. So the vast majority of people, actually, who are on college football teams and college basketball teams are getting a scholarship and they're not playing.

They wouldn't be getting anything in an open market. So they're actually exploiting the college. They're getting a scholarship worth $70,000, give or take, and they're not contributing anything, except maybe as foils during practices or whatever. We're really talking about a handful of players on the leading football teams and the leading basketball teams

who are actually financially being exploited. But they are indeed, because they're getting scholarships, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 in value. They're not getting an education, so it's questionable whether they're getting any value there at all. And they're probable, what economists call marginal revenue product, the value of output that they produce has got to be over a million, maybe over $2 or $3 million in some cases. So now when you look at team sports, I mean, is it fair to take the one person who is an outstanding player, compensate them for their efforts, but yet you have somebody else on the team who perhaps the team cannot function without, but not as integral? What do you do?

Like the center for the quarterback. Well, yeah. The center for the quarterback Like the center for the quarterback. Well, yeah. The center for the quarterback, that center protects the quarterback, but the center is not on the cover of Sports Illustrated. It's the quarterback. So what do you do about creating some type of economic parity between the players who are elite and the players who are playing a role? Good question.

So that's the same problem that you have at the professional level, right? The difference at the professional level is you have collective bargaining. Collective bargaining establishes minimum levels of salary. So that, for instance, everybody in the NFL is getting at least $450,000.

Everybody in Major League Baseball is getting at least $550,000. So the union has bargained for that. And they also bargain for intermediate levels. In the NBA, they have something called the exceptions. They used to have a Larry Bird exception. They still have that. They have other level, mid-level exceptions and so on, to make sure that there are enough

people who are getting paid very high salaries by normal standards. But again, not so high by NBA standards. They're getting $3, $4 million a year. So you have that at the pro levels. What do you do at the college level? It's a very, very good question because at the college level, we don't have and cannot have collective bargaining. The reason is that of the 129 teams at the highest level in Division I that play football at the top level, there are 111 teams that are public universities. The National Labor Relations Act doesn't cover the public

sector. It only covers the private sector. So you can't have collective bargaining in 111 of the teams unless you have special state rules that are passed. Most states don't allow public employees to strike or to collectively bargain. So there's not an easy solution. Some kind of legislation that would establish it, not collective bargaining, might be the way to go. But we're a long way away from that. Wait, wait, you're the economist. Come up with something. Okay.

I have some great ideas, but I'm not going to give them to you for free. He said, I am an economist. So, I mean, for me, I would say put it in a trust fund, and at the end of that athlete's college education, they're able to access that and move on. So that possibly is a solution. They need to be average. Right. So now I have agents and lawyers because there's money and college athletes can't have

agents. Is that right? Well, no, now they're allowed to. Now they're allowed to. Okay. So that's... The NCAA has made a number of changes in the last couple of years in response to these litigations, trying to prevent the whole process from running away from them. So they're trying to reform on the margin. And the NCAA has even come out and said, we are now willing to support name, image, and likeness or nil rights for the athletes. They were willing to do that. But then they also said, it's got to be consistent with our idea of the amateur model. And so that means that they're going to want to control everything. They have talked about benefits going to the athletes, but not cash going to athletes. So what would a benefit be? Maybe you give them a computer. They make a TV

ad for you. And here's a computer, sir. You can have this computer now, or we'll give you a pass for the first year of graduate school. We'll pay for that or whatever, because not only are they limited to benefits, but they have to be so-called educationally tethered. They have to be related to education. So the NCAA has tried to co-opt this process that has totally gotten away from them. You've got every state legislature in the country now interested in this, and you're going to see action in the next couple of months in Washington as well. So clearly this is for the NCAA and colleges. This is about putting money in their coffers and stopping people from taking the money out of their coffers. For the athlete, it's about fair compensation for services rendered, And it's also about an education.

Instead of just saying, here's a scholarship, they should say, you've got a scholarship for life. Right. Whenever you're ready to come back to school and be a real student and or go to graduate school, that should be covered. And your family. While we're at it.

Yeah. I got a quick question. We're running short on time. Will this disproportionately reward male athletes over female athletes? And how will that play on the landscape? Well, sure. I mean, if we're talking about nil income, publicity rights income, the male athletes obviously get much more publicity in our society

than the female athletes. So if you're talking about 2019, yes, that will happen. If you're talking about 2030, I'm hopeful that the women will rise up in stature and that won't be so true anymore. But here's a problem. The problem is that if we're going to start paying athletes nil income, and some of them are going to be entitled to quite a bit, then the companies who are sponsoring and promoting and advertising on college sports, currently giving the money to the athletic department, are now going to say, we'll do, you know, whatever, 50% of it we'll do with the athletic department, 50% we're going to do with the great athletes who the people want to see. And so the amount of money that goes to the

athletics department probably is going to go down. And that means it's going to be less money to finance Title IX. College athletic programs at the very, very top that means it's going to be less money to finance Title IX. College athletic programs at the very, very top level, it's called FBS, they have an average or median deficit of $16.3 million in their athletics budget. Median deficit, and that's without counting most capital costs. So you're going to take a situation where the college is already subsidizing the athletic departments in the vast majority of cases and increase So you're going to take a situation where the college is already subsidizing the athletic departments in the vast majority of cases and increase.

They're going to have to increase that. So yes, there are some financial ramifications here. And yes, Title IX and women's sports

might take a little bit of a hit. We're time for just fast two last questions. Okay. Who ultimately wins from where we are now in five years' time? Who do you see coming out on top? The programs, the athletes, the schools?

Talking only about nil income, I think the elite athletes are the big winners here. These are the same people, by the way, who are likely going to go on and make millions and millions of dollars in the pros. I'm not sure that we need to restructure college sports in order to take care of that group of people. But they'll definitely be benefiting from this. And I think that it's a deserved benefit. Chuck, last question. Okay. So would a life assistance benefit also be something to consider? What is that? So we're talking about primarily underprivileged or low-income people that are being exploited for the most part. We have boosters and we have people who already take care of them. We know that, but it's illegal. What if we found a way to give them

life assistance so that going to school wouldn't be such a hardship? Would that be something as a first step? That's not the answer, but as a first step, would that help? Assistance beyond just tuition remission. Yeah, assistance beyond just the tuition and the scholarship. It's like what they do now. The boosters come in and they go like, we're going to get you. Here's some coupons for the restaurant that I own. You need a computer for school

and here's a car. I think when we stop this interview, I'm going to nominate you as the next president of the NCAA. Oh, okay. Hey. Now look, the devil is in the NCAA. Oh, okay. Hey. Now look, the devil is in the details here. Boosters can help students after they graduate. They can't help them while they're in college, but you can certainly help them afterwards. And there have been some reforms in the NCAA over the last 10 years. One of those is to allow something called

a cost of attendance allowance so that many of the expenses that they have as athletes not only have to go to school and pay tuition and pay for their books, but they have to travel back and forth to their hometown. Sometimes they have emergencies at their hometown or their parents want to visit them. So there's something now called cost of a living allowance that can go up to $6,000 a year that will help many of these athletes. There's also, of course, Pell Grants that can go on top of the athletic scholarship. So there's been some improvement in the areas you're talking about, but certainly there can be a lot more. It's a complicated area to tread on, but it's certainly an area for more reform. There you go. That's it. Yeah, let me try to end with one last reflection.

I remember occasions where things happen first and we all react so explosively to it. Do you remember when, who's the sprinter who grabbed an American flag and ran around his body with it from the 80s? What's his name? Sprinter. Carl Lewis. Carl Lewis gets an American flag. And he was criticized for wrapping himself in an American flag. Now everybody does it and nobody remembers that that was looked down upon at the time.

We look back on Jim Thorpe, who got his medals stripped from the Olympics because he had done something professional. And so now you look back and say, that was crazy. Give him the medal back. So do you foresee a time where it's just basically a completely free, open marketplace? And you don't even have rules related to it because it's just basically a completely free open marketplace? And you don't even have rules related to it because it's just if somebody wants to sponsor them, they do. If you give them millions of dollars, they do. And here's the pot of money that the school is making. It goes back to the athletes at the 50% level.

Use the pros as a model. Can you see the free market just taking control over that? I could see it if we let it happen. free market just taking control over that? I could see it if we let it happen. And I think, again, I would insist upon, if we're doing this under the educational umbrella, that we have to modify the rules a little bit. We have to make sure that education is the primary thing that's going on. If somebody really feels that that's not sufficient for these athletes who are generating all the revenue, then we should detach the big schools, the big commercialized schools programs from the schools and just turn them into minor leagues.

Right. One of the great ideas. That's what baseball is. Baseball is A league, double A and triple A. And that's where they all are. And that's where they get, that's the farm system. Baseball, where they have 160 minor league teams that are subsidized by the major league teams. The major league team, on average, spends about $30 million a year for player development.

In the NFL and the NBA, they spend buttkiss. There it is. So there you have it. Why not follow the baseball model? That's certainly a way to go. Then we rip it apart from the university. No more pretense about educational primacy. Exactly. certainly a way to go. Then we rip it apart from the university. No more pretense about educational primacy.

No more cheating about that. Very quickly though, Andrew. No, very quickly. I also like what you just said there. Why aren't we looking to the NFL and the NBA to actually be a part of the solution here? Because they're the ultimate beneficiaries of what's going on.

Yes, they are. So, yeah. loose in here. Because they're the ultimate beneficiaries of what's going on. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. So, yeah. Glad we solved that problem. Andrew, a delight to have you on StarTalk. Thanks for your interest, your knowledge base, your enthusiasm, and we will

so want to come back to you, because this conversation is not over. It's been my pleasure, gentlemen. Thanks for having me on. Thank you, Professor. Alright. When we come back, more on college sports on StarTalk. We're back. We're talking about, are you amateur or are you professional? Wow.

Should you be paid? Should you not be paid? Yes. And what did you do with Gary? He was here a minute ago. Gary had another sports thing to do. No, I thought we were his one and only true love. No, you know, that's how those professional sports guys are.

You know what I mean? Excuse me, I got people to go. That's right. People to go places to see. You think you're the only woman in a professional sports star's life. I got news for you. So what are your reflections on this? Because you made a point earlier, not everyone has equal sort of resources who has athletic talent coming up in life.

Yeah. And they're poor folk. They're middle class folk. They're rich folk. Yeah. And the greatest of athletes are drawn from all those populations, actually. Absolutely. But the consequences are different to each one of them coming up in college.

Yeah. So can you expand on an earlier point you were making? Yeah. I think that when you talk about paying college athletes, Yeah, I just, I think that when you talk about paying college athletes that this issue would not be as intensely debated if it weren't for the fact that these stars primarily are young, black, disenfranchised, low-income kids. So what you're saying is it became an issue because, particularly in certain sports like football, which is highly represented by the black community, by a community that is itself highly represented in the lower income, that you've got people who are basically poor

waiting for the possibility that they might have a lucrative professional contract. Right. Whereas they could be making money all along because they're making money for the college. Yeah. And I think that, you know, if this were an issue that where the majority of players were white upper middle class or middle middle class students, this wouldn't be debated at all. It wouldn't be seen as exploitation. And rightly, it is exploitation. No matter what. It's exploitation. So I'm not, but I am just kind of positing that it would not be as big of a deal, if you want,

for lack of a better term, if these weren't poor black kids that were being exploited simply because, you know, first of all, it's just not a good look for America. Right, right. You know, we had us like making billions of dollars off of people who are working for free. We kind of did that already. You did that.

People with darker skin color than you. Yeah, exactly. We tried that. You know what I mean? You're sitting in the skybox. Right. It didn't work out so great. How are your slaves doing?

Mine are fine. Let me trade you two for one and we'll see here. Yeah. Maybe I'll win. Exactly. So, you know, especially here in this country, I think it's an even more sensitive— I'll see you at the golf course later. Right.

Yeah, yeah. And the yacht next week. Yeah, it's an interesting point. Yeah. It's a kind—I mean, I don't want to go full up with the analogy, but it is a kind of slavery where you are making money off of the labor. Labor. Not only labor, but labor that puts their future health at risk. Absolutely. For injuries and this sort of thing, not the least of which is head injuries for football.

Right. So you're making money off of that and they get, oh, they get free college tuition. You know, it's like, is that equal? And no, I don't, it's clearly not a fair trade. I mean, you know, if you look at, you know, what is a fair trade? I mean, we get mad when people don't get fair trade coffee. Okay. So we get mad about our coffee if it's not fair trade. We should certainly be a little upset when you're, you know, making money off of, like you say, which is most important, the labor, the image, and the likeness. So, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's more than.

It's your identity. It's the identity. Yeah. So, it's labor and the personage. Which is a bigger societal problem anyway. Right. People making money off of what you look like or what your preferences are. Exactly.

And all the rest of this without your knowledge or consent. Right. Without your knowledge or consent. And the truth of the matter is they really don't have a choice. If you think about it, they don't have a choice. You could say, well, if you don't like it, then don't play. Right. You know, if you think it's too dangerous to play, then don't play.

Just say no. Just say no. Right. Come know, if you think it's too dangerous to play, then don't play. Just say no. Right. Come on, help a brother out. Oh, man. I just need a little taste, baby. But, you know, I think that when you look at this, I'm not sure if anybody's really looking at the totality of this,

because just when you talk about image and likeness, these kids are tethered to social media unlike any other generation. Now, think about Zion Williamson. This guy had like 5 million people total on his social media. Like, you can monetize that. So, what happens now when you say that these guys can make money off of endorsements does that mean like oh yo i i build my social media presence and then i take that to nike and like i mean this could become a much bigger deal if you just open the floodgates i don't see why not yeah that's the full the full exploitation in the positive sense of people's talent and image i mean mean, that's America. Yeah, that's what-

If America isn't that, I don't know what America is. Well, that's what I do like about it is the fact that you're giving, you know, okay, as a really attenuated aside, Madonna said- I'm quoting Madonna.

I'm quoting Madonna. The first or the second Madonna? Which one? I just want to get it straight. The first Madonna. That'd be hilarious. The first or the second Madonna? Which one? I just want to get it straight. The first Madonna. That'd be hilarious. The first Madonna. This is not my baby.

Where did this baby come from? Where did this baby come from? But Madonna said, everybody says that I'm being exploited sexually, and they're right. I exploit my own sexuality. So is it really exploitation? So in a way, I kind of exploited sexually. And they're right. I exploit my own sexuality. So is it really exploitation? So in a way, I kind of like that. If you're giving these athletes the opportunity to exploit themselves, now it's what you said.

Now it's just America. Now it's just business. I think it'd be interesting if someone as a college athlete makes millions of dollars as a college athlete, but then they don't get into the pros, but now they got money. Right.

Then they can buy their mama their home. Right. They could do all the things that you do normally when you make the wealth later on. Who was the kid

who was the quarterback that everybody, Tebow. Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow, yeah. I mean, huge college star. He's the guy that takes a knee. He's the guy that takes a knee.

Okay. Without any consequences. Without takes a knee. Okay. Without any consequences. Without consequences. Okay. Okay. I just thought, oh, my God. You're the first person to make me think of. Tim Tebow took a knee all the time, and nobody had a problem with it.

Well, he did it for Jesus. Well, yeah, I guess. You do something for Jesus, nobody has a problem. Nobody has a problem. Unless you're not Christian. That's all. Well, yeah, you're right. Yeah, that's true.

So but anyway, you think about this. If Tim Tebow were playing today and these rules were in effect, which they're not yet, you know, California just passed a law. Tim Tebow could make a fortune, a fortune because of the following that he had, the personal following that he had. He would be able to exploit that via social media. I mean, think about it. If you have 5 million subscribers on YouTube, which this is not, you could probably easily make a six-figure salary every year. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. You could easily make it. Based on recent numbers that I've seen. Exactly. Yeah. Right? And so you're talking about kids that could, you know, ostensibly make, you know, some could make millions. However.

And then some could just make a living. In all fairness to the business model, their value as an image can only live as long as they sustain why their image had value in the first place. Well, yes. But see, and that's directly tethered to being a college player. Yeah. So, you know. That's what I'm saying. You got to make the money in those years.

Right. You got to make the money in that time. Yeah, unless you then pull on to the pros, and then that's already an open floodgate. Right. Yeah. Which is why my grade, like we spoke to Andrew Zimbalist, and when I said, hey. In the previous segment. What about college for life? Which to me, I think, is the best answer.

But that's because I don't believe there's a value you can place on education. That a true education is invaluable. So here's, I like the model where college is the baseball equivalent of a farm system for professional football. Right. I like that. Yeah. I like that idea. And by the way, you know, I used to be a little more idealistic than I am in my old age now.

And I'm just a realist now. And I'm going to say, if the NCAA, remember what that stands for? National Collegiate Athletic Association. It's not National Collegiate Educational Association true they're up there saying well there's still a student first

and an athlete second this is a a delusion it is and it's not it's just not true it's just not true they're athlete first

no athlete says I can't play in this game because I have a chemistry exam I have to take absolutely it's please give me a makeup chemistry exam because I have to play in this exam. Right. Okay?

And that's the priority of things. And I can't tell you this. I will not mention the school or any names, but I can tell you when I had a basketball player in my astronomy class who never showed up how many phone calls I got from the coaches. To tutor them? I'm just saying. I got phone calls. Nice.

I got phone calls. Or to take the test for them. I got phone calls. That's all I'm saying. And so I'm just, we should be honest about this. Right. Right? Just be honest.

You're admitting them so that they can play sports and no one is going to ask them for help on their math test because they're going to be playing sports. Let's figure that out. Right. And listen, I'm cool with that. And I think that, you know, when I say college for life, I think that that should just be the basis. I think they should still get paid because quite frankly, a lot of these guys can't sustain themselves as students while they're playing. Well, would this open up other elements? For example, suppose you're a really hot shot student and you win sort of science fair contests.

And, you know, you do things that bring attention back to the school. Yet you're still paying the school for college education. If the school is presenting you forward saying, look at our students. Look at this debate team. They won. Here's the article. Our team won. So, would this end with sports?

Yes, it will end with sports. Because you're not going to get a 70,000 seat stadium filled with people going, yay, debate! Debate the hell out of those guys. Calculate that equation. Go, go, go, go.

Oh, he forgot to carry the two. Oh, fumble. Classic error. Rookie error. Rookie error. Forgot to carry the two in the long division, whatever. So I'm just wondering if there's more that can be thought of.

You know, generally when you pass a law, you want to consider all the possible ramifications it has so that you can plug loopholes that some person more clever than you might figure out later or try to, I think the strongest rules are the one that are sort of deep and fundamental. And then you work within them, which accounts for some of the strength of our Bill of Rights. Right. Absolutely.

Just how deep and fundamental they reach. Well, I think. It's why the free speech, the free speech clause allows you to sell books on the street. Right. It allows you to walk around with your body painted. Right. As an expression. And it's not literal speech,

but it's been interpreted very broadly as a very powerful identity of what we are as Americans. So broadly that the Supreme Court said that money is speech and therefore corporations are being deprived of their free speech rights if you don't allow them to participate in the election process by donating money. So, where do you think it's going to land in 10 years?

In 10 years, I think pretty much every state is going to have this law or some version. Led by California. Led by California, as per usual. And the reason is because once one state does it, guess where everybody wants to play now? Oh. See, now, so now so who does that benefit?

All the California universities? Arkansas Razorbacks? I ain't going in because you ain't paying me. It'll trip dominoes and it'll happen immediately. As great as it is to play for LSU, why would I want to play there? Right. I'm going to go play for the Trojans. That's right.

Right. You know what I mean? Because California, I can get paid. Wow. So that's a fast domino right there. That's right. You know what I mean? Because California, I can get paid. Wow. So that's a fast domino right there. That's a fast domino, without a doubt. Rocket sled.

Easily. All right, Chuck. Well, nice reflecting on this. Yeah. Interesting you thought deeply about it. I know you're a thoughtful guy. Well, yeah.

It's good to have you. It's good to see. I'm interested to see where this will go. You weren't funny at all in this segment. Oh, really? That's okay.

I'll give you a hall pass on that one this time. All right. We got to stop it there. This has been StarTalk Sports Edition. And Chuck Nice, always great to have you. Always good to be here, even when I'm not funny. And my co-host. That was funny.

Saying even when you're not funny. That was funny. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.