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Needpix.com
Education Dive
What's Next: How will the pandemic change college football?
Students and observers are questioning whether players should be
treated better and if athletic departments need to be funded
differently.
Natalie Schwartz
Sept. 4, 2020
After months of debate on whether college football could kick off this
fall, the University of South Carolina weighed in with a 33-second
video on its team's Twitter account.
It shows players getting their temperatures checked, ripping through
the grass during practice and, eventually, playing a game for a packed
stadium. But the video reminds viewers that none of this will be
possible if they don't wear their masks.
The U of South Carolina is one of several institutions that have been
imploring students to follow campus safety protocols with videos and
other social media campaigns that feature their student-athletes. On
the one hand, these videos may be helpful in normalizing practices such
as mask-wearing.
However, there's a "grand irony" in such messaging, said Ellen
Staurowsky, a sports management professor at Drexel University, in
Pennsylvania. It's "deeply problematic," she said, to have athletic
departments lead the charge to wear masks if they fail to protect their
players' health during the pandemic.
So far, dozens of colleges have reported at least one confirmed
coronavirus case among their student-athletes or sports staff members.
Some schools and athletic conferences have shut down the fall season
because of the pandemic, but others are pressing on with their plans to
field players.
Those decisions have underscored how important the football season, in
particular, is to some colleges. Universities in top-tier conferences
rake in millions annually by selling media rights to broadcast their
games and by filling their stadiums, and many will lose money if they
don't compete.
But to some, this moment also presents an opportunity to root out
long-running problems in how players are treated and athletic
departments are funded — issues that have only been exacerbated by the
coronavirus.
'A pivotal moment'
Last month, the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences postponed their fall
seasons, citing concerns about player safety. While announcing the
decision, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott noted that college sports
"cannot operate in a bubble" because players generally interact with
the rest of the college community.
Other Power Five conferences, which include some of the most lucrative
football teams, plan to play games under a modified schedule.
The fractured college football season has drawn ire from fans and
players alike. Several football players at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln are suing the Big Ten to overturn its decision to
suspend the season. And President Donald Trump has been using his
influence to pressure the conference to play this year.
Players are taking note, experts said. The pandemic has underlined how
important football players are to athletic departments, schools and
even political leaders, and many are seizing the moment to progress the
years-long fight for a player's union or other third-party entity to
protect their health and safety.
Using the hashtags #WeAreUnited and #WeWantToPlay, football players
took to Twitter to demand the season continue. They also asked for
mandatory health and safety protocols, the ability to opt-out of the
season and maintain their eligibility, and to create a players
association.
"The biggest issue in this whole thing is athletes don't really have a
voice — there's no union, there's no way for them to organize and fight
for rights," said Bob DeMars, a former University of Southern
California football player who directed "The Business of Amateurs," a
documentary challenging NCAA practices. "This is kind of a pivotal
moment where they're actually seeing how much power they have."
The coronavirus presents a unique health risk to players. It's
impossible to social distance during games, and while the virus's
long-term health effects are unknown, it has been linked to heart
damage.
Yet players have always risked their health and safety during games,
DeMars noted. Football and other contact sports have been linked to a
degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy,
even at the college level, and players can sustain other injuries that
cause long-term issues, such as knee or back problems.
But the virus sharpens the focus on those dangers and has helped
players realize their power, which DeMars hopes will make this push for
rights different from a failed attempt to unionize in 2015. "Most of
these guys, by the time they're enlightened, they're out the door,"
DeMars said. "This enlightenment is happening at a collective level —
freshmen and not just seniors."
That's not to say they won't encounter roadblocks, Sports Illustrated
reported in July. At least two states have laws preventing
student-athletes from being classified as employees at public colleges.
And the National Labor Relations Board, which decides labor issues at
private institutions, has a Republican majority, which typically
opposes unions.
But DeMars and others say competition among colleges to recruit
student-athletes could help players gain more protections. Last year,
California passed a law that will make it easier for college athletes
there to profit off their name and likeness, and a handful of other
states have since followed suit.
"These schools are going to get better athletes because of that,"
DeMars said. "If you get one school that starts offering more rights
and says, 'You know what, we're going to cover your health for the next
(however many) years, we're going to allow you to be compensated if a
company wants to use your name and likeness,' … everyone else is forced
to do it."
'Unworkable and unsustainable'
The pandemic has also brought greater scrutiny to the way college
sports are funded. Although big-name athletic departments can bring in
millions annually, many have used debt to finance investments in
top-of-the-line facilities.
Cash-strapped institutions whose teams forgo playing this fall may have
to loan their athletic departments money or otherwise help them cover
those costs, according to a recent report from Moody's Investors
Service.
Some schools could still play games and even allow students into their
stadiums, despite the health risks involved. The University of Georgia
says it will fill its stadium to between 20% and 25% capacity. And Iowa
State University recently walked back its decision to allow about
25,000 fans into its stands for the first football game of the season.
Some students are uncomfortable with allowing people to attend games,
however. "That shouldn't be something of focus right now," said
Alejandra Villegas, a graduate student studying cell biology at the
University of Georgia. "We should be trying to facilitate a healthy
environment."
Villegas doesn't think the university is taking into account that
students will likely host gatherings on game days. In recent weeks,
dozens of schools have seen coronavirus outbreaks linked to student
parties that violate social distancing and other safety guidelines.
"They're not considering what the student behavior is going to be like
before and after (games)," she said, adding that those students could
then go on to spread the virus in classrooms.
Villegas doesn't consider sports to be an important aspect of her
educational experience, and now, she perceives it as something
potentially threatening health and safety on campus.
She isn't the only one.
Some students are questioning whether they should have to pay athletic
fees if they don't go to or care about games, especially in light of
the pandemic. These fees can be substantial at some institutions; James
Madison University, a public institution in Virginia, required
full-time undergraduates to pay a $2,058 athletic fee in the 2019-20
academic year.
David Ridpath, a sports management professor at Ohio University and
past president of The Drake Group, which advocates for more protections
for college athletes, isn't against athletics fees, just how high
they've climbed over the past few years. "Maybe those whistles and
gongs that we have on campus here in America aren't worth as much as we
think," Ridpath said.
In many cases, however, the fees make up a major part of the sports
budget and lowering them would be untenable. That's why Ridpath thinks
it's time for athletic departments to change how they operate — which
could include cutting expenses and having only some teams participate
in Division I sports, as those tend to be more cost-intensive than in
lower divisions.
"The only thing that we can't do is continuing to do what we're doing
now," Ridpath said. "The model that we have now is unworkable and
unsustainable."
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