College activities are more than just activities. They provide a lifeline to many young people who otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to escape the hardships of their culture.
Teddy Roosevelt was in a butcher more than a century ago when school football fields were rife with broken nostrils, crushed skulls, and 18 children who died in one season. He dragged university administrators to the White House, opened the door for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA ), a system that turned slacky survivors into Olympians and graduates.
As a college soccer player, I also experienced broken bones, bronchi burning, and ankle distorted. However, I received financial aid and a solution to a better and bigger life. It’s been the same for millions of people: a diploma, a way out, and possibly also a chance to win Olympic gold. Because of our outstanding and unprecedented professional athletics program, American Olympians and particularly American women dominate sports worldwide. That is truth, never hype.  ,
However, the backbone of school activities is now permanently in use. What started out as a hobby has grown into a multibillion-dollar lion, and the big dogs, the SEC, Big Ten, and to a lesser degree the Big 12 and the ACC, the” Autonomy Four,” are prepared to to toss it aside. They’ll explain that the” stability” of the system is related to justice for players. Don’t purchase it. The victims of the attack are the kids you don’t notice on ESPN: the dancer flipping on a damaged bed, the boxer slogging for a D-II killed, the swimmer doing laps in the pool at 5 a.m. every day.  ,
The real threat to the system is much less obvious than the eye-popping NIL ( name, image, and likeness ) deals and the uncontained transfer portal, despite the public’s attention being focused solely on them. The reality is that men’s basketball and football both make up over 93 percent of the money needed to keep wrestling, ball, and swimming dead. Children’s and Olympic gymnastics don’t make a profit. They won’t ever. They provide opportunities for children who otherwise would be marginalized, and they are the heart and soul of the school sports program.
I’ve witnessed it: friends who would never have the opportunity to attend a school without the guarantee of sports. Colleges will hammer activities that can’t pay their own bills if they over-allocate the funds to pay football and basketball stars and/or obstruct several institutions from income sources and media coverage. Non-revenue activities, Olympic sports, or children’s sports? A gone. Goals? buried.  ,
I get it, the people deserve a good share of the pie. I’m a strong proponent of free markets, but I even sweated and bled without receiving NIL bills. I can feel the sting. Nowhere else in America may businesses get ahead with agreeing not to pay their employees a good market rate on the assumption that the definition of their product is defined by refusing to pay their employees a good market rate, according to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s legal argument.
The NCAA is a cartel that is being meticulously destroyed in court. It operates under an archaic design. The dam has already been weakened, and House v. NCAA and Johnson v. NCAA are the start of a disaster that may immediately submerge the system’s economic model.
These court decisions, of course, are all legitimate legal defenses in the light of the accepted antitrust rules interpretation, but the outcome is a total blow to a fantastic British institution. If the income is squandered, it’s not just the NCAA that suffers; it’s Mia, a 14-year-old ballerina with Olympic fire in his eyes, and Jake, a boxer who is putting his coming on a scholarship.  ,
The Autonomy Four meetings are then smelling bad. They are begging Congress for shelter from the claims they’ve won. They want an antitrust provision. They appear to be fair, correct? Regulate the conflict, they say. False! It’s a Trojan horses, really.
The major 40 college football programs currently monopolize 95 % of advertising revenue and 89.3 % of TV viewers. A free competitive house pass is available to the Autonomy Four, especially the Big 10 and SEC, and they’ll create a very event, a gilded dominance that starves everyone else of the income needed to give option to more than 500, 000 student athletes annually. Of the 134 FBS schools, 90 or more could lose funding for Olympic sports, women’s teams, and even football itself ( along with the FCS and Division II ). Local towns could crumble, if they do. Smaller colleges would wane. College sports would become a hidden gem and become a fabled sport, and countless dreams would be ruined.  ,
This is not about right or left; rather, it’s about right and wrong. The NCAA is broken, but it’s even worse to hand the keys to a few fat cats. America thrives on competition, not on D.C.-sponsored cozy cartels.
The solution isn’t rocket science: pay athletes what is fair, but don’t allow wealthy programs to become wealthy by monopolizing sports, which would be a monopoly on revenue. promote openness, equal access to media, and promote media sex. Keep the necessary funds going to the swimmers, wrestlers, and dreamers from the smaller, less-known colleges, as well as the students who contribute to this messy, beautiful system that is worth saving.  ,
I’m pleased that the Trump crew and Congress are involved. However, they must see through the smoke. Reject the Autonomy Four’s sway and acknowledge that those who make the biggest legislative pushes are just advocating for their own selfish interests. They are not concerned about the institution’s long-term health, the nation, or the incredible opportunity college sports offer to those who are much less fortunate.
Create a framework that will serve as a national testing ground and resource for talent development, not a place for the extortive. Avoid letting a few suits compete for Mia and Jake’s futures to make them even fatter.
The underdogs need your support. That is the traditional approach. That is American, exactly.  ,
Former Texas Tech and Indianapolis Colts football players Cody Campbell. He serves on the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s board of directors, the America First Policy Institute, and the Texas Tech University System’s Board of Regents.
