How ‘oppressive’ Fsu Revenue-sharing Deals Show Continued Exploitation Of College Football Players

Revenue sharing is now a characteristic of assemblage athletics. Thanks to nan location settelement signed successful May, schools are permitted to walk $20.5m annually crossed sports, including done expanded scholarships and nonstop payments (of which it appears shot will mostly person astir 75%). This would look to mitigate nan longstanding problem of exploitation successful assemblage football.

However, successful a athletics still defined by utmost injury, precocious disclosed provisions successful nan caller Florida State University (FSU) revenue-sharing statement show that schools look to simply beryllium uncovering caller ways to extract worth from players, arsenic ever astatine startling individual cost.

Per a CBS Sports report, nan caller FSU statement being distributed to shot players reads, successful part, “the pursuing circumstances create a breach of statement by Student-Athlete: Student-Athlete experiences immoderate unwellness aliases wounded which is superior capable to impact nan worth of nan authorities granted to [school] nether this Agreement.”

In different words: If a subordinate gets injured, nan schoolhouse has leverage to cancel nan deal.

Darren Heitner, adjunct rule professor astatine nan University of Florida and University of Miami, and an master connected assemblage sports’ name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, was stunned by what he recovered upon reference nan contracts.

“I return nary rumor pinch nan drafter of a statement creating a archive that leans successful favour of nan drafting party. In fact, that’s expected,” he told us. “However, location is simply a problem pinch a statement erstwhile it is truthful unfair, one-sided, and oppressive that it shocks nan conscience.

“Reviewing nan position and considering that sometimes 17-year-olds pinch nary ineligible counsel will beryllium asked to motion connected nan dotted line, my takeaway is that this rises to nan level of unconscionability unless thoroughly negotiated. I person reviewed dozens of revenue-sharing agreements and nary compare.”

In a connection fixed to CBS Sports, FSU said successful portion that “Each individual business will beryllium unsocial and nan hypotheticals are intolerable to predict. However, we are committed to continuing to supply an elite acquisition for our student-athletes successful each aspects of their collegiate career.”

Injury, of course, is an inherent characteristic of assemblage football. In our recent book The End of College Football: On nan Human Cost of an All-American Game we observe that each 2.6 years of information successful shot doubles nan chances of contracting nan degenerative encephalon upset chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and that 91 percent of American assemblage shot players’ brains examined successful a pivotal Boston University study displayed neuropathology accordant pinch CTE. Similarly, information successful shot apt increases nan chances of processing Parkinson’s illness by 61 percent compared to athletes successful different organized sports (and that consequence is 2.93 times greater astatine nan college/pro level).

In nan book, we interviewed twenty-five erstwhile big-time assemblage shot players astir their experiences successful nan sport. Many of those players suffered highly debilitating injuries that caused them to suffer seasons aliases moreover extremity careers, including knee reconstructions, torn AC joints, cervix surgeries, torn achilles tendons, and countless concussions.

One subordinate told us, “Before I sewage to college, ne'er had an injury. By nan clip I near college, I had a aesculapian grounds book of complete six 100 pages. From rehab notes, room notes, to MRIs. I had complete 12 MRIs total, 5 knee surgeries. This was while I was playing. . . . Later I recovered retired that I had 4 torn labrum[s]. So I person a torn labrum connected some shoulders, torn labrum connected some hips.”

Thus, nan mobility of players being relieved of their contractually agreed upon compensation arsenic a consequence of wounded is hardly academic. It will happen, and to many.

“I deliberation nan precocious revealed statement specifications from Florida State exemplifies nan existent cognition of assemblage officials who person wholly mislaid show of their jobs arsenic educators,” erstwhile UCLA and NFL subordinate Chris Kluwe told us. “They position assemblage athletes (and students) arsenic a merchandise to beryllium bought and sold and not quality beings, which runs contrary to everything nan acquisition strategy should be.

“In a athletics for illustration shot wherever athletes are predominately achromatic and successful a authorities for illustration Florida wherever nan existent authorities seems intent connected returning to nan Antebellum Era, nan truth schoolhouse officials consciousness nan request to see terrible connection curtailing players’ authorities to nan merchandise of their labour is intensely concerning, and highlights nan request for a assemblage players national to protect athletes from would-be modern time plantation owners.”

The business is compounded by nan truth that universities don’t supply semipermanent wellness security to nan players, leaving them to carnivore each nan associated costs of their beingness hardship. One subordinate we said to for nan book really told america that “Long term, conscionable strictly financially … it will person [ended up], for illustration I paid money to play assemblage football.”

Until specified clip arsenic location are genuine occupational wellness and information protections befitting a occupation pinch specified profound inherent dangers, it’s clear that nan athletics is not really entering a much humane era. The House Settlement has ushered successful small much than a caller modality for nan aforesaid aged exploitation and harm.

• Nathan Kalman-Lamb is Associate Professor of Sociology astatine nan University of New Brunswick and co-author of The End of College Football: On nan Human Cost of an All-American Game. He is co-host of The End of Sport podcast. Derek Silva is Professor of Sociology and Criminology astatine King’s University College astatine Western University and co-author of The End of College Football: On nan Human Cost of an All-American Game. He is co-host of The End of Sport podcast.