Given the fact that the recent years’ damaging scandals at UNC have been traced back to athletics, it only made sense for the University to host Friday’s open campus discussion on the role of athletics in a university setting.
Of course, few answers came out of the discussion. Also, Chancellor Holden Thorp’s suggestion that university presidents shouldn’t be the ones ultimately responsible for college athletics suggests a fatalistic and irresponsible outlook on the university’s role.
But perhaps the most foundational issue — and one the athletics panel could publicize — is the one most directly affecting those who make college athletics what it is: athletes.
This editorial board can definitively say that University athletes should be paid, and have the right to make money using their names and likenesses.
This should happen for two reasons: to eliminate inequitable treatment and reward the invaluable contributions big-time athletes give to their schools.
As of now, the NCAA is a multi-billion dollar business. And who drives it? The athletes, of course.
In fact, athletes are the only students on campus who can’t earn money off their own name or likeness. Jay Bilas, an ESPN analyst and former Duke basketball player, rightly told the panel this is a conceptual and moral problem. Athletes should be able to market themselves just like any other student on campus.
Universities and the NCAA are making money hand-over-fist off the marketability of their star athletes. And the athletes themselves come up empty.
College athletes are fundamental to the success of their schools, whose prestige, image and fundraising are often dependent on the success of their athletes in the field or on the court.
