Senator Renews Demand for College Athletes’ Pay Amid Restart

(Bloomberg) -- As college coaches urged student athletes to return to the playing field amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut once again pushed for the players to receive better treatment.

In an op-ed in June with Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, the Democrat called the fact that athletes do not get paid and do not have adequate health coverage an “abomination,” and another example of systemic racism even further highlighted by Covid-19. Already unpaid, many of the young men and women come from less advantaged backgrounds and areas that have been ravaged by the coronavirus. And the decision makers are often White, while the players are often Black, he said.

For Murphy -- 47, and his state’s junior senator -- it was yet another chapter in his role as one of the Senate’s leading advocates for paying college athletes.

A member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Murphy is among a group of Democratic senators pushing for a “College Athletes Bill of Rights” to allow compensation and health-care coverage for players in the $16 billion industry.

Murphy, who played rugby and tennis in college, spoke with Bloomberg about these issues. His comments have been edited for clarity and length.

Q: What do you think of the Big Ten’s reversal to play football?

A. I’m OK with college sports restarting, so long as we’re confident that we have the ability to keep these kids safe and that we’re not treating them differently than the rest of the student population.

This drive to bring college sports back is mostly about the money. It just further highlights the fact that this is big business and these kids’ health is being put at risk without any compensation.

When the NBA players and the NFL players go back out on the field, they know they’re taking the risk, but they’re getting paid handsomely for it. These college kids are being pushed back out on the field and they’re getting zero compensation.

Q: How does Covid-19 magnify the systemic inequalities facing college athletes?

A: Covid has made it clear that students’ health doesn’t come first. You have several schools where the student body is learning remotely, but the football players are back on campus. That blows up the notion that these Power 5 football players are students first and athletes second. They’re absolutely athletes first, or else they wouldn’t be back on campus when none of the other students are, because it’s too unsafe.

It also just further highlights the difference between college and pro sports. These pro sports are back playing. But the athletes are getting compensated. The (college) coaches and athletic directors tell you that it’s voluntary. They will tell you these students don’t have to come back on campus if they don’t want to. Well, that’s nonsense. There is clearly all sorts of pressure, whether it be quietly from the coaching staff or through peers to get back with your teammates and for any athletes that want a professional career. They can’t afford to take a year off from the minor leagues, which is what college basketball and college football has become.

Q: Why did college sports become a top issue for you?

A: I just couldn’t help but notice that college athletics had become this just enormously huge industry. All of a sudden there seemed to be no difference between professional sports and college sports.

You started to see these stories repeating month after month, year after year, about kids getting punished for trying to make relatively small amounts of money outside of their college athletic programs, or kids who wanted to transfer to a new program but had to wait a year or two, or kids who got injured before they were ever able to make a dime, even though their exploits had benefited their school pretty robustly.

It just seemed that there was more and more money driving college sports and it all seemed to be going to the white coaches and the white athletic directors and the white sports industry CEOs and these kids seemed to be getting left behind. So as a sports fan and as a civil rights advocate, it was just becoming harder for me to watch and enjoy college sports, given how shabbily these kids were being treated.

Q: Can you give us an overview of your proposed Name, Image and Likeness legislation?

A: My belief is that Congress should not significantly limit the right of athletes to enter into endorsement deals. Congress should absolutely refrain from giving the National Collegiate Athletic Association any role in determining what kind of deals can be entered into and what can’t. The athletes’ interest should come first.

Q: What are the roadblocks?

A: There are many Republicans who think that Congress should just stay out of this issue in general. The NCAA is going to have a hard time coming up with a consensus position among its members. Right now their consensus position is a ridiculous one. They want full pre-emption, complete control over what endorsement deals students do and legal immunity. Well, they’re not getting that. Once we start negotiating over what kind of deal we actually should cut on behalf of students, it’s going to be very hard for these schools to keep status quo, to stay unified.

Q: During the pandemic, several schools have cut teams, including some of the richest, like Stanford. What are your thoughts about such cuts?

A. There probably deserves to be a reexamination of the entire cost of college athletics programs. Football and basketball are the programs that cost the most, especially with these practice facilities and coaches’ salaries going into the stratosphere. I know from having played sports religiously since I was six that it doesn’t require millions of dollars to put on a soccer game or a tennis match. We probably need to step back and consider whether there’s a way to run college athletics programs for less money. They will look less like professional sports than they do today, but it doesn’t have to mean that the students’ experience in playing those sports is any less valuable.

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