A star high school basketball player was incidentally mentioned in an FBI probe because he was allegedly paid $15, 000 for “committing” to play for the University of Arizona. The student has recently committed to another university but may be ineligible to play college basketball next year.
A study in 2011 estimated that the average college basketball player at a university in the top tier (FBS) of Division 1 athletics earned approximately $120, 000 including grants-in-aid to fund tuition, room and board, etc, coaching services, media and public relation services, free tickets, and other valuable services. Another study in 2017 suggests that the average Division 1 player is worth $170,098 to their employing institutions. However players on elite teams such as the Louisville, Duke, and Kentucky would be worth $1.72 million, $1.16 million and $1.02 million, respectively, on a free market.
This raises a very serious question about college athletics—but not the one that you would expect. Why is it that Federal police operate as an investigative and enforcement arm for the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the multi-billion dollar college athletics cartel whose main purpose is to ruthlessly suppress the wages of college athletes far below the additional revenue that they generate for the colleges and universities that employ them?
