To the editor: I need to respectfully problem the latest opinion piece claiming that “identify and likeness” (NIL) agreements and fashionable faculty soccer economics have corrupted the game.
The creator overlooks the truth that faculty soccer has been commercialized for many years. The Nationwide Collegiate Athletic Assn. (NCAA), whereas working as a nonprofit, generated $1.3 billion in income within the 2022-23 fiscal yr, with $945 million from media rights alone. Excessive-profile coaches had been paid hundreds of thousands years earlier than NIL insurance policies existed.
The inflow of cash into faculty sports activities shouldn’t be new; what has modified is that athletes at the moment are allowed to learn from the wealth they assist create.
For many years, athletes generated large income for universities, coaches and the NCAA whereas receiving minimal compensation for his or her efforts. Permitting these athletes to earn from their contributions shouldn’t be a betrayal of values — it’s a step towards equity in an already professionalized system.
If reforms are wanted, they need to handle the NCAA’s position in sustaining an outdated system. Ending the NCAA’s nonprofit standing and permitting faculties to pay athletes straight, simply as they pay coaches, would deliver faculty sports activities in keeping with financial realities.
Faculty soccer stopped being about amateurism way back, and clinging to that pretense solely perpetuates outdated norms. We should always embrace reforms that mirror actuality and deal with athletes as valued contributors to a system they maintain.
Brent Williams, Arlington, Va.
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To the editor: Cash is ruining sports activities. That is obvious in skilled sports activities, except the Nationwide Soccer League (NFL), which has a tough cap on complete participant salaries. The result’s extra parity within the NFL, the place the groups are inclined to maintain their core of key gamers longer than the opposite skilled sports activities.
What’s occurring in faculty sports activities is particularly egregious. Within the curiosity of NIL cash, a whole bunch of school gamers are greedily hopscotching yearly from one campus to a different to earn just a few further bucks. Loyalty and continuity have been deserted. Extra necessary, so has the school expertise for these younger athletes.
The one method to management that is by a tough cap on what faculties can spend on NIL. This funds might be completely different for every sport and for every division of play. That method, the College of Alabama may have the identical funds as Kansas State College, and the College of Oregon may have the identical funds as Southern Methodist College.
This vital change will enhance faculty sports activities and fan curiosity.
Joel Miller, Torrance
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To the editor: ML Cavanaugh laments that faculty soccer is now only a enterprise. He jogs my memory of individuals wishing for the “good previous days,” which after all weren’t all that nice for lots of people usually.
On this case, within the good previous days, gamers had been utilized by faculties to boost hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for his or her faculties. In fact they’ll let you know how lots of the gamers received a free training in change for taking part in sports activities, nevertheless it’s additionally true that many different gamers struggled as a result of they weren’t in a position to earn cash through the season.
And don’t get me began on the under-the-table funds to stars.
What’s been carried out since then has given the gamers management of their picture and curtailed monetary dishonest. In fact, faculties nonetheless rake of their cash.
So for me, the nice previous days of school soccer are proper now. I like residing within the current.
Mike Moersen, Thousand Oaks
