Chris Murphy Says the NCAA Exploits Its Student Athletes

Senator Chris Murphy is calling out the NCAA for exploiting players.

“There’s no arguing that there’s a magic to March Madness. College sports are a big part of our culture, there’s a lot of good in college sports for athletes and for schools,” he stated. “But there’s also something rotten about an industry that generates billions of dollars in money for everybody except the student athletes actually playing in the games.”

College sports has recently become a money-making and money-spending machine, with revenues more than tripling since 2003. But Murphy says that schools aren’t taking these profits and investing them in their students, but are rather padding coaches’ salaries and building lavish facilities.

Networks are also profiting off college sports. Driven largely by football and basketball, television channels, clothing companies, online gaming and loads more industry are getting rich off the young athletes.

While the student athletes get scholarships, that makes up a tiny fraction of the money generated. And if a student gets injured or can’t compete, or runs afoul of the strict rules of what they can and can’t do, they lose out on their scholarship entirely.

“It’s time for the NCAA to find a way to fairly compensate student athletes—at least in basketball and football—and understand that making them work for free, while everyone gets rich off of their labor except for them, is a civil rights issue,” said Murphy.  

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