NFL agent suggests players should boycott National Championship Game
There have been a lot of incidents lately of college student athletes forcing college administrations to recognize more rights and protect them in more meaningful ways than the basic play-for-scholarship relationship.
Whether it was Northwestern players trying to unionize for guaranteed scholarships (that Northwestern already gave them) and more clearly defined medical benefits or Missouri players boycotting football activities to force the ousting of university leaders for their failure to respond to racial incidents on campus, college student athletes are finding their voice and challenging the status quo in a way they have not before.
And they have forced some real change too. The NCAA has allowed for four-year scholarships and teams are giving them out as a recruiting enticement over schools that do not. A stray comment during a NCAA Tournament press conference did bring changes to rules regarding what athletic programs can feed their student athletes.
These players should realize the power they have. And that is the point an agent at a prominent NFL sports agency argued this week in the Washington Post.
Donald H. Yee, a partner at the NFL agency that represents New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton, wrote in The Washington Post the players for the Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers should boycott or delay the start to Monday’s National Championship Game:
Change, however, could come rapidly and fairly easily. If even a small group of players took a stand and refused to participate — imagine if they boycotted or delayed the start of Monday night’s championship game — administrators would have to back down. There’s too much money on the line, and no one could force the teams to play against their will. The schools and the NCAA would simply have to renegotiate the bargain with football and basketball players.
Paying players would cost money, of course, but with billions in TV revenue coming in, it shouldn’t be impossible to find a way to spend some of it on labor instead of on exotic woods for new training facilities. Fans would get over the end of the NCAA’s “amateur” status, just as they have accepted pro basketball, hockey and soccer players competing in the Olympics.
Former University of California and NFL linebacker Scott Fujita (whom I represent) recently told me: “The current model will only be ‘broken’ for as long as the athletes themselves allow it to remain that way. There’s no governing body that’s going to fix it. It must be the players. And as more players realize the power they can wield, and once they can organize around the common purpose of the change they seek, that’s when things will begin to shift.”
It’s time for those supremely talented young football and basketball players to help themselves to a better future.
Yee’s argument speaks about several imbalances in the NCAA’s current structure — including whether the scholarship players receive actually give them the education it promises and the racial imbalance between the players and those making the money from television deals.
This is not to say college athletes do not have many advantages over regular students or that some do not make the most of these opportunities. A select few get to go to the NFL and continue their playing careers. The system seems to work fine for them.
There are imbalances though that need addressing. And as Yee seems to conclude, it is up to the players to force the NCAA to change them, using perhaps the only leverage they have.
In all likelihood, the players will play Monday in Glendale. Kickoff is at 8:30 p.m.
It’s not going to happen. Not this year but it gives one something to think about.
Wtf does this have to do with race? I’m sick of people pulling the race card on every issue. This Yee guy is a dip $hit…
It doesn’t have anything to do with race. Just said it so that people would pay attention to it.
Actually Yee makes no mention of race in his statement. SDS slipped that one in there.
DUMB idea.
If any players decided to do this – they would be off my team in a heartbeat and I would try to get back some of their scholarship money. They did sign a binding contract and need to fulfill it. If my school caved, they would never see my, or many other alumni, contributions again.
If players don’t like the terms of their contract, don’t sign it. Others will.
You forget no one give a damn about AU today or ever for the matter. But please keep contributing so we have something to laugh at every year RollTide
Not that he would be biased in the fact that his agency could profit substantially from being able to represent college athletes as well as NFL players. That can’t possibly factor into his position at all, could it?
OHH NOOOO that has absolutely NOTHING to do with it.
Is there ANY surprise that an NFL agent wants to disrupt the college game? Unless the whole team on both sides buys in and does it together the result i see is that small group being dismissed from the program and sent home by bus while the rest of the team that competes flies home first class. Alternatively if only one team protests it goes as a forfeit and they all go home by bus. and forever labeled as losers.
Full ride scholarship, housing, food, books, stipend. Damn, I wouldn’t mind being unpaid at about $20,000 a year or so with no real bills. Sounds like the Army.
Wait, didn’t they already approve COA payments? The only major rules left are the ones affecting how players can’t make money on their own name or likeness, which is bs and wouldn’t affect amateur status these days anyway. And we need to make it less difficult for players to get jobs, though I think more of them should be applying for student jobs as you can have up to two of them at a time, I did. Yeah, it’s minimum wage, but the NCAA can’t say jack and so many of them work with a student’s hectic schedule and allow you to study. Some do not, but involve hours outside most schedules. Once upon a time, even after they started letting freshmen play, they didn’t let them get jobs. No wonder so many programs were paying them under the table. College football is lucrative and is the most blatant example of legal extortion, next to vehicle impounds anyway. And so many people complain about privilege and cost to academics, I don’t see them pulling money out of engineering grants to fund athletic scholarships. They allow every other student to make money any way they choose fit, as long as it is legal and not against the institution’s rules. But this agent just needs to keep his mouth shut, because we know why he supports paying players and it’s got nothing to do with the wellbeing of the players. He just wants his piece of the pie, he’s no better than the cfp group.
They get paid nearly 300k. Free everything regarding education. Playing sports is just one way to earn it.
Coming from the man who represents Tom Brady and Sean Peyton I could care less what he says.
Really stupid – all the NCAA would have done was forfeited the game, and then neither team would have won — the game would have been canceled with both teams electing to forfeit … That’s really a dumb guy that thought this mess up … He needs to go back to college himself … what a looser !!!