Playoff day!
January 1st used to be the end of the college football season. There would be a champion crowned after the completion of the traditional bowl games. But money has changed everything and January 1st features playoff games. This year’s Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California is a quarter-final College Football Playoff Game featuring Ohio State against Oregon. There are two other quarter final games, Arizona versus Texas in Atlanta and the other in New Orleans with Notre Dame playing Georgia. This is big business for the college football industry. But there are more games to come, the semi-finals and then the final which takes place on January 20th, a date that is already into the second semester of the school year. Will the so-called “student-athletes” playing be excused from classes?
The term “student-athlete” has been used to deny players benefits such as salaries and long-term health care from injuries suffered on the field whether in practice or in a game. Courts have routinely upheld the college side in lawsuits filed by severely injured players or survivors of players killed on the field. Schools do not have to pay workman’s compensation or long-term health care costs because the athlete is a student not an employee of the school. The athletic scholarship is very one sided, in favor of the schools although there is some justification that the schools are offering scholarships to players and that players ought to be grateful for that. Teams playing in the bowl games pay no taxes on bowl payouts thanks to an antitrust exemption. Some players are paid through a third party which has been a problem with NCAA leaders. The governing body of college sports is pleading with federal lawmakers to do something to level the playing field so that a player cannot accept a big money golden handshake to attend a school of that booster’s choice.
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