Majority Statement

• Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV
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  Majority Statement

  Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV

  College sports have long held a special place at the heart of American culture.  Not only have college sports inspired deep passion in fans all across the country, but they have provided an important way for young men and women to get a college education.  For many young people, athletics have provided an avenue to college that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

  College athletics are rooted in the notion of amateurism.  Playing college sports is supposed to be an avocation.  Students play college sports for the “love of the game” not “love of money.”  That’s the ideal.

  But many people believe this notion of college sports is being undermined by the power and influence of money.  There’s a growing perception that college athletics – particularly Division I football and basketball – are hardly avocations at all.  

  What they really are is highly profitable commercial enterprises.  

  Critics of big-time college athletics say that the goal of these programs is not to provide young people with a college education, but to produce a winning program that reaps financial rewards for athletic departments and their schools.  It’s not about the students.  

  It’s about capturing the billions of dollars of television and marketing revenues that college sports generate.   

  Colleges and universities say that these revenues benefit college athletes and their student bodies at large.   But I think we have to consider whether the lure of such riches could corrupt the basic mission of athletic programs.   Winning teams get higher payouts than losing teams which creates a strong incentives to win at any cost.  And much of the money is often funneled right back into those sports programs, in the form of multi-million dollar coaching salaries and state of the art facilities – to perpetuate that cycle of winning. 

  Athletics are meant to serve schools and their public duty to educate students, not the other way around. 

  Dr. Mark Emmert is here to present the perspective of the colleges and universities that belong to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).   Dr. Emmert, I would like to thank you for testifying here today.  I believe you were put at the helm of the NCAA because you have impressive academic credentials and a sterling reputation.  And I think we all appreciate that you are extremely well compensated.  Your commendable individual qualities and capabilities are not what trouble me.  I think I am just very skeptical that the NCAA can ever live up to the lofty mission that you constantly tout.  I don’t see how a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise can merely be an amateur pursuit.  I don’t see how the NCAA will ever be capable of truly making a safe, quality educational experience for students their number one priority.  That’s what we will talk about today. 

  We believe that the NCAA has largely been left to its own to determine what reforms are appropriate and how to accomplish its mission.  As we continue to learn more about what goes on at some major universities and colleges, we want to know if the NCAA is seriously considering how college athletes are faring under this system. 

  How are the young men who strap on their helmets on a football field in front of a hundred thousand passionate and paying customers – how are they doing?  How are the young men who lace up their shoes and step onto a court in front of millions of television viewers in March – how are they benefiting from this system?  

  Are colleges and universities living up to their end of the bargain and providing them with a quality education?  Are these young athletes entitled to any of the billions of dollars that are reaped from their athletic services?  And when young men and women put their bodies at risk from playing sports for their schools – whether its women’s lacrosse or men’s soccer – do they have adequate health insurance?  

  Do the schools and athletic leagues sufficiently minimize the risk of concussions?  And what happens to a student who is injured before graduation – can he or she finish out his studies or does his scholarship run dry?

  A couple months ago, we all heard the deeply troubling comments of Shabazz Napier, the talented University of Connecticut guard who was the most valuable player of the 2014 NCAA basketball tournament.   In the midst of a tournament that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues for the NCAA and its members, Mr. Napier talked about how he sometimes did not have enough to eat during college.   How did college sports benefit Mr. Napier on the nights he had to go to bed starving?    

  The title of today’s hearing is “Promoting the Well-Being and Academic Success of College Athletes.”  I want to have an objective, open-minded, and frank discussion on this subject.  The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) has the same stated goal as I do. 

  As Dr. Emmert is going to tell us, the NCAA’s mission is to protect college athletes from abusive practices and exploitation and to promote college sports as a means toward achieving academic excellence.  

  Today, I want to explore whether the NCAA is fulfilling its mission.  We still hear too many reports of fraudulent academics.  We still hear too many tragic stories of former college athletes who have absolutely nothing to show for the services they provided to their schools – services that generated millions upon millions of dollars.  

  I am going to have some tough questions for our panel.  Is the NCAA – and its member schools – simply a legal cartel?  

  Have college sports become a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise which is no different than the other corporate witnesses who have appeared before this Committee?  

  Or is the NCAA truly different, and does the 100-year-old organization, in fact, further the best interests of college athletes?  Are their proposed reforms enough?  In my personal estimation, most of these reforms are indisputably far too long in coming.

  I want to thank our very distinguished panel before us today.  I truly appreciate that you have agreed to appear before this Committee to have a very serious – and overdue – public discussion on the well-being of college athletes and the state of college sports.

Minority Statement

• Ranking Member John R Thune
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  Minority Statement

  Ranking Member John R Thune

  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing to examine the current state of collegiate athletics, and I appreciate our witnesses for appearing here today. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, including the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), on how the NCAA and its member institutions are fulfilling the commitments made to our collegiate student-athletes. I am an avid sports fan, and I know that other members of this committee are too. As a basketball player in high school and college, and the proud father of a daughter who competed at the Division I level, I certainly recognize that participation in organized sports not only requires physical and mental strength, but also teaches teamwork and other skills that serve you throughout life. However, the college student-athlete is and should be a student first. Colleges and universities must remember and prioritize their academic obligation to student-athletes.

  As the popularity of college sports has grown – particularly the popularity of college football and men’s and women’s basketball – so too has the profitability of many collegiate athletic programs. In the current environment, the stakes have been raised both for the student-athlete who wants to succeed and for the university that has a financial interest in winning games. Increasing revenues for some schools and conferences – due in large part to lucrative contracts for the broadcast rights to football and basketball games – have become more common. Revenues from ticket sales and merchandizing efforts, for some schools, are also significant. And, of course, alumni want to see their teams win – and may be inspired to contribute to winning programs. 

  As we’ll hear today, the NCAA is a member-driven organization whose stated mission is “to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount.” However, a major criticism of college sports is that some institutions appear unable to balance the core academic mission of the university and the commercial considerations that often accompany college athletics, particularly in high-profile sports. Many feel the commitment to the “student-athlete” is falling short. Another point of contention involves athletic scholarships, and whether the practice of offering annual, as opposed to multi-year, scholarships unfairly places student-athletes at risk of losing their scholarships as a result of poor-performance or injury. But while multi-year scholarships may benefit student-athletes, they may disadvantage smaller schools who can’t match the resources of larger institutions. 

  Clearly, collegiate athletics in America is not without controversy, and we will hear from some of the NCAA’s most vocal critics today. While I am sure that today’s hearing will highlight a host of important issues, I hope we will not lose sight of the positive impact that amateur athletics has made on the lives of countless student-athletes. And we must remember that college athletics is not just about football and basketball. The director of athletics at the University of South Dakota (USD) recently shared the results of the student-athlete exit interviews he conducts annually to evaluate the school’s athletic program from the vantage point of the athletes themselves. He underscored two stories that stood out from this past year’s athletes. The athletic director at USD reiterated how Dustin Gens, a sophomore diver at USD, recovered from open-heart heart surgery to qualify to dive at the NCAA Zone Championships– a feat that would not have been possible without the work of a dedicated training staff, academic support, coaches, team, and family. He also noted the moving story of Hanna Veselik, a sophomore swimmer, who leaned on friends, family, and teammates to help her through the tragic loss of her father, who passed away early in the season. With this support, Hanna was able to return to the pool and achieve lifetime best times in all of her swimming events at the Summit League Championships. As the USD athletic director puts it, “these two are just a sample of what college athletics should mean. If you strip away the money, fancy locker rooms, charter flights, and large budgets, you’re left with student-athletes who often have to overcome personal, social, economic, academic, and athletic adversity . . . all just to compete. But they frequently do it with passion and a determination that makes us all proud.” 

  Recognizing that challenges exist, it is my hope that the NCAA, its member institutions, the student-athletes themselves, and other stakeholders will seek solutions that ­­promote the education, health, and well-being of student-athletes and seek to preserve amateurism in collegiate athletics. This is an area where Congress can provide a forum – but the solutions are most likely to come from those most directly involved in the education and development of student-athletes.

  Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.

Opening Remarks

• Senator Dean Heller
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  Opening Remarks

  Senator Dean Heller

  Thank you Chairman Rockefeller

  I appreciate the hearing today on the welfare of student athletes. It is important to have a better understanding of the academic and athletic benefits that are acceptable and unacceptable for schools to offer to student athletes and whether the NCAA can handle the responsibility entrusted to it by the Presidents of the participating Universities to fairly enforce that standard. 

  I am a sports fan.  Have been my whole life.  I have always enjoyed college sports because it was about the school on the front of the jersey and not the name on the back.

  I strongly believe that for many student athletes, the accessibility and affordability of a world class education at a 4 year University that a scholarship offers is life changing. 

  In fact, on the whole, I believe many student athletes would say they have had a good experience.  

  While most people see their sports careers end at high school, these talented students get to continue to compete on the next level in many sports that actually cost the University to compete.

  So there is no doubt that the opportunity to gain access to a World Class University because of your athletic talent is a ticket to a better future and as we discuss this issue today, I want the Committee to remember that.

  Now, with that being said;

  Billions of dollars are coming in from television contracts for college football and basketball. College sports fans are more invested than ever in the outcome of their alma mater or adopted team.  Millions of dollars from merchandise, tickets, and even video games have turned an amateur sports performance into a lucrative money making machine for some Universities.

  These developments have ignited a debate amongst many sports fans watching in their homes, at a friend’s house, or in person.   With so much money coming in to the Universities’ coffers, should more be allowable for the student-athletes, some of whom are the reason money is flooding in, in the first place?

  Can this be done while still ensuring amateur competition is a fair playing field?  If one school was allowed to offer lucrative packages for student athletes or their parents, such as money or a trip, I think it would be unfair to the schools that could not or would not offer that. 

  Schools offering more incentives would attract more talent and would theoretically, win more often.  Those wins would translate into more money for that University.  Either from a larger fan following, larger payouts from big games or higher numbers of applicants who want to study at a school with a winning sports program and larger exposure. 

  Given that logic, the University Presidents (who run the NCAA) should espouse a belief that there must be some level of fairness, that college athletics is not professional sports and there must be restrictions on what every student athlete can receive from the school they attend and from the community they live in. 

  But that is not to say there are not additional benefits both in academic and athletic support.  For example, athletes at many Universities have access to tutors who will provide individual time with an athlete that many in the general student body do not have access to.  Athletes also have access to weight rooms, world-class athletic facilities that can be incredibly state of the art, and outfitted with training staff. 

  These benefits help the student athlete in the classroom.

  But, many of these benefits also enhance a student athlete’s performance so they can be best prepared to represent their school on the playing field, so that they can better perform for the University to generate additional revenue.

  So we aren’t debating whether student athletes get additional benefits.  They do.

  We are debating whether the current set of rules that govern the NCAA are outdated for the college sports world that exists.

  I understand we must keep the rules fair for competition but more can be done for these student athletes to help them with their education and with their sports and still keep the integrity of the game. 

  In other words, there seems to be an attempted balance between the benefits a University receives for a successful sports program and what an athlete receives for a successful sports program and many think it is weighing far too heavily toward the Universities.

  Because the Universities put the NCAA in charge of the rules for student athletes, all complaints fall at their feet.

  Like I said, some Universities, either through their conference or by themselves, are bringing in a lot of money from television contracts and licensing rights.

  With so much money coming in, the NCAA has now been accused of making money off these players and exploiting them. 

  Those accusations are probably why we are having this hearing today and why Mr. Branch is here.

  And the NCAA has done themselves no favors.  There have been recent decisions that just do not make any sense.

  For example,

  Colgate freshman Nathan Harries was denied a year of eligibility for playing three games in an unsanctioned church league.  Harries spent two years on a Mormon mission in Raleigh, N.C. Upon his return home, he played three games in a league at Dunwoody Baptist Church. Apparently, that violated an NCAA rule that stipulates that athletes who do not enroll immediately after graduating from high school will be penalized one year of eligibility for every academic year they participate in organized competition (which includes an official score and referees). Colgate asked for a waiver, which was denied, and appealed the decision.

  Steven Rhodes served his country for 5 years as a United States Marine. Post-service, the 24-year-old enrolled at Middle Tennessee University and joined the football team as a walk-on.  The NCAA decided that Steven wasn’t eligible to play the 2013 season because he participated in a military-only recreational league in 2012. Even though it was a loosely-run league that sometimes went six weeks between games, the NCAA said that because the teams kept score and there were uniforms and referees, the league counts as “organized competition.”

  These situations were later revisited and fixed in one way or another.

  In November 2013, a subcommittee was scheduled to hear the appeal from Colgate, but an NCAA official contacted the school Thursday after various media reports detailing Harries' case.  The NCAA conducted a brief interview with Harries and immediately called back with news it had reversed its decision.

  In August 2013, the NCAA reversed its decision on Steven Rhodes, immediately granting permission to Rhodes to play and maintaining his eligibility for 5 years.

  I was pleased, the NCAA eventually overturned these decisions but the damage from the negative press the NCAA received was already done.

  It shined a light on what many college sports fans already believed, that the NCAA rules are outdated for the college sports world that exists today.

  The rules do not bend to circumstances. 

  Mr. Emmert, I think you know this.

  In speaking to UNLV and UNR and USC, they all have argued that sports is a wonderful part of their college campus and it is a way to provide a world class education to a student that otherwise may not have that opportunity. 

  I agree with them that a college athletic scholarship is a wonderful opportunity.  But I also know that the NCAA needs to do more for the student athlete.

  This leads me to my point, the University Presidents run the NCAA.  The NCAA cannot do much without their approval.

  Mr. Emmert, go to your board and demand change.  

  Tell them that the inability to adapt to the challenges of billion dollar TV contracts, academic fraud charges and additional publicity on every sanction decision the NCAA makes is why you find yourself before us today asking you whether the NCAA can do its job of protecting the welfare of the student-athlete. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

• Senator Dan Coats
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  Opening Remarks

  Senator Dan Coats

  Dr. Emmert, I appreciate your willingness to come before the committee. The NCAA is headquartered in Indianapolis, and so I am very familiar with the organization’s work.

  This hearing addresses a number of important and complicated issues.  I want to thank the Chairman for committing to me on several occasions that this hearing is intended to be a fair and open discussion of the challenges facing our universities and their student-athletes given the dramatic growth in college athletics in recent decades.

  We all recognize that there are a number of important issues facing college athletics today, and no one understands this more than Dr. Emmert.  In fact, the NCAA hired him with the intent that he serve as a reformer, and over the past four years he has helped to enact dozens of reforms.  As we have just heard from his opening remarks, he agrees that more needs to be done.     

  But as we examine the challenges facing college sports, I think it is also critical that we not lose sight of the big picture.

  More than 450,000 student-athletes engage in college athletics each year, and over 150,000 of these student-athletes receive athletic scholarships.  As a result, over the past several decades literally millions of students have benefitted from athletic scholarships that provided them with a college education.  The overwhelming majority of these student-athletes have gone on to successful professional careers in business, education, journalism, even in politics.  

  Yet much of the focus of this hearing, and of other complaints about the current state of college athletics, centers on a small percentage (roughly 3.5 percent) of these student-athletes that participate in football and basketball programs in the larger conferences.

  Certainly, we must address concerns about the treatment of these student-athletes.  But we also must not forget that making changes that would wholly reshape the college athletics landscape could impact hundreds of thousands of other student-athletes who rely on these scholarships to attend school. 

  In Indiana, basketball is our passion.  We have major conference schools like IU, Purdue, Notre Dame and Butler, but we also have schools like Indiana State, Ball State, the University of Evansville and Valparaiso that compete in smaller conferences.  While some of these schools have athletic programs that are fortunate to cover their costs, the majority of schools both in Indiana and across the country lose money on athletics.

  The NCAA must balance the interests of all of its member institutions, and I encourage this committee to keep in mind the need to balance the interests of all student-athletes as we review these issues.

  In particular, I look forward to hearing about the pending reforms to the NCAA’s governance structure that will give greater autonomy to the five major conferences, and how this may help address some of the issues raised by the other witnesses.

  In addition, given the calls by some of the witnesses to pay student athletes, I am curious to hear what impacts this would have on college athletics – especially on the vast majority of schools that lose money on athletics, and on the players who are not at major basketball and football programs. 

  I look forward to the testimony from our witnesses.

Testimony

• Dr. Mark Emmert

  President

  National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
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• Dr. Richard M. Southall

  Associate Professor, Department of Sport and Entertainment Management; Director, College Sport Research Institute

  University of South Carolina
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• Mr. Taylor Branch
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• Mr. Myron Laurent Rolle
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• Mr. Devon Jahmai Ramsay
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• Mr. William Bradshaw
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