Coronavirus isn't over, but college football already won its most important battle
Millions infected with Covid. Hundreds of thousands dead. Billions in profits. Zero paid to the players. If college football's business model is pandemic-proof, the exploitation will never end.
I.
The students rushed to the field and everyone watching knew what they were seeing was wrong.
Everyone watching 10,000 Notre Dame students celebrating on the field after the No. 4 Fighting Irish beat No. 1 Clemson 47-41 in double overtime knew it was wrong. That wasn’t social distancing. This wasn’t in the protocols. This should not happen during a pandemic.
But this was what the sports world wanted to see: A big-time college football game on national television in primetime with a thrilling ending.
The game would have been better had the nation’s top quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, been on the field instead of watching from the sideline after testing positive for Covid-19 a week earlier.
But one player’s infection couldn’t stop this moment. College football was trying to prove its game was pandemic-proof.
When announcing his quarterback’s infection, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney made sure everyone knew where their focus should be: “While we certainly will miss Trevor, this is an opportunity for other guys to step up and we’re excited about competing…”
Coronavirus has killed over 254,000 Americans, including 4,200 in South Carolina, but Swinney’s statement wasn’t about the virus which infected the 21-year-old quarterback. Swinney wanted college football fans to hear this three-word message: Next man up.
After the students cleared the field, the school reprimanded them. That looked bad, but the game was a ratings smash. There will be more college football next weekend. The show will go on.
II.
The pandemic has taught us nothing new about how college football works. No dirty secret came to light. There was no front-page scandal about the terrible rot at the core of America’s favorite game.
When the world went topsy-turvy in 2020, college football did its best to push forward undisturbed. The pandemic has not impacted our thirst for the game. America still demands the sacrifice of blood, sweat, and tears. And the people in power, who have spent decades denying reality, remain committed to their charade.
The truth is college football is a multi-billion-dollar industry that requires its unpaid labor report for duty, no matter how many millions are being infected by a contagious virus. No matter how many thousands are dying. The games must go on.
College football is being played in 2020 because these institutions have come to rely on the money from the games. Like everyone, universities have felt the economic strain, so they need the players to play and keep playing for free. (Remember: In America, cash is the only form of payment we acknowledge.) They don’t need the star players, even. They just need two teams on the field.
And even this year, college football continued to pretend their system was about higher-education. But these are not “student-athletes” like the NCAA claims. This is not a game of amateur athletics like the schools and conferences maintain.
Their system — built upon a mountain of exploitation — is in full view. But the system will outlast the pandemic. And they are going to get away with the hypocrisy, the exploitation, and the money, too.
III.
As we enter the first cold-weather season of the Covid-19 pandemic, the period we knew would lead to a massive resurgence of cases across America, college football remains resolute. In a time of social distancing, these young bodies will continue to collide with other young bodies.
The pandemic stopped the traditions college football holds dear — marching bands, tailgates, homecoming, 80,000 people packed into stadiums — but the games continue.
“I believe, and very strongly, that the state of Nebraska needs football,” Bill Moos, Nebraska’s athletic director, said in September.
Despite coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths rising in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, every state home to a Big Ten school like Moos’s, the conference returned to action at the end of October.
They joined the ACC, Big 12, and SEC which all began in September. The Pac-12, the last major conference holdout, returned the first week of November. Those conferences, unofficially known as the Power 5, is where the money and power of college athletics are concentrated.
When college sports came to a halt last March, the conferences had five months to create safety protocols so they could play football. And after a few delays — including the Big Ten reversing a decision to cancel the season — all of them had plans to play through the pandemic.
Most of the rules centered around testing: The Big Ten and Pac-12 resumed when they could guarantee daily rapid antigen testing for every member of the football programs. The ACC, Big 12, and SEC are testing players three times a week with the more accurate PCR variety, though some schools switched to daily testing after experiencing team-wide outbreaks.
But the protocols aren’t designed to keep any individual player infection-free. They are designed to protect the team from an outbreak. Because universities couldn’t afford to miss playing football on Autumn Saturdays because there is simply too much money at stake.
IV.
There still seem to be more unknowns than knowns about Covid-19. Ignorance about long-term health impacts has long been one of football’s best excuses. For decades the unknowns about brain injuries allowed the sport’s brutality to go on relatively unchecked by the rulebook.
With coronavirus, we know masks, social distancing, and handwashing works. But we still don’t know what kind of long-term damage — if any — coronavirus does to the heart, or the lungs, or the kidneys, or the brain. Nor is it known how severe that damage may be for the 12 million Americans who have been infected so far.
The number of cases and hospitalizations grabs headlines, but when it comes to examining the risks of this virus, America is still obsessed with the number of deaths. With that obsession comes the minimization of any potential long-term health impacts.
The young — for the most part — have not been dying. And that seems good enough for society and for college football. What might come after an infection is left unsaid.
The Wall Street Journal reported for many patients symptoms are lingering for weeks or months after recovery and have been combined with “puzzling new complications” including “severe fatigue, cognitive issues and memory lapses, digestive problems, erratic heart rates, headaches, dizziness, fluctuating blood pressure, even hair loss.”
The WSJ notes manty of these patients suffering from what doctors are calling “chronic Covid” include young people and those whose original case was not serious and didn’t require hospitalization.
In the Big Ten, before a player can return to action after a positive test they must complete a “battery of heart-related screenings, including a cardiac MRI” during a 21-day layoff. The conference explained they were creating a cardiac registry to “attempt to answer many of the unknowns regarding the cardiac manifestations in Covid-19 positive elite athletes.”
Some studies, including several done at Big Ten schools, have linked coronavirus to myocarditis, an inflammation in the heart muscle which can weaken the heart and lead to heart attacks. (It can be detected with a cardiac MRI.)
In the eyes of college football, when it is the players risking long-term health complications the risks have always been worth taking.
V.
For college sports, schools make money through contributions from alumni and boosters, memorabilia and merchandise sales, ticket sales, and, most significantly, broadcast rights deals.
ESPN is handing Power 5 conferences nearly $750 million to broadcast football games this year. Fox’s deal is worth $430 million between the Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac-12. CBS’s deal with the SEC is worth $70 million. And all of that does not include the 12-year, $5.6 billion deal ESPN has for the rights to broadcast the College Football Playoff.
And in the coming years, as TV rights deals come up for negotiation, industry experts still expect the value of those deals to increase.
In 2019, the top 50 revenue-producing athletic departments were all schools from the Power 5. Forty of them reported revenues of over $100 million and fifteen reported revenues over $150 million, per USA Today’s database. In total, the Power 5 conferences average about $1 billion in revenues each year.
Of course, many schools claim to be in the red when it comes to athletics. But many likely only find themselves there thanks to some creative bookkeeping. Most spend all they take in because there’s no incentive to show they are turning a profit.
Revenues are plowed into stadium upgrades including swankier luxury suites and bigger video boards. Team facilities and locker rooms are on-par or superior to those in the NFL, with some taking the form of multi-million dollar man caves packed with unnecessary extravagances like mini-golf courses.
But the single biggest beneficiaries of the current system have been the coaches who have seen their salaries skyrocket.
Over 80 football head coaches made at least $1 million for 2020, according to USA Today. Some 272 assistant coaches made over $400,000 in 2019 and about 700 made at least $100,000. For strength coaches, 62 raked in $150,000 or more last year.
Not surprisingly, coaches were some of the most vocal advocates for playing through the pandemic.
On August 10, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh ($8 million for 2020) said he wasn’t advocating to play “because of my passion or our players desire to play” but instead because “this virus can be controlled and handled.”
Nebraska’s Scott Frost ($4.83 million) said his team was “prepared to look for other options” if the Big Ten skipped the fall season.
But nobody stated it as plainly as Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy: “In my opinion, we need to bring our players back. They are 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 years old, and they are healthy and they have the ability to fight this virus off. If that is true, then we sequester them and continue, because we need to run money through the state of Oklahoma.”
The school needs the money. The state needs the money. The businesses around the school need the money. The broadcasters need the money from ad sales. And Mike Gundy, who will be paid $4.25 million this year, needs the money, too.
VI.
The same way our lives these past eight months of the pandemic have taken on a Groundhog’s Day feel —the same doctors and scientists give the same advice about masks, avoiding indoor dining, maintaining social distance — college football is stuck in the same argument about financially compensating the players for their labor.
“For the past forty years I have been connected with the game of football as a player, prep school coach and just plain spectator,” a letter to The New York Times sports editor begins. “I want to see the players paid — and well-paid — so that the young man who for three or four years has run the risk of permanent injury has something more substantial in the years following his last game than a letter, a gold-plated football or a faded newspaper clipping.”
The letter was from John Alexander of Brooklyn and it was published Nov. 7, 1936.
“I am well aware of the arguments against payment. There was a time when they had a certain validity, but that time has long since passed,” Alexander wrote in a second letter a few weeks later.
“It is unfair to expect young fellows to furnish a Roman holiday, with the only reward a small amount of doubtful glory,” Reading D. Bulluck Jr. wrote to The Times 89 years ago this week. “College sports, and especially football, as organized today, require long and hard hours of grilling practice. It is equitable, ethical, and just that these men should receive financial aid in their college career. But it should be openly announced by the college authorities that these men are being paid for participating in athletics.”
A committee at Ohio State declared college football “big business” and said the players should share in the profits in Nov. 1957. The Times quoted professors saying coaches and players “should not be expected to live in the state of disgraceful and demoralizing hypocrisy which now attends this phase of college athletics.”
All others who work in college football get a cut of the industry’s profits. The people risking their health on the field — and, this year, off it as well — remain prohibited from legally profiting while playing.
VII.
Perhaps Mike Gundy was the only one in college football too dumb to realize he was saying the quiet part out loud: The players have to play during the pandemic because this is all about money.
Or maybe Gundy knew he could be totally honest because he felt completely secure in his standing as Oklahoma State’s head football coach. He is the one who makes the most money in Stillwater. A university president could fire him, but they would have to pay him over $6 million to go away. Gundy can say just about anything he wants without any chance of major repercussions.
The players’ lack of financial compensation is a symptom of their main problem. The head coach is the one who holds the power. He’s the Big Dictator on Campus. The players are like serfs, tied to the land, tied to the program, their futures governed by the whims of the man in power.
We saw 2020 as a year of player empowerment around sports, including college football. But players this year did not gain a seat at the table where decisions about their lives, health, and safety are made. They still are not represented by a union or trade association. They have no right to collectively bargain for a nationwide standard of testing and medical care during the pandemic. And they still have no leverage to press for an alternative.
Bomani Jones put it best in August: “Power doesn’t remain unpaid. Power doesn’t have to scream online for change. Power doesn’t plead for respect. And power doesn’t play football for free in the middle of a global pandemic.”
All Gundy’s truth-telling did was for one moment smash the illusion that college football was an old-fashioned institution governed by decades-long traditions that should be left alone.
The players are still funneled into a system that is working exactly as it was designed: To turn out a hefty payday for the NCAA, the conferences, the schools, the athletic departments, and the coaches. For those with power.
VIII.
Failure at this point to mention the role race plays in the continued exploitation of the players would be irresponsible. The majority of the coaches and administrators and the media who get a taste of that billion-dollar gravy train are white. The players, who are prohibited from profiting from their exploits, are mostly Black.
And, of course, “Negative racial views about (Blacks) were the single most important predictor of white opposition to paying college athletes,” a Washington Post analysis found in 2015.
IX.
It has been two years and 10 months since I last watched a college football game. But college football hasn’t missed me. I still contribute to the system.
Even without watching a game on television, purchasing a ticket, or buying a t-shirt, my money has ended up in the administrators’ and coaches’ pockets. I contributed tax dollars that funded many of these public institutions. The money from my cable subscription will go to the conferences regardless of what channel I watch.
I boycotted, withheld my attention, and refused to participate, but contributed nonetheless. My protest doesn’t work. They’re doing fine without me and will continue to do fine without me.
The systemic change that college football needs can only occur after a seismic event. So far, a pandemic has not proved to be sufficiently seismic. Neither have the industries numerous scandals.
The scandals that have most rocked college sports have involved coaches, administrators, boosters, agents, and apparel companies skirting NCAA rules to put money in the pockets of players. Others have involved coaches and schools covering up a player’s or coach’s improper behavior or illegal acts. And in any case of impropriety, a winning legacy or championships has usually been good enough cover for the fans and public to overlook even the most heinous acts.
So, no, playing despite the 321,000 cases of Covid-19 on college campuses across America has not been enough to kick off systemic change.
The only seismic event left would be a work stoppage. The only way a labor movement starts would be if the players sacrifice the only thing they have to sacrifice: Playing football.
“Just how long the colleges will continue to exploit the players depends on the players themselves,” John Alexander wrote in his first letter.
The most recent action came in 2015 when players at Missouri successfully went on strike as part of a school-wide protest against a racist campus culture. But those kinds of protests are often sporadic and win small gains. There is no guarantee of success when players are protesting for their rights.
After a round of Covid testing, Mississippi State has less than 53 scholarship players available for this weekend and their game could be canceled per the SEC’s rules due to the lack of healthy players. But the Bulldogs still traveled to play Georgia.
Mississippi State had a game postponed last week, they were not going to miss two in a row. The schools would find a way to make sure games were played no matter what.
X.
“It’s no disgrace for a penniless student to wait on the college table and be paid for it,” John Alexander wrote. “Why does it become a grave breach when the same student works on the football field and draws a salary for so doing?”
Dabo Swinney, the nation’s third-highest paid coach, will make $8.2 million this year after signing a 10-year, $93 million extension in April 2019. He said he would quit coaching if the players got paid.
“We try to teach our guys, use football to create the opportunities, take advantage of the platform and the brand and the marketing you have available to you,” Swinney said in 2014. “But as far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else, because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.”
In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Fair Pay to Play Act, granting players the ability to profit off their name, image, and likeness (NIL) through endorsements and sponsorships. Similar laws have passed in Colorado and Florida.
Some coaches (and the NCAA) are warming to the idea of allowing players the ability to capitalize on their notoriety.
“We believe that the name, image, and likeness (debate) is a very good thing,” Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh said in May. “It’s their name, it’s their likeness, it’s their image — and they, the player, should have the same opportunity that a football coach has to profit off their name, image, and likeness.”
“I say pay ‘em. If they’ve earned it, pay ‘em,” Mike Gundy said in 2019. “If somebody’s making a bunch of money (using the likeness of players), and they want to reward the athlete some, I don’t see a problem with that.”
But this is a half measure. Players wouldn’t be compensated for playing, but would simply have the ability to profit off their fame. And the money would not be coming out of the conference’s or schools’ revenues. It won’t come out of the coach’s pockets.
And for somebody like Swinney, that’s his sweet spot. Give the players something, but only “in a manner consistent with the collegiate model,” only in a way that keeps his salary high and maintains the façade of amateurism.
“I’ve always said I’m against the professionalization of college athletics and the de-valuing of education,” Swinney said in 2019. “If we professionalize college, then I might as well coach the pros.”
They train in a multi-million-dollar facility, are led by a multi-million-dollar coaching staff, and play in a multi-billion-dollar industry. Considering the amount of money surrounding them and the number of people who get rich because of them, the notion this is not a professional sport already is laughable.
Even with NIL rights, the “student-athletes” would still be exploited. Some would benefit, but not at a level commensurate with their labor. The majority would not make enough to ensure they can avoid unsafe working conditions — like playing through a pandemic.
XI.
“We can’t continue to tell people that Covid is a serious problem and have college football just power through it. It is contradictory messaging,” Brian Castrucci, an epidemiologist and president of the public health-focused de Beaumont Foundation recently told The Post.
We can’t continue to tell people this is exploitation and have college football just power through it. Unfortunately, both will happen. Both will continue unabated.
College football has seen about 80 games postponed or canceled so far this season. The most common reaction has been fan anger over the protocols that led to the games’ cancellation. College football is still on track to finish the season and crown a champion in the College Football Playoff.
The virus will spread. The rhetoric about college football, that the players should be happy with what the system gives them now — the chance to earn a degree, food, lodging, team-issued gear — will continue.
“Let’s move on with our life. When they stormed Normandy, they knew there were going to be casualties, there were going to be risks,” former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz said on Fox News in August.
The views of an 83-year-old Holtz could be considered a strawman if it wasn’t exactly what most people around college football advocated this year.
“How long will present-day players be willing to die or be maimed for the dear old college,” John Alexander wrote.
This is a game that chews the players up and spits them out. Not all walk away from the game completely broken, but none come out entirely whole.
A week ago South Carolina fired head coach Will Muschamp. He had four years remaining on his contract and they will pay him $13.2 million to leave. Even when the games aren’t played, some people manage to walk away more whole than others.
XII.
“Surely the coaches and others connected with the squads get plenty, so why deny the players, who make it all possible, a share?" John Alexander concluded in his second letter.
How many millions of people played in the 84 years since that letter to The Times was published? How many hundreds of millions of dollars were they denied?
If there ever was a year when the exploitation was made abundantly clear it was this one. A year when college football players are risking their health and lives twice over. And still, the money produced by their labor goes to other people.
Americans claim to abhor any policy that even smells like redistribution of wealth. But when it comes to college sports, Americans have deemed it essential that wealth be redistributed from the 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22-year-olds into the pockets of people like Mike Gundy.
But in college football, it is worse than just a simple redistribution problem.
It says in Genesis, “The voice of the ‘bloods’ of your brother are crying out to me from the ground.” It does not read “blood,” but “bloods.” That is meant to convey that Cain has not just spilled his brother’s blood, but the blood of all his brother’s descendants who never came to be.
In college sports, the denial of payment to a player is also the denial of that payment to all who have not yet come to be.
The rules of college football have deemed it essential that the money goes to Mike Gundy’s kids and grandkids and not the kids and grandkids of the players.
In the end, college football will fight to maintain a system that generates generational wealth for one group and denies even a fraction of that wealth to those whose blood is spilled to create it.
XIII.
It is impossible to judge each coach’s sincerity when it comes to how much they care about their players. Do they truly believe it when they say they do everything for them?
All we can do is look at their actions. And their actions are to continue to reap the huge financial rewards from the labor of unpaid young men who are in their charge. Their actions further the exploitation.
All we can do is examine the actions of these schools. In their push to play this season during the pandemic, they have admitted the entire system is built upon the backs of unpaid workers. The games are essential, but the players are not. The players are simply powerless, replaceable cogs of a machine.
A new set of bodies will arrive next year. And the old models can be discarded. It makes no difference if some are merely slightly used and some are totaled. And it doesn’t matter if the damage is done by the game or by the virus. Next man up.
They have convinced society the players are not workers, or business partners, or people worthy of rights and compensation, but just simply raw material.
The pandemic could not stop college football. It likely strengthened the people in power’s belief in maintaining the status quo. They will come out the other end of this season emboldened. The system works.
The conveyor belt will keep running, turning bodies into piles of money.
Ben Krimmel is a writer from Baltimore.