Money and Power Construct the NCAA
...ties.” (Coakley P.280) Everything boils down to the economic inequalities in society. Thus “this is where the NCAA steps in and allows schools to give an opportunity for students who are underrepresented a chance to attend college and receive an education”.( Kuchenbecker, P.218). “Money and economic power exert significant influence on the meaning, organization, and purpose of sports in society” (Gruneau, 1999). Many tend to believe that the inequalities in sports do not matter when it comes down to organized sports but in an essence it is clearly evident in many sports such as the ones organized by the NCAA. It clearly seems that the economic inequalities in organized NCAA sports are all tied together with race. Sports such as, baseball, basketball, and football all have a predominantly African American and Latino mixture of athletes and fans. What people fail to realize is that the people that control the money in the organized sports in the NCAA is really the major media conglomerates such as News Corp, Viacom, Disney, Sony, and Aol Time Warner who in a way buys out the major sporting events of the season primarily focusing on intercollegiate football and basketball. The NCAA controls all of this. They are set to make and enforce the rules and allows major media corporations to buy out major games in order to make promotional money by advertising. “The public also fails to realize that the media who has to be in compliance with the NCAA are the ones making the money.” (Gill. P.145). They are blind or for the few that know, they just do not care. They continue to fall under the media’s reign and the university’s power by supporting the institution by buying food from the concession stands, merchandise such as jerseys, hats, t-shirts – otherwise known as “gear”, and also ticket sales which make up 25% of a schools gross are all received from the public to the university because of natural love of the sport. This brings to mind the ideology of class logic. Class logic is an ideology that helps the wealthy win over the minorities or in this case the public, who come from a lesser underprivileged social class due to the high income and rank in class. The elite class tends to have and acquire more resources including availability to technology as well as power enhancing drugs and social inequality to overcome their more physical and underprivileged socio economic competitors who lack those resources due to financial stipulations. “Wealthy and powerful people tend to be defined as worthy winners while the poor and powerless tend to be defined as lazy losers.” (Coakley P. 283) Meaning that the wealthy will always prosper to the poor due to the power and economic inequality in society. The poor know that if they want to come up in a particular sport they need the support and sponsorships of the wealthy. They need their money and power to help better their programs, camps, institutions, and so forth. When the poor get support they tend to acknowledge the ideological differences in a way supporting them and not really caring as long as they get what they want – essentially being money. The gender logic and race logic have a huge impact on the power of sports. If you look at the top athletic stars such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Shaq, and many more they all fit under the same category. They are all minorities that come from middle class families and are highly paid today but still have no power compared to the influence of the owners and managers of multi billion dollar corporations such as News Corp, Fox Television, NBC Sport, and various others. “It is almost impossible for student athletes to come up in today’s society due to the dominant ideologies that place them under the coach’s reign and fear of loosing their scholarship”. (Smith P.209) Athletes are sometimes forced to miss lectures and even sometime exams that are very crucial to their grades and their participation in their sport also forces them to schedule their class before a certain time because of practice. Athletes even though some are on scholarship have to go through a lot to pass their classes honestly. “If the athletes do not make a certain grade point average of 2.0 their scholarship is subject to cancellation.” (Singer P.209) Athletes work for the university as gilded plantation workers who help carry and build the university’s reputation. Athletes are also under the autonomy of the university. Athletes are also under the reign of the NCAA. The athletes give the NCAA identity and autonomy. They give the right to the NCAA to show their names and in other words exploit them by being under the control of the NCAA. The athletes pretty much do whatever the NCAA tells them, if not the athlete and probably the university would be the ones to suffer. Athletes help the university give the public entertainment, reputation, and form rivalries to bring communities of different backgrounds together to form a whole. “Corporations and sponsors now exploit the athletes when they wear their gear.” (Horn, P.178). Sponsors such as Nike, Jordan, Reebok, and various others sponsor teams and force the players to wear their gear since it’s apart of the team and they practically get it for free. “The NCAA allows athletes to show a sponsors logo in only eight different spaces no more than two and a half inches per space.” (Jessica Parker, Lecture: NCAA) Thus the public such as fans sees their favorite college athletes wearing Nike or Jordan in pictures displayed in magazines, replays, and documentaries makes them want to go out and buy their merchandise so they could be like their favorite intercollegiate stars. Thus the players are being used as slaves under the system comprised of the media and the sponsors who are exploiting the players by restricting them to wear certain logos in certain spaces. Thus intercollegiate athletes can...