Pac 12 players want to get paid, but there's more to it than they realize with Title IX

A group of Pac-12 football players tweeted the #WeAreUnited hashtag and published a list of demands in order for them to play this season, including acceptable covid-19 protocols (including option to opt-out without losing spot on roster or eligibility), “drastic” pay cuts for Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, coaches, and administrators, stopping “lavish facility expenditures”, a civic task force on racial injustice, guaranteed medical coverage, and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights.

Those all seem relatively accomplishable, but their final one is hard to square with Title IX and would dramatically impact the budgets for all men’s and women’s sports: “Distribute 50% of each sport’s total conference revenue evenly among athletes in their respective sports.”

Outkick founder Clay Travis wrote a Twitter thread about the Title IX implications. “I’m fascinated to see how woke sports media reconciles PAC 12 football players demanding half of all football revenues when if schools do that Title IX is violated and women’s college sports effectively cease to exist,” he wrote. “I’m a capitalist so I have no problem with top pay going to top performers. But every women’s college sport in America loses money. So if capitalism is coming for college sports then women’s athletics wouldn’t exist.”

“Only two sports make money at (any) colleges: football and men’s basketball,” he continued. “They cover the entire athletic department budgets for all sports. So if college sports were run like for profit businesses, those are the only two sports that would exist. Rest would be canceled. What you have here is a fundamental conflict between athletes demanding to be compensated like they work at for profit businesses when they actually work at nonprofit colleges & universities whose scholarships & expenses are run in a socialistic manner. That is, most of the profits from men’s basketball & football are being rolled into scholarships for athletes with limited or no market based value. So if you pay athletes in men’s basketball & football you have to cut (most) of the other sports in men’s & women’s athletics.”

“It’s a fallacy to claim top college coaches in football & basketball are overpaid because coaches drive up revenue/profit by winning,” he concluded. “Lesser coaches = less wins & less revenue. Players benefit immensely by top coaches when you look at their future earnings too. Yay, capitalism. The problem I see with PAC 12 player demands is most of them don’t appear to realize they aren’t competing in for profit businesses. Many of their demands may well be illegal to provide under existing federal law, most significantly Title IX. Fascinating legal battle looming.”