Royalties for Student-Athletes and Consumer Culture
Compensation for student-athletes has become an issue of concern in college sports. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) prohibits student-athletes from receiving compensation other than their given scholarship, yet this organization and its member institutions make millions of dollar off featured student-athletes from ticket sales, jersey sales, television rights, bowl games, and national tournaments. This research gathers the thoughts and opinions that student-athletes have on the issue of royalties at the collegiate level. In individual audio-taped interviews of male student-athletes in the basketball and football programs at the University of Illinois, this study will ask questions about how the student-athletes feel about royalties, whether or not they agree with the NCAA rules and the impact this issue has on their roles as students and athletes. Although there are few student-athletes against or indifferent on the issue, as expected, majority of the interviewed student-athletes feel their competitive efforts are deserving of royalties despite NCAA’s rule.