Decade after Shabazz Napier's 'going to bed hungry' outcry, athletes have the power
Ten years have passed, but it feels more like a half-century.
That’s how much industry disruption has occurred since UConn star Shabazz Napier’s critical comments about the NCAA’s collegiate model at the Final Four raised eyebrows and ruffled suits of the administrative class.
The 2014 Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player said there were nights he went to bed “starving” because he didn’t have enough money as a college student and believed athletes deserve “something in return” after seeing his jersey sold.
“I just feel like a student-athlete, and sometimes, like I said, there are hungry nights and I’m not able to eat and I still got to play up to my capabilities,” Napier said in 2014. “When you see your jersey getting sold – it may not have your last name on it – but when you see your jersey getting sold and things like that, you feel like you want something in return.”
As the NCAA Tournament tips off, appreciate how far we’ve come since Napier’s headline-making remarks, which foreshadowed all the dramatic change that has come and remains on the horizon.
“College athletics is truly evolving and entering a phase that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Chicago-based attorney LaKeisha Marsh, chair of the collegiate athletic practice at Akerman LLP, told On3. “We are living in history in the making because the history books will talk about these times. When you think about the evolution of where we came from in college athletics to where we are now, it is fascinating where we will end up.”
‘Athletes have power – and they need to know it’
The O’Bannon and Alston cases revealed legal cracks in the NCAA’s amateur model. The nearly three-year-old NIL Era has enabled athletes to monetize their brands. The industry is steadily moving toward an employee model for some athletes. And on the horizon is a true revenue-sharing paradigm that opens the door to collective bargaining.
“We’ve come very far in that more of these stories, from the perspective of the athlete, have been covered by the media, and awareness has been raised,” said Jim Cavale, who seven months ago launched Athletes.org, a membership organization for college athletes.
Cavale referenced both Napier’s comments and memorable 2021 social media posts by Oregon women’s basketball player Sedona Prince, who illuminated gender inequities with the men’s and women’s tournaments.
Ten years after Napier’s remarks, the athlete empowerment age is here.
But an important hurdle remains: Once college sports ushers in the collective bargaining era, will enough prominent athletes buy into working toward the collective good for a larger group of athletes now and in the future?
“The athletes have the power – and they need to know it to then use it,” Cavale told On3. “Now, I think a lot of athletes that play big-time college sports – because of NIL and all the other changes that came before like cost of attendance, etc. – are not feeling the pain that’s going to get them to want to move as fast to organize to do that.”
Once athletes know benefits, ‘they’ll want to join’
Mit Winter, a college sports attorney with Kennyhertz Perry, said there could ultimately be smaller bargaining units, such as with the Power Four for football and Power Four (plus the Big East) for basketball.
He said a few athletes could probably make more in a world with a completely unrestricted market that wouldn’t include things like minimum revenue share payments/salaries. But Winter believes college athletes ultimately will want to be part of an association that exists to represent the interests of all athletes in their sport and at their level.
To that point, in a world without the National Basketball Players Association and a collective bargaining agreement with the NBA, LeBron James, for instance, would probably make more from the Los Angeles Lakers than he’s making now. But he’s willing to be part of the group that represents the best interests of the league’s players as a whole.
“And that means he’s leaving some money on the table,” Winter said. “But it also means he’s helping some of his teammates make more. And helping them gain other important benefits and protections by negotiating as a group. It won’t be easy to complete the organizing process for college athletics, but it can be done. And once there is momentum there and athletes understand the benefits, I think they’ll all want to join.”
Is revenue sharing a solution?
Legal experts tell On3 that there is an end-game scenario for a new financial model that is a win-win for all parties.
It starts with revenue-producing athletes being able to be paid directly from athletic departments’ gross revenues. Then, all sports, regardless of revenue production, provide a full suite of benefits and standards that the athletes obtain through negotiation. Ultimately, the schools win because there is more revenue on the table, in part because of the College Football Playoff’s new $1.3 billion rights deal with ESPN.
“It’s safe to say that Power Four football players and big-time basketball players – which is Power Four plus the Big East men’s basketball players – will be sharing revenue with athletics departments,” Casey Schwab, CEO and founding partner of Altius Sports Partners, told On3. “More specifically, money that is currently coming into the athletics department will be shared with those two groups of athletes.”
Today’s state of play is much different from what existed in Napier’s world, where baby steps were akin to significant progress. Just days after Napier’s outcry, the NCAA said athletes could receive unlimited food and snacks. Additionally, less than a year later, Power Five conferences approved increasing the value of athletic scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance, which includes tuition and miscellaneous expenses.
These days, NIL has already opened up a plethora of money-making opportunities for athletes, who can now also negotiate with third-party, donor-driven collectives.
More progress is needed
But athlete advocates stress that this is only the beginning – more progress awaits and is needed.
While many college football players can now enter the transfer portal and receive lucrative offers, Cavale said, the full extent of the player empowerment movement is about athletes being able to garner that compensation in a more structured and guaranteed manner.
And it necessitates some stars taking bold steps to push for further change.
In collective bargaining, Cavale said, many big-name professional athletes who made the most money still made sure “they were a big part of it, even though they didn’t need to be. But they knew it was their responsibility to use their influence to affect generations who come after. And that’s what the next phase of college athletics has to be as athlete empowerment continues.”