“Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” [MLK]
The dream lives on. The dream of ESPN hosting College Gameday in front of Burr Gymnasium, as the Howard University Bison battle the Hampton University Pirates for the title of “The Real HU” (because ESPN beat out Fox Sports 1 and NBC Sports in a bidding war for the rights to broadcast MEAC basketball games). A dream where The Tennessee State Tigers reach back-to-back Final Fours and are the Vegas pick to win it all this time. The dream of a Jackson State Point Guard breaking 17 NCAA records, and the experts predict he could be the number one overall pick in the NBA Draft. Yes, I too have a dream! I can sleep well at night knowing there are others who share a similar vision. In a recent interview with VICE Sports, a San Francisco-based antitrust economist, Andy Schwarz, stated he has intentions of starting a league that detaches Historically Black Colleges and Universities from the NCAA and allows those universities to pay their players.
Here is how the business model would work, Schwarz told VICE Sports:
"The way Schwarz and his HBCU league co-founders—Ohio–based sports and entertainment attorney Richard Volante and Washington, D.C.–based author and historian Bijan Bayne—see it, the NCAA is a bit like a traditional taxi company, while their concept is akin to Uber or Lyft. The league would consist of at least 16 members drawn from the four current NCAA Division I and II HBCU conferences, institutions such as Howard University and Florida A&M; its athletes would be full-time students."
"They also would be paid to play basketball, between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. Moreover, they would be allowed to endorse products, sell autographs, sign with agents, accept gifts from boosters, declare for the NBA draft, and even be drafted by NBA teams without losing their eligibility."
The storm cloud looming in the distance is a league created by the larger universities, that will offer the players more money. Either way, the players win, but my hope is the athletes will remember the low-quality working conditions they are currently under and decline any chance to go back, no matter how much money they are offered.
During a college football game last year, three players – Michael Rose-Ivey, Mohamed Barry, and DaiShon Neal – decided to kneel during the national anthem. They did this to show support and solidarity in the protest of police brutality towards African Americans in this country. In exchange for peacefully exercising their constitutional rights, they received hateful messages indicating they should be lynched before the next game or shot like the other black men and women. As I watched Michael Rose-Ivey deliver his statement my heart went out to him. Here are young black men who wanted a good education and to participate in a sport they love, but I guess they should just be happy with that and be quiet. Certain fans have an interesting way of letting infractions by other athletes go overlooked while athletes who protest the improper treatment of their fellow Americans, deserve nasty insults and boycotted games.
I fully support being conscious of where we as Black people invest our 1 trillion dollars in spending power, but I am also conscious that black establishments are underfunded. For example, last year UCLA signed a 15 year, $280 million-dollar deal with Under Armour. Deals like that are more than just money to the school. Some of the details include the company assisting in the marketing of the university, money assigned to revamping the campus bookstore and opening retail stores in the surrounding area that will have the schools apparel. In addition, top recruits who go professional often donate money to build bigger and better facilities for their university.
With a sports league financed by donors and sponsors, the positives our HBCU’s already provide could be magnified to an extent that allows our universities to be named among the best colleges in their region or best in the country. The university logos many fans wear on their chest and foreheads, in the form of jerseys and hats, are not because of the school’s academic or community prowess. The reason a fan shouts “Roll Tide” in a crowded sports bar, isn’t because they support the production of the universities electrical engineering program. It’s because of the sports program. The hundreds of millions of dollars a university earns from “student-athletes” leaving it all on the field, rounding the diamond, or jumping through hoops – literally – allow universities to build state of the art medical labs, trendy student centers, and provide world-class dining options. But tell me how times have changed since Juneteenth or MLK’s speech? Black athletes make up 57% of college football players and 61% of college basketball players, and these players labor for free while massive predominately white institutions make billions of dollars, but at least in this modern form of slavery, they’re letting their “workers” read.
