Replies

What is the difference between a part time job and endorsing a product. Both are voluntary contractual agreements between an individual and a business. So what if one job pays differently than another job.

An endorsement is not strictly between the individual and the business. The athlete isn't simply "Joe Smith". No one would care. He is "Joe Smith who plays for the University of North Carolina Tarheels" or whatever. College is for amatuer athletes. Being paid based upon your association with the university and based upon your skills is not amatuer.

Do universities and others make tons of money off the backs of unpaid athletes? Sure they do. Does the free education, room and board compensate the athlete adequately? In most cases, yes. The blame lies partly with the fans for making college athletics such a money maker. The rest of the blame lies with the NCAA, who because of greed, wont disallow member schools and coaches from signing endorsement or television deals of their own.

"College is for amatuer athletes. Being paid based upon your association with the university and based upon your skills is not amatuer."

I had the understanding that endorsements were allowed for amatuer athletes. Olympic athletes do endorsements (even before pros were let in), and they retain their amatuer status.

I am really not all that set in my mind on this issue. I am very against paying any college athlete, I just think a gray area exists regarding endorsements. What if I bring in one of the well known athletes to work as a paid intern in my marketing and sales department. I allow him to take potential customers golfing every day and pay him 50K for the summer. I just hired him to be a sales man, but in reality he is an endorsement.

I don't know enough about the NCAA rules to know the details of what is allowed vs. what is not allowed.