Two years after collegiate athletes were granted the opportunity to earn money from their name, image and likeness, Americans are ready—if not eager—to do away with the remaining NCAA restrictions that uphold the notion of amateurism.
A joint survey by Sportico and The Harris Poll found that two-thirds (67%) of U.S. adults believe college athletes should be able to receive direct compensation from their school. Slightly smaller majorities support athletes’ rights to obtain employee status (64%) and to collectively bargain as a labor union (59%).
The Harris Poll, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,018 respondents from Aug. 11-13, also found that those who identified as college sports followers were even more supportive of expanding athlete economic freedoms. Among this group, 78% supported athletes receiving direct compensation in addition to NIL.
Perhaps not surprisingly, more Americans today (74%) support athletes’ right of publicity than did in November 2020 (62%), when Sportico and The Harris Poll last surveyed the question, about eight months before the NCAA’s interim NIL policy took effect. Strikingly, however, more respondents this time around said they are in favor of pay-to-play than supported NIL in the previous one.
These recent findings come at a time of existential upheaval for major college sports, as the NCAA and other intercollegiate power brokers are furiously lobbying for a Congressional kill switch to keep the engines of reform from vanquishing the last vestiges of the so-called collegiate model.
That paradigm has been in place since at least 1951, when Walter Byers became NCAA president and fully transformed the association from its original goal of protecting football players from on-field injury to policing amateurism and the beau ideal of the “student-athlete.” According to the NCAA’s current bylaws, college athletes' participation “should be motivated primarily by education” and “should be protected from exploitation by commercial enterprises.”
That proclamation, however, has been repeatedly called into question by a growing group of critics who argue big-time college sports is itself a multibillion-dollar commercial enterprise that exploits the participation of athletes.
Americans’ acceptance of college athlete pay-for-play could be influenced by evidence that NIL has not greatly affected their fan experience over the past two years. Just 15% of respondents who follow college sports claimed that athletes profiting from NIL has reduced their enjoyment of college sports, while the majority said that it has not affected their enjoyment.
While largely advocating for the deregulation of the NCAA’s college athlete earning restrictions, 80% of Americans agree that college sports need to have uniform NIL standards. NIL was brought to bear in July 2021 through a series of state laws, many of which have since been reformed to include language that hamstrings the NCAA’s enforcement. The association has looked to Congress to pass federal legislation that would preempt those state-based laws and provide the NCAA safe harbor from additional antitrust litigation.
In the last few years, over a dozen pieces of legislation related to NIL have been proposed in Congress, including several that were put forth this year. The recent bills include one by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which includes language explicitly stating that college athletes are not employees. In July, a bill in the California legislature that would allow athletes to receive revenue-sharing payments from schools stalled in the state senate after passing the assembly. Meanwhile, an effort to establish the employee rights of USC football and men’s basketball players, through the National Labor Relations Board, has shown promise, though that process could take years to resolve.
The NCAA’s current president Charlie Baker—who took over from his embattled predecessor, Mark Emmert, in March—has publicly asserted that most college athletes do not want to become employees and that it is his prerogative to keep it that way. But this position appears to be out of step with the country, according to the Sportico/Harris Poll survey.
Though political identity played a factor in their levels of commitment, the sampling found that support for direct compensation of college athletes is bipartisan—79% of Democrats surveyed were in favor, along with 59% of Republicans. Indeed, more than half of Republicans (59%) believed that college athletes should be able to obtain employee status with their universities, while almost half (48%) of GOP respondents said those athletes should be able to collectively bargain.
Despite disparities in agreement between different demographic groups, direct athlete compensation has majority support from nearly every slice of the population, including both men (70%) and women (65%). Notably, people of color (76%) were significantly more likely to be in favor of this than white respondents (63%). The only segment of Americans that failed to reach a majority, however, was that of Boomers (48%), who severely lagged behind those younger than 58 years old (77%).
And while Americans may be over the NCAA’s core tenet of amateurism, they feel quite a bit differently about college sports’ governing body.
Among college sports followers, 75% held a favorable view of the association, compared to 66% from our 2020 poll. This year’s total is still a notch lower than the 84% who have a favorable view of college sports in general.
(This article has been updated in the eighth paragraph to clarify the percentage of college sports followers who say their enjoyment of the game has been affected by NIL rights.)