The economic system of capitalism is manifestly premised on social order and hierarchy. Those who control the vast amount of riches seek to limit its distribution and dictate its fundamental utilization.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, posited: “The liberty of democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.”
Federal legislators, compelled largely by college administrators and coaches, who represent the private power FDR noted, have moved to reverse the liberty of college athletes through the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA) — with an implicit emphasis on Black athletes. The federal bill stridently pushed by President Donald Trump was passed on Monday by a Senate vote of 77-22. It now moves for consideration to the House of Representatives, a 435-member body that is in recess until after next month’s midterm elections.
If passed by the House, which as of today is dubious, President Trump has guaranteed he will sign the bill and make it law. Among other guidelines, the PCSA will grant the NCAA a circumscribed antitrust exemption, defenses against student-athletes unionizing, restrict the amount of money student-athletes can receive from NIL (name, image and likeness) deals, and limit the number of times they can transfer to another school.
In reality, the Protect College Sports Act is a misnomer. It should be more aptly named the Protect The Power Of Coaches And Administrators Act. It is essentially designed to suppress the agency of college athletes, such as Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who reportedly makes roughly $6.5 million via NIL. It denies young stars the opportunity to maximize their earning potential, the ability to seek more favorable athletic and monetary circumstances through the NCAA’s transfer portal, and not be beholden to the coaches. Prior to the advent of NIL in July 2022 and unlimited transfers, coaches practically held athletes hostage by weaponizing playing time and threatening to revoke their year-to-year athletic scholarships.
The NCAA is in name only a nonprofit that regulates student athletics for over 1,100 colleges and universities. For the fiscal year 2024, the most recent period the AmNews was able to obtain data, the organization generated nearly $1.4 billion in revenue. Over a period of the past four decades, college athletes and their supporters fought exhaustive court battles to secure the right for student-athletes to benefit from this country’s capitalistic system by leveraging their ability and value to earn money. Now, that it is in danger of being retracted through government regulation.
The hypocrisy of it all was illuminated this past Tuesday at the White House when President Trump hosted a lunch attended by nearly 20 of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world — almost exclusively white men. Tech giants including Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, are at the forefront of the race to be the leaders of AI (artificial intelligence) development, which President Trump is endeavoring to rename super intelligence.
A growing concern among many AI experts and the general United States population is that the technology, which has the increasing capability to be an existential threat to society, is lacking the necessary guardrails that would provide requisite security. But unlike the proposed federal bill to contain the capitalistic aspirations of college athletes, Trump said he subscribed to “tremendous self-regulation” for tech titans literally holding the future of the world at their fingertips.
What that means is esoteric, but it reaffirmed the inherent classism and racism of America’s economic machine.
