The latest breach in the NCAA’s fundamental principle of amateurism came from an unlikely place: Monaco.
Track and field gold medalists will become the first athletes to win international awards at the Olympics, the sport’s international governing body announced on Wednesday. Each gold medalist will receive $50,000 for their individual victories. World Athletics, which governs athletics from its headquarters in Monaco, has also committed to awarding prize money to silver and bronze medalists at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“It is important that we start somewhere and ensure that a portion of the revenue generated by our athletes at the Olympic Games goes directly to those who make the Games the global spectacle that they are,” said the president of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, in a press release.
What is not yet clear is whether current college athletes are allowed to receive this prize money. In what appears to be a relic of college sports’ antiquated past, the NCAA currently prohibits athletes from accepting prize money at events such as the U.S. Open in tennis or golf. The NCAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement from World Athletics.
Although the NCAA allows money to be paid to college Olympic athletes through its Operation Gold program, this rule clearly states that the money must come from the governing body of the athlete’s sport in their home country . They can accept money from their national governing body as well as the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee; the USOPC currently awards $37,500 to each gold medalist, $22,500 to each silver medalist, and $15,000 to each bronze medalist.
In this very specific environment, college athletes can get paid to play their sport – and they can maintain their NCAA eligibility. In virtually any other environment, they cannot.
It is high time for the NCAA to allow its athletes to accept their hard-earned prizes, regardless of which governing body distributes them. This should include World Athletics, which pays its prizes from the revenue it receives from the International Olympic Committee. This should also include individual professional sports organizations such as the USTA or USGA, which would then allow collegiate tennis players and golfers to earn prize money while maintaining their collegiate eligibility.
Such circumstances are at the heart of a lawsuit filed by University of North Carolina tennis player Reese Brantmeier, who says she and other athletes like her deserve to keep the money they earn by participating and winning tournaments. Right now, they can only keep enough to cover their expenses.
Meanwhile…these athletes see Caitlin Clark appearing in national TV commercials and quarterbacks selling headphones through lucrative name, image and likeness (NIL) deals while maintaining their NCAA eligibility.
“I can’t think of another situation where an organization can have a draconian quid pro quo where you are prohibited from accepting money that you earned with your own sweat,” said the assistant head tennis coach from UNC, Tyler Thomson. Athleticism last month, when Brantmeier filed his complaint. “I just think it’s really wrong, and especially in the age of NIL.”
This point is even more poignant in an era of NIL marked by pseudo-salaries paid by collectives supported by boosters. These NIL agreements effectively allow donors to pay athletes to play at a specific school — an absurd workaround in a status quo in which schools and conferences cannot pay athletes directly. The argument that a tennis player accepting prize money is too closely tied to pay-to-play holds much less weight when compared to what happens in sports such as football and men’s basketball.
Either way, the current system may no longer be what it is, as a long list of lawsuits continues to undermine the NCAA’s long-standing legal arguments to defend its version of amateurism. Meanwhile, the organization and all college athletes are stuck in something of a gray area, as rules that once might have made sense remain unchanged until the spotlight is shone on them.
This light exposed the NCAA’s hypocritical stance on prize money. This is blindingly bright in the context of lousy million-dollar deals and recruiting incentives that aren’t supposed to be incentives. It’s crazy to think that the governing body of college sports could force tennis players to turn professional instead of allowing them to go to class and compete collegiately while accepting prize money at various events. Or that the NCAA could prohibit a collegiate sprinter who beats the world’s fastest from accepting money from World Athletics simply because he’s not managed by the USOPC.
All these draconian rules do is push elite athletes to leave campus sooner than they would like. This is not what the NCAA should be doing, intentionally or not.
So here’s a chance to right a wrong. Here is a chance to achieve a common-sense victory in the midst of several defeats in court. Let college athletes keep their prize money – and their eligibility.
(Top photo of Athing Mu, who left Texas A&M to turn professional just before the 2021 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, celebrating her gold medal in the women’s 800 meters at the Tokyo Olympics: Jewel Samad /AFP via Getty Images)