Leveling the Playing Field: Marginalization, the Fallacy of Amateurism, and Student-Athlete Unionization
Student-athletes at public universities have reportedly earned at least $125 million off of their name, image, and likeness (NIL) since 2021. Footnote #1 content: Albert Samaha, Emily Giambalvo, Jesse Dougherty & Artur Galocha, The Hidden NIL Economy of College Sports, WASH. POST (Oct. 21, 2024, at 06:00 ET), https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/ interactive/2024/nil-money-deals-college-sports-athlete-pay/. Many people have celebrated (or loathed) that student-athletes, at public and private universities alike, are finally being compensated as a result of their labor. Footnote #2 content: See Jay Bilas, Why NIL Has Been Good for College Sports . . . and the Hurdles that Remain, ESPN (June 29, 2022, at 07:00 ET), https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/34161311/why-nil-good-college-sports-hurdles-remain [https://perma.cc/ZXS5-KXRB]. This buzz, however, only serves as a red herring. Despite all of the shiny deals around the earnings of student-athletes like former University of Iowa basketball player Caitlin Clark Footnote #3 content: Caitlin Clark, ON3 ELITE: NIL DEAL TRACKER, https://www.on3.com/db/caitlin-clark-162402/ [https://perma.cc/HA5T-JE2Q] (last visited Mar. 27, 2026) (reporting that Caitlin Clark’s final collegiate NIL valuation is $3.4 million). and former University of Colorado-Boulder football player Shedeur Sanders, Footnote #4 content: Shedeur Sanders, ON3 ELITE: NIL DEAL TRACKER, https://www.on3.com/db/shedeur-sanders-107068/nil/ [https://perma.cc/QHU4-XK92] (last visited Mar. 27, 2026) (reporting that Shedeur Sanders’s final collegiate NIL valuation is $6.5 million). many athletes receive comparatively nothing. Footnote #5 content: See Samaha et al., supra note 1. The majority of NIL deals are actually much smaller at $500 or less. Footnote #6 content: Id.
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