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It’s hard to stop market forces

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If you’re a sports fan, you’ll know that Johnny Manziel (last year’s Heisman Trophy winner) has been under investigation for selling autographs. He has evidently been cleared of that offense but has received a .5 game suspension for a milder violation that can’t really be explained. ESPN tries to [2]:



In addition to the suspension, Manziel will speak to his teammates about lessons learned from the situation, and A&M will educate its athletes about signing multiple items for individuals.

The NCAA has to be a Kafkaesque organization. Why can’t a college football player sign autographs for money? Because that would allow a fan of say, Alabama, to pay him $100,000 for an autograph. Why would that happen? Because there is a price ceiling of ZERO on the compensation allowed for college football players. (OK, they do get room and board and a chance at an education if they can find the time.) But they are not allowed to collect the wage that would result from their value and from competition for their services. So to keep that from happening surreptitiously, the NCAA forbids autograph sales or any kind of work. So the coaches and the universities get a disproportionate share of the value of top athletes relative to what would result from open competition.

But it’s hard to stop the market forces that are still pushing schools to reward the best athletes. So they compete in other ways (fancy dorms, weight rooms and so on) and fans compete under the table which is why there are constant recruiting scandals. Those scandals make people think that college sports is a cesspool. But the stink comes from the attempt to pretend that these are student-athletes like any other, attending school and playing a little football on the side.