Institutional Support for Intercollegiate Athletes and Amateurism: Empirical Tests of Fort’s Political Economy Model

Amateurism, the misguided idea that college athletes are students and not employees so their compensation should be limited, represents the central economic principle driving economic decisions, outcomes, and regulations in intercollegiate athletics in the United States. The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), in conjunction with its member institutions, spends significant effort enacting and enforcing rules and regulations to maintain amateurism. The large revenue streams generated by big time college football, and men’s and women’s basketball, make restrictions on college athletes’ compensation difficult to justify in economic terms. Economists frequently point out that amateurism restrictions generate economic transfers from college athletes to coaches and university administrators. Understanding the value of these transfers represents an important and difficult task.