Week in Review
| Americans Increasingly Favor Pay for Play in College Sports, but Not a Free Market The NCAA's acquiescence on the issue of name, image and likeness rights last week marked a historic shift in college athletics: For the first time, so-called amateurs gained the opportunity to profit from their status as college athletes. It also raises the question of whether NIL is the final destination in college athlete compensation or just a steppingstone on the way to schools directly paying athletes for their play. A Morning Consult survey conducted in late June found that, in addition to largely supporting athletes' rights to sign endorsement deals and license their likenesses for merchandise, the share of Americans who believe schools should pay college athletes beyond their scholarships is greater than the share who oppose such a shift. While the popularity of a pay-for-play model is on the rise, there isn't necessarily an appetite for a truly free market. For example, 56 percent of Americans agreed that student-athletes should be compensated equally, regardless of whether they play a revenue sport like football or a non-revenue sport like fencing, compared with 24 percent who disagreed. Sixty-five percent of respondents said men's and women's athletes should be compensated equally, regardless of how much money their programs generate for schools, while just 18 percent disagreed. Perhaps most tellingly, the share of Americans who said schools should be allowed to pay star players more than other athletes (38 percent) was slightly smaller than the share who disagreed (41 percent) with this premise. So, while the public largely believes athletes should receive a cut of the revenue athletics generate for their schools, many don't think Duke should pay the next Zion Williamson more than the track team's third-string hurdler. Other top stories from the week that was:
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--Morning Consult
GBO
Happy July 4th
Ma
