College Athletics Internships: The Case for Academic Credit in College Athletics

College athletes are beginning to speak out against the current college sport model that treats college athletes as unpaid amateurs, while the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) continues to stand behind that model. The problem, not uncommonly, boils down to money. High-profile college teams and athletes generate substantial revenue for thdr respective universities. Some college athletes dedicate as much time to their sport as the average American worker dedicates to his or her job. However, college athletes often do not recdve the benefit of thdr bargain with universities: a college education.This Comment argues for a compromise between the current amateurism model and the oft-proposed "pay-for-play" model of college sports, in which college athletes are paid for their athletic participation. If athletics are an important aspect of a well-rounded education, as the NCAA and others contend, then college athletes should receive some academic benefit for their participation, just as thdr peers who participate in other extracurricular activities like music or theater do. Awarding academic credit for athletic participation would help further athletes ' progress toward graduation, thereby providing college athletes with a greater benefit for their bargain.By framing college athletics as an internship under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), universities would avoid the requirement to compensate all college athletes as employees. Providing academic credit for an educational experience dramatically increases the likelihood that an "employee" is considered an "intern" under the FLSA, thereby exempting the employer from the compensation requirement. Further, universities could structure internship classes to include all students, not just athletes, and provide a forum to teach students important work-related skills that cannot be taught in a traditional classroom setting. Reframing college athletics as internships would increase the benefit to college athletes while still maintaining the current unpaid-amateur model.IntroductionThe sheer volume of all the bad things going on in the sport has overwhelmed me. The criminal behavior of dre players, tire rampant pursuit of money, the tunnel vision of the coaches, tire complacency of the fans, tire sliminess of tire boosters, tire sanctimonious platitudes of the NCAA pooh-bahs, tire exploitation of tire players, the desire to expand tire season and to televise everything, tire brutality on tire field, the absurdity of tire "student- athlete" notion, tire lack of anything remotely resembling an ethical anchor holding big-time football programs and their patrons to tire ground. . . . And tire ugliest part was tirât tirese sins were being committed in a world-our universities-tirât Americans have always assumed to be a realm of virtue and idealism.1The current model of college athletics is ripe for change.2 The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), an association of higher-education institutions, organizes competition and promulgates rules for college athletics.3 The NCAA promotes a student-athlete model in which college athletes are first and foremost students and participate in athletics only as an educational supplement.4 Even though college athletes often commit more time and effort to their sports than many employees commit to their jobs, they receive limited benefits that fall short of fair compensation.5 These minimal benefits appear particularly inequitable when contrasted with the billions of revenue dollars flowing to the NCAA and its member- institutions because of the hyper-commercialization of college athletics.6 To further the problem, college athletes, especially those in revenue-generating sports like men's basketball and football, often perform poorly in academics or fail to graduate.7Some commentators have argued that the combination of these forces has led to the financial exploitation of college athletes and that the NCAA's system, which purports to exchange an education for a scholarship, is in need of reform. …