Memo to Joe Manchin, Congress: Stop clutching your pearls as college athletes make money

Toward the end of the 10th Congressional hearing on potential legislation to regulate name, image and likeness in college sports, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) finally cut through all the pathetic grandstanding from his colleagues and the phony hand-wringing from highly-paid NCAA administrators and admitted what this is really all about. 

At the end of a long soliloquy about the ills of “chasing the dollar” when picking a college and how he would have paid out of his own pocket to play football for his Mountaineers back in 1965 when injuries cut short his athletic career, Manchin was trying to explain why he is working on a bill that would prohibit revenue-sharing with college athletes and limit some of the rights they currently enjoy. 

In the process, though, he let slip one of the most out-of-touch and offensive things ever said about college sports. 

“It’s getting hard to root for the kids when they’re multi-millionaires as freshmen and sophomores,” Manchin said.

Maybe Manchin would prefer they get rich the old-fashioned way: You know, by getting elected to Congress, trading stocks on privileged information and exchanging legislative favors for campaign contributions. 

Or maybe from the comfort of his 65-foot boat Manchin lives on in Washington, D.C. — experts have said it’s not quite swanky enough to qualify as a yacht, the poor thing — he just can’t enjoy West Virginia going 7-5 as much as he used to. Let’s all shed a tear as an act of solidarity. 

Thing is, most Americans don’t seem to have an issue with it. From numerous opinion polls to the monster television ratings being drawn every week by Colorado — a team whose entire ethos has been wrapped in capitalism and commerce — the evidence suggests some members of Congress and whiny college administrators are the only people who think it’s a big problem. 

Just like nobody had a problem when 19-year-old Coco Gauff pocketed $3 million for winning the US Open, not to mention millions more in endorsements. 

Just like nobody had a problem when a 9-year-old kid in Texas made $30 million off reviewing toys on YouTube. 

Just like nobody has a problem when actors or musicians hit it big as teenagers, or young entrepreneurs sell a product that turns into a multi-million-dollar business. 

It’s only the earning power of college athletes that seems to be problematic for people like Manchin. Wonder why that is? 

Actually, we don’t really need to wonder that much. Every time Congress does one of these hearings, all the old myths get trotted out. There must be a so-called "level playing field." Unregulated NIL is the "Wild West” and will cause the downfall of college sports. And God forbid a young person would make six or seven figures while in college because that means they’ll have to — gasp — pay taxes and learn how to handle money.

Heavens to Betsy, what a conundrum. Surely Congress must put a stop to this!

Actually, no. Congress should immediately put an end to this massive waste of time and drop any thought of intervening further in college sports. Not only are there about 1,000 things going on in the world that desperately need the Senate’s attention, they’re just not reading the room at all. 

College sports are booming. Stadiums are full, television ratings are up and now the players are enjoying many of the economic rights that were denied to them for far too long. It’s been a win-win for everybody except multi-millionaire coaches, who don’t like being hassled with it, and administrators, who don’t seem to understand what business they're actually in. 

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The "college" part of college sports became secondary a long time ago. This is an entertainment business, full stop, that just so happens to be connected to institutions of higher learning. 

If you could go back 100 years and do it all over, nobody would have drawn up a system like this. If you try explaining to a sports fan in other parts of the world, they’d look at you like you had three heads. College sports as a multi-billion-dollar enterprise doesn’t really make sense, but at some point, it became a huge part of American culture that got monetized in every conceivable way.

And unless you’re prepared to say that we need to go back to a time when college sports looked more like intramurals — without the $9 million coaching salaries, without the cross-country travel, without putting games on national television and without the celebrity athletics directors and conference commissioners — then the only logical thing to do is to treat it like pro sports. 

And that includes recognizing the value that athletes provide to the enterprise by negotiating with them on what percentage of revenue they deserve. Whatever other issues need to be dealt with either legislatively or through NCAA policy, that’s the only starting point that will withstand public pressure and judicial scrutiny. 

To listen to Manchin, though, it’s not about recognizing the value of what athletes provide not just to universities like West Virginia but to the actual state, where — let’s be brutally honest here — very few of them would choose to do business in any other capacity. 

No, in Manchin’s mind, this seems to be about his own warped sense of fairness in a world where it’s not good for his fandom if a player gets $800,000 to transfer to a new team — but it’s fine for the country if he gets to help shape climate policy while pocketing millions from his family’s coal business.

Where are the hearings on that and other various conflicts-of-interest running through the halls of power in this country? They might even get better ratings than a Colorado football game.