In today’s society a big part of the media revolves around sports and the athletes who participate and compete every day on live television. These athletes in professional sports are paid millions and sports business has one of the highest gross income compared to other fields and professions. An overlooked part of this statistic is a good chunk of this money comes from college sports where students compete for virtually no money at all excluding sponsorships and deals. One major corporation in the United States, the NCAA or National Collegiate Athletic Association makes billions of dollars off these athletes who are being extorted for soley monetary gain. These athletes are still kids and many struggle with paying for neccessities as  only a few scholarchips are awarded to the most talented and the other hardworking student athletes are forced to struggle between balancing school, sports, and money. Today, I will be explaining how exactly the NCAA extorts these young athletes through the use of propoganda, labor, and hedgemony.

The main way the NCAA makes their money is mainly through just student labor. Student athletes spend most of their time either practicing or studying and while it may not seem like it, this lifestyle is very rigorous and time consuming leaving very little time to get a job or make any income. On top of all this, players are forced to attend media events and business meetings in order to get noticed and lock down sponsorships from other major companies. Jay Bilas, one of ESPN’s top college basketball analysts, states that the NCAA basicall uses, “players as billboards for apparel deals and uses their names and likenesses to sell the product, and to sell media-rights deals,”. Colleges basically use these players in order to sell merchandise and product deals and take a hundred percent of the commission. The players are required to go to photoshoots, brand meetings, and advertising castings ane don’t get paid a cent. Many sports analysts belive that these players are being treated unfairly and need to be compensated for their efforts as the big coprporations make all the profit leaving many of these students in debt after college. Unpaid labor today is actually everywhere as people are easily scammed out of their likeness or ideas and they just don’t realize that they are getting taken advantage of by major corporations.

The reason why the fact that college athletes are not paid is not a bigger issue is mainly because of the amount of propaganda that the NCAA uses in order to “brainwash” these young athletes. Propaganda is basically a set of methods and actions employed by a particular organization to inform others of their message or agenda and it usually involves some sort of manipulation that favors the groups motives. According to Evan Moore, a freelance journalist, “The NCAA, along with the press and advertising agencies, uses TV, radio, phone applications and social media to influence a certain way of thinking,”(Moore). The media is all used to paint a dream that appeals to all young athletes everywhere around the world which basically promises them that they will become millionaires once they make it to the big leagues. This is propagandized through news reports, live television and most importantly social media. College athletes see people like Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans and Kevin Durant from the Golden State Warriors who both became millionaires after just one season at their respective colleges, and instantly become enamoured. All this doesn’t take away from the fact that many of these athletes need financial aid or support and most never make it to the pro leagues meaning they leave college with no money and are in debt up to thier shoes.

Just recently, the NCAA has become a multi-billion dollar corporation as they broke one billion in total revenue during 2016 and that number has increased over these past two years. The industry has gained a lot of mutual support from other big companies such as Gatorade, Pizza Hut, and even Sprint. Their heavy influence brings up another factor of how the NCAA manages to secure an increasingly large amount of money each year. This ties in to the final concept of hedgemony, which is basically when a group asserts their dominace or influence over others and in the case of college sports, shows how the NCAA is able to get almost all their players to comply with their demands and not question what they are doing. Recently, the Washington Square News looked into how the NCAA manages to extort thousands of players and found that the college teams, “ban athletes from arranging their own endorsements, yet frequently capitalizes off the accomplishments of athletes by organizing endorsements for the athletic teams as a whole,”. The NCAA is able to use their influence into bargaining deals with major sponsors and brands in order to prevent the athletes from recieving any of the profits and the college system has been drastically altered to instate rules that forbid any college athletes from making any sort of money. The influence the NCAA has is too big to even compete with and even though many may frown upon their money making ways there is really nothing that can be done.

Over half of America watches college sports and more than 75% see highlights or clips through news sources, youtube, and even twitter.The NCAA is a major corporation that essentially owns the rights to a major part of college sports and makes a hefty profit on the media and products that revolve around student athletes. These athletes are unnaturally extorted and forced to work for no money. We can easily see how the NCAA maintains thier image and profits through the use of propoganda, labor and hedgemony. As the years go on, more people will realize that the way these athletes are treated is unfair and its only a matter of time before some start to speak up and try and intsitutionalize a change.