Law Professor Promotes Way to Pay College Athletes

Paul Steinbach Headshot
[Photos courtesy of St. Mary’s University, Rice Athletics Communications]
[Photos courtesy of St. Mary’s University, Rice Athletics Communications]

It's called the Duke Model for a number of reasons. Its architect attended Duke University's School of Law, the Blue Devils basketball program is emblematic of big-time college sports, and the Rice Model sounded too agricultural for David Grenardo, who played football for the Owls in the mid-1990s. People are just starting to digest Grenardo's writings on collegiate student-athlete compensation, which suggest athletic conferences control payment amounts based on their own purse and individual performance — a player's availability (games started) and statistical impact (categories led), as well as conference members' post-season success. Poised to see his 46-page work published this year by the Brooklyn Law Review, the author believes this to be a better approach than the type of free-market system being fought for in the ongoing Jenkins v. NCAA class action. AB senior editor Paul Steinbach asked Grenardo, an associate professor of law at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, to make his case.

What letter grade would you assign the athlete-compensation progress made to date?
I think a deserving grade would be a C, at best. In terms of NCAA legislation that has allowed for covering the full cost of attendance, as well as a lot more access to food and paid meals, it's great. But college football and men's college basketball have turned into multibillion-dollar businesses, and everybody else is getting paid. Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh makes $9 million a year, and some of his assistant coaches make over a million. You have athletic directors getting paid more than a million dollars a year. You have NCAA executives getting paid in the six figures. Everybody's getting paid except the college athletes who produce the product on the field.

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