During spring practice, UNC-Chapel Hill star quarterback Drake Maye rises at 5:45 a.m., eats breakfast, attends a short football meeting, and participates in drills until 10:30 a.m.
He races to get to his first class by 11 and finishes with another at 1:30. He attends a series of football meetings in the afternoon, including watching video of games and practices, and typically finishes at 7:00 p.m.
“That’s a long day,” said his father, Mark Maye, a former UNC quarterback who described his son’s schedule to The Assembly. Maye has three other sons who played or still play college sports, including former UNC basketball standout Luke Maye. “I’ve really come around to the idea that they are more like employees.”
College athletes are considered amateurs—but they are the essential components of what has become a multibillion-dollar entertainment enterprise.
As coaches, administrators, and TV executives made more and more money from college football and men’s basketball, various college athletes laid the legal groundwork for why they should be paid for their labor. But none of those lawsuits fundamentally changed the business.
That is, until 2021, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that college athletes could be paid by outside sources for use of their name, image, and likeness—essentially, for endorsements. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was blunt in his concurring opinion.
“The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America,” he...
“Hey #Southafrica, Musk didn't have the decency to shake your president's hand. Musk helped get Malema sentenced. Don't believe for a second he won't target Ramaphosa,” reads the X post published ...