Notre Dame Athletic Director Claims College Athletes Should Be Paid for Name Use

Add Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick to the list of high-profile people in a position of power who believe that college athletes should be paid for their efforts.      

According to Jon Solomon of CBSSports.com, Swarbrick identifies the hypocrisy of NCAA rules that allow students to make money but prohibit student-athletes from doing so:

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You've got to stay grounded in this analogy to other students. There are students on campus making a lot of money because they've launched a business. A classic example: Students are making great money in some internship, and I'm telling my football players they can't leave for the summer. Where's the equity there?

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Also in Solomon's report, Swarbrick used a hypothetical student-musician at Notre Dame to make his point during a panel at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum:

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But if our standard had been what's the rule for other students, capturing name, image and likeness outside team activity, the musician at school doesn't have that limitation. I'm not sure why the student-athlete should, either. I don't find it inconsistent at all to say we need to get ourselves grounded back in that.

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The Notre Dame AD joins a list that also includes South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier in believing there is merit to having college athletes earn money for making the school money.

Spurrier said in June 2012 that he brought up the topic of a stipend for players to help cover things like cost of living and academic expenses, via Edward Aschoff of ESPN.com.

"It's very similar to last year," Spurrier said. "We're trying to get extra money for living expense, academic expense, game-related expense to our players because of the tremendous amount of money—billions—they're bringing (in)."

In October, Jonathan Martin of The Seattle Times noted that "equity" was the biggest argument in favor of paying student-athletes:

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The argument for performance-based play boils down to simple equity. The average salary for a big-time college football coach last year was $2.05 million (the UW’s Chris Peterson earned $3.2 million), while student-athletes worked an average of 43 hours a week, requiring them to miss classes. Forbes argued athletes are “core members of their university’s marketing teams.”

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Despite increasing discussion around the legal rights of the NCAA profiting off college athletes, most notably football and basketball players, there's no indication that a resolution in the matter is any closer. 

Members of the Northwestern football team took a vote to unionize over the spring, but the NCAA filed a brief against the motion in July, according to Daniel Uthman of USA Today. 

There are certainly a lot of issues that would have to be worked out before college athletes could be paid. Nevertheless, it's an important discussion to have because of the amount of money the NCAA brings in each year through various media and apparel contracts.

A powerful voice like Swarbrick may be able to get the needle moving.