The Emperor's New Clothes: Lifting the NCAA's Veil of Amateurism

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Amy C. McCormick, Michigan State University College of Law and Robert A. McCormick, Michigan State University College of Law bring us The Emperor's New Clothes: Lifting the NCAA's Veil of Amateurism.

ABSTRACT: In The Emperor's New Clothes: Lifting the NCAA's Veil of Amateurism, Professors Amy and Robert McCormick expose a theme common to three areas of law - labor, antitrust, and tax. Each of these laws, in its own way, distinguishes between commercial and amateur activities, regulating the former and exempting the latter. Assuming major college sports to be amateur, these laws have exempted college athletics from regulation, providing them unwarranted shelter. We challenge this assumption by examining in rich detail the profoundly commercial character of the college sports industry. Like the child in the fable who alone revealed the emperor's nakedness, we lift the NCAA's veil of amateurism, exposing the deeply commercial nature of major college sports and calling for the laws' application to them.