More than 300 football and men’s basketball players on major college teams have signed a petition asking the NCAA to give more of the money that their teams generate directly to the athletes, both while they are in school and after they graduate. The document, which the National College Players Association, an athletes’ advocacy group, provided to the Associated Press, urges the NCAA and college presidents to set aside an unspecified amount of money from lucrative TV deals in an “educational lock box” that players could tap to help cover educational costs if they exhaust their athletic eligibility before they graduate. It also calls for players to receive what’s left of the money allocated to them after they graduate—a step likely to be seen by some as professionalizing college sports.
The petition comes as the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors prepares to vote this week on a proposal that would allow colleges to provide up to $2,000 a year more in institutional aid to athletes to help cover their full cost of attending college. Concerns about that proposal were raised at a meeting of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics on Monday.
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