The case for professionalizing Pinoy collegiate sports

Image copyright Bob Guerrero.

He smiled gleefully from the photo on his Facebook timeline while stretched out shirtless on his dorm bed. Inches in front of him were what looked like ten to fifteen one-thousand peso bills, laid out in a fan formation on his bedsheet.

The young man was a collegiate athlete who was displaying his Christmas bonus money for all to see.

I messaged him soon after explaining that for a variety of reasons, it was probably best to take the photo down. Thankfully, he listened and deleted the pic.

But the instance reminded me about a truth about Philippine collegiate sports: that in reality, it is not, and for a long time has not, been purely amateur. And trying to hold back the tide of professionalism may be futile. It’s time to make collegiate sports fully and unequivocally professional.

While I cannot speak for other pro leagues, the country’s premier university athletic league, the UAAP, is most certainly amateur at least in paper. The amateur nature of its competitions is enshrined in its by-laws. However, things do get fuzzy beyond that.

According to Far Eastern University Athletic Director Mark Molina, there are no rules governing what benefits schools can give to their student athletes. So in fact, a school can give a prized recruit a house and lot for enrolling and still not break any league regulations.

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Players openly earn plenty of cash in university-level sports. Ateneo’s Kiefer Ravena most certainly raked it in after the Season 77 hoops competition with a bumper crop of cash prizes from postseason awards.

Molina says that the school presidents are discussing a cap on the benefits that can be given to athletes. He says there should be a decision on the matter by the start of Season 78 in August. There is also a proposal to ban alumni and booster groups from giving athletes cash or other benefits.

“We want to level the playing field, so the ‘rich don’t get richer,’ which is actually how it is now,” explains Molina.

All well and good, but in my opinion, I’d rather swing the other way: by allowing student-athletes to earn as much as they can, unfettered by any restraints. Here are my reasons.

The romantic ideal of purely amateur play is vanishing, with no untoward consequences. Once upon a time many sports were purely amateur. Skiing, tennis, swimming and track and field. Now they have become pro, and the quality of play has risen.

Rugby used to be divided, with rugby union for amateurs and a slightly different version of the game, rugby league, for pros. Over the last few decades both codes have become professional.

Olympic basketball used to be amateur, before pros were allowed in the Barcelona games of 1992.

Is there a valid reason to deny the financial rewards of professionalism to an athlete just because he is in a college or university team? I think not. I suspect there is an ick factor with some of the more traditional among us about the collegiate student-athlete who plays for the love of the game.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with earning money as a student. Millions of young people flip burgers or bag groceries to help with expenses while studying. Why can’t playing a sport serve the same purpose?

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Others make money from collegiate athletics. Why can’t the players? Collegiate basketball and volleyball are money-spinners. One only needs to see the plethora of commercials during TV coverage to see that.

Broadcasters like ABS-CBN make a neat bundle off college sports, and the schools themselves get a cut from the TV contracts, according to Molina. Advertisers also benefit from the exposure.

Therefore it stands to reason that the very athletes that make the spectacle possible, those who are laying out to dig back a loose volleyball, lunging above the rim to grab a rebound or flailing forward to make a goal-saving tackle, also deserve their share. They are the only ones in the equation risking injury.

Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford says it best in this interview.

“Coaches are making $5 million a year, assistant coaches are making up to $1 million a year, and athletic directors are making big money. The TV money’s just being thrown around, to everyone but the players that is. Everybody makes money — including sports journalists, people like myself — off of these kids, many of whom, as a matter of fact, come from very poor circumstances.”

It can help decrease the pernicious influence of match-fixers. Since time immemorial there have been whispers about match-fixing and point shaving in collegiate sports. Though rarely proven, this kind of unsavory activity is no doubt possible.

Maybe if athletes were well-compensated they could resist the temptation better.

A cap on benefits might be impossible to enforce. It is in a way admirable for the league to try and put a limit to what boosters and schools offer to student-athletes. But I’d like to know their plan to police this.

The way I see it, anything less than 24-hour surveillance with a private investigator for every single potential recruit won’t work. People will always find ways. The power of money is sometimes just too undeniable.

Professionalization can, well, professionalize play. In other words, make it better. Raise the level, raise everyone’s game.

The ideal of amateur athletics is something that, for better or for worse, is on the way to oblivion. I think it’s time to see something as it is. I doubt if the UAAP will, anytime soon, amend its by-laws to embrace professionalism. But in my opinion, that is where we should be headed.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment, just do so respectfully.

Editor’s note: The blogger’s views do not represent Yahoo! Southeast Asia’s position on the topic or issue being discussed in this post.

Follow Bob on Twitter @PassionateFanPH.