Commercialism in College Athletics

Report Outline
Spur to Reform by College Sports Scandals
Professional Aspects of Players' Amateur Status
Economics of Maintaining Top-Flight Teams
Action to De-Emphasize Athletic Contests

Spur to Reform by College Sports Scandals

With the approach of the college football season, interest centers on the effects of numerous reforms and reform proposals on 1952–53 intercollegiate competition. The reform movement was set in motion by a aeries of college sports scandals which exposed not only corruption of athletes by gamblers, but threw the spotlight on an assortment of malpractices that brought the colleges themselves under critical fire.

Basketball produced the most serious scandals, but the reform movement has been concerned mainly with college football. The offending practices arose primarily out of the commercialization of intercollegiate athletics; the chief remedy prescribed has been to bring college sports and their practitioners under tighter control of academic authorities.

Basketball Scandals of 1951–52

A series of arrests during 1951 brought more than 30 basketball players from seven colleges before the courts in New York for involvement in game-fixing to protect gamblers' wagers. First arrests came in January when two co-captains of Manhattan College's 1949–50 team and three gamblers were charged with conspiracy to predetermine game results. The players were accused of accepting $5,000 each for throwing points in five matches during the previous season.