Research: Preserving intercollegiate athletics
Earlier this year, college basketball player Geo Baker shared an unexpected link with his followers on Twitter.
Amid thousands of posts about upcoming games and highlights on the court, Baker tweeted a link to an upcoming law review article—an article he was paid $100 to post.
With this exchange, the four authors of the paper, “Reimagining the Governance of College Sports After Alston,” made history as the first scholars to commission a college athlete to promote their research on social media.
Co-authored by Thomas Baker, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology, the paper offers a roadmap for reimagining the governance structure of college athletics to better protect and promote the rights of college athletes.
“We advise the NCAA to get out of the economic business and let schools negotiate with athletes directly,” said Baker. “The NCAA should focus on being an active organization that exists to keep student athletes safe, and if we do that, I think we can go a long way towards preserving intercollegiate athletics for the future.”