The University of Southern California is imposing sanctions on itself for the violation of NCAA rules involving a former player, OJ Mayo. Mayo played one season for the Trojans and then went to the NBA, where he now plays for the Memphis Grizzlies.


The school has called for a one year ban on postseason play after this year. Also, they would lose one scholarship this season and for the 2010-2011 season, and one coach permitted to engaged in off season recruiting for the summer of 2010. They will lose 20 recruiting days for next year, in addition to other sanctions.

The sanctions derived from a booster allegedly funneling money to Mayo through an associate in order to get him to come play for USC. Here are the reasons that all this is silly:

1) OJ Mayo was a multi-million dollar commodity. The NCAA earns over a billion dollars per year from featuring prominent athletes on the basketball court and football field. So, as an economist and a capitalist, I can say that you are opening yourself up to an active black market when you attempt to deny the athlete labor rights or the right to be compensated. The athletes should be earning more than the coaches, since basketball games can't happen without basketball players.

2) If everyone else is making money off OJ Mayo, why can't his own mother? I find it quite ironic that many of the individuals who are first in line to say that athletes shouldn't get paid are themselves earning hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even millions) from the athletes' labor. Doesn't that seem a little strange to you?

3) This is an issue of labor rights and collusion. The NCAA is allowed to use enforced collusion and clear violations of anti-trust law to restrict the rights of both athletes and member institutions. To give a clear example, this is like Wal-Mart, Target and KMart forming an alliance and agreeing to only pay employees $5 dollars per hour. Such activity would lead to immediate action from the Justice Department. But the NCAA is allowed to get away with sanctioning any institution found compensating athletes because they've consistently held onto a false argument that their primary focus is education. Tell that to the universities that are paying millions to coaches who don't seem to care one bit about graduation rates (you hear that John Calipari?).

OJ Mayo is not the bad guy in all this. What he did was not in the least bit unethical. The only unethical part of this entire situation is that there are individuals telling Mayo and his family that he can't earn a living from his talent like everyone else. Don't fall for the hype.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Faculty Affiliate with The College Sport Research Institute at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.