The Sports Media program at the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication has an expert, Welch Suggs, available to talk about the ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversing the decision made last fall allowing NCAA-member schools to pay their athletes up to $5,000 per year.
“This ruling splits the baby on the issue of whether athletes should or should not be paid,” Suggs said. “It cuts the NCAA’s authority over what it can regulate, which will make critics of the association happy, but it strikes down a lower court judge’s suggestion that athletes be able to receive as much as $5,000 in deferred compensation for the use of their names, rights and images. This will annoy critics, many of whom think college athletes should get a cut of all the revenue pouring into college sports.”
Welch Suggs, associate professor of journalism, teaches sports media classes at Grady College and helped create the new Grady Sports Media Certificate program, the first of its kind offered in the SEC. Suggs is recognized as a leading expert on policy issues in college athletics and women's sports. From 2005 to 2007, Suggs served as associate director for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. He has written about sports for the Kansas City Star, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Dallas Business Journal, and was part of the original reporting staff at the launch of Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, where he covered stadium and arena issues, college sports, and women's sports.
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