Protecting and continuing the momentum behind HBCU athletics

On Thanksgiving Day, hundreds of thousands of Americans tuned in to this year’s “Bayou Classic”, the annual rivalry matchup between Grambling State University and Southern University. Those viewers saw more than a football game: they saw the community, pageantry and spirit of two proud Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) on full display. 

College sports play a vital role in the life of HBCUs. Today, America’s Four Historically Black Athletic Conferences (4HBAC) — the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and Southwestern Athletic Conference — include 48 schools spanning nearly 20 states and serve approximately 15,000 student-athletes each year. The hundreds of athletic programs within our conferences not only unite and entertain students, communities and millions of alumni, but also provide life-changing opportunities for participating student-athletes, the majority of whom are first generation college students. Life on the HBCU campuses is hard to fathom without the teams we cheer on and root for.

However, as college sports’ broader political, legal and cultural landscape continues to shift rapidly, there is a real risk to the long-term viability of HBCU sports programs. That’s a risk we must avoid.

As the annual college sports calendar unfolds, with fall sports champions being crowned and the football bowl season commencing, threats that could upend college sports lurk in the background. At this very moment, courts and regulatory agencies are weighing decisions that could potentially reclassify student-athletes as employees of their universities, regardless of the economics associated with the sport they play or the university at which they play it. If those types of legal rulings were to advance, the vast majority of college athletic departments will face steep reductions in the number of athletic programs they can afford to operate. No one would feel these impacts more drastically than HBCUs. For us, it would be untenable.

Many of the legal and political actions we face are motivated by a broad desire to see the model used to operate college sports significantly modernized: We agree with those calls for change. College sports have historically been too slow to change but, thanks in part to the voices of many HBCU leaders, we are finally seeing meaningful transformations advance. In the last year alone, the NCAA has significantly raised the bar for support for student-athletes’ physical, mental and academic wellbeing. The NCAA now funds sports injury health coverage for all college athletes, extending up to two years after graduation, and all Division I schools must offer health and wellbeing benefits as well as scholarship protections — long after graduation. This transformation effort remains ongoing, as schools across the country are working together with the NCAA to continually assess and address modern student-athletes’ needs.

However, it’s important that in our zeal to modernize college sports, we don’t destroy broad swaths of it in the process.               

Like the majority of our Division II and mid-major peers, most HBCU athletic departments do not generate significant revenue and rely heavily on school appropriated funds and donations. Employment or revenue sharing mandates aimed at addressing issues specific to football and basketball programs at a very small subset of the biggest Division I athletic programs would be catastrophic for HBCUs. While those issues are valid and worthy of solutions, broad solutions for narrow problems could ultimately rob our campuses of their beloved athletic programs. Even worse, it could cost countless young people a pathway to education. 

To avoid this terrible potential outcome for HBCUs, we ask for Congress to pass laws that would accomplish two important objectives. First, legislation should provide consistent and nimble national governance to oversee the name, image & likeness (NIL) marketplace — replacing today’s patchwork of state laws when necessary — while giving student-athletes much needed consumer protections. Second, and most importantly, legislation must codify a special status for student-athletes to ensure they are not designated as employees of their institutions.

HBCU sports are experiencing a period of real momentum, making history with sold out stadiums, the addition of new athletic programs and even DI championship titles. It’s clear that HBCU and college sports fans across the country are excited about what’s happening; in several cases, we are outpacing our predominantly white institution peers in attendance and viewership. As a result, there is a recent rise in corporate sponsorships, destination contests offers and prominent media prospects. Amid this progress, 4HBAC student-athletes continue to excel off the field, graduating at a higher rate than their non-athlete peers and traditionally leading in federal graduation rates for both the student body and student-athletes. 

As we seek to modernize college sports, it’s critical that we do so in a way that ensures HBCUs are in position to continue creating life-changing opportunities for young people, bringing our campuses to life and flourishing for generations to come. 

Jacqie McWilliams is commissioner of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Sonja Stills is commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, Anthony Holloman is commissioner of Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and Charles McClelland is commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.