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Why This Former NBA Champion Wants to Pay College Basketball Players
David West is trying to launch the Historical Basketball League as an alternative to the NCAA; ‘We need to create something fair.’
By Brian Costa / Wall Street Journal
Feb. 25, 2019
As a star basketball player at Xavier University in the early 2000s, David West never questioned the NCAA’s amateurism model. Then he got to the NBA and began reading more about the revenues generated by the NCAA tournament, which now exceed $1 billion annually.
“I started to understand,” West said, “the only difference between college sports and professional sports is the college kids aren’t getting paid.”
That is something West, now 38 years old and retired from the NBA, is working to change. He recently became chief operating officer of a nascent outfit called the Historical Basketball League, which is recruiting top high school players for a summer season that would begin in 2020.
The HBL promises player salaries ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 and a full college scholarship. The players would forgo NCAA basketball and instead join one of 12 inaugural teams—cities will be chosen from an initial pool of 20, depending on where the league can attract investors. They would be able to choose a nearby college or vocational school, provided they are offered admission on their own academic merits.
It is essentially an attempt to untether college basketball from colleges and, in doing so, disrupt the economic model for student-athletes. The HBL’s website cites the “staggering injustice” of college sports and states that “amateurism is a con.” That sentiment became more widespread last week following the injury of Duke star Zion Williamson after his Nike sneaker ripped and tore apart.
“We need to create something fair,” West said in an interview.
Whether the HBL can do that largely hinges on its ability to generate revenue, which will in part require finding a media partner to buy distribution rights to its games. Andy Schwarz, an HBL co-founder, said it has had early-stage talks with several streaming services. But to attract such a partner, he said the league needs to secure commitments from at least a few of the top 15 or so high school players in the country.
To attract those star players, the league needs to demonstrate that it has the funding to guarantee salaries for at least its inaugural season. Schwarz said the league needs $30 million to $40 million to ensure that it can launch in 2020.
“If we are making an offer to an athlete, there has to be a league ready to go,” Schwarz said.
An NCAA spokeswoman declined to comment.
The HBL is the brainchild of Schwarz and league CEO Ricky Volante, a Cleveland attorney. Schwarz, an antitrust economist based in San Francisco, has been involved in several notable lawsuits brought against the NCAA. He was a consultant in the case brought by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, which claimed the NCAA illegally used the names, images and likenesses of athletes without paying them. A federal judge ruled in 2014 that colleges be permitted to offer around $5,000 annually in deferred money to basketball and football players.
West was a model student-athlete. As a senior in 2003, he was named National Player of the Year. A communications major, he also received a national award for community involvement, academic performance and character. He played 15 seasons in the NBA and won two championships with the Golden State Warriors.
The biggest catalyst for his current mission came in 2010, when he was playing for the New Orleans Hornets. He recalled reading then about the suspensions imposed by the NCAA on Ohio State football players for trading their own athletic gear and memorabilia for tattoos.
“That’s when I got sort of annoyed to the point where I would support something that created a better opportunity,” West said. “I just found those punishments ridiculous.”
Though college basketball has long been rife with rumors of secret payments to players—a practice exposed during a federal corruption trial last year—the league promises to pay players legally. Unlike the NCAA, it will allow players to commercialize their image and sign individual deals with shoe companies.
“We want to bring what’s going on under the table above the table,” West said, though he believes the academic and basketball benefits will be just as significant.
By holding the season during the summer, West said players can be fully engaged as students in programs that suit them. By contrast, he said, NCAA players are typically isolated from the larger student body because of the travel and practice demands of their sport. Though he thrived at Xavier, he didn’t have much time to get to know the students who could one day be his business partners.
“Because we played sports, we weren’t tied into the other networks in the university. We didn’t know who the engineers were,” West said.
The HBL will require players to be students in good standing, however their respective schools define that. On the court, West said it can better prepare aspiring NBA and overseas professionals with a style of play that more closely resembles the pro game. It will include NBA court dimensions and aim for a faster pace of play than is common at the NCAA level.
“The college system does not prepare these kids to be pros,” West said. “It prepares them to be college players.”
The HBL’s biggest hurdle may be convincing players with NBA potential to put their faith in an unproven alternative to the NCAA.
“My first thought is, ‘No chance,’” said Evan Daniels, director of basketball recruiting for the national recruiting site 247Sports. “These kids are a year or two away from making serious money. Going to a brand new league that’s going to pay you $50,000 to $150,000 is nothing but a gamble, and a gamble most of these kids aren’t going to touch.”
David Carter, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Sports Business Institute, said the HBL’s task will be made harder by the NBA G League, a developmental circuit that offers player salaries and bonuses with no academic requirement.
“Essentially, the NBA is in the process of beginning to marginalize the NCAA over time,” Carter said. “This may also have adverse effects on other potential rivals, including the HBL.”
Even if the HBL fails, West said, it could still be successful by pressuring the NCAA to better compensate football and basketball players.
“Our desire would be to impact the game and impact the market,” he said, “in a way that would force the system to change.”
David West is trying to launch the Historical Basketball League as an alternative to the NCAA; ‘We need to create something fair.’
By Brian Costa / Wall Street Journal
Feb. 25, 2019
As a star basketball player at Xavier University in the early 2000s, David West never questioned the NCAA’s amateurism model. Then he got to the NBA and began reading more about the revenues generated by the NCAA tournament, which now exceed $1 billion annually.
“I started to understand,” West said, “the only difference between college sports and professional sports is the college kids aren’t getting paid.”
That is something West, now 38 years old and retired from the NBA, is working to change. He recently became chief operating officer of a nascent outfit called the Historical Basketball League, which is recruiting top high school players for a summer season that would begin in 2020.
The HBL promises player salaries ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 and a full college scholarship. The players would forgo NCAA basketball and instead join one of 12 inaugural teams—cities will be chosen from an initial pool of 20, depending on where the league can attract investors. They would be able to choose a nearby college or vocational school, provided they are offered admission on their own academic merits.
It is essentially an attempt to untether college basketball from colleges and, in doing so, disrupt the economic model for student-athletes. The HBL’s website cites the “staggering injustice” of college sports and states that “amateurism is a con.” That sentiment became more widespread last week following the injury of Duke star Zion Williamson after his Nike sneaker ripped and tore apart.
“We need to create something fair,” West said in an interview.
Whether the HBL can do that largely hinges on its ability to generate revenue, which will in part require finding a media partner to buy distribution rights to its games. Andy Schwarz, an HBL co-founder, said it has had early-stage talks with several streaming services. But to attract such a partner, he said the league needs to secure commitments from at least a few of the top 15 or so high school players in the country.
To attract those star players, the league needs to demonstrate that it has the funding to guarantee salaries for at least its inaugural season. Schwarz said the league needs $30 million to $40 million to ensure that it can launch in 2020.
“If we are making an offer to an athlete, there has to be a league ready to go,” Schwarz said.
An NCAA spokeswoman declined to comment.
The HBL is the brainchild of Schwarz and league CEO Ricky Volante, a Cleveland attorney. Schwarz, an antitrust economist based in San Francisco, has been involved in several notable lawsuits brought against the NCAA. He was a consultant in the case brought by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, which claimed the NCAA illegally used the names, images and likenesses of athletes without paying them. A federal judge ruled in 2014 that colleges be permitted to offer around $5,000 annually in deferred money to basketball and football players.
West was a model student-athlete. As a senior in 2003, he was named National Player of the Year. A communications major, he also received a national award for community involvement, academic performance and character. He played 15 seasons in the NBA and won two championships with the Golden State Warriors.
The biggest catalyst for his current mission came in 2010, when he was playing for the New Orleans Hornets. He recalled reading then about the suspensions imposed by the NCAA on Ohio State football players for trading their own athletic gear and memorabilia for tattoos.
“That’s when I got sort of annoyed to the point where I would support something that created a better opportunity,” West said. “I just found those punishments ridiculous.”
Though college basketball has long been rife with rumors of secret payments to players—a practice exposed during a federal corruption trial last year—the league promises to pay players legally. Unlike the NCAA, it will allow players to commercialize their image and sign individual deals with shoe companies.
“We want to bring what’s going on under the table above the table,” West said, though he believes the academic and basketball benefits will be just as significant.
By holding the season during the summer, West said players can be fully engaged as students in programs that suit them. By contrast, he said, NCAA players are typically isolated from the larger student body because of the travel and practice demands of their sport. Though he thrived at Xavier, he didn’t have much time to get to know the students who could one day be his business partners.
“Because we played sports, we weren’t tied into the other networks in the university. We didn’t know who the engineers were,” West said.
The HBL will require players to be students in good standing, however their respective schools define that. On the court, West said it can better prepare aspiring NBA and overseas professionals with a style of play that more closely resembles the pro game. It will include NBA court dimensions and aim for a faster pace of play than is common at the NCAA level.
“The college system does not prepare these kids to be pros,” West said. “It prepares them to be college players.”
The HBL’s biggest hurdle may be convincing players with NBA potential to put their faith in an unproven alternative to the NCAA.
“My first thought is, ‘No chance,’” said Evan Daniels, director of basketball recruiting for the national recruiting site 247Sports. “These kids are a year or two away from making serious money. Going to a brand new league that’s going to pay you $50,000 to $150,000 is nothing but a gamble, and a gamble most of these kids aren’t going to touch.”
David Carter, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Sports Business Institute, said the HBL’s task will be made harder by the NBA G League, a developmental circuit that offers player salaries and bonuses with no academic requirement.
“Essentially, the NBA is in the process of beginning to marginalize the NCAA over time,” Carter said. “This may also have adverse effects on other potential rivals, including the HBL.”
Even if the HBL fails, West said, it could still be successful by pressuring the NCAA to better compensate football and basketball players.
“Our desire would be to impact the game and impact the market,” he said, “in a way that would force the system to change.”