Global Sport Labor, Black Athletes, and the NCAA Cartel: Novel Theoretical Directions for Analysis

• In Event: Identity and Exploitation in Collegiate Athletics: Examining Discrimination, Harassment, and Labor Dynamics in College Fitness and Recreation

Abstract

This conceptual paper uses the theory of racial capitalism to articulate a new set of interpretations about the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its relationship to both Black athletic labor and the international elite athletics landscape. I draw from a wide body of literature in the fields of college athletics, sport sociology, and critical theory to demonstrate how the modern NCAA consolidated and accumulated wealth on the backs of an essentially free, predominantly Black labor force. In addition, I point to the ways in which the NCAA acts alone as a cartel in the global basketball pipeline to the detriments of both domestic and international Black participant athletes.

Author

• Eric Matthew Davidson, University of California - Riverside