There is so much controversy surrounding the topic on if college athletes should be paid or not. Those discussions usually lead to an in-depth debate about how universities should and shouldn’t be able to use the name, likeness and image of current student athletes.
In an effort to protect themselves college athletic departments across the country are developing a habit of selling jerseys with generic numbers. There’s been a handful of programs that have been following that model for a while. However, most recently schools like Northwestern, Miami, Arizona and others have all made a conscious decision to not sell jerseys that have the number of current student athletes. So, if the star quarterback at any of the above mentioned institutions wears jersey #1 chances are fans will not be able to go into the local bookstores and purchase that jersey number.
The debate on the amateur status and commercialization of high profile NCAA sports continues. These debates are often times sparked by legal suits like the Ed O’Bannon case against the NCAA. Cases like this bring a lot of media attention and puts a tremendous amount of pressure on how the NCAA and colleges/universities market and package high profile sporting programs. It’s something to keep an eye on. Especially, after the unionization battle that happened at Northwestern.
