The Democracy Summit, hosted by the Colorado State University’s College of Liberal Arts, strived to connect democracy to all aspects of the university community.

For the final event of the Democracy Summit, CSU President Amy Parsons and NCAA President Charlie Baker discussed an aspect of democracy that is not always considered: sports. The two explored the intersection of sports in democracy within the United States.

“Today in this country, we’re about as polarized and maybe unwilling or unable to work together across the parties as we ever have been,” Parsons said. “But I’ll tell you that in the midst of everything that we’re dealing with in politics today in this country, on Tuesday night of this week, I, along with many of you in the room, were in Moby Arena right over here for the last men’s basketball home game of the regular season. It was a spectacular night.

“I contend that nothing cuts across all of our divides and our differences like sports and a united fan base like what we saw that night.”

The two discussed a wide range of topics, from Title IX to House v. NCAA. One of the more recent and prevalent lawsuits against the NCAA is touched on in Baker’s book, “Results: Getting Beyond Politics to Get Important Work Done,” which discusses his time in the political realm of the NCAA, democracy surrounding sports and advice for future leaders.

Prior to assuming the role of NCAA president in 2023, Baker served as the governor of Massachusetts from 2015 to 2023. Now serving as the sixth NCAA President, Baker is in the process of pursuing his mission: supporting student-athletes and advocating for college sports as it is constantly changing.

“Sometimes we don’t fully appreciate the holistic impact that belonging on a team and benefitting from that can have on young people — the impact of having a place,” Baker said. “The cohesive nature of that support system is what gets people through adolescence and early adulthood.”

Yet the landscape of college sports is changing more now than ever. Most notably, in May 2024, attorneys agreed to settle three antitrust laws: House v. NCAA, Hubbard v. NCAA and Carter v. NCAA.

This settlement resulted in the payment of damages from name, image and likeness, benefits relating to student-athletes and the diminishing of scholarship limits with the addition of roster limits. Baker addressed these three main domains within his talk. 

“One of the things that’s going to come out of (the settlement) — and I’m starting to see it with the way a lot of schools are responding to this — is a heck of a lot more scholarships in both men’s and women’s sports,” Baker said. “And I think that in some schools, the women’s scholarship numbers are going up faster than the men.”

Baker said he believes this settlement will not only create more access for student-athletes — both men and women — but also encourage visibility, which may translate to revenue.

Within this settlement, though, there is concern regarding revenue. Schools may choose to allocate 22% of athletic revenue — up to $20.5 million per year — to student-athletes, but when comparing schools from the Southeastern Conference to the Mountain West, that is about a $15 million difference. 

“Ohio State (University) spends $300 million on college sports and Union (University) and Denison (University) spend about $15 (million),” Baker said. “So, in my mind, part of the House settlement is about trying to create a safe space, right, for schools in D1 that look and are different materially from a lot of the other schools.”

To foster that safe space for schools, it all starts with the athletes.

“We can’t have healthy collegiate sports without having healthy student-athletes and the environment in which they work in,” Parsons said. 

To offer better benefits for student-athletes, Baker made a few changes when he became president. For example, if a student-athlete receives a scholarship, it would be maintained no matter if the athlete played or not. Another was that student-athletes would receive health insurance coverage two years post-eligibility.

Benefits for student-athletes were also included within the House v. NCAA settlement, such as free tuition, educational grants, academic support and tutoring, medical and mental health resources, nutrition resources, life skills development and superior coaching and training.

“(People are) trying to pretend that everybody is the same, (but) they’re not,” Baker said. “And we should figure out some way to make it work for student-athletes and for schools recognizing that there are big differences here across the collegiate environment.”

Despite having differences, Baker and Parsons stressed the importance of equity within collegiate sports, something vastly important within the equity realm: Title IX.

This federal law prohibits sex-based discrimination, requiring equal opportunities for both men’s and women’s sports.

“Title IX has been a huge game changer there, and it’s a classic example of, if you invest and you’re smart about how you invest and you sustain your investment, wildly interesting things happen,” Baker said. “(Women’s sports) are big-time … events. Now we are setting attendance and viewership records in all of those sports every year for the past three years.”

Not only is Baker striving to help student-athletes; Parsons calls them and all the students of CSU “future leaders.” CSU has stated their intent to incorporate democracy on a campuswide level and reinforced these themes through the Democracy Summit. 

The two closed the discussion with a focus on relating democracy to the discussion, with Baker giving a few last pieces of advice: Do not assume that your opinion is the only opinion that is relevant; broaden your circle by finding someone who writes about it, and learn more and find people in history who are interesting and read about it. 

“There’s a big opportunity there for growth, and growth, at the end of the day, should be your endgame,” Baker said.

Reach Sophie Webb at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @sophgwebb.