Play the Game 2015: College sport in the USA: Unprotected amateurs in a billion dollar business

Tens of thousands of students from more than 1,200 colleges in the USA invest four years of their life as the main assets of a multi-billion dollar sports business – but the athletes receive no money and critics claim that they are deprived of a number of basic human and labour rights.

Besides being a doctor researching in climate changes, Roger Pielke Jr., is also one of the finest analysts of sport governance. With his big knowledge on governance structures in sport, Pielke will help pinpoint the key issues that has brought the National Collegiate Athletes Association (NCCA) under fire in recent times.

If the American sport model is challenged and the borders between professional and amateur sport are hard to find, where can the US turn for inspiration? The European model of sport is often being praised for its ability to activate and engage practitioners and for not being as emerged in commercial interests as the US model. Emily V. Ronek from the US embassy in Denmark will look at some of the differences and similarities between sport participation and grassroots sports as it is practiced in the US and in Europe.

As a Swede living in the States for the past 40 years, Christer Ahl, has had the outsider’s eye on the US sports system. Ahl is a former head of the Rules and referee committee in the International Handball Federation and will share some of his observations on the differences between the two systems and also give ideas as to what they might earn from each other.

At Play the Game 2015, we will discuss the US sports model and also ask what the European and North American sports models may learn from each other, if both are in need of reform.