UC Riverside

This dissertation employed exploratory mixed methods research to examine the labor site conditions, experiences, and migration patterns of international NCAA Division I men’s basketball players. Using a combinatory theoretical framework grounded in both racial capitalism and neo-racism, the study sought to understand how an international athlete’s social location impacted their movement into, within, and through DI competition. Given the NCAA’s long history of cartel labor practices- particularly toward Black athletes in revenue-generating sports, as well as basketball’s growth as a major global enterprise steeped in postcolonial relationships between states, Black international athletes were found uniquely vulnerable to exploitation in US college sports. The first phase of the study engaged in critical discourse analysis to uncover athletics interests’ racial capitalist and neo-racist perspectives toward Black international athletes. In addition, the CDA revealed that NCAA institutions exploit the vulnerability of countries on the global margins- particularly Black states in Africa and the Caribbean- to engage in predatory and paternalistic athlete recruitment. Next, critical quantitative inquiry tested the factors affecting international athletes’ labor migration patterns. Social location- a combinatory measure of an athlete’s expected racialization and region of origin- strongly predicted differences in pre-college professional opportunity, future professional pipeline position, and premature exit from the sport. Black athletes from Africa and the Caribbean were found to occupy an abject position on all these counts, and Black athletes from Europe and the Anglosphere frequently lagged behind their nonblack peers. The study’s mixed methods findings illuminate an internationalized college athletics labor market that treats Black athletes as expendable commodities rather than human laborers. When viewed through the guiding theoretical frameworks, the results support major restructuring of both the NCAA and US policies that undergird this market. College athletics is an exploitative cartel enterprise masquerading as an amateur avocation. Black international athletes’ labor conditions and migration patterns shed urgent light on necessary change in college athletics to protect human and migrant rights in global sport, including the abolition of amateurism guidelines, the adoption of work visas for international college athletes, and the disruption of harmful recruitment, coaching, and reporting practices that uphold the NCAA cartel.