It makes all logical sense that athletes should make money in programs that generate revenue. Those programs are really limited to football and basketball for the top schools. Most every other sport loses money, for one reason or another. So it's wrong to just pay the students who make money for the university and not those who contribute in other ways. That's not fair. Which is why it can't work.
The students are already being given a free ride to "go" to school (I use go very cautiously, because I believe the jocks at the top programs don't really go to school, they just play. That isn't to say that every college athlete doesn't go to school - far from it.) That's somewhere around a $200,000 paycheck right there. I'm sure there's more than that when factoring in the training and "tutoring" and things like that. So in that sense, the players already are getting paid.
There's a ton of things we don't know about collegiate athletics. How much benefits they receive from those notorious boosters. How they all pass their classes, because we know some of them still struggle speaking English. How any of their lives happen. I firmly believe situations like USC and Ohio State happen at every major program. It just comes with the territory. Players are treated like they are larger than life and afforded opportunities they wouldn't get anywhere else. The NCAA expects everyone to turn a blind eye to all the trouble going on, until someone uncovers it one way or another.
Regardless of if these students go to class or not, they still are committing a huge amount of time to their sport. In that sense, it's not crazy to pay them. We're not talking about a full-time salary with 401k and stock options. I'm saying a couple hundred bucks a game for each player. Even if these players have a free ride, there's still everyday "cost of living" expenses that college doesn't cover. These players can't have a part time job because all of their time is spent with their sport. So in that sense, they may really need money - which begets all of the corruption in the first place - to get by or whatever.
Schools facilitiate part time jobs for normal students - doing administrative tasks or cafeteria or whatever the case may be. So it seems stupid that collegiate athletes can't be paid the same way these students are. They're sacrificing their time to make some extra money. But we say no. And the reality is, not every athlete on every team (I'm thinking the smaller teams - tennis, volleyball, etc.) is on a scholarship, so they're paying to sacrifice their time.
It makes sense. It really does. BUT - always but - you can't just pay players in top programs, otherwise that presents a huge unfair advantage. And you can't just pay players in profitable programs - it's everyone or nothing. With that in mind, it won't work. It can't work. The schools will just lose more money. The corruption will just grow into more extravagant examples of gratuitous lifestyles for 'amateur' athletes.
The NCAA is a sham. Anytime I hear about their latest plan it all just seems like a maneuver to generate more money - which is what capitalism is all about. However, when you promote yourself as providing a quality experience to youth in helping them grow into better people, making more money just seems like greed. The NCAA says they put that money back into colleges, but who knows. I do know that the President of the NCAA made 1.14 million in 2009. That speaks for itself. Money Money Money.
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