I hate the NCAA so much. I can't believe they have the gall to say they need to maintain amateurism while so many people and so many huge corporations make billions of dollars off it. Why does paying the player hurt amateurism but paying the coach doesn't? Why would a player making $50 to sign his name on some hats ruin the game, but CBS paying the NCAA billions for the rights to broadcast the game be totally ok?<p>If they want to insist amateurism is so important, then fine. Be amateur. Have student volunteers do the broadcasting, don't show any ads during the game, and take all the money out of it. Otherwise don't tell me players are the only ones who can't make money off of this.
I always wonder about the upbringing(read: brainwashing) that fans of the NCAA who are such rabid defenders of its "heritage" had to have gotten to believe such childish things. The NCAA is the ultimate unpaid internship; if you are such a big fan of those, I encourage you to quit your paying job(if you have one) and pursue one.<p>I remember in high school(~6-10 years ago for me) people would talk about situations with the NCAA like this, and people who had absolutely no stake whatsoever in the system would defend it, often with the kind of weak arguments many have mentioned in this thread. Disappointing that we can't simply agree that people working should be proportionately paid. Some mention scholarships and the like, and I don't think that this is a "terrible" system, but it's clearly incredibly weighed in favor of the NCAA and the schools themselves.
There is no equivalent to our college athletics in the whole world and anything that comes close to the scam that the NCAA is.<p>If you want to become an athlete in the rest of the world you skip schooling after high school and go straight into professional sports. The academic sports complex is a massive scam that is two-fold. It makes money off the (mainly blacks) “student” athletes either from the sports (and NCAA) or the alumni contributions in division 1 schools with men’s basketball or football. The students get nothing in return (not even an education in most cases - many examples of them being “graduated” whilst being illiterate and innumerate - see link at bottom). In the division 3 schools that are ranked competitively academically they are used as quota systems to let more whites into the school with esoteric or “elitist” sports like the aforementioned tennis or fencing or squash.<p>The rest of the world has the equivalent of our Minor League in Baseball for all competitive sports.Any sports in college is strictly intramural and for “fun”. Schools do not recruit athletes, as entrances are often based on exam results or some form of academic testing system.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_Unite...</a><p>My favorite story on our academic athletic complex is the bond issuance of over 60 million dollars to build a high school football stadium in Texas:<p><a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2639092-texas-town-approves-bond-to-build-628-million-high-school-football-stadium" rel="nofollow">https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2639092-texas-town-appro...</a><p>———-<p><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-...</a>
I am firmly against the NCAA. I get a lot of flack for this typically, but the NCAA as a system relies on basically slave labor. Universities are for education. If there are university sports they should be actual amateur institutions, more like our intramural sports and clubs, which some do travel. There should be no sports scholarships, coaches shouldn't be paid large sums, and there should not be millions of merchandise sold or tv rights. The idea of scholarship in exchange for being an athlete should be banned. Universities should be on academic merit, and then afterward people should play what they want. Tuition should also be affordable enough (or free) for any who are able to attend should be able to.
The NCAA is an illegal monopoly if I ever saw one.<p>The northwestern group was as close as I’ve seen to a real challenge, but nobody has had the guts to go the distance in a lawsuit. I wish someone would - the result would be enlightening.
There were other factors but what totally turned me against the NCAA is that the athletic scholarships are renewable every year. If you're hurt or are spending too much time in the classroom then your scholarship might not be renewed.<p>Sure, that's not going to affect healthy star players. But if you have something that really would be suited to rest or you want to take a tough course load, well, maybe they'll let you "red shirt" and maybe they won't. You still count against the scholarship limit.<p>If we could go back in time, maybe every town would have its football team and those teams could be promoted and relegated like many soccer teams. Players would be paid to play. Instead the college and university teams fill the need for people to have a local team.
Another disappointing story about the NCAA. I don’t know how to fix it, but since the NCAA represents the schools maybe there should be a parallel body to represent the athletes.
Leaving aside the ethics of exploiting labor, my question is why are athletics a matter of our education system? Why does our government get involved in it at all? Why not decompose our university system into its individual parts instead - and let college age adults choose which areas they what to gain development in - whether that’s a particular sport or subject or whatever.
Ultimately everything is a system. If the NCAA is incredibly militant about enforcing these rules, the schools will be incredibly paranoid about giving athletes any financial incentive. If the NCAA is more lax, schools will put less effort and attention to detail into enforcement. I’m not saying these policies are good or ethical, but this type of militant enforcement absolutely changes how careful schools are.
I think this organization has trouble. I think the landline thing is just ... wrong. It should be reversed. I think there should be a reckoning.<p>As to the author's stand on Name Image and Likeness, I don't know much about being a college athlete, but I don't think that should be allowed. At all.
Maybe that level of athleticism should be separated from education and run as actual business with people paid as actual athletes for whatever their market value is.
The NCAA is a similarly corrupt club like the olympics. Preaching “amateurism” while making tons of money for the insiders. I wouldn’t mind if both got closed.
This athlete got a scholarship, elite coaching, a college degree and is now playing her sport professionally. She's a beneficiary of the system, not a casualty of it.<p>The only harm that has been done is that the NCAA has written her out of its internal records (it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur).<p>The NCAA does things that seem exploitative and wrong to me. But it also helps a lot of people. This young lady's outrage is not a good argument for the former.