NCAA, Drugs, The Senate and Other Stuff
Spring, the season of renewal, starts this week. It just happens that it’s also the week for the return of some golden oldies.
For starters it’s the beginning of March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament, when 35 of the nation’s best college teams pay for the championship trophy. Setting aside the convoluted formula that determines which teams get invitations to the Big Dance, what irks most is the exploitation of the athletes.
Here we have hundreds of young men playing their hearts out, over a grueling 30 game season, for the chance their college makes it to the play offs. In return they get a “free” education, but no pocket money or living expenses. Should even a nickel cross their palms the wrath of heaven descends in biblical proportions. If these student-athletes protest at the amount of effort involved in studying, practicing, traveling and playing they risk losing their scholarship. They are indentured workers.
Little discussed is the amount of money generated by these athletes. Television is the big money spinner. According to the Wall Street Journal advertising of the games will generate over $60 million. Then there are sponsorship packages worth about $30 million a pop that entitle companies to added promotional bells and whistles. In short NCAA basketball is a big bucks operation built on the backs of students. It’s a situation that would never be tolerated in an open labor market. A players union would sue to kingdom come.
The argument that players do it for the chance to make it to the NBA is nonsense. Very few of them get that far. Of the 400 odd players in the tournament less than 10% are drafted to the big-time. Considering that several thousand play college hoops you might as well buy a lottery ticket if what you want is a shot at the big bucks.
So what are the authorities doing about this shameful situation? Nada. You can hardly expect the self serving NCAA to disturb its own golden egg. How about the politicos? Well they’re too busy looking through the wrong end of the telescope. They’re about to hold hearings into steroid use by major league baseball players, a story so well known that few are surprised when they don’t recognize players in spring training. My how they’ve grown.
So here’s a modest proposal. Playing college players during the season is risky, it’s fraught with legal issues. But there’s no reason not to compensate them at the end of season. Paying players a modest $100 or so per game with a bonus for playoffs will not jeopardize the integrity of college sports. It might even bring some semblance of equity to it.
May 23rd, 2005 at 2:43 pm
You are invited to visit some information dedicated to poker hand
…