What would you think of a multi billion dollar company that refused to pay most of it’s workers, (for anything except basic housing) wouldn’t let them have any other way of making money, including selling their OWN property or even thier own likeness, and severly punished anyone who tried to do so? Pretty fucked up, right?
Yet they’re making an example of OSU and Jim Tressel for “cheating”
What the fuck ever.
If colleges had to pay their athletes what they are worth, high-level college sports would probably disappear in favor of organized minor leagues for football and basketball. The NCAA ensures that doesn’t happen by forcing college athletes into indentured servitude, to maintain “the integrity of the game”. Pure bullshit.
Even if they can’t afford to pay them, why in the hell can’t they make money for themselves? That’s what kills me. And basically what they are is minor leagues. Think how much money the NFL saves not having to maintain minor leagues like baseball does.
I’m agreeing with you, not arguing against you.
I know. It is bullshit. I was just pointing out that I wasn’t even suggesting that they pay them. Sorry, **D-Odds ** I’m having a bad day anyhow.
If we actually had professional minor leagues for football and basketball, then what remained of these college sports would actually be what the NCAA claims they are - amateur student athletes playing for the love of the game.
When I was a student athlete, I had to provide our compliance coordinator with all of my time stubs, etc…, to ensure that I was not making too much money. Mind you, this was a job at the NIH, doing cancer research… not exactly selling my own flavor of Nikes. Are you kidding me??? Total bullshit!!!
Yes, I agree with all these points. I think the NCAA should be barred as an illegal, collusury cartel.
But not this. He broke the rules, so action against him is fair.
Oh, the poor, poor NCAA “workers” who don’t get paid for their efforts. :dubious:
Except that they are paid, legally getting cash and lots of nice perks (at least if they’re athletes in high-profile sports like football), not just including free tuition, room and board (even for off-campus housing) and meals).
So we’re not talking about terribly deprived athletes who in the case of OSU had to sell their prized possessions for tattoos and maybe drugs. 
I do think the NCAA system encourages individual and systematic corruption and that there should be minor league alternatives in football and basketball for kids who do not have the ability for/interest in a college education (the minor leagues could set aside cash for subsequent college for the large majority of participants who’ll never make it in the pros).
I’m not saying Tressel didn’t srcew up, my point is in the grand moral scheme of things the NCAA is much worse. Tressel’s in trouble for braeking a rule that’s bullshit in the first place.
I agree that the NCAA is corrupt, but this is garbage. They’re college students who are doing what every other college student is doing: they are receiving training for a professional career. They should not be paid beyond scholarships for that.
While watching “The Blind Side” on DVD a few months ago, I started shouting at the TV when the NCAA part came up.
It went something like this:
NCAA: “It could lead to hundreds of rich white families adopting poor black children out of poor neighborhoods to play football. We can’t have that happen.”
Me: “Yes! Yes, we can have that happen. That happening would be FUCKING Fantastic!”
Is there a list I can be put on so that I too can be an indentured servant getting a free education and then four years later sign a $80 million contract?
They can. They can have jobs just like any other students. They just can’t have endorsements.
Yeah, but the rule in question is that they can’t sell something that belongs to them. That, IMO, is a bullshit rule.
What exactly do you think their chances are of getting an $80 million contract, not to mention any kind of NFL/NBA contract? Would you accept those odds for the industry you’re in? Slim chance of your hitting the lottery, but a very big chance that you’ll get nothing at all and have to go looking for a job in a different field altogether?
It is the same list that you can play 4 years, earning millions of dollars for you sponsor, and end up selling cars for a living while the NCAA can continue to earn off of your likeness.
If the NFL and NBA had viable minor leagues, then most of the best high school players end up as paid minor leaguers. School sports wouldn’t disappear, but they wouldn’t be the moneymakers they are, and would seriously reduce the number of athletes who do not care about a college education, only about a path to the NBA or NFL.
I’m working on a PhD in a decidedly non-athletic field right now. I’m on full stipend. I’m not allowed to make any money on the side either, or I lose my stipend.
Them’s the rules for lots of scholarship students. Why should the athletes be different?
I’m fairly certain that 1) they knew about those odds before going in, and chose to do so anyway, and 2) most college athletes KNOW they will never play sports professionally. And you do realize that they’re doing this of their own volition, right? That no one is forcing them to play?