But why should a yacht party be an improper benefit? If a rich booster decides to treat the team to a night at the strip club, what’s the big deal? You’re going beyond the question of benefits into demanding they not engage in certain behavior. Why? Who cares?
It’s a short step from lending a yacht for one night to “lending” an Escalade for three years.
Why should schools be able to entice players to enroll by promising them yacht trips and hookers? Whose interests are served by allowing this stuff?
It’s in the interests of the college-aged players. They get to have a yacht party!
Kids in college want to party and get stuff. This is a shocking revelation?
“I can’t decide between Miami, Oklahoma, and Penn State”
“Come to Miami and you’ll get yacht parties off South Beach”
No. The shocking part* is that rich people are trying to make the athletic program more attractive by paying thousands of dollars for those parties and giving the kids access to their mansions and yachts. I don’t care that kids party.
*“Shocking” in that it’s the relevant issue here. We know this stuff goes on. The surprising thing is that in this case there’s extensive documentation proving it.
That’s always an attraction. But if you’re an elite high school football player, and you believe you have what it takes to eventually play professionally, this isn’t going to be your only concern. Nebraska and Penn State can still compete.
You’ve never been to Nebraska, have you?
(not serious)
Hubzilla, last year at this time, had you ever heard of Cam Newton? Only die hard SEC fans had ever heard of him. Urban Meyer let him go. He was damaged goods.
IIRC, as of a few years ago, former Miami Hurricane players were on more NFL rosters than any other school. Back in the 1990 and early 2000’s Miami got a lot of TV exposure.
Edit: 58 players by the list
Yes, we wouldn’t want rich people to impact recruiting, unless they’re donating millions of dollars for facilities. It would be totally unfair for a school to get a recruiting advantage because a booster let an athlete borrow his car, or party on his boat.
I have concerns about that, too. But it’s not that hard to draw a distinction between building better facilities for all the players and offering cash and parties and sex as part of a competition to win the biggest-name recruits.
That distinction only matters because we maintain the fiction that these athletes are amateurs. Outside of the prostitute angle, none of these allegations would be remotely notable if the recipient of the cash and parties was being recruited to be a professor. It’s pretty typical for corporate types to take potential clients out for ball games and such. Even though a straight cash payout is generally frowned on, employees are often wooed with signing bonuses.
Because we demand that these players be “amateurs” booster funds have to go to “acceptable” areas that benefit players non-monetarily.
If it was a single party or yacht trip for a single professor? Probably not. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about guys who handed out cash to the players any time they asked, and gave them unrestricted access to boats and to luxury homes for big parties. I think it would draw some attention if a school was luring professors that way.
Professors?
All you have to do is offer them tenure.
You have to pull out the big bucks to get the people who are valuable to a university–the football players.
This sort of thing makes me feel better about Mark Cuban. He actually sorta earned all that money, and used it to buy a Pro team, where he can spend it any way he wants and act just about any way he wants.
And he also buys better players 
So?
So?
If this wasn’t big time college athletics with “amateur” athletes would anybody care?
Rich guy gives poor student cash to pay bills… See the details of this scandal at 11.
Rich guy lets people borrow his yacht, turn to page 3 for more on this story.
Correct, nobody would care. The rules are ineffectual as they currently stand, but they are the rules. I will not disagree with anyone who says they need to be changed, but until they are changed they have to apply equally.
Of course not - but it is, so we do.
Honestly. I’m sure some local business in Seattle went out of business last week. Why is it that nobody heard about that, but everybody heard about GM going broke?
The problem with the Death Penalty these days is there are huge complications. You’d be effecting every team in the ACC then some. How much would the loss of a huge program like Miami kill the ACC’s TV revenue? Everyone now has to scramble around adding an extra game when everyone’s schedule are pretty much set in stone for the next 2 years? It would be a huge blow to the local economy.
People have always said the NCAA doesn’t have the balls to give another program the Death Penalty and I don’t think that changes here.