NCAA

In recent years, the push to pay college athletics, particularly basketball and football players, is coming from all the national media. Athletes are complaining about going hungry while playing games on national TV. The proponents argue that everybody but the players are making a lot of money on the back of these athletes, thus the athletes deserve a cut of the money.

However, I think that this is a bunch of hogwash. We are talking about paying a group of people who are getting their education paid for, they are given the best training money can buy, and they potentially could get millions that they would not receive if they did not go to college. The NCAA should not pay their athletes beyond scholarship for room, board & tuition.

If we start giving athletes a "salary" for playing a sport, where does it stop? Do the colleges have to pay every athlete in every college sport? Resources will be drained from other departments of academia to pay for sports. Other students that are not related to sports will lose money. Also, I thought the concept of student-athlete meant that the athlete was a student first.

On top of that, the NCAA lost a lawsuit where the athlete now can receive money if the computer game use their likeness as part of the playing experience. Personally, I have never bought a computer game with college players in them. I buy games that are based on the professional sport.

The NCAA is in a dire position. The major conferences are consolidating teams so they can make even more money, the athletes demanding money and even collective bargaining rights, and the major television networks demanding a product they can sell to the public. The NCAA is in an unenviable position of either carrying the flag of amateur sports against the wave of public opinion or be exposed as hypocrites by allowing the college athlete to be paid for playing sports.

http://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/court-shuts-down-plan-to-pay-athletes-says-ncaa-violates-antitrust-law/

http://www.si.com/college-football/2016/02/24/northwestern-union-case-book-indentured

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/09/sports/a-way-to-start-paying-college-athletes.html?_r=0