🏈 NCAA still refusing to see big picture; all college sports are not equal

[TerryP]

Moreover, they aren't ready to acknowledge how the endgame is likely not about colleges deciding whether or not to allow student-athletes to share in revenue, but football players deciding whether they should continue to allow gymnasts, swimmers, wrestlers and the like to share in their money.
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College sports are increasingly capitalistic. These aren't just teams representing schools anymore, they are profit points that command their own cable television networks, massive stadiums, huge media rights, national tournaments and billions and billions in revenue.

While student-athletes are rightly saying, why can't we get more of the pie, or at least the freedom to go out and get it themselves via sponsorship or advertising opportunities, the real debate is why are all student-athletes still being considered equal?
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The NCAA says it can only afford to share a small portion of revenue with Manziel (say, a $2,000 stipend) because it must give one to every athlete. And allowing athletes to cut into marketing money and donations that would otherwise go to the school would put the athletic department coffers that fund a full range of sports at risk.

Why is that set policy though, and why is downgrading the scope of some sports a bad thing?

Why is it just assumed that elite, revenue-generating football and basketball players should automatically concede their market value to prop up smaller sports? Why are all players the same when no school pays the football coach and the field hockey coach the same amount?

"Most universities don't have the resources to move to that kind of model," Emmert said, "So they'll probably be playing Division III style."

Exactly. That's where this is heading one day.

It's almost as if some are just realizing that collegiate sports are being ran on a socialistic model.

It's a long read, but an interesting one: Dan Wetzel from Yahoo! Sports.

 

[planomateo]

NCAA President Emmert has been awfully quiet with all the stuff going on the last 3-6 months. Not sure what that says about his leadership.