The networks and the schools are just playing the fans, because the fans are crazy and love the sport--in the same way that the NFL, MLB and Fifa exploit their crazy fans. They keep adding games, expanding playoffs--making it easier for lesser teams to get into playoffs--amping up the hype---all to suck more and more money out of fans via, mostly, TV ratings and attendance.
I was a student-athlete on scholarship at UT, lived at Gibbs, and we all felt we were the luckiest people on campus--because we were. And it wasn't just the scholarship, there were lots of other perks. No players in any sport had the thought--gee, my free education, meals, housing, kits, girls, concerts, police giving us a pass on various things---is nice but we really should be getting paid too! I think that just started, frankly, with black activists who looked at the black players on the football and basketball teams, saw the money the football program was bringing, and, always on the lookout for injustice (real or, in this case, imagined), started clamoring for cash for players. You NEVER hear the activists talk about the benefit of a free college education and all that goes with it---because free cash is a bigger priority than a free education. One is cash in the pocket while the other isn't--it's a cost that's been covered for you. I don't mean to make this too racial--but I believe this is how the whole pay the players movement got started, and it's gained momentum as the social justice movement has gained momentum. Plus, we're just turning kids who should be focused on academics--because 90+ percent of them are not going to play pro football or basketball--into greedy mercenaries. Bribing kids to sign with your school? Trying to outbid other schools? Tampering--which is rampant. Transfers--rampant and sometimes/often motivated by money? Seriously, this is what we want college athletics to become? The more ridiculous major-college football becomes, the more obvious it becomes that the Ivy League has been right about college athletics all along. It's chosen not to dirty itself too much with all the seedy commercialism that we see now.
The notion that football players should be paid is nothing more than public perception. The sport has been on TV for 50 years--and now suddenly people are saying, "oh, you gotta pay the players." Really? Nothing has changed except the money has gotten bigger. I don't quite understand how a a couple of judges have suddenly concluded that college football should be treated as a business. College football IS a business--but it's not in any way a conventional business. Businesses are private enterprises; most universities are public entities and state institutions---big difference. Simply put, they're schools, first and foremost, even as they must operate in many ways like businesses. Much of the football money is used to subsidize 15 or 20 other sports that lose money--and won't EVER make money. What conventional business pours money into activities that will always lose money? Nobody. The only people getting rich off the current system are the coaches--who are grotesquely overpaid, and the massive buyouts are a complete joke--and network executives. Nobody else is. College football may resemble pro football now--but it's far different. Pro football is a private enterprise: the clubs are private. The players are employees. College football players are full-time students, first and foremost. The players don't make the game of football--the schools do. There is only college football because the schools have invested in everything needed to have a program--including scholarships for the players.
I read yesterday that the Univ. of Arizona's athletic department has serious financial problems and may have to cut sports. I'm guessing that the Univ. of Arizona is not going to be eager--at this time, anyway--to start paying players with money it doesn't have. Don't many/most major-college athletic departments lose money--even as they're making a lot of money from TV-rights deals? Or is that not true? The athletic departments spend huge sums of money. It's going to be very interesting to see how colleges react to this NCAA proposal to establish a division of schools willing to share revenues with players---which is going to cost a LOT of money and likely negatively impact other sports. You think there's been a problem with players not paying much attention to classses and academics in the past? Wait 'till you start giving them thousands of dollars while in college. Good luck managing that.
The problem with college football, as it is with pro sports, is greed. There's no real leadership. Nobody is willing to say, "enough. ""We don't need more games, we don't need a longer season, we don't need another playoff expansion." Because the networks start waving more money in front of them, and they capitulate--and the university presidents are just as bad as the athletic directors.
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