The levee is finally breaking down in college sports. The current model, where the NCAA, schools, AD’s, coaches, and all the ancillary people around sports financially profit like never before while the “amateur” athletes receive free schooling (that many hardly value) in trade has clearly become antiquated. The model is breaking down as it inevitably would, as today’s college athletes have witnessed all the people involved in college sports become super rich while they put their bodies on the line each week parading around for the universities who hold their hands out for the riches they bring in to the schools. The result is a growing number of college athletes who have seemingly said the hell with it and taken things into their own hands through countless money-making and/or profitable ventures — all banned by the NCAA.
The original “trade” in college athletics actually used to be fairly even – college athletes got a free education, while the colleges made marginal profits by fielding college athletics. Over the years things got completely out of whack, evidenced by the windfalls of money colleges made, while only offering the same “trade” of an athletic scholarship to the very athletes who produce the boatloads of money.
While some may still argue that the athletes who receive full-rides to college are getting a great deal, the reality is the colleges have found a way to capitalize and monetize their part of the trade in tremendous ways. Student athletes have no voice or recourse to change things, and colleges know this. As a result, colleges continue to line their pockets while hanging onto this silly idea that the student athletes are getting a fair shake in return. They’re not.
If all these recent violations had not been found, it’s almost certain that schools would have continued to go about “business as usual.” After all, why change? Its an unbelievable fiscal model to offer a free education in exchange for making mountains of cash profit in return for putting out “amateur” athletes to entertain the masses.
Even with all the violations of late, it’s still unlikely much will change, unfortunately. Student athletes – especially those from tough backgrounds – will continue to jump at the opportunity to play at a big name college with the hopes of an eventual professional athletic opportunity to follow. Colleges have zero incentive to level the playing field as the money is so great it actually allows for them to pay college coaches millions of dollars and still swim in huge pools of money. From a functionality stand point, the model works – even if its not at all fair.
Our Olympic teams finally caved in years ago and began using professional athletes as the amateur sham no longer worked. The NCAA is currently being forced to revisit their original model as the levee is most definitely breaking, and it’s becoming impossible to sustain the head scratching model they have been able to successfully employ in recent years. As administrators and coaches have lived lavish lifestyles, the student athletes who have made them their riches have been made to believe they should feel lucky that they are able to do all the heavy lifting for them! It’s time for a major paradigm shift in college sports, one that lays all the pieces on the table and arrives at a truly fair and equitable system for all.
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