Explain why college athletes shouldn't/won't ever get paid.

Getting paid is only part of the gripes that the players have.

Transfer rules, oversigning, non-guaranteed scholarships are also part of the players' gripes. It's only taken until recently for the NCAA to finally wake up in fear and start passing some rules for the players' benefit.

 

He didn't know if his dad would get better, stay the same, or worse.

Not that it matters anyways. Why should the kid be restricted in where he wants to go?

 

See, I'd LOVE to see transfer rules and oversigning and non-guaranteed scholarships all changed.

 

Reform, reshmorm. The athletes are not employees; there's no getting around that. And athletes are only among the millions of young people who don't think they're getting their due fast enough. Besides which, I think the vast majority of athletes are enjoying competing, and enjoying the perks that come with competing, and some of them are maybe even enjoying the classwork, and not building up one iota of outrage they are for some reason they are supposed to be having about having a free ride and adulation.

And if you think players aren't compensated at way above a level of a normal student, your thought process is highly fucked

 

Then why did over 300 football and basketball players at BCS schools sign a petition seeking a share of the TV money? And it only took a few days for them to sign it.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7145251/college-athletes-seeking-cut-television-revenue-cover-school-costs/

Not to mention, all those "scandals" about money, hookers and tattoos. Those athletes didn't seem too upset that they were breaking the rules.

 

But none of those other young people are required by a cartel to turn down money people want to pay them for engaging in otherwise legal activities. NCAA players are.

Also, what is your definition of "employee"?

 

Baron: Just makes them human; doesn't mean their giving in to temptation or being ignorant of the rules is some political statement. And 300 is about three BCS conference teams' rosters combined. Hardly anything resembling Norma Rae holding up the "union" sign.

And the problems with the system, and there are problems, doesn't mean you scrap it, if the solutions would inevitably lead to a hooker or a booster-provided Cadillac per letter of intent signed, and a slush fund for the occasional pizza or spring break trip. You damn well know that's what taking down the ramparts would lead to at many, many places. Sure that stuff has happened. But it would become not an anomaly, but SOP.

And you refer to a player having the right to sell his image for extra bucks. What if the schools said, "fine, but you can't use any imagery or jersey number related to the school." Then you'd have about fingers and toes worth of athletes who would be marketable beyond their association with their school. And I've already mentioned the fun thought of players being pitchmen for offshore gambling. Hey, you can't stop 'em in your brave new world.

And alphabet: There are plenty of examples of people's supposed freedoms being curtailed. Being an athlete isn't a right, it's a privilege, and thus can be subjected to rules. Hell, we're all subject to rules.

 

Some of those rules make sense. Others don't. If creepy old men obsessed with college sports want to frivolously waste their money on paying players, why shouldn't athletes have the "privilege" of accepting a Cadillac or a free pizza or a spring break trip?

If you ask me, our society places way too much emphasis on sports. But as long as athletic directors, coaches, and, yes, the media are going to cash in on them, I don't see much socially beneficial about preventing the people doing the bulk of the work from doing so too.

 

So what if the NCAA is a cartel? There's always the NAIA.

 

Very well, then let the fingers and toes number of athletes wear generic jerseys when they make their commercials.

And it actually would be a lot more than fingers and toes, once you get sneaker companies involved. I'd suspect those sneaker companies would be pretty quick to pay a kid at a BCS school to wear their shoes. Heck, look at the shitstorm that Jordan's kid caused when he wanted to wear a different sponsor's sneaker.

 

So what if the airlines have a cartel? There's always driving.