Real Sports story implicates Auburn, other schools

I am Jack's total lack of surprise. SEC program, dirty. No great shock. While Alabama isn't perfect, Auburn's record for breaking/bending/smashing the rules to compete with big brother Bama is longer than The Simpsons' run on primetime. They've been dirty since....the beginning. I'm sure John Heisman was turning a blind eye to $100 handshakes.

College athletics is a cesspool. The NCAA won't intervene, as it did against SMU, because it buried the 'Stangs for decades. With all of the cash flowing in from the work of these "amateur" athletes playing in what is a feeder league for the NFL and NBA to the NCAA, they'll be loath to derail the gravy train by slamming a school that brings in the big bucks with severe sanctions. It just isn't going to happen. The NCAA is one of the greediest, unprincipled, hypocritical and inconsistent governing bodies in any sport.

This kind of stuff turns me off on sports. At least the pros are honest. They get paid to perform. The shame of the NCAA is that the management gets paid and doesn't share a dime with the folks who make people come and watch.

 

Bull... in the time of large TV contracts, huge payouts and all, the NCAA does not have the collective nads to do it.
Case in point: Ohio State and the Sugar Bowl.They could have done something, but so it didn't affect the Sugar Bowl's ratings or gate, they chose to allow the penalty to be delayed a year.
They might do a postseason ban for a year and some scholarships, but if you think they'll levy the death penalty -- or even no TV for a year, you're higher than Erik Ainge...

 

Real Sports is doing the reporting that SI used to.

The dirtiest football team in the country is the national champion, largely because of a player it bought for six figures.

The NCAA has essentially done nothing about it.

Is there any reason to think Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and LSU won't do the exact same thing?

 

Is there any reason to think they aren't already?

 

Very true.

 

Exactly.

How preposterous that coaches, athletic directors, and Jim Nantz might have to share some of the millions they make with the teenagers they exploit. Glad to know the media and the public are focused on the real issues in college sports like getting a playoff system.

 

The NCAA has been having it both ways for a while. Athletic departments are struggling so much that they have to tap student fees to augment the budget. Of course a good season might mean a bowl game, and those same fans and students will get the chance to purchase a $300 bowl ticket and subsidize bowl officials trips to strip clubs, golf outings and cruises. And even if they don't pony up, the school will have to fork over the money anyway, requiring them again to tap into student funds.
Playoff. Higher seeded team hosts. National championship at a neutral site. Make the bowls into an NIT, CBI kind of deal.

 

Here is my question - there are billions at stake in TV deals and Bowl money and NCAA Tourney money, coaches are paid millions and expectations are to win big - schools make millions off marketing and merchandise - - - with that much at stake why do we always act surprised by stuff like this? If the NCAA wanted to stop it could scale back a helluva lot and make it amateur sports again. Until then, they are hypocrites who should stop making rules they have no real desire to enforce.

 

God forbid we consider a free college education worth anything.

 

God forbid people could play by the rules.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/2011-03-29-scholarship-worth-final-four_N.htm

 

Certainly it's worth something, but is it worth fair amount? Tuition plus living expenses is a completely arbitrary line to draw.