The problem is that people want to bomb college athletics so address the 2% of NCAA athletes that are actually any kind of profit drivers on their own.

First you have all the non-revenue sports; essentially everything other than football and basketball. Nothing else is profitable for the schools. So right there 9 of 10 NCAA athletes are coming out ahead by getting school paid for.

For the vast VAST majority of athletes in revenue sports, the scholarship model is completely equitable because they're fungible. Even a great OL isn't drawing attendance to the school. Evan Boehm was probably the highest profile, most successful OL recruit in Mizzou history and I'd venture that his time at Mizzou sold precisely zero tickets. The people that went to those games didn't go to them because he was there.

So what are you talking about? A handful of elite skill position players at middle tier schools. Alabama's selling out regardless of any single player. The 'traditional' football powers are going to get people to watch their games regardless of any single player that plays there. The only time an individual makes a difference is someone like Daniel at Mizzou; a guy that really made the program go from a relative also-ran to a legitimate draw.

And you say you don't want to force teams to pay their players but by allowing some schools to do so, you're essentially forcing ALL schools to do so unless you want to create an obvious have/have not situation.

Finally, Title IX makes this possibility an absolute disaster. Remember that schools have to funnel a great deal of the revenue generated by those big money sports to womens athletics that generate no money at all. The closer you get to break even for revenue sports, the more damage you do to every women's sport that is required to be funded and every non-revenue men's sport that may end up on the chopping block to find the $$$ to pay for those women's sports.

Paying players is just a really bad idea and by and large works to the benefit of very few individuals at the massive detriment of a great deal more of them. It's solving a problem that doesn't actually exist, IMO. Or at the very least is wildly overblown. As has already been said - if this relationship wasn't mutually beneficial, kids wouldn't still be playing. If nothing else, the exposure and coaching they get sets them up to make far more at the next level.

And you think eliminating the 1 and done rule will help that? It would serve to thin out an already diluted talent pool.

Besides, the reason teams play sloppy ass basketball in college right now is that it makes mathematical sense to do so. The 3 ball is just overpowered and when the NCAA 3 point line is shorter than the WNBA 3 point line, it makes all the sense in the world to stand out on the corner and shoot glorified free throws that are worth 3 points a piece instead of driving into traffic to attempt a contested 2. It's just too easy to hit 3 pointers at a 35%+ rate now kids are spending so much time perfecting it.

I think moving the 3 point line back a couple of feet, widening the court for increased room and instituting a 2 year minimum would make college basketball a far better sport. As it stands you're right - it's barely watchable.

Exactly; it's not any worse than the general population.

Again, people are using a select few examples to determine their impression of an entire system. For the overwhelming majority of D1 athletes, the present system works extremely well. 95% of these kids, even in the revenue sports, aren't going to make a dime playing that game past college and most of them know it.

And with coaches riding their asses (yes, most of them do) to go to class, they actually perform pretty well academically. Far better than they might have without athletics. They're often provided tutors and while there are some bad actors, again most of them are extremely helpful for the respective athletes.

For guys like Harold Brantley who just didn't give a shit, he'd have failed no matter what you tried to do. But for huge numbers of these kids that might not have gotten into school at all, athletics provide them a foot in the door and the structure they need to succeed where they would've otherwise failed.

I really hate the impression people have of college athletics based on nothing more than the bitching of the minuscule few that are actually good enough to succeed at the professional level. Those folks are a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things.

Because the moment you open that door, they'll get non-appearance jobs that pay them for nothing and are impossible to monitor/enforce. The NCAA could never even begin to police the wild wild west that would occur the moment they told kids to just go get jobs. Every booster with a small business in the country would suddenly find a 'job' for any 4 star or better recruit that just so happens to attend his/her alma mater.

You can't blame the NCAA for the fact that opening this door even a crack would lead to rampant cheating. As it is schools are giving jobs to parents, uncles and friends to encourage kids to attend. They let Cam Newton off the hook because his dad insisted that he took the benefits on not Cam. They have enough shit to sift through now that if they made it even a little easier, it would blow the doors off any impression of an even playing field in college athletics.

lol...paying players. Then they are not student athletes and having no business being at college. Go jion the minors or play in Europe. The student body doesn't actually care if you play jackasses.

Most of them are so it is accurate to generalize. Regardless of where this particular one comes from he runs his mouth like a fool.

Nobody is forcing them to enroll in college where they have a ready-made showcase to market themselves for multi-million dollar contracts.
Don't like it? Don't sign up.

The guys on Kansas bball team get about a 5k stipend in addition to room and board. The get to live in a 200M "dorm" just for basketball players.

Plus, Simmons left his country to come to the US to play bball. By far and large most D1 athletes are over compensated w/ their scholarship & room board based on any revenue or lack thereof they bring to the school.

I'm not saying eliminate the one and done rule, but you've got to find a way to reward the talent. Royalty payouts for jerseys and other promotions is a must. Otherwise the talent will start slowly fading.

I completely agree about the other changes and I would add a 24 second shot clock would be nice.

Fact check:

The dorm houses the basketball team (16 people) and 17 non-athletes. Also, it cost $12 million, not $200 million.

So what if they do that? Who the hell cares? That same booster can get a kid who plays clarinet on a band scholarship to do the same thing and that's perfectly fine but it's not ok when it's a football or basketball player?

If someone wants to pay Reggie Bush's mom's mortgage, who cares? If that's not ethically right for players, then it shouldn't be okay for any scholarship student in the school. If you're on a scholarship, you shouldn't be allowed to have a job all around. Either you let them all have the same rights or none of them have the same rights.
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None of what you said is true. I'm guessing Kansas is like Mizzou in that the athletes dorms allow non athletes as well. And it's not even close to 200M.

Also yes they receive stipends. So does any other student who travels for the school. The scholarship band kids receive stipends too. Yet they still have way more privileges than the football players. There's nothing wrong if Bill Gates pays one of them a million dollars for a personal concert, but there's something wrong with a football player getting cash from a dealership to basically be a advertisement for them? How is that fair?

If your sport makes billions of dollars, you should be compensated for it.
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Nobody is forcing Simmons to go to college for 1 year either.

Correct. I said as much.

And take a guess how I view non-revenue producing sports and Title IX. I don't want to see those things damaged. I'd like to see them destroyed.

He pretty much is forced to do so. When the only other realistic alternative is to leave the country, then he is basically being forced to go to college.
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