Imagine winning the lottery. OK snap out of it, now imagine not getting the money because you had a job before you bought the ticket.
Wouldn’t you feel cheated? Welcome to the wonderful world of college athletics. Year after year college athletic departments make millions of dollars for their universities but do the athletes who do most of the work see one red cent of that money? No.
I know they receive scholarships but so do students who make zero, zilch and nada for the university. I realize that scholarships for some schools can total more than $100,000 but that is nothing in comparison to the money brought in by these student athletes.
How much money you ask? In college football alone, a BCS bowl game winning college directly receives $3.5 million on top of another $14.9 million that is split among the rest of the winning team’s conference.
So basically the money given in scholarships is no more than an investment paid back tenfold by the athletes that receive them.
When you turn on the game and see thousands of people wearing their favorite player’s jersey do you think that player sees any of the money.
The colleges use the logic that these numbers are not meant to represent any one player in particular. They say this, yet they only market particular numbers. Hmmm? How dumb do they think we are.
Anyone who bought a USC jersey with the number five on the back bought it because Reggie Bush wore that number. Even if Bush’s name isn’t across the back, the number five still represents him.
The same crime occurs with colleges and the multimillion dollar video-game industry. The numbers and player info are supposed to be completely random on these games but ironically all the player information is precise down to hometown, height and weight.
Why not just pay the athletes? Some colleges have been accused of doing just that? If we paid players a stipend then we wouldn’t have to hear Reggie Bush claim he made $100,000 doing work-study at USC.
Former Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar wouldn’t have to have been paid $18,000 for supposedly doing four hours of work at a local Norman, Okla., auto dealership.
It would actually help college athletics to pay their players. The only reason they leave early is for the allure of the money they make in the pros.
Imagine college basketball if you could keep some of these kids in school for more than one year. The quality of play would increase exponentially.
While I’m not endorsing giving these players millions of dollars, a couple of thousand over the course of four years will not break up the cash cow that is college athletics.
It’s understood that the stipend would have to be universally enforced throughout the country to keep large universities from stockpiling athletes. Also, the payment could be gradually increased the longer the athlete stays in school as an incentive for the student-athletes.
This graduated payment option would be a positive for all parties involved. The athletes would be enticed to stay and receive their degrees and the colleges would still reap the benefits of their walking ATM machines.
Just thinking about college athletics – What the @$#!.

Author