I genuinely didn’t know about this until this morning, but my limited understanding is that it will allow college athletes to profit off branding and endorsements, for their name and face, effectively, like professional athletes. This came in from July this year.
Personally, I think this is a terrible decision that will ruin the whole... Function, and spirit, of college sports, and will further the narcissism and “social media obsession” of millennials and zoomers. Everything I’ve seen about it is just... I fucking hate it.
However, I appreciate that a) colleges were making bank out of exactly this, without the money going to the “athletes” directly (can we remember they were meant to be students first, and that was THE WHOLE POINT of sports scholarships, in the first place??!), and b) America... Does this shit differently. Your “peak capitalist” (lol) system, and your... Culture, treats student athletes completely differently to anywhere else in the world. I get that.
Nonetheless, I just think this is a fucking stupid decision. I really do.
Thoughts? Every article and news piece I can find is totally one-sided, supporting this. But... That’s the media for ya. Question everything.
As opposed to all the other times when money poured into college athletics over the last fifty years.
NCAA football and NCAA basketball became what they are because the NFL and NBA stubbornly refused to create proper minor leagues to mirror MLB. College baseball has remained a low key operation at all schools because players with serious professional prospects go straight into the Low-A or Rookie leagues.
Top tier college sports in the US where players would actually be able to profit off this are more akin to minor professional leagues than a typical collegiate sport comprised of full-time students who play a sport as a part-time hobby. A few years back there was a college football player who made headlines for saying he didn't attend college to "play school", and all the usual people directed their outrage at him for saying what everyone knew was true but aren't allowed to say in polite company: these people have no interest in attending university for any reason other than to play sports and get drafted and do the absolute bare minimum coursework to stay eligible to play.
The NFL makes players all take basic IQ tests as part of the draft process, and every year some of these players get scores that mark them as borderline if not outright retarded; yet somehow they all manage to graduate.
On the one hand we'd be better off having minor leagues for these players to play in so they weren't diluting the purpose of these universities. On the other hand as someone who wants to see the university system crash and burn and be seen for the joke it is, perhaps this takes us one step closer to that.
The key problem seems to be the colleges and universities. Abolish those, and the athletes will have a much easier time.
I see good and bad in it. The good: athletes will be able to make some money for the work they put in. They bring in far more for the school than their scholarship pays out to them.
The bad: 18-2X year olds probably have no clue how to properly invest their money and will buy stupid stuff wasting their money or spending it on drugs and alcohol throwing away their careers by breaking team and sponsorship rules.
The typical College athletes egos can’t get any bigger so I don’t see this effecting that all that much.
Not to be all "mUh eXpLoItAiTiOn oF WoRkErS" but colleges make so much money off of their players it's absurd they basically can't get paid with anything other than a free scholarship when they'll probably never even use their degree. So I think this is a good thing.
As for what college is supposed to be, I agree with you there but it's already been ruined anyway. College sports are just a way for universities to make money. Every major college just has a side business of running a 4 year training camp for football and basketball players. The only solution I see to that would be to make it so tickets to the games are free and they can't sell merch for profit. Which would be fine with me but it'll never happen.
I mean they are paid regardless. My older brother was a division one track star and he was getting paid under the table and benefits. I say let them profit off their celebrity. The vast majority won’t be professional so maybe some will be smart and save
I think it's a solid compromise. I always thought the notion of the schools and NCAA paying athletes was absurd because all of the revenue comes from football and basketball. I'm also kind of hoping it ends up exploding after the novelty wears off and companies don't sponsor random female basketball players anymore. Then we'll start getting articles about how unfair it is because there are like 100 people tops that actually make sense to pay.