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.