Monday, September 20, 2010

USA Today Author Says College Athletes Should Be Paid

by Dave Meggyesy

The question of whether colleges should pay their revenue-producing athletes — football and basketball players at the NCAA's top 120 college programs — is a no-brainer.

OUR VIEW: When student-athletes cheat, corrupt adults escape blame

The amazing reality is that these athletes, the hired help whose performance generates hundreds of millions for these top programs, don't get paid. Who wouldn't want a business where the cost of your product is virtually zero? The performance of college athletes is the product!

Yet, as a marketing ploy, the NCAA defines college-revenue athletes as "student-athletes" and the games as contests among amateurs, creating a huge distortion. In these "big time" college programs, even the term "athlete-student" would be a stretch; athlete-employee is more accurate, young men and recently young women who work year-round at jobs and don't get paid.

 

Click to read.

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