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Patrick Hruby on the NCAA Pissing its Pants.

Late last week, the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the antitrust lawsuit filed against the [NCAA] by former University of California, Los Angeles basketball player Ed O’Bannon and a group of other former college athletes added six current college football players to their amended complaint; in response, NCAA vice president for legal affairs Donald Remy released a statement claiming that O’Bannon and company’s “scheme to pay a small number of student-athletes threatens college sports as we know it.”

“In particular,” Remy wrote, “we would lose the very real opportunity for at least 96 percent of NCAA male and female student-athletes who do not compete in Division I men’s basketball or FBS football to play a sport and get an education, as they do today.”

In other words? This is the end. Of everything. Make us share more of the pie with greedy revenue-sport athletes and their trial lawyers by eliminating amateurism, and say goodbye to women’s lacrosse. Don’t you want those hard-working young women to earn college degrees? Cue “O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana.

Margaret Soltan, July 25, 2013 8:09AM
Posted in: good writing

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3 Responses to “Patrick Hruby on the NCAA Pissing its Pants.”

  1. Mr Punch Says:

    Setting aside the slippery slope aspect (does compensating players for the use of their images in video games make them pros?) Remy’s argument seems to me to be cogent. Money from revenue sports does help support non-revenue sports [at a limited number of institutions], and there are questions about the applicability of Title IX to overtly professional activities. We may not care, of course; but some people do.

  2. charlie Says:

    Not mentioned are the myriad issues plaguing D1 sports specifically, and universities, in general. Primarily, college sports are a losing play, very few D1 athletic programs make money, they need subsidization from academics. Ignore what college AD’s tell yass, it’s all bullshit, without massive public debt for athletic build outs, (Texas A&M wants half a billion, yup, $500 million, to RENOVATE, not build, their football stadium, college athletics would be finished.

    And that segues to the most important concern, states will be going broke. Think that’s impossible? Research what’s been happening to the credit ratings of Illinois and Pennsylvania. They were lowered within the last few months, underscoring a deep financial/fiscal crisis. With the altered credit accessibility, the states and their public unis will pay billion more over the course of their loans, impacting the states ability to fund public universities.

    And it doesn’t stop with those two states. California is facing the real possibility that two of their biggest cities, Oakland and San Jose, will declare bk shortly, in order to get rid of their pension liabilities. Looming in the mist, Los Angeles, with its billions in unsecured pension liabilities, which may be the most vulnerable of American cities.

    What’s it all mean? D1 is made up of public universities. They are dependent on the state to underwrite their public debt. Growing numbers of states are facing insolvency. Tuition increases cannot continue, meaning the golden age of university excess is over. If the AD’s are forced to pay their players, they won’t have the resources to maintain the facade of independence, and they can no longer rely on the academic side picking up the deficit. Going forward, unis will be fighting to keep the doors open, many will close, and their athletic programs become defunct. It’s all been a scam anyway, hell, even Stevie Cohen has finally been shown to be nothing more than a crook, him and his 30%/year returns. It’s gonna get real ugly….

  3. dmf Says:

    god forbid that college students have to return to the dark days of club and intramural sports…

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