The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament is one of the most madly entertaining spectacles in sports. Every weekend for three weeks, the best 65 teams in the country play a one-loss-and-out tournament before thousands of fans in person and millions more on network television. Upsets and frantic finishes abound, and the winning team secures glory and much money in donations, marketing, and publicity for the institution it represents.
This year's tournament has certainly not been an exception to this description.
The tournament's first four days last weekend saw a slew of contests that went down to the wire. Average attendance at these games was near 20,000, and the television ratings were high.This is good news for the NCAA and its member institutions, all of which, even those which don't make the tournament, find a great financial benefit from these highly entertaining and much watched games. Lots of this money comes from CBS, which paid 6 billion - that's billion, as in basketball - dollars to televise the tournament over the next several years.
But what do the players get? Yes, I know they get to play for personal and institutional glory. I know they get to showcase their talents to NBA scouts. And I know that most of them get to attend fine institutions of higher learning for free. This is America, though. I want to know what they get.
The answer is nothing. Shane Battier, Duke's All-American forward and Religion major with the 3.41 GPA, isn't allowed to hold a job during the school year. It's not because he doesn't have time, even though going to school and playing hoops at such a high level doesn't allow for much time anyway - he isn't allowed to hold a job because the NCAA dictates no player on a full athletic scholarship may hold even a part-time job.
Shane Battier and the rest of the men playing major-college basketball are making loads of money for their institutions. I agree that they should go to class, and a player like Battier, who takes his hoops and his classes seriously, is a wonderful sight to see. But why can't Shane Battier get paid?
He is performing a highly-skilled service that takes up a great amount of his time. He is earning money for his school while attending class. This is not an even trade, because the cost of Battier's education is more than made up for by the Dookies paying the phony play-money standard that is full tuition at private universities.
So why can't Shane Battier get just the $5.15 an hour that's standard on-campus job pay most places?
Two reasons: delusion and greed. The NCAA deludes itself into promulgating what they call amateurism. But when even tiny Division III schools like Swarthmore, Wesleyan, and, yes, Washington disproportionately admit and give aid to athletes, amateurism in college athletics may as well be dead.
The greed comes from the big schools, the Dukes, Tennessees, and Minnesotas, the ones who are happy with their free labor and the money it brings them.I am not saying that every crew, softball, and swim team member at every school should get paid - that's another column, or maybe a book. But Shane Battier should get paid at least some fraction of what he is worth. So here's my Final Four fantasy: Duke and Michigan State are about to meet for the title next Monday. Ten minutes before game time, Battier announces the teams won't play in protest of the ongoing ripoff of major-college athletes. In the frenzy that follows, he secures the right for players to sit down across from the executives. The players unionize, more or less, and demand to eventually secure some pay and some rights.
And if the NCAA and CBS don't bite? The Blue Devils and Spartans find a gym somewhere and play for the title, shirts and skins. The game is the same no matter who's watching.
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