(10-03-2019 07:16 AM)mpurdy22 Wrote:  Maybe schools can offer kids the option? Come to said school and choose one: take a scholarship and the free education or forgo that incentive and leave yourself open to earn money in the free market. Pick one. The NCAA should encourage the NFL and the NBA to get rid of any age requirements or years in school rule. If a kid thinks they are good enough to get paid for their athletic ability, then allow them. I am tired of kids that are in school simply as a launching point to a pro sports career and really don't want to be in school. They are taking away opportunities from other marginal athletes that could take advantage of a free education and that actually want to learn and prepare themselves for other careers instead of being in debt over $50,000.

It just boggles my mind how people justify these types of views about athletes that don’t apply to any other type of profession. Let’s put aside (once again) that most athletes don’t receive any type of scholarship yet are still subject to the compensation prohibition, so the “offer” that you propose provides zero value to them. Are we tired of students that are just going to school simply as a launching point to careers in finance or engineering and really don’t want to be in school? Do we say that about musicians that are music majors? Do we say that about writers that are English majors? Do we say that about actors that are drama majors? Do we foreclose compensation to any other the foregoing whole they are in college, whether they are on scholarships or not? The answers are no, no, no, no and no.

Yet, we se many people suddenly apply different standards to athletes. Why? Because of how it makes us “feel” as fans in how we watch games (where there’s some type of amorphous distinction between “amateurs” and “semi-pros”)? Because we’re worried that the big, bad power school down the road can take advantage of it more than our own school? Because of something much darker whether consciously or subconsciously (e.g. finance and engineering majors typically come from higher income backgrounds that would be going to college no matter what, yet some people are interestingly more bothered by athletes getting paid despite them coming disproportionately from lower income backgrounds that wouldn’t ever be able to afford college on their own)?

We can say that there will be unintended consequences, or people will abuse the system, or that how we feel as fans will change, or that there are going to be a lot of problems. All of that could be true... and none of that can justify telling a single person whose endorsement value is more than $0 that he/she can’t receive compensation for his/her name and likeness when every other non-athlete on campus is able to do so. Fandom has warped all logic for a practice that would be thrown out as illegal on its face in any other area of society.