(02-04-2020 05:13 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-04-2020 04:47 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(02-04-2020 04:40 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-04-2020 03:33 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-04-2020 02:15 PM)esayem Wrote:  Higher profile athletes, more money made by the university. Don’t play coy, you know why the rule is the way it is.

Not coy, just wanted you to admit there is no good reason for the rule difference, it exists because the schools think it benefits them.

The rules exist because coaches and administrators think that their interests, and those of the fans who watch college football and basketball, are far more important than the best interests of the athletes. Fans defend NCAA shamateurism for the same reason. It's not any more complicated than that.

Its really quite much more complicated. The presidents don't want to be run by the NFL, NBA or agents. A lot of fans want the athletes to actually be students of the institution. And a lot don't want all the other sports destroyed in order to feed an ever more expensive basketball and football.

And the reality is that any of those athletes who didn't think colleges provided them a better deal would go pro in every sport but football. All of them have options. The ones wanting to be professionals think going to college benefits them towards turning pro even if "all they get" is a scholarship, room and board and extensive coaching and training by some of the best in the business.

I've got sympathy for athletes for rules that are one-sided. But as for getting paid, they've got options. Again, except for football, but few have any value to the NFL at 18 or 19.

Those are the interests of presidents, administrators, coaches, and fans. The only way to justify the rules of the current system is to prioritize those interests far above the athletes' interests. If a non-athlete who is a very talented software developer or musician transfers from Western Michigan to Michigan, no rule prevents the student from coding or playing cello for a year at their new school, and AFAIK no one has ever even proposed such a rule. The only reason there are different rules for athletes in money-generating spectator sports is because of fans who want to watch those sports, and schools who want to make money off of them, and don't want the rules to change.