What is worse is that the notion that "college athletes are exploited" is preface to many arguments that the solution is turn these few athletes (who are exploited, I agree) into commodities and really exploit them.
It is really a distributional issue. Any solution to the exploitation of a small minority of athletes must first redress the severe inequality forced onto all of college sports by a small oligarchy of "major conferences". They're the ones that negotiate the big revenue deals and keep the money in the family. And I am not holding my breath for socialistic ideas from these mercantilists.
College athletics ain't perfect but it is redistributive towards the 99% of student athletes who are true amateurs. And I am generally sympathetic toward institutions and endeavors that aren't about the money.
Other people are making money in this equation too, but any complaints should not be levied against the strong majority of colleges who don't make any money in any sense over athletics.
Jim
At 01:39 PM 1/19/01, Charles Brown wrote:
>CB: One of the most open and gaulling forms of exploitation of youth in
>the U.S. is the ripoff of college athletes based on the amateur theory
>snafu which goes something like " oh, we can not let you young people be
>sullied by filthy lucre, so we wise college dons will just have to take
>all the $$$$$$ ".
Politics is precision pollyanna-isms.
-Warren Leming, curmudgeon and publisher of the (defunct?) dummy.down