re: #299 Chrysicat

The NCAA signed a long term multibillion dollar deal with television networks to televise the games in which the players perform. The players derive no direct benefits, and they themselves can’t benefit monetarily on their own from their own success (the Johnny Manziel incident highlights this most recently). Players are unable to cash in on their own performances in the present time - only after they jump to the professional sports leagues. They can’t get their own endorsements, etc.

Yet, the NCAA claims that the tv deal benefits the schools - except that it goes into paying high salaries to coaches and staffs, and very little of it ever reaches the student-athlete.

Moreover, many colleges end up spending more than they ever take in from the sports, draining limited funds from academics (the core reason these institutions exist in the first place).

But since sports is so deeply ingrained in college life, trying to separate the two wont happen anytime soon.

The NCAA should be splitting that money with the players directly across all the sports covered under those contracts. Revenue sharing - it works in the NFL, and there’s no reason it can’t work with the NCAA colleges/universities. It may not be a huge sum on an annual basis, when it gets down to the student athlete level, but it’s better than the current arrangement, and it should further open the door to allowing those athletes to gain endorsement deals and other efforts to capitalize on their performances.