re: LeBron James to co-produce HBO documentary on exploitative world of college sports

A few thoughts:

1. The use of terms like "exploitation" and "denial of human rights" is really tone deaf and a huge turn-off to almost anyone who wasn't a big time pro or college athlete. The majority of people see scholarship athletes receiving food, housing, tuition, books, clothing, etc., and compare it to their situations of paying off student loans for decades.

2. The possible solution of allowing student athletes to profit off their own likenesses opens the door to the destruction of any kind of competitive balance. I promise you, the day after that decision is made, each and every player on the Alabama football team will be paid a ridiculous sum for appearing in a 30 second Bryant Bank ad, the Oklahoma State players will receive a year's salary for endorsing BP Capital management, and so on. Schools really will be outright buying players, and we need to think about whether we want that.

3. The other possible solution of just paying every basketball or football player a stipend raises serious Title IX issues. As I read it, it would be illegal to pay you Heisman winning QB a larger stipend than your backup girls soccer goalie. Can the Central Michigan's and Northwestern State's of the world afford to do that?

4. This problem stems from the fact that the most popular college sports teams as they are have nothing to do with the actual mission of the universities they represent. The mission of colleges and universities is supposed to be teaching and research, not providing entertainment for fans or a de facto minor league of professional sports. There's natural tension between athletic departments who are interested in winning and certain student-athletes who are only in college as a prelude to being a pro athlete on the one hand, and the academic side of the universities on the other.

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2. The possible solution of allowing student athletes to profit off their own likenesses opens the door to the destruction of any kind of competitive balance. I promise you, the day after that decision is made, each and every player on the Alabama football team will be paid a ridiculous sum for appearing in a 30 second Bryant Bank ad, the Oklahoma State players will receive a year's salary for endorsing BP Capital management, and so on. Schools really will be outright buying players, and we need to think about whether we want that.

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So instead of them receiving money from bagmen. They'll receive it out in the open. This isn't a bad thing in my book.

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Cool, so let's start paying coaches and ADs with free meals and boarding then.

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I love the absurdity of your argument.

You have a bunch of kids...most who couldnt hope to intellectually get into college being offered a FREE education.

and you're angry their parents arent being paid.

seriously. Remember, the education means more than the athletics, because as a former NCAA athlete...most of us are going in pro in something other than sports.

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Well, assuming you spent at least four years at you college, you've earned around 90 credit hours and should have no school debts. If you haven't earned your degree by now, you're in a great position to do so. If you have to take a loan or work a scrappy job for a year to pay for any remaining time in college, then welcome to how the other 98% of students lived.

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So everyone else gets huge cuts of the millions upon millions while you get an education.

Makes perfect sense!!!

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Disband all college sports

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No one wants to hear it and it's basically impossible now that college sports are so ingrained in our culture, but this probably is the actual answer. Let the pro leagues run their own farm systems and keep institutions of education away from anything above intramurals.

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meanwhile SHel is melting down because their parents arent getting the equivalent of university funded Food Stamps.

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Let me know when you get better at that whole reading comprehension thing.

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Again, the right to the profits of your labor is a human right.... no?

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Serious question. If the company I work for makes a profit, am I entitled to a portion of that? And if I don’t get it, am I being denied a basic human right also?

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and you're angry their parents arent being paid.
Bengal don't read good.

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it's ok.

you made the argument. Own it. it sounds just as stupid as you think it does.

Given that the Ohio High School Association ruled Lebron James ineligible for five games plus the playoffs in his senior year, maybe Lebron should put the HS in his crosshairs as well. After all, I’m sure we all can agree that St Vincent- St Mary’s profited off Lebron’s talents that year.