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.