Broke
I agree with pretty much every criticism in this article. Where I differ in opinion is the solution.<p>First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay football players, other athletes will want to be paid. They'll ask, "What makes football special?" and they'll have a point. Then we'll run into some unhappy truths regarding sports. For example: If colleges base compensation on revenue, the wage gap between male and female athletes will be massive.<p>Then there's the problem of mixing sports and education. If these athletes are paid, do they still have to attend classes? Do they have to get good grades? Are they given scholarships in addition to monetary compensation? Can athletes switch colleges if another school will pay them more?<p>It seems to me that most of these problems would be solved by creating a minor league separate from college. If people are so attached to college names, then the colleges can sell naming rights.<p>But honestly, I'm hard-pressed to find a sport more repugnant than football. If football came into being today, people would riot in the streets. Who would pay money to watch mostly lower-class, mostly black[1] players permanently damage each other's brains and bodies? Who would cheer during such an event? Yes, it can be argued that athletes know the risks, but the same is true for dueling. In the past, people thought dueling was fine. Today, we recognize it to be a barbarous tradition. I believe that, as we do with dueling, future societies will condemn us for allowing this sport to continue.<p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_players_in_American_professional_football#Today" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_players_in_American_prof...</a>