waltu said:
They already are paid with a first class education, meals, lodging, Tudors and stipend. As well as medical care. Sounds good to me.
This reminds me of the old Curt Flood MLB free agency fight.
No doubt it's a great deal in a vacuum, but not in proportion to how much money they are making for the school, and how much coaches and ADs are getting paid. Not totally dissimilar from how Osteen-type megachurches are big business masquerading as church to enjoy tax benefits, big-time college football/hoops are pro sports masquerading as amateur in order to not have to pay the athletes.
First Title IX: Good in theory, but has become totalitarian nonsense and is only in place to pacify women and keep up the facade. Talking head ADs spout out nonsense about building champions in life and so on, but what they
really care about is that the revenue sports do well and that the non-revenue sports (men's and women's) stay out of sight and out of mind. Some richer schools care more than others, but how do you think we were able to "cash whip" Pat Henry into leaving LSU for a mere $250k-ish? LSU didn't care about keeping the best coach in college track enough to pony up what to them is a pittance, in the grand scheme.
This data may have changed, but several years ago I read an article that said that there are 3x as many male high school athletes in the US as female (football plays a large role in these numbers). How then is it "fair" for scholarship numbers to be equal. Shouldn't it be proportionate to the number
seeking those opportunities? And shouldn't the amount of money that a school spends on athletes be proportionate to the revenue that each sport generates?
You can't force women to play sports and you can't force people to watch/buy tickets. There are plenty of women out there to support women's sports and they are mostly not buying tickets. I hate to write any (more) sexist comments and generalize about what women are spending their money on, so let's just say that they are certainly spending just spending on other types of entertainment, and men are not forcing women to subsidize male participation in those areas.
Football/Basketball will continue to fight in court. It looks like soon they will get a form of "free agency" and eventually get paid more, just like pro athletes did. Administrators will hold on for dear life so that they can keep getting paid hugely overinflated salaries and will figure out a way that revenue athletes can be semi or full pro, give enough to women's sports to pacify them and have enough left over for ADs et al.
Crazy guess: It will probably come from raising ticket prices/donation levels.