Kansas Crimson

Geezer wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2020 6:32 pm Ever been in a Nebraska grad's office?

The issue, as always, is money. The NCAA does not allow athletes to receive money for playing college sports. The organization is so firm in this stance that it punished Wiseman even though he didn’t directly get paid for playing college basketball—he was punished because his family received a loan while he was in high school. Around the time of its founding in 1906, the NCAA jotted down reasons why student-athletes shouldn’t be paid, and ultimately realized how profitable it was to cling to those ideals. CBS and Turner Sports pay the NCAA $857 million annually to broadcast March Madness. Because it does not believe the athletes deserve any of that money (and, somehow, established that not paying its labor is legal), the NCAA and its member institutions keep the vast majority of that. Ad revenue is so lucrative that TV networks apparently thought this contract was a bargain—in 2016, CBS and Turner locked in an extension that will pay the NCAA $8.8 billion so they can broadcast the tournament through 2032.

But what happens if more prized players become convinced that the path Wiseman, Ball, and Hampton are paving is replicable? For years, these types of talents were encouraged to play in college because it gave them the best chance of becoming top NBA draft picks, and years of seeing Duke and Kentucky products own the top of the draft reinforced that. But what if playing well against professional competition—like Ball did in Australia—is actually more impressive to NBA scouts than dunking on schools like Wake Forest and Vanderbilt? What if Wiseman is able preserve his lofty draft stock while avoiding risking injury playing for free?

To the NCAA, the tourney is a perpetual money-making machine. There is an infinite stream of unpaid talent coming in, and it produces an infinite amount of entertaining basketball. The NCAA likely believes an exodus of NBA-caliber talent wouldn’t matter. Even if an entire NBA draft’s worth of talent skipped college at once, that would amount to just 60 players in a division that counts 353 teams. As the NCAA likes to make clear, most of its players go pro in something other than sports—and the NCAA believes this is a boon.

The association says fans watch college sports because of the teams involved, not the players—and has made this case in court as part of its legal argument that there is no monetary value associated with the names, images, and likenesses of student-athletes. With the NCAA tournament, this almost seems to hold water—after all, the biggest buzz comes when a squad of relative nobodies knocks off the big boys. If we’re excited by the Loyola Chicagos and UMBCs of the world, why do we need to see future NBA players to love the tournament?

But this line of thinking is flawed. There’s a reason why we watch the Division I men’s basketball tournament and not the Division III men’s basketball tournament: We want to see the best of the best, and we know the quality of play is higher at schools where the players get athletic scholarships than at liberal arts colleges. (It’s a shame—the world needs to know about Yeshiva University’s historic Sweet 16 run!) Sure, some fans will attend every game at State U regardless of whether the team is any good, but casual fans are drawn in by talent. Local fans are more likely to support winning teams; national fans are more likely to tune into games featuring future widely renowned prospects.

[...]

This season, three top prospects skipped college basketball because of money. What if it were five? What if it were 10? How many great players need to disappear from the tournament for the NCAA to realize it must divert some of its cash flow to keep its stream of talent from drying up?

TraditionKU wrote: ↑Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:08 pm is KU not considered a Liberal Arts college?

my B.S. was awarded from KU's CLAS...College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

vmlb wrote: ↑Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:47 pm How many fans are not going to watch and/or fill out a bracket this year because the top three prospects aren't playing?

CrimsonNBlue wrote: ↑Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:59 pm Get used to it.

Grandma wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:49 am Lawrence now claims it was Clemson’s compliance department shut down the page. Not the NCAA.
https://www.yardbarker.com/college_foot ... loc=left_r


https://www.yardbarker.com/college_foot ... loc=left_r

Grandma wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:03 am "So?" What?

Cascadia wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:07 am Classic gutter, dumb as shit

jfish26 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:11 am

Grandma wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:03 am "So?" What?

1) So let's dance!

2) What does it matter, in terms of the point of the post, that Lawrence pulled the page because of direct NCAA intervention, versus the intervention of a university office that exists solely because of stupid NCAA rules?