The incredible power imbalance between banning these athletes from making money, and then turning around and doing it yourself while being judge, jury, and executioner, makes a mockery of the talent.
These are barely "amateurs" in any real sense, the system exploits that fact and the seal of approval "amateur" status brings to rake in money.
No. It's a bad system for some athletes.
Its a good system for athletes that are not stars and don't play big money sports. Free education, free trips, play something you really like to do.
For other they are forgoing money they could earn.
If the system changes, I am sure it will be good for some athletes, not so much of others.
Honestly, for the author, she was playing tennis and got an education out of it on the backs of those playing revenue sports. I don't fault her for this--she didn't make the system--but it doesn't look like she went pro, and it she wasn't kicked out while she was in school, so the only damage she's suffering is the NCAA saying she wasn't on the team. Unless she's coaching, and being a college athlete is almost a qualification, she seems to have done OK.
That said, I still think she's right for calling out the NCAA.
She graduated; they're not taking her degree away. And honestly nobody cares about the college record of a professional tennis player -- the fact that it was vacated on a technicality like this is not going to hurt her professional career at this point. Likely she could coach as well, there are coaches in the NCAA who have done far worse (intentionally, not accidentally) and still get jobs.
I stand corrected. When I googled her to check that statement, I didn't see anything promising on the first page. I should have looked harder.
https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-resea...
Also to your point about enforcement, you'll see that the money-making programs (i.e. Football and Basketball) at the big D1 schools get away with a lot more operating in the gray area than small schools and non-revenue sports. The NCAA isn't going to shit in their gravy train. They save the virtue-signal enforcement for schools and sports that don't make any money anyway.
Sounds like an anti-monopoly case in the making.
The NCAA need to seem important, which means they need people to break the rules regularly and be punished for it. That’s just one of many ways their fucking over students for the NCAA’s benefit.
The appropriate response is for students to boycott the NCAA, but socially and financially that is a huge hit. Normally the way around this is a union, but good luck getting one started.
However like most monopolies it’s not just network effects, they heavily protect themselves. Anything that makes you a professional athlete permanently kicks you out of NCAA scholarships etc. So, students are going to have a huge issue getting something off the ground, but they have a lot more leverage if students suddenly boycotted the Rose Bowl etc.