I won't argue that the athletic recruiting isn't a bit ridiculous, but in general the academic standards are probably more fair and transparent than the regular admissions process. Each team has its GPA published each semester for all to see, and in general the number of recruits a team is allowed to bring in is highly dependent on whether or not the previous recruits have been succeeding academically. Of course each individual athlete is also highly monitored, and if GPA dips below a certain level then it's even worse than if you were a normal student. Not to mention the random drug testing that no other students are subjected to, the prohibition against putting certain types of photos in your Facebook profile, the mandatory diversity/alcohol/sex training sessions, etc. Apparently it's no longer even allowed to smoke cigarettes or use any other tobacco products.
That being said, the NCAA bureaucracy is still lame.
As ridiculous as this is at a fundamental level, you know damn well that the athletic recruiters take long, careful looks at all the potential players, unlike the academic recruiters.
basically zero correlation between college GPA and value created for the company
I'm a GPA skeptic myself, having blown off every class (including the important ones), but this is easily explained: If a company puts weight upon GPA, then any low-GPA students they happen to hire likely had some manifest achievements that got them in. Such achievements are more important than GPA one way or the other.