The College Sports Crisis

Athletes who don’t study, coaches who are overpaid, the system’s a mess

By William McGurn of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"the $19 billion industry known as college sports."

"if Mr. Kelly was let go without cause, LSU would have to cough up the $54 million left on his 10-year, $100 million contract."

"Mr. Kelly is suing LSU. He says that after he rejected two settlement offers (for $25 million and $30 million, respectively), LSU changed course. Coach Kelly claims LSU is trying to get out of paying what it owes him, saying the firing is for cause."

"the whole system is corrosive and rests on a highly profitable myth: that of the student-athlete."

"When players can transfer from university to university with education an afterthought, college sports effectively become a professional system."

"“The idea of the student-athlete is a myth and pretty much everyone knows it,” says Richard Vedder, a professor emeritus at Ohio University who studies the economics of college sports."

"College and universities are all invested in the idea that the guys on the field are students because they are afraid that the bottom would drop out of all the millions they are taking in if alumni and fans had to acknowledge the reality that the athletes really aren’t students but professional athletes paid for their services.”" 

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