[FONT=Arial]John Calipari doesn’t care for the NCAA, not one bit. In a story, that went widely under-reported, by Dan Rieffer (sports anchor for WTVQ in Lexington) Calipari has a plan that would eliminate the NCAA altogether and give financial compensation to all student athletes. He outlined it today in a very well-constructed manner and it seems quite genius and simple.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]Coach Cal has always been a strong advocate for making sure players get financial compensation for their work on the basketball court which leads to financial gain to surrounding institutions. Who can blame him for wanting these kids to get $3,000 per semester. That comes to about $25/day, or a 25 hour work week bagging groceries at Kroger. Cal brings up the point that these kids can’t work, because to hold an athletic scholarship you have to practice and play games on a constant basis, thus there’s no extra time for a “job”.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Where does this $3000 come from then? Excellent question. Did I just compliment myself there? Anyways…That money would come from a shared revenue pool that is comprised of 4 super mega conferences. You know, kind of like the big east thinks it is? Of course I’m speaking of the basketball conference and not of the football variety. I try to discuss conferences that don’t have D-2 programs in it, that’s you, Villanova Football. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]These 4, 16-18 team conferences, would be the only teams that could compete for a national title. So these 72 teams would earn this “shared revenue” in the NCAA tourney and Bowl games. This revenue would then go into a bucket that is dispersed back into the student expense fund. So this money the athlete receives will be actually earned by the athletes themselves. That way Duke can fit into this model, since they are the only basketball team in history to lose 2 million dollars in the same calendar year in which they won a national title. It should be noted that Duke sucks….not at basketball, but at life.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]It’s not fair to assume that all players will be professional athletes one day and they don’t need this money. Only a small percentage of NCAA student athletes make it professionally, so this way everyone has the opportunity to go eat at Mcdonald’s and drive to the Theater to catch the latest Harry Potter film, which I hear is good by the way.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]For those concerned about the “Amateur” status of these athletes, the actual definition of amateur has nothing to do with anything financial. Webster states that is [/FONT][I][FONT=Arial]one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or [URL=”http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amateur”][COLOR=darkgreen][FONT=Verdana]sport[/FONT][/COLOR][/URL] as a pastime rather than as a profession OR one lacking in experience and competence in an art or science. [/FONT][/I][FONT=Arial]By definition they are still Amateurs. So you can breathe now, Mark Emmert, but not through your mouth…breath mint much?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]These 4 super conferences with all the major colleges would financially cover themselves and the need for the NCAA governing bodies would go away. The only thing stopping this would be the smaller schools never allowing it since they can no longer compete by not being included in said mega-conferences. But that is a minor detail; it would work itself out in the end. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Players get paid, NCAA goes away, and the Compliance committee can go back to what they do best: Being very dumb people with hidden agendas. I think I love this plan.[/FONT]
