The argument against paying NCAA football and basketball players that the NCAA and schools can't make

There seems to be a movement among some college sports fans who can’t embrace the idea of paying players that the least the NCAA can do is allow those players to take endorsement money. I’m not sure precisely how I feel about applying that idea in the current environment, but for now I’d like to point out there is A reasonable logic to “maintaining amateurism” and preventing endorsements based on athletic ability — the NCAA and school administrations are simply in no position to defend that logic, because they’re ************** and ******** of hypocrisy.

The argument would go something like this: <rhetorical>Schools exist to educate. Intercollegiate athletics are non-essential to schools’ mission to educate. “Amateurism” is to protect against academic malfeasance.

If a student attended, say, Boston College solely because he was there to play football, and he was paid money to play football, whether that’s by the school or an outside entity, that cheapens the value of a Boston College education by making football the reason that student is there. That’s the sort of environment in which academic cheating happens, because the education becomes something to be endured or worked around in order to play sports.

The current scholarship-for-play model is based on the idea that the scholarship is the most valuable part of the transaction, and Bobby Middle Linebacker has chosen to attend BC because of BC, not because BC is a way station to something else.</rhetorical>

We know that’s not how big-time NCAA sports actually work, but I can see the principles behind it.