"Student" athelets

I'm watching the tail end of the highly entertaining Syracuse-Kansas game (unranked and 23rd respectively...what happened to those programs? Haven't they both competed for/won national championships recently?) and it's tough to concentrate on the game because HALF OF THE DAMN COURT IS COVERED IN ADS!

When the hell did this happen?

How is this allowed to go on?

On each half of the court there is an ad for the NABC, Sprint, and O'Reilly (which apparently is an auto parts store, who knew). On the baseline under the basket and along the sideline between the two benches there is a rotating ad spot for Midwest (still an airline? WHO KNEW!), 'The College Basketball Experience' (which I'd assume consists of failing out of classes, sneaking beer into the dorms, and having sex with coeds), ESPNU, Toyota, O'Reilly, Sprint, and Lamar (I don't know what that is, but hopefully it has something to do with Reading Rainbow). At halfcourt there is a huge graphic for Lamar and a smaller one for Sonic (the shitty fast food place, not the Hedgehog).

Listen, I'm all for free market economy but something just seems wrong with profiting off of all of this ad revenue (plus selling tickets, plus selling concessions, plus selling jerseys, plus TV revenue, portions or all of which I'd have to assume goes to the college), and having the kids get nothing for it.

Why can't these kids get paid? What's wrong with some sort of stipend? They are all adults, and can thus enter freely into business relationships. Why is there this lock down on giving them a cut of the profit that they are basically wholly responsible for generating? It's not going to affect recruiting because kids are still going to go to the bigger schools. It's not going to affect how hard the kids play because whatever a college could pay them is still a pittance compared to how much the NBA could pay them. Hell, even to be fair you could set a cap per player and have that cap tied into how much revenue the program generates, so nobody can play a spoiler and just buy up a ton of talent.

It seems like everyone is caught up in this horribly antiquated notion that college is some kind of sacred hollowed ground filled with adolescents that can only be spoken in hushed tones.

Fuck that.

Has nobody BEEN to college?

It's a damn business. Granted, it's the business of teaching people, but it's still a business. The people who are purchasing the product (knowledge) shouldn't be encumbered by the business to have their entire life run by them. It's a silly notion that holds no weight in today's moral climate.