NCAA College Basketball Scandal
The NCAA men’s college basketball brings in almost a billion dollars every year, whether from the TV deals or from the March Madness tournament, which helps fund almost $800 million dollars. So why is it fair that the players don’t see any of that money? They are the reason why people watch, isn’t it? Some may say that they will support their school no matter what, but it’s never fair for the NCAA to keep all of the money that the players earned. Let’s talk about what happened in these last few days.
Everyone sort of knew that these players see some of this money, but not enough for the players to be ok with it. Rick Pitino was fired in September of last year for a disclosed scandal. This was the first of the recent scandals with a new scandal being revealed that the Louisville recruiters would have paid escorts “show these players a good time.” This is wrong on so many levels, but the NCAA decided to strip Louisville of their National Championship in 2013 as a result of the scandal. ESPN recently reported players being paid $10,000 to $75,000 to play at their school, along with a full ride scholarship.
Some of the teams that were also punished were Kentucky, NC State, Seton Hall, and Washington. These teams were exposed for playing their players during the recruiting process. Some of the big name players are Markelle Fultz, Nerlens Noel, Dennis Smith Jr. and Bam Adebayo. These players were given “loans” that were supposed to be paid back once they made the NBA; which is highly illegal to give college athletes loans.
Now Arizona Superstar, DeAndre Ayton is under fire, allegedly accepting $100,000 for going to Arizona. The FBI reportedly tapped into the Arizona’s head coach, Sean Miller, who was recorded saying that he payed Ayton so much money to come to Arizona. This just proves the fact that so many of these players have accepted money in the past, just under the table where the NCAA can’t find it.
No matter one’s views on the NCAA, the facts are there. The NCAA doesn’t guarantee a full scholarship to the full roster of the basketball teams, but they make almost a billion dollars off of them. The full scholarship to these schools could be as much as $30,000 per year, but most of these athletes only stay for a year or two.
The NCAA has been under fire for not paying players for quite some time, but now they have a huge scandal to deflect the attention from that. Hopefully these scandals will have a positive result for the players and the fans. The NCAA will change as a result from these scandals.
