Well. That didn't take long.
Remember yesterday, when the Blob was noting there must be considerable sweating going on in college buckets, now that three prize recruits (i.e.: revenue generators) from the class of 2020 had opted for the NBA's G-League pathway program?
Suddenly all those prospective one-and-dones had an alternative to spending a limbo year helping What's This School Again add to its pile. Instead, now they can get themselves started on making their own pile -- and, being the good American capitalists they are, that sounded like a much better deal.
You will thus not be at all shocked the NCAA's top governing body came out Wednesday in support of a proposal that cuts college athletes in on the endorsement pie. That is, if a school's apparel partner wants to use the student-athletes' images to sell shoes and tees, the student-athletes should be able to sign their own deals with those companies to do so. And, OK, they should also be able to get paid for other work, as long as it's not their schools that are paying them.
Amazing how a little leverage can bring people around.
The G-League pathway program provides just that leverage, and, lord, how the unbelievers were converted. The colleges, after all, long have maintained the fruits of their lucrative enterprise were for them alone. The kids were getting a free education, weren't they? So they should quit bellyachin' and keep being complacent billboards for their schools' bidness deals.
Meanwhile, the jing kept rolling in and coaches kept making more and more money, blithely reneging on their juicy contracts the moment Bigger U. dangled a juicier one. They could leave, but the kids couldn't unless Coach signed off on it.
And then ...
And then, that old debbil Choice showed up for some of those kids. And the colleges miraculously began sighing and saying, "Yeah, OK, you got us. You're right. We've been screwin' you all along."
The free market, baby. It's a beautiful thing.
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