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Message: [QUOTE="Fly Rodder, post: 2347871, member: 2133"] [URL='https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/as-college-sports-revenues-spike-coaches-arent-only-ones-cashing-in/2015/12/29/bbdb924e-ae15-11e5-9ab0-884d1cc4b33e_story.html?utm_term=.0b84c4f7833b']Not even close.[/URL] Collegiate revenue sports are about funneling vast sums of money generated by young athletes into the pockets of people who run the athletic department and business partners. It is, by any and all definitions, a market and a commercial enterprise. And, maybe most importantly, it's being run as a non-profit so no taxes are being paid despite being a giant profit making operation (and, as a side benefit, it becomes a great tax writeoff for wealthy boosters through ticket sales and ridiculous "donation" surcharges on season tickets). No, it's not a choice in any meaningful sense of the word. The NFL or NBA can't draft highschool students. If anyone wants to be a professional football or basketball player they have, in essence, a single choice as a result of [I]de facto[/I] collusion between professional sports leagues and college sports leagues. Players don't go the Europe route because they're probably already being illegally compensated in college at a level greater than they would be in Europe. College sports is huge market built on exploiting the dreams of 18-22 year old kids with some athletic talent. Since its inception, 95% of what the NCAA does is try and prevent their primary labor force from being compensated based on their value, which in the end just results in more problems. Converting revenue sports into a non-academic business would change nothing, other than letting athletes earn something from their labor and giving them the same rights that all employees receive. The best get paid more, the others get paid some, all gets some form of labor protection. They could even have the option of retaining amateur status in exchange for a lifetime scholarship. There are ton of options that would take magnitudes of less effort than trying to continue some charade that colleges aren't in the professional sports business so that they don't have to compensate their players. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?