Will Paying College Athletes Ruin Everything We Love About College Sports? Not If We’re Smart About It
H. Clay McEldowney | Forbes
The young men of the Duke University basketball team recently defeated Wisconsin to earn their share of the NCAA national championship. But the question many are now asking is: Should the Blue Devils also enjoy a share of the NCAA’s riches?
In January the NCAA voted 79-1 to allow member schools to pay student athletes stipends of up to $5,000 over and above the value of their scholarships. But that vote was the tip of the iceberg, one of a number of potential changes that blur the distinction between professional and amateur athletics and that threaten the future of NCAA Division I (DI) college sports as we know it. But this slow motion crisis also gives athletic directors, school presidents, alumni supporters and policymakers an opportunity to rethink the current system in a way that would be fair to all parties, and save non-revenue sports from decimation.