Coke has signed a huge deal to be a
corporate sponsor of the NCAA Tournament. They'll be paying $500 million
over 11 years for the rights.
So add this half billion to the huge contract
that CBS signed, and pretty soon you have to start to think, well, you know,
maybe the NCAA could pay athletes. The argument - which makes sense - has
been that it wouldn't cost that much to pay basketball players, but paying
everyone would cost a fortune. True, and with Title IX you would have to
pay everyone. But if they're planning on several deals of this magnitude,
they could either a) dedicate one sponsor to something like that, or b) set up a
trust fund. With the proceeds, they could help athletes finish their
education after their eligibility is done or something else useful.
As the
money becomes more and more mind-boggling, the arguments against distributing it
become correspondingly harder to swallow.