Like many of you, your humble blogger will likely hunker down for a few hours later today, turn on the TV, and watch the college football championship game. The players are so much more skilled than they were when I was in college! We should all remember, though, that while we're marveling at all the feats of gridiron glory, we are supporting---in our own way---the perpetuation of a captive-labor plantation system, and that the young men on the field are among the most exploited workers in America.
B-b-b-but, scholarships! Yes, it's true that schools cover tuition costs, but the real payoff for the athletes comes when they make the pros. Unfortunately, that only happens to a small fraction of them, and even then, for only a few short years on average. And the kids who don't make the pros? Even assuming they earn their degrees---and surprisingly, most football players at the powerhouse schools actually do---they'll be entering the same shitty jobs market that the rest of their contemporaries are facing. Okay, so maybe you could say that having played four years of Stanford football, for instance, might help open some doors for you with some rich alumni once you've left the program, and that's certainly possible. But the fact is that the schools are leveraging the players' labor in a monopolistic market to generate immense sums of money for themselves, and that the athletes often pay a heavy price for their efforts, sometimes for years after their playing days are over.
Solution? Well, if I ran the zoo, there wouldn't even be an NCAA, and the member schools---or their conferences---would all be free agents that could negotiate their own TV contracts, and decide for themselves whether to pay their athletes or not. To those who object on the grounds that a handful of rich powerhouse schools would "buy up" all the best talent under such a regime, that's what college football is already like right now. At least the top NFL prospects playing for the blue-chip schools would get a chance to earn a fair day's wages.
---Baron V
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