My Column: Big Ten Recommendations A Positive Step For The Conference

An article composed for BTPowerhouse of SBNation looking at the impact of the Big Ten conference's new recommendations for the NCAA.

My Column: Big Ten Recommendations A Positive Step For The Conference. http://t.co/0jwnt4fMsN
— Thomas Beindit (@tbeindit) October 2, 2014

Big Ten Conspiracies: How The NCAA & SEC Ruined Michigan's 2014-2015 Season

A nice little joke piece looking at a conspiracy about Michigan basketball.  FYI, not serious.

Big Ten Conspiracies: How The NCAA Ruined Michigan's 2014-2015 Season (Satire) http://t.co/z98S8vjDUT
— Thomas Beindit (@tbeindit) May 8, 2014

Paying College Athletes: Fantasy And Reality

Photo Credit: Thomas Beindit

In recent weeks, the biggest story on the college landscape has been the issue of student athlete compensation.  Whether it's through scholarships, sponsorships, autographs, or just gifts, everything has been on the table.  The NCAA has held firm with the concept that student athletes should be considered "amateurs" and receive nothing more than academic scholarships and expense benefits such as housing, and equipment.  The media has argued that players deserve at least a share of what has become a multi-billion dollar industry (Yes, that's billion with a b as Heisenberg himself would say).  The debate has raged back and forth and nobody seems to be able to reach an agreement.

The biggest part of this failure has been the fundamental problems with the system, the culture clash, and the general ignorance towards the topic.  Many claim to have a deep understanding of the issue that they are discussing, but college athletics and the NCAA rulebook are incredibly complicated and to be honest, I don't even think I understand everything fully.  Regardless, there are still some glaring flaws in many of the mainstream arguments that have been pushed around in recent weeks and I want to take a brief look at some of them.  

The first thing I want to address is the basic concept of the NCAA model.  The college athletic system has fundamental flaws.  There's simply no denying this and I'm not even talking about the concept of paying players yet.  The NCAA system is designed to live under the concepts of "amateurism" and that all sports are created equal.  Some college sports may still have a good degree of amateurism, but it's hard to argue that players like Trey Burke resemble anything of an amateur.  His name would trend worldwide during games, he has made the University of Michigan millions of dollars, and he was consistently featured throughout the media.  The only reason he was considered an "amateur" was because he didn't actually receive a salary.  We don't need to discuss that he's probably a more well known basketball player than half the NBA, but according to the NCAA, he's an "amateur".

The second argument is even more absurd.  At some point, college athletics will have to recognize that the sports are not equal.  I understand there are many issues in saying some sports are more important than others, but this leads into an important discussion that I'll touch on later.  Aside from a few select sports, there are really only four sports that make athletic departments money (football, basketball, ice hockey, baseball).  Every college sport requires an investment from the athletic department in the form of scholarships, equipment, coaching salaries, facilities, and other costs.  The fact is that outside of these few select sports, the remaining sports lose money with few exceptions.  In the grand scheme of things, it means that the "major" sports fund the other sports.  This will be important for later.