"A billion dollar sports enterprise where the athletes aren't paid a penny."

The video is from 2015, but since the story is repeated each year, the relevance has no shelf life. Last year 'round this time, I was stunned to learn that ...

John Calipari is far more refreshingly transparent than Jeff Gahan.

In 2016, there's a new book for papa to read: Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA, by Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss.

Does the NCAA exploit student-athletes? by Nick Romeo (Boston Globe)

... Nocera and Strauss quote a wide range of economists and attorneys who agree that the NCAA functions as an economic cartel by colluding to artificially suppress wages for workers. The phrase “student-athlete” was a legal fiction concocted in the 1950s to avoid paying worker’s compensation to the widow of a football player who died on the field. In 2014, football players at Northwestern went on strike, noting that they regularly worked more than 50 hours per week on sports. One economic analysis suggests that a free-market competition between schools to recruit men’s football and basketball players would result in natural wages between $100,000 and $300,000 per year.

Nocera is a heroic figure -- and there'll be lots of reading time these next few weeks.

From John Oliver's 2015 video.