The corrupt NCAA monopoly: "American society is lying to itself about the virtues of its favorite form of entertainment."

Joe Nocera was mentioned at NAC for the first time in January, 2012.

Weekend reading update: College sports reform, J. Edgar Hoover and hypocrisy.

It's been four years, but I am delighted to see that LEO's Yarmuth has caught the college sports reform bug. Preach it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: No more student-athletes, by Aaron Yarmuth (LEO)

As a lifelong U of L Cardinals fan and someone who loves college sports, I know this may sound shocking: I propose removing the word athlete from the term student-athlete. The time has long passed to divorce organized athletics from the institutions of higher learning, which serve as host subjects for a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. Students should play intramural sports, and young men and women interested in a career in sports should not do it in college but pursue that path in an open and honest way by attending an academy of sports. And hey — if it doesn’t work out for them, they can always go to college.

Let me explain.

"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.

Why discuss student-athletes when there's money to be made?

As noted here previously, the first requirement for the meaningful reform of a core-rotten edifice is for its devotees to acknowledge the prevailing hypocrisy.

Show Me the Money, by Joe Nocera (New York Times)

The annual IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, held last week in Midtown Manhattan, is the kind of meeting where football games are routinely described as “product,” television networks are “distribution channels,” and rooting for State U. is an example of “brand loyalty.” The university presidents, conference commissioners, athletic directors and corporate marketers who attend spend very little time mouthing the usual pieties about how the “student-athlete” comes first. Rather, they gather each year to talk bluntly about making money.