Michigan, Ohio State and Money

If you have watched anything having to do with sports this past week, then you know that Michigan and Ohio State are playing their annual football game today. Both teams are undefeated, they are #1 and #2 in the polls and the winner undoubtedly will go to the so-called national championship game. All of this on top of the fact that these two colleges' teams are both traditionally really good and have played each other about 1,000 times.

This year, however, is different. The whole "they're #1 and #2" thing has put the usual amount of hype over this game into the stratusphere. The elections office in Columbus, Ohio, is giving its workers the day off for the game, so the vote counting in one of the last undecided congressional races is just going to have to wait, dammit. (They work on Saturdays right after elections to make sure everything gets done, apparently. But not this Saturday.) The level of "analysis" of this game on ESPN and elsewhere has been akin to the bloviation that goes on before the Super Bowl. "Let's analyze who has the advantage in the running back matchup." "Who has the better punter?" Blah, blah, blah. Lots and lots of people are making, and getting paid, a lot of money because of this game.

But you know who isn't? The players. At least to me, this game has really put a spotlight on really serious problems with big-time college sports. Basically, hordes of people are more than happy to make serious bucks off of college athletes -- coaches have their own shoe contracts and TV shows, ESPN practically would have had to go out of business without this game this week, the colleges that make the BCS bowl games literally rake in millions and millions of dollars -- but the athletes themselves get scholarships and a whole lot of trouble if they try to make any money off their fame.

Now getting a full ride scholarship to some major university is nothing to sneeze at. (This is a blog, my grammar doesn't have to perfect. I can dangle my prepositions if I like.) With college costs going up much faster than inflation, getting a full ride scholarship is a big deal. And so it arguably is just compensation for athletes who are going to go out and represent their colleges (arguably).

The NCAA and the big-time sports colleges, however, essentially hide behind this sweet mirage when it comes to football and basketball. Those sports in college are no less about the money than the NBA or the NFL. It is very disturbing, at least to me, to see college athletes be pimped on the cover of "NCAA Football 2006" video games when you know that everyone involved in that game made bucks except the people who made it possible -- the players. Yet Notre Dame and USC and Michigan and Ohio State routinely rake in big, big bucks based on those players and then pat them on the head and "Good job, get back to your dorm." You think Coach K shares the money he makes on Chevy commercials with the players. Uh, no. Even if he wanted to do so, it would be against the rules and the NCAA would sanction the hell out of everyone involved.

I'm not saying that college athletes should get paid like NBA and NFL players. But they should get some slice of the compensation that they are generating. Maybe there should be some kind of trust fund for big-time college athletes who don't make the show.

I'm not saying that you should stop watching college sports. I'm not. I am quite hoping that my office gets tickets to the first couple of rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament for which we applied.

It's just that, when you create a system where one group of people generate the value and another gets the value, you are going to have problems. Guaranteed. And that's where big college sports are right now.