<p>How laughably ethicless have our colleges become if THAT is the case? </p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>I read it wasn’t long ago that Harvard re-instated Ethics as a mandatory course in their biz program.
Too bad they needed to do so, but I’m glad they did. I think all schools should.</p>
<p>It doesn’t surprise me in the least bit, big time college sports is quite frankly a joke, it is not college sports as you see with sports like lacrosse or rowing, it is basically professional sports hiding behind ‘college football’ or ‘college basketball’…and if you are talking big time division 1 athletics, it is nothing more than a professional sports league, pure and simple. Take a look at what conferences get for tv rights, take a look at what the programs bring into (themselves, by the way, zero revenue comes from the sports programs into the general school funds), and you will understand the mentality. </p>
<p>Tickets are discounted to students to allow them to attend games, but because these are such big businesses, they know they can scalp them and make good money on them. The fact that the school has its own equivalent of stub hub (probably will nice fees tacked onto the ticket price) tells more of the picture, it tells you the culture. Discounted student tickets are designed to allow kids to afford to go to the games, and all this talk of free markets and such is ludicrous, because it is not supposed to be a free market, not with the current system. Personally, the discounted student ticket plans are more of the subterfuge, it lets them tell the NCAA that the sports are all about the students, about wanting them to be part of it, when the reality is it is about the business of big time sports. </p>
<p>To be honest, I wouldn’t care, except these programs are basically being allowed to operate as a major business while claiming to be non profit. Teams are pulling in 10’s of millions of dollars in revenue (there was an article about Penn State around the time Paterno was under fire, and they were raking in 65 million a year)…teams are sharing in huge tv contracts, and so forth, and to me it is time to be honest about these places. </p>
<p>About education? Sure, some kids play even division one big time football or basketball and get a degree, but they are in the minority. There has been a multi part article in Sports Illustrated about Oklahoma State, and it is both angering and pathetic. Most of the kids on the teams who get a degree (when they do) often haven’t done college level work, and frankly being a student-athlete in these programs is a joke (and please, don’t give me examples of the kid on the football team with the 4.0 majoring in biomedical engineering, they exist, but represent a major outlier). The schools are ducking all kinds of things by claiming to be college sports, if they declared as what they are, minor leagues for the pros, they would have to pay taxes on revenues, they would have to probably pay the school for the branding rights to being associated with the school (money the school could use for facilities or scholarships for its supposed purpose, educating kids), and oh, yeah, pay the players. It is all well and good to talk about the value of the scholarship, but in reality, how much is the degree they are getting worth? 200 grand would be a lot if the kids were really there to get an education and played a sport, as with other sports or non major program sports scholarships, but this isn’t what these programs are, they are a big business hiding behind ‘college sports’ to keep the money for the people running the programs. </p>
<p>Is allowing students to make a profit on tickets given to them as students unethical? Yeah, but then again, compared to the outright fraud of big college sports, which calling it college sports reminds me of when they called athletes back in the 60’s and 70’s as ‘amateurs’, especially when talking about eastern block athletes. It is a corrupt business to start with, and each year it turns more and more so, and I would love to see a reality check with it.</p>
<p>This is what I think the University can do:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Recognizing that there are fewer seats than students provide a lottery system for all students that are interested in attending games. One season ticket per student.</p></li>
<li><p>The season ticket number is registered to the student ID and no paper ticket is issued. Only the student with the correct ID can attend or that student can surrender the right to attend the game to the university for credit at the actual resale price or the reduced price, whichever is less.</p></li>
<li><p>The University can resell the right to attend the individual game to a new student at or below the face price of the ticket and their ID will be their admission ticket to the game. A lottery system will be used to identify all students interested in attending a single game and their priority number for purchasing unused rights.</p></li>
<li><p>All students must show student ID in order to attend the games unless they are attending with a paper ticket.</p></li>
<li><p>Any student found using another student’s ID will be expelled from the school. Any student providing their ID to another student to attend a game will also be expelled. After all, we don’t want unethical students attending the University.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I feel like students ought to be able to go to games for free, perhaps by entering a lottery for available tix, or being there first or whatever. And then only students should be able to use those tickets, or be admitted to the games. But that doesn’t really answer the OP’s question.</p>