I made my feelings about the ethics of this known above.
But dropping the amateur ideal may well have terrible practical effects on Stanford in particular. Stanford currently spends much more on its athletes than other schools--since we give them an education that is worth so much more--both in much higher tuition and in the long term value of the degree. This comparative advantage can now be erased by buckets of cash.
It will be interesting to see how this legislation is implemented. Whatever they try to do, however, I see no reasonable way to limit large amounts of cash from flowing from boosters to athletes, through any number of manufactured opportunities to purchase $10,000 t-shirts etc. The floodgates will not easily be closed.
But dropping the amateur ideal may well have terrible practical effects on Stanford in particular. Stanford currently spends much more on its athletes than other schools--since we give them an education that is worth so much more--both in much higher tuition and in the long term value of the degree. This comparative advantage can now be erased by buckets of cash.
It will be interesting to see how this legislation is implemented. Whatever they try to do, however, I see no reasonable way to limit large amounts of cash from flowing from boosters to athletes, through any number of manufactured opportunities to purchase $10,000 t-shirts etc. The floodgates will not easily be closed.