[81alum]

The players were always the commodity and exploited. They are simply being paid to be now. The coaches have always benefited and were allowed to leave for greener pastures whereas the kids were stuck with a bad decision they made when they were 17 and 18 years old. 

Of course the system is not perfect (it never was) and resilience is no longer taught in this generation but the equities are closer to being balanced than they were previously.

Your experience as a fan is certainly not as important as that of the student-athlete.

While I am able to be just as good a Marxist as anyone here, should I choose to be, I do not believe that Stanford exploited its student-athletes as "commodities."  The University gave most of them a terrific education and 4 or more terrific years in life.  And it is not as if Stanford was "profiting" from their unpaid labor, given that the whole Athletics enterprise loses money hand-over-fist.  Student athletes get preferred treatment in many ways to other students--including taking up admissions slots that could go to other high achievers.  This is not the definition of exploitation.  Furthermore, comparing the whole thing to an economic enterprise (as Justice Kavanaugh did) is to fundamentally misunderstand--even twist--the purpose of athletics at a non-profit institution of higher education.

With regard to the last observation, that my experience as a fan is not as important as that of the student-athlete.  I agree with that statement.  However, if we truly embrace it then we might as well be Division III, and not worry about having fans at all.  If we want to be Division I then we do need to worry about the experience of fans, or we won't have any.  I'm about to opt for Div III, in which case I will probably be one of six fans in the stands at our WBB games.

[81alum]

The players were always the commodity and exploited. They are simply being paid to be now. The coaches have always benefited and were allowed to leave for greener pastures whereas the kids were stuck with a bad decision they made when they were 17 and 18 years old. 

Of course the system is not perfect (it never was) and resilience is no longer taught in this generation but the equities are closer to being balanced than they were previously.

Your experience as a fan is certainly not as important as that of the student-athlete.

While I am able to be just as good a Marxist as anyone here, should I choose to be, I do not believe that Stanford exploited its student-athletes as "commodities."  The University gave most of them a terrific education and 4 or more terrific years in life.  And it is not as if Stanford was "profiting" from their unpaid labor, given that the whole Athletics enterprise loses money hand-over-fist.  Student athletes get preferred treatment in many ways to other students--including taking up admissions slots that could go to other high achievers.  This is not the definition of exploitation.  Furthermore, comparing the whole thing to an economic enterprise (as Justice Kavanaugh did) is to fundamentally misunderstand--even twist--the purpose of athletics at a non-profit institution of higher education.

With regard to the last observation, that my experience as a fan is not as important as that of the student-athlete.  I agree with that statement.  However, if we truly embrace it then we might as well be Division III, and not worry about having fans at all.  If we want to be Division I then we do need to worry about the experience of fans, or we won't have any.  I'm about to opt for Div III, in which case I will probably be one of six fans in the stands at our WBB games.