[GK3]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/20...e-sharing/

Putting a $20M cap on payments by a school seems like it could work to Stanford's advantage.

There are a lot of potential legal and practical problems with paying college athletes. Those discussions are important, but I don't think they are the point of this thread. IMO the question is whether professional athletics is compatible with the goals and mission of the university. If not, it will have to go. One may argue that we already had that, we simply didn't admit it. This proposition may be arguable, but the ability to at least credibly pretend that our student athletes were really that and definitely amateurs allowed the fundamental question above to be ignored. If that pretense is no longer available, the question must be answered and the answer may be "No, professional athletics is not compatible with the goals and mission of the university". I think it is not at all certain that will not happen.

How far are now from the position that the players are being paid to come to school to play a sport so why add on the requirement that they be students?  So far Stanford seems to be willing to go along since the athletes still have to go to class and in theory stay eligible.  My guess is that we aren't far from some player somewhere contending that staying academically eligible should not be required. He or she is getting paid to play a sport, not to be a student.

[GK3]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/20...e-sharing/

Putting a $20M cap on payments by a school seems like it could work to Stanford's advantage.

There are a lot of potential legal and practical problems with paying college athletes. Those discussions are important, but I don't think they are the point of this thread. IMO the question is whether professional athletics is compatible with the goals and mission of the university. If not, it will have to go. One may argue that we already had that, we simply didn't admit it. This proposition may be arguable, but the ability to at least credibly pretend that our student athletes were really that and definitely amateurs allowed the fundamental question above to be ignored. If that pretense is no longer available, the question must be answered and the answer may be "No, professional athletics is not compatible with the goals and mission of the university". I think it is not at all certain that will not happen.

How far are now from the position that the players are being paid to come to school to play a sport so why add on the requirement that they be students?  So far Stanford seems to be willing to go along since the athletes still have to go to class and in theory stay eligible.  My guess is that we aren't far from some player somewhere contending that staying academically eligible should not be required. He or she is getting paid to play a sport, not to be a student.