[Goose]

Arguably, it's further compromised the education mission of universities by making athletes spend more time away from academic training, and more time toward marketing themselves, which includes both cutting deals, and focusing in on being professional athletes not paid for their work.

This was my problem with the article. It couldn't decide whether to complain that athletes aren't being paid enough or that athletes aren't being adequately educated.  Maybe the complaint is that universities need to better in both, but the reality of the situation is that as a matter of practical fact the two are more or less in opposition.  Collegiate athletics can be an amateur endeavor focusing on academics or it can be a minor league professional league.  To be fair, to a large degree it has been neither to date. But it certainly cannot be both.

BC

While I basically agree that any two activities that require a student's time compete with each other, NIL and class work are not alone in this category. Looking back on it, I often express regret that I didn't spend more time on X while at Stanford. (In particular, I regret not taking EE141). However, when I think about it more rigorously, I was busy as heck while I was there, and didn't get lots of sleep. Not all of it was academics. That is just how it is. If you want to do more, do it faster or sleep less. Life is just kind of like that.

It is clearly difficult to be both a University and a minor league. Actually, I think the Universities have done a remarkably good job of doing both given the degree of difficulty. However, adding additional requirements like NIL may make continuing this approach impossible. So be it. Everybody has to chose.

[Goose]

Arguably, it's further compromised the education mission of universities by making athletes spend more time away from academic training, and more time toward marketing themselves, which includes both cutting deals, and focusing in on being professional athletes not paid for their work.

This was my problem with the article. It couldn't decide whether to complain that athletes aren't being paid enough or that athletes aren't being adequately educated.  Maybe the complaint is that universities need to better in both, but the reality of the situation is that as a matter of practical fact the two are more or less in opposition.  Collegiate athletics can be an amateur endeavor focusing on academics or it can be a minor league professional league.  To be fair, to a large degree it has been neither to date. But it certainly cannot be both.

BC

While I basically agree that any two activities that require a student's time compete with each other, NIL and class work are not alone in this category. Looking back on it, I often express regret that I didn't spend more time on X while at Stanford. (In particular, I regret not taking EE141). However, when I think about it more rigorously, I was busy as heck while I was there, and didn't get lots of sleep. Not all of it was academics. That is just how it is. If you want to do more, do it faster or sleep less. Life is just kind of like that.

It is clearly difficult to be both a University and a minor league. Actually, I think the Universities have done a remarkably good job of doing both given the degree of difficulty. However, adding additional requirements like NIL may make continuing this approach impossible. So be it. Everybody has to chose.