NCAA Touts Being a Giver, but won't let Athletes Receive

As March Madness invades college campuses all over these United States, a topic is continuously brought up: the plight of the student-athlete. The student-athlete is held to the same standards as other students in the classroom but has incredibly more strenuous out-of-classroom obligations.

Former Duke grad, ESPN Senior NCAA Men's Basketball Analyst Jay Bilas is a critical proponent of student-athletes being able to make money from their talents when they are in school. He does not propose that the colleges pay student-athletes but that the athletes not be punished for receiving compensation for whatever endeavors they choose to partake in. Read his article here

I fully agree with this. College athletes admittedly get some leeway when it comes to classroom regulations but they are a huge money maker for their respective colleges and because of the time commitment cannot make their own money in a work-study job as their non-athletic counterparts can.

Why is this relevant to marketing? The NCAA is making it a point to run its commercials telling its March Madness viewers that they use the money made by Collegiate Athletics to continually fund scholarships for athletes and contribute the excess money to its member schools. Having a scholarship to a school is nice but doesn't mean much when you don't have pocket money to buy yourself a few slices of pizza when you've just won the National Collegiate Athletic Association Men's Basketball National Championship.

Let the athletes make money.