Do you think protective equipment could be a solution to the problem of injuries in basketball? It could save a lot of money and time for both parties at the cost of what I assume is a reasonable decrease in performance.
Probably not, no.
That, in my opinion, would be a disaster. American colleges and universities are already increasing tuition at a rate that far outstrips inflation and I think it's hard to claim that the increases in tuition have raised quality. I ultimately see college athletics as luxuries for these schools and anything that increases how much it costs a school to run an athletic program should be stopped IMO. What really rubs me is* how college athletes can be coddled through their degree programs and as someone else here put it, are only expected to perform academically well enough to maintain eligibility for their programs.
But I do think it's ultimately a dick move for schools to cancel scholarships to injured athletes and for them to deny them medical care.
But again, if the school isn't making money on sports, has no notable athletic programs and is primarily an engineering school, then why are they paying for athletic programs and the degree programs athletes tend to fill up in the first place?
I wrote a lot about this in the other NCAA thread, but the argument essentially goes like this. Given the proliferation of colleges in the US, many schools struggle for proper attention and exposure. Sure, you might have a great X department, but how will you get prospective students to look that up in the first place?
That's where sports come in. Even if a student doesn't really care about sports themselves, a D1 program means that university is getting free TV ad time, and constant name repetition in newspapers, blogs, and TV. When those teams are actually successful, it gives lots of cushy media coverage on your academics, and has been shown to boost applicant quality and alumni donations.
At the lower, non D1 levels, the math gets a little dicer, and without question, there are dozens of schools that have botched a D1 transition and aren't giving their schools any benefits. But the reasoning isn't illogical.
I do wonder what happens when the line gets drawn - do you have union schools competing with non-union schools, or do they break out by conference and division? If an athlete is a walk-on or for some other reason "uncompensated", do they lose out? Surely some teams at some colleges are not filled entirely by scholarships?
And one interesting thought (for me) is that if unionizing becomes available as an option, what about the scabs at the military academies?
Yeah, if this is approved, pretty instantly, union and non union schools will be competing in the same division. If union schools are able to procure a pronounced benefit advantage, even if it has nothing to do with pay to play, I imagine lots of other schools will rush towards unionization, even if that means they have to change a few state laws.
The Walk-On situation hasn't been resolved. that'll be a key question for the schools.
I haven't really thought about the military academies, since they're such a huge exception in D1 play in so many ways. Needless to say, I doubt they unionize haha.
