Right, but this will just take us back to the days similar to unlimited scholarships. Texas will go ahead and pay players they would have normally not given a scholarship to, more than other schools can, just to keep them away from any other school. At least now there are scholarship limits, so you've at least got a chance once the blue-bloods give out all their shollies.
Not saying that everything right now is the way it should be, but open the door to pay for play and there are really only a handful of schools that can participate in that market. ISU certainly isn't one of them.
So... it would be no different from how it is now? Even if players were paid, chances are there would be some rules on the maximums they could be paid, it wouldn't just be a free-for-all. In which case, the top athletes would still get illegal money on the side.
The only way to eliminate these side deals and handing out money under the table... is to
eliminate recruiting. That's the cause of all this. You'd have to turn college basketball and football into their own full-blown athletic leagues with a
draft, a la baseball. Then there's no money under the table because the player isn't the one making the decision on where he/she goes. But I don't see that happening ANY time soon, if ever.
Now, whether players get paid or not.. whatever.. but at the
very least players should be allowed to market themselves. Get a cut of merchandise sold, sell autographs, do commercials, the works. It's really silly that they can't, and instead the NCAA gets to pocket all that money because, you know, they're "amateurs". What a load of crap.
