Before the big bucks started flowing in from TV, athletic revenues didn’t even cover the non-revenue sports, athletes were paid with full room & board scholarships, and coach’s pay was less obscene. Thank the media (including sports pundits) for the destruction of college (and other amateur) sports.
For football and basketball College athletics is dead. These are now totally professional sports with ‘student’ participation only optional. College SPONSORED sports maybe? The NCAA needs to regroup around the ‘minor’ sports where a scholarship might still be sufficient payment to the athletes. I partially blame all the sports pundits who have totally discounted those scholarships as payment for services for all this mess!
Historians reject the ‘history repeats’ saying.