Is the outrageous exploitation of college athletes coming to an end?

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:11:00 +0000

Confetti rained on the University of Alabama football team as they stood on the makeshift stage that had been quickly assembled atop the turf of Miami's Sun Life Stadium. The team had just completed its third national championship in four years by walloping Notre Dame in the Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game, and now it was time to celebrate. The 80,000-plus crowd -- smaller now that the Notre Dame contingent had largely vacated, but still boisterous thanks to Alabama fans and those lucky enough to afford a ticket -- looked on admirably as the trophy was awarded to Nick Saban, the Tide's $5 million-a-year head coach.

To an outsider unfamiliar with American collegiate sports, or to anyone watching objectively, it would be impossible to differentiate between the scene on that balmy Miami night and the one that will commence in three weeks when the National Football League crowns its champion at Super Bowl XLVII. But there is one distinction that lies beneath the hoopla, and it is one that makes all the difference between the college spectacle and the professional one: Alabama's players, unlike their NFL counterparts, are not paid to play the game.

Salon.com > Travis Waldron

Is the outrageous exploitation of college athletes coming to an end?