Reply #36: I appreciate what you are saying and yes, the system is not working

[Scout1071]

And I never claimed that single school makes billions, but rather the NCAA as a whole. A quick search found these articles:

From CSTV:

"Fans of college sports are an attractive demographic for sponsors and advertisers because they fall into the lucrative high-income category. With annual revenue of approximately $11bn, the college sports category is as large as the NBA, NFL and MLB combined. More than 120m people in the US have either graduated from college or attended college, creating a massive, passionate and loyal audience for CSTV programming, both on television and online"

(link: http://www.sportandtechnology.com/index.php?pageId=0147)

And this one from '97:

(link: http://www.redmen.com/Reviews-req-showcontent-id-3.html)

Snippet:

"In the last 23 years, the NCAA's total revenues have increased 8,000 percent. This decade alone corporate sponsorships are on a pace to increase sevenfold, and the NCAA's $1.7 billion television contract is bigger than any single professional sports le ague deal with any network."


I dunno. In the end, I think we both agree the system needs to be changed. I just got a bit fired up by the poster who said that the athlete should have to pay back their tuition. IF that's the case, the player should get a percentage of the revenue gained by their success and have it turned over to them when they graduate. Revenue from ticket sales, merchandise such as jerseys, books, DVD's, video games, etc.