In my most recent blog post I talked about the movement by collegiate athletes to get paid for their services. I don’t know the right and wrong or the good and bad of this. However, I am concerned about the process and the ultimate results and effects of this. I know we can’t keep selling the American Dream about college or life in general without serious consequences. We actually have been paying for the consequences.

Television has made college athletics big business. Coaches are actually getting paid these days (a little sarcasm for you). Some get paid too much in the critics’ estimation. I don’t have an opinion about this. In our culture, people have been paid what the market will bear. Movie stars have made huge salaries for a long time. That is, the ones whose movies make money.

Pro athletes are paid what I would call ridiculous salaries only because most of their organizations DON’T make money. I don’t know what it is to date, but a couple of years ago there were only two NBA franchises that made money, Los Angeles and New York. No mystery why that is the case.

Back to college … the only sports that generate significant income are football and men’s and women’s basketball. So are we talking about a union for all college athletes or only those who play for revenue generating sports? What happens for the two-sport athlete who plays football and runs on the track team? These are probably minor considerations when we look at the bigger picture.

Unions mean another level of folks to administer. More jobs for more people, yes, but also the costs of it all. Or, should we just worry about the revenue sports and to hell with the rest? In many institutions, gate receipts and donations from the general public fund athletic programs. They are not effective businesses. They are like the NBA teams who stay alive because of owners having “deep pockets.” Many of them don’t even do business in the effective way that the owner did when he/she made the money that allows them to be an owner.

The athletes at many universities are a community. They know each other. They support each other’s efforts. I think that community risks an “every man for himself mentality” which is the antitheses of their efforts to be a team. To be clear, it is a long way to morning with this one.