Shoes

The other shoe has fallen.

In a ruling made by judge Claudia Wilken, the court agreed with Arizona State swimmer Grant House who argued that there should not be any restrictions on revenue sharing between student athletes and colleges. In other words, schools can directly pay student athletes to play sports at their universities. Or as Hall-of-Famer Randy Moss put it, “straight cash homie.”

No more cloak and dagger under the trench coat, no show jobs, and workarounds of that nature. While there is an initial “salary cap” of 20.5 million that schools will have to work with (that will increase in subsequent years), the phrase “play for pay” will go to a much higher level.

And by the way, let us not cry a river for these “big” schools that will get the lion’s share of these top players. The top five athletic programs (Ohio St., University of Texas, Texas A&M, Michigan, and Bama) have a combined valuation of almost six billion dollars. Thirteen other schools have valuations above $900 million.

They can afford it.

I’m happy for the student athletes. Aside from the opportunity to get a first-class education, they also will have a great financial head start to start from.

As for the other side of the coin, I have discussed that in previous blog posts. Just type in NCAA in the search box for my previous points of view.

I’m just happy that the student athletes can now eat at the grown folks table when it’s time to feast.