First the UNC newspaper and now SI.

https://www.dispatch.com/sports/20200826/michael-arace-mo...

Nothing new here. Article points to the wrong place. They should point towards alums, athletic departments and TV. Athletes didn't create this system.

For the vast majority of student-athletes, the term still applies. Most are using their athletic scholarships to get a good education. They wouldn't need to spend a day in college to become a professional golfer, tennis player, baseball player, etc. It's the elite football players and one-and-done b-ball players who make the term "student-athlete" a farce. Some are open (or brash) enough to admit it. They make no bones about the fact that they're in college primarily to play their sport so they can go high in the pro draft. "Student" hardly describes them.

Yes, those are the players that shouldn't be in college in the first place. It's a travesty that we let the one-and-done phenomenon flourish as it has. Looking at you Kentucky. And, then, in football we have the players like the QB from O$U who once famously said, "We ain't come here to play school." Now, to be fair, Mr. Jones later actually became a good student and did graduate. But, the statement he made does reflect the attitudes of many of the elite football athletes who never do value their education and view college as simply a stepping stone to the NFL.

Could an endorsement model replace the grant-in-aid model in college athletics? More money for the athletes and less cost to the universities who don't have to pay for scholarships. This is a very big question for the future because if that happens what does it do to recruiting?

The recruiting levels that we are used to in D1 could be upended. It might be something where endorsement value becomes a function of overall athletic value of the university. The more popular, more important schools then are going to have an advantage because of endorsement value.

Relating this back to MAC basketball, the fact that the MAC is a G5 conference would make the athletic value worth more than an FCS conference like the Colonial or MVC. Then would more players want to come to the MAC because of greater endorsement potential? It won't be enough to make the MAC into a power conference in basketball but it help the MAC basketball develop to becoming a 2 or 3 bid conference.

I see football level and overall athletic level to be very much intertwined. Programs have moved up to FBS to upgrade their overall athletic level of which basketball is a part of that.

Great point. There is a lot of discussion about wealth inequality right now, and yet moving away from the student-athlete model seems to only benefit a few elite athletes at the expense of many more athletes...