Hacker News Reader

Gross is the perfect word here. “Traditional American values in college sports” means “we make the money, and lots of it. You (the athlete) get free exposure! Who do you think you are, getting your cut?”

I don’t know what it is about the current zeitgeist but people with power seem quite happy to vocalize their discontent with what they perceive as “lower classes” making decent money. It’s like they don’t even pretend anymore.

View on HN

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that it's been like this for the vast majority of American history. The only change is the mechanism.

Usually they try to obscure this state of affairs. When the veil breaks, their backup plan is enforcement, first through threats and then through laws and then, if necessary, through violence. We appear to be mostly in the "threats" stage.

Not actually, for majority of that time no one was earning from college sports.

This south park excerpt is... frighteningly realistic https://youtu.be/Z5ZZ8bO9-Ig

Besides wanting to keep all the revenue, the NCAA talks up all that sanctimonious crap to justify their non-profit status so they don't have to pay taxes on it either.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com