Becker on the NCAA

Delving into sports for a bit...this is a wonderful article by Gary Becker (of my alma mater) regarding the National College Atheletics Association and its competition-limiting activities. A must read for those interested in free markets and how power expands when unchecked.

Full article here.

a snippet:

Unfortunately for the NCAA, the facts are blatantly inconsistent with these defenses. Consider the recent widely publicized violation of NCAA rules by five Ohio State football players and their coach. The players’ “crime” was that they sold some of their football memorabilia, including signed autographs, for modest sums, and for tattoos. The coach’s “crime” was that he failed to report these violations in a timely fashion. All the players involved, which includes the star of the team, and the very respected coach, will have to miss the first 5 games of the 2011 season. This is almost half of the 12 games played during the regular season. Nothing done by the players involved stolen property or anything else that would violate any laws except those imposed on players by the NCAA.

A large fraction of the Division I players in basketball and football, the two big money sports, are recruited from poor families; many of them are African-Americans from inner cities and rural areas. Every restriction on the size of scholarships that can be given to athletes in these sports usually takes money away from poor athletes and their families, and in effect transfers these resources to richer students in the form of lower tuition and cheaper tickets for games.

That players are recruited as students as well as athletes applies to a considerable extent to Stanford, Duke, Notre Dame, and a few other Division I schools that have high academic standards. The NCAA points out that the overall average graduation rate is about the same for student-athletes as it is for other students. That result also applies to African American and Hispanic students. However, the graduation rates for these minority students-athletes are depressingly low. For example, the average graduation rate of Division I African American basketball and football players appears to be less than 50%.

Worth watching.

I have criticized the NCAA on previous occassions as it clear there is a cartel and/or monoploy on Football and Bastketball players which leads to absurd results perverse incentives.

This video from popular (and funny!) social critic Mr. John Oliver is worth watching as it explores most of the issues in an entertaining (if albeit profane) way.

The lack of a market for obviously valuable services has created one of the most rediculous web of regulations regarding social interactions in the history of man.  The NCAA handbook on player behavior with respect to gifts, money, favors, etc. is nearly 500 pages long.

And as a student of propaganda, I especially enjoyed NCAA President Mark Emmert's assumption of his own conclusion with this gem:

"Converting a student to a paid employee is something entirely antithetical to the whole principle of intercollegiate athletics...it completely changes the entire notion of what college sports is about."

Note especially that this simply assumes away the value argument of the players services by referencing this silly notion of the virtue of amateurism, when the most cursory examination of the control exhibited by the Universities and their agents over the players demonstrates otherwise.

What a wonderful example of how far afield fairness and decency can derail once the accountability of the market is taken away.

The NCAA

Delving into sports again...great article here regarding the anti-capitalist NCAA and its treatment of "student athletes".

To laugh or cry...

A well-known University increases its profits by providing an "education" that serves no other purpose but to keep the revenue wheels greased.  I have written about the NCAA previously on this blog.  The Universities of the U.S.A. should be banned from providing athletic talent for professional sports.  The lack of a well-developed market here is causing these absurd distortions.  What a farce.  And, of course, the fact that this University practiced these methods guarantees that its competitors employ similar tactics.

Also note that the University if dealing with these issues during a massive and uncharacteristic snow-storm in the area...literally snowing over this news to some degree.

As the great Lily Tomlin said "No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up"

That painful history consists of the transformation of UNC's former
African and Afro-American Studies Department into a factory churning
out fake grades from phony classes disproportionately attended by
varsity athletes. No one is disputing that anymore. What's still
unclear is the degree to which Chapel Hill's powerful Athletic
Department initiated and/or exploited the fraudulent Afro-Am
department. (It has since been reformed and "rebranded," Dean pointed
out, as African, African-American, and Diaspora Studies.)

In the most important piece of actual news he delivered during his
visit to New York--news that as far as I can tell has not been reported
anywhere else--Dean said he had commissioned an internal study on the
entire history of African and African-American studies at UNC. He said
he's determined to get to the bottom of what forces and personalities
caused the program's ugly corruption. He also vowed to "look at"
whether athletes were "clustering" in other departments and classes
reputed to be the source of easy grades. If these inquiries are
thorough and followed by changes, UNC could go from outlaw to leader
in cleaning up the relationship between Division 1 "revenue sports,"
as they're known, and the provision of real undergraduate education.

Sports...

...and its inextricable links to Government, Power, and regulatory inertia.

Nice podcast discussing some of the history regarding NCAA and NFL football.