#Roommates, is it time for the NCAA to start paying student athletes? March Madness is right around the corner and the FBI is currently investigating college basketball bribes and corruption for at least 20 Division I programs and more than 25 players… perhaps it’s time for the organization to reevaluate their rules??
On Friday, Yahoo! published documents detailing players and schools who have possibly broken NCAA rules by giving/receiving payments and paying for travel expenses for college prospects and their families. The report — which included documents and bank records — identified schools like Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Michigan State, USC and Kansas all possibly being involved in soliciting bribes. There are also allegations of college coaches taking bribes from businesses in exchange for steering their players to advertise for those companies.
“People who engage in this kind of behavior have no place in college sports,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a statement. “They are an affront to all those who play by the rules… We also will continue to cooperate with the efforts of federal prosecutors to identify and punish the unscrupulous parties seeking to exploit the system through criminal acts.”
According to Yahoo!, at least six players have been identified as receiving payments exceeding $10,000. “An ASM balance sheet in the hands of federal investigators shows accounts through Dec. 31, 2015, with the subheading, ‘Loan to Players.’ It listed several who were in high school or college as receiving four-figure and five-figure payments from ASM Sports,” Yahoo! reports of former NBA agent Andy Miller, his former associate Christian Dawkins and his agency ASM Sports.
#Roommates, it looks like the NCAA’s amateurism rules are clearly being broken, so we have to ask, is it time for them to just pay up?
TSR STAFF: Myeisha E.! @myeisha.essex
