big money college sports should share the wealth

i'm no fan of the lawsuit happy culture prevalent today, but i believe student-athletes get a raw deal....and not just men....efforts are being made to rectify the fact that

On college campuses, athletes are the only students subject to aid restrictions imposed by an agreement among universities. Talented students in music, chemistry or any other area can be bid upon by individual colleges, without limits on the total value of their scholarship packages. Some, often graduate students, receive the full cost of attendance plus cash payments.

i'm no legal scholar but that sounds like universities have colluded in a disciminatory policy to the disadvantage of athletes.

the plaintiffs ask these restrictions be lifted so student-athletes could receive incidentals.

The suit does not list a damage amount but is structured in a way that suggests the NCAA pay a heavy price should the court find that the association acted illegally in its capping of scholarship costs. The lawsuit applies to 144 colleges, so the 20,000 or so affected athletes would have been shorted a potential $117 million, an aggregate figure that represents the gap between the grant-in-aid and the official cost of attendance over the past four years.
Damages get trebled under antitrust law, pushing the potential penalty to $351 million.

while some college officials claim poverty, the numbers in college athletics are staggering. there are at least 10 college basketball programs with profits over $7 million while there are about 10 college football programs with $25 million in profits. the movement even got some (surprsing) support from NCAA president Myles who

came out in favor of the proposal, suggesting that the additional funds could be drawn from the NCAA's 11-year, $6 billion television contract with CBS."
"We should provide student-athletes with the full cost of attendance," he said at the time.

But, the NCAA membership subsequently declined to move on his recommendation

¶ - nitish @ 11:45 AM