The NCAA thought to hold Emmert’s Final Four presser on Sunday in the hopes nobody would pay attention. Given what was said, it hardly seems worth the effort.
At his news conference Sunday, NCAA president Mark Emmert said the association was in no rush to come up with plans in case college players’ unions sprout up across the nation.
The association hasn’t been in a rush about anything else, so why should this be any different? Oh, but this union stuff… it’s not good.
“To be perfectly frank, the notion of using a union employee model to address the challenges that do exist in intercollegiate athletics is something that strikes most people as a grossly inappropriate solution to the problems,” Emmert said Sunday. “It would blow up everything about the collegiate model of athletics.”
I could be wrong, but I suspect the players pushing for a union see that as a feature, not a bug. In any event, patience is advised.
“There’s some things that need to get fixed,” Emmert said. “They’re working very aggressively to do that. No one up here believes that the way you fix that is by converting student-athletes into unionized employees.”
If only…
Emmert was joined by other NCAA leaders who said many of the association’s biggest issues — including paying athletes and improving their health care — could be more easily resolved if the five biggest conferences were allowed to write more of their own rules.
So basically the NCAA’s collegiate model of athletics is to give lip service to player concerns, fail to take concrete action, blame the failure on not having enough control over the process and keep cashing the checks in the meantime. Hey, if it ain’t broke and all…
Oh, and stay detached from economic reality, too.
Say what? Irresponsible to whom? Mark Emmert? Maybe next year’s presser should be held at midnight. In a closet.
Get The Picture 
I don’t pretend to know the best way to resolve this issue but it sure seems to me that being tone deaf, as the NCAA appears to be, can’t be the right response. Emmert must be the highest paid moron in history.
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If Emmert were the CEO for a public company, everyone would short sell his company only because the idiot in charge. He has to be the living example of rising to his level of incompetence. I hate to say it, but Il Duce Adams would have been a step up from this dummy.
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I guarantee you Adams is waiting in the wings right now. Emmert’s departure is imminent.
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You know, it occurred to me the other day, maybe that’s what they want. Have an idiot on stage so they can keep working things behind the scenes, and deflect any blame on to the idiot people see instead of mistakes by those propping him up.
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Has the NFL Players Association ever made a push for a d-league/”other option?”
There are plenty of current NFL players that obviously would/should have gone that route if it were an option for them. Too many guys currently playing professionally had to fake their way through classes and worry about making ends meet/catching NCAA violations when they should have had a reasonable option to their sport professionally.
I think these guys have some moral obligation to speak up for the “student-athletes” going through what they once did. I also think they’re in the best position (short of an act of congress) to put pressure on the NFL to change anything.
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I wouldn’t expect to see it. The pro players no longer have any skin in the game. In fact, they benefit from the barrier to entry. A D-league would result in more players entering the NFL and looking to take the jobs of the players that are currently there. The only people who don’t benefit from the current system are the college players. And screw those guys.
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The safest thing to do in politics is screw people who can’t vote.
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