My latest for the Huffington Post — What Sports Illustrated Didn’t Tell You About Paying College Athletes – is obviously a response to a recent article from Sports Illustrated. In the article I advocate a free market for college athletes.
Last August, Robert McCormick and Robert Tollison offered another alternative. In Subversion of the Academy by the NCAA, these two economists noted that the problem in college sports is that the coaches and administrators participate in a free (although quite distorted) market while the labor is treated as amateurs. If one doesn’t like letting the players participate in a free market, why not have everyone go back to being amateurs? In other words, let’s return college sports to what it was before people realized money could be made.
Whether one wishes to see a completely free market for everyone or everyone be treated like the players (i.e. everyone is an amateur), it does seem clear that having one institution for the players and another for the coaches seems to be a big part of the problem. And until that disconnect is resolved, so-called “scandels” will continue to be a part of college sports.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
mettaworldpiece
November 14, 2011
College Football and College basketball programs pay for the other sports to be available. That isn’t mentioned in your article.
Nearly every other sport program, male or female, loses money on its own. Football mostly pays for it.
Coaches operate under a more open market because you have to compete with the NFL whereas NCAA players are locked into your league thanks to NFL rules. So even though college coaches generate less revenues, the coaches have to be paid nearly the same lest they actually do go to the NFL. You are forced to overpay to keep thanks to market forces.