Semi-pro

We haven't heard haughty administrators extol the virtues of amateurism much these days.

How could they do it with a straight face?

As we (supposedly) move to a world of superconferences, there's no way the powers that be can continue to feed us the punch line that this is about some "academic mission."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the professed reason we don't have a playoff is because such an arrangement would be too commercialized, too professional. It's a laughable notion to begin with, because if the BCS isn't predominantly a commercial enterprise than I'm Mitch Albom.

It's been nothing but a big money-grab for years, but at least the current "seismic shifts" of the landscape eliminate what is left of the charade. If the approval of a 12th regular-season game years ago administered a standing 8-count to the ideal of amateurism, then what we're seeing now delivers the knockout punch.

The NCAA is not the governing body of college athletics; ESPN is. You play when ESPN says you will play.

And Nike/Under Armour are the second in command. Unless you're Alabama or Penn State or Notre Dame and you have the guts to resist, you wear what they tell you to wear.

It's one thing for Maryland to sport all sorts of zany uniform combinations to drum up some interest in the Terps under a first-year coach. But Georgia's garb last Saturday was hideous and embarrassing. If you're going to orchestrate a one-game change-up, at least honor the great silver-britches tradition.

College football is more popular than it's ever been and is bathing in cash as a result. But athletics departments are still strapped because they're devoting that extra money to $4 million dollar head coaches, $1 million dollar assistant coaches, $20 million dollar indoor facilities and other lavish structures.

It's like two neighbors both hitting the lottery and then each going broke by trying to one-up the other with the bigger house, nicer cars and most expensive boats.

There's no end in sight because, well, it's not as though cut-throat competitors are going to agree to stop competing on every front possible. But is this model sustainable? Maybe so, because TV executives have begun to discover that ravenous viewership of college athletics is money on the bank. What other programming can guarantee that millions of viewers will be glued to the TV for three hours at a time?

Then again, maybe not. At what point do large numbers of fans decide to stop going to games because it's too expensive -- and because the best seat in the house is on the couch in front of a 60-inch HD TV with DVR?

TV money is driving this whole thing, and it's why sacred boundaries and traditions will (supposedly) be obliterated as we (supposedly) move into a world of 16-team conferences.

It'd be disingenuous of me to rail against the trappings of big-time sports when I make my living off the trappings of big-time sports. Can't imagine too many Clemson fans being interested in paying 10 bucks a month for coverage if we went back to intramurals, brother.

The point isn't to rail on the system, but to rail on what we're told the system is and is not.

This a highly commercialized, semi-pro endeavor with mere traces of amateurism. Once we quit the charade and identify it for what it really is, we'll be better off.

The ship has sailed.



LW