The NCAA: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters cite it as a sharp, accessible primer on the NCAA's amateurism model and athlete compensation, including for readers outside the US.
What it is
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on the NCAA, arguing that the organization profits enormously from college athletes while insisting they remain unpaid amateurs. It covers the money in college sports, including big-school athletic spending, and the case for paying athletes.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2015 to 2019.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec avip · 2019-09 · on “CA Governor Signs Bill Allowing College Athletes to Profit from Endorsements”
In case you're lacking context (not all readers here are US basketball fans) - John Oliver has an excellent take on NCAA salaries issue [this video]
Recommends IkmoIkmo · 2015-04 · on “The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much”
It an expense, not necessarily a cost. Their property values just rose for example. Over time the equipment ages which leads to breaking, and replacement because it's not state of the art anymore. If you expect it to last 20 years, then you can write off 1/20th every year, which are your actual costs. Meaning it's $100 per student per year, which is reasonably cheap because those are essentially your costs to have state of the art equipment available to you every year. Things like heating & lighting, employees, cleaning etc is added to that, but it's mostly independent from renovation as you had to pay that anyway before you renovated. It might go up a bit, it might go down because of more s
Recommends themartorana · 2016-05 · on “Amazon Proves Infertile Soil for Unions, So Far”
The "league" has billion dollar revenue, multi million dollar coaching salaries, enormous capital expenditures, and more. They are not "break even." If in fact you believe that student athletes are not exploited to an unconscionable degree, here is just a little educational material to get you started. [LINK] [LINK] [this video] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] And I'm not alone calling it slave labor. I'm just one in a massive chorus. [LINK]