NCAA apparently is going to play stupid until the end

It looks like college basketball's version of forced socialism is having a problem keeping all of its workers poor.

Go figure. This is America.

Despite the NCAA's rules against its basketball players making money off of their talents and abilities, basketball players apparently are still finding ways to make money off their talents and abilities. A detailed report by Yahoo! Sports on Friday provides proof of these egregious offenses. There's even a copy of an agent's spreadsheet to prove it.

And thank you for that, Andy Miller, you extremely organized Excel gangster.

Miller is the sports agent who had his office raided by the FBI last year on the same day the Department of Justice's Southern District of New York handed out indictments to 10 people associated with college basketball, including Auburn assistant Chuck Person and Fairfield native Rashan Michel. The examination of Miller's alleged budget for bribing college basketball players reads like a who's who of the sport. Mentioned are many of the best schools, and best players who play at those schools.

According to the report, Miller and ASM agent Christian Dawkins gave out "loans" and other benefits to players. Collin Sexton of Alabama is listed in the report, but he reportedly just got a free meal from one of Miller's lackeys. Others reportedly were better at maximizing their earning potential.

And good for them, right? That's how capitalism works in this country.

Not surprisingly, the NCAA says players making a little cash on the side might be the end of its world.

That's not an exaggeration either. Here's the statement NCAA president Mark Emmert fired off after Friday's latest bombshell report about players benefiting from college basketball's black-market economy.

"These allegations, if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now if we want college sports in America," read the first sentence of Emmert's statement.

What a fascinating sentence. It says so much about the NCAA.

"Systematic failures."

"Must be fixed and fixed now."

"If we want college sports in America."

Johnny got some money to buy a new car, and suddenly the entire enterprise is going to collapse? If that were the case, college athletics would have died decades ago.

In reality, the opposite has happened over the years. With a black-market economy taking care of the NCAA's unpaid labor, college athletics has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry that's mostly untaxed.

And the federal government likes taxes, in case you haven't seen an aircraft carrier or stealth bomber up close and in person. So, you know, maybe that's why the FBI and the Department of Justice's heavy hitters in Manhattan have taken an interest in college athletics. Just spitballing here.

The NCAA's latest multi-year contract with CBS to broadcast the NCAA Tournament is $8.8 billion. Emmert gets paid a cool $1.9 million a year to run this "non-profit organization," which represents member universities. About 90 percent of the NCAA's revenue comes from the NCAA Tournament. It's the golden goose ... and they don't even have to pay the employees.

What a swell deal?!

I'm no expert on anti-trust laws, but it looks like, in practice, the NCAA is an untaxed monopoly operating under the guise of higher education and amateurism.

It's all a sham, of course. And we've all known this for a long time.

Many basketball players are herded into watered down majors that are worthless once they graduate. At North Carolina, they had fake classes and the NCAA did next to nothing. At Auburn, the athletics department fought its own university to keep open its degree in "public administration."

These are the real problems in college athletics. But the NCAA says Markelle Fultz, the No.1 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, allegedly taking $10,000 from a sports agent is going to be the end of it all.

If some dope wants to give Fultz $10,000, who cares? No one, really, but the NCAA has to keep its con going.

"Simply put, people who engage in this kind of behavior have no place in college sports," Emmert wrote in his statement. "They are an affront to all those who play by the rules."

The NCAA's silly rules are why we're here in the first place, but apparently the NCAA is going to play stupid all the way to the end. They even put Condoleezza Rice in charge of a fact-finding committee to study what's wrong with college basketball.

"Following the Southern District of New York's indictments last year, the NCAA Board of Governors and I formed the independent Commission on College Basketball, chaired by Condoleezza Rice, to provide recommendations on how to clean up the sport," Emmert wrote. "With these latest allegations, it's clear this work is more important now than ever. The Board and I are completely committed to making transformational changes to the game and ensuring all involved in college basketball do so with integrity."

With Rice in charge, maybe the NCAA will even end up going to war with the NBA.

In all seriousness, this likely will come down to a compromise between the NCAA and the NBA, and a lot of kids will have to choose between shamateurism and an actual business on the up and up. Rice has met with NBA commissioner Adam Silver and NBA Player's Association executive director Michele Roberts to discuss the NBA's one-and-done rule. Silver is apparently open to change. One option could be allowing high schoolers to once again be eligible for the NCAA Draft, but requiring them to stay in school for two years if they choose college.

That won't fix all of college basketball's problems, though, because it has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry that still refuses to pay its employees. Under that system, corruption is inevitable.

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for Alabama Media Group. He's on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.

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