Colleges are going to (openly) pay football and basketball players.

So, what is the point of college football? For those of you not in America. The idea of college sports was / is to help foster a sense of pride and belonging in a school. College sports were made for people to attend and cheer on their team together. It is supposed to be a unifying pastime for students from different majors and areas to mingle.

College players played for the "free scholarships" to the school. Even when I was in school (in the days of black and white TVs), we knew this wasn't really true, many were paid under the table - but rules were heavily enforced. AND football players weren't allowed to go pro until after college age. Same with basketball players years ago. And if you changed schools - you could only do it once, and you had to sit out a year.

Rules change slowly and then all at once. First, you could get paid for "name and likeness." A law put into effect after a basketball player sued a video game company when they used his name, number, and likeness in a sports game.

So they passed a law that if a player had his name or likeness used, they could get paid for that. Which lead to alumni "paying" a college star player hundreds of thousands, then millions of dollars to go to their school and then use his likeness to appear in an auto ad, or something equally fake.

And then they allowed players to move teams without waiting a year to play. So players now hop to teams that have a better audience of pros and/or pay them better.

Now, a payment will be extended to all players, albeit more $ can be added boosters.

So what is the point now? To make rich alumni feel superior to others.