President Obama will not support compensating the athletes who help generate over $1 billion in advertising revenue during the “March Madness” college basketball tournament but instead suggests that the NCAA require universities to offer guaranteed scholarships to student-athletes.
During an interview with the Huffington Post released Saturday, Obama insisted that student-athletes “need to be taken better care of” but that offering them compensation for participation would “ruin the sense of college sports.”
“An immediate step that the NCAA could take — that some conferences have already taken — is if you offer a scholarship to a kid coming into school, that scholarship sticks, no matter what,” Obama suggested. “It doesn’t matter whether they get cut, it doesn’t matter whether they get hurt. You are now entering into a bargain and responsible for them.”
He also insisted that schools ensure student-athletes have health care coverage so they can properly recover from any injury endured during play.
The president went on to express his frustration with the fact that college basketball coaches receive million-dollar salaries but student-athletes are often “banished” for getting a tattoo or the free use of a car.
“That’s not fair,” he insisted.
As of last year, the average salary of a men’s basketball coach for a team competing in the NCAA Tournament was $1.5 million before bonuses.
However, Obama would not go so far as asking the NCAA to require schools to compensate their student-athletes.
“In terms of compensation, I think the challenge would just then start being, do we really want to just create a situation where there are bidding wars?” said Obama. “How much does a Anthony Davis get paid … as opposed to somebody else? And that I do think would ruin the sense of college sports.”
On Saturday, Obama witnessed the “madness” firsthand when he attended the women’s NCAA game between Princeton and Green Bay in College Park, Maryland, to root for his niece Leslie Robinson.
