How Can We Save College Sports From Overcommercialization and Professionalization?

My guest in this episode is Dr. David Ridpath, a sports business professor at Ohio University.  He teaches classes with a focus on Governance, Ethics, Leadership and Intercollegiate Athletics.  He is also a member, and past president, of the Drake Group, whose mission is to defend academic integrity in higher education from the corrosive aspects of commercialized college sports. Our conversation begins with a discussion about college athletes' fight for the right to control -- and profit from -- their names, images and likenesses (NILs), a right every other student on campus already enjoys.  We also talk about the NCAA's failure to protect the health and safety of college athletes, highlighting recent examples associated with the Covid pandemic, as well as in the area of brain trauma and concussions.  This failure is especially troubling given the fact the health and safety of athletes was the original reason the NCAA was formed.  We discuss how little educational objectives factor into decision-making in college sports, especially at the big-time power conference schools.  We touch on how the European model for athletics is preferable to the American model.  Finally, we talk about the shame that is 1,900 schools in the United States still having Native American mascots and nicknames.