If you don’t know Murray Sperber, you should. A visiting professor at Cal-Berkley, one of Sperber’s chief interests through the years has been to criticize major college athletics, which is kind of like you or me criticizing Congress – there’s always plenty of fresh material to get upset about.
So when The Associated Press released a story this past week detailing how four BCS conference commissioners made $1 million or more – including SEC commish Mike Slive – Sperber pounced.
“Mike Slive got more money for TV contracts, but nobody turns on their TV set to see Mike Slive,” said Sperber, referring to a $1 million bonus that SEC presidents awarded Slive last year for landing lucrative TV contracts with ESPN and CBS.
“They want to see Alabama and Auburn play at their very best, which means players have to be in 12-month training and [put in] very extensive work weeks. The logic and the ethics of the situation say the players should be paid.”
Now do I think players should be paid? Yes … and No, largely because I think they’re already paid to some extent, especially in the two sports everybody whines about them not being paid – football and men’s basketball at the major college level.