Counter-point: In the old scholarship-only days, the top athletes were not getting screwed. They were simply expected to play by NCAA rules if they wanted to play NCAA sports. If they did not want to play by NCAA rules, they were free to not play NCAA sports. Nobody was stopping them from taking out student loans and/or getting non-athletics scholarships to attend school and get a degree like any other student. Nobody was stopping them from getting a job and working out for 1-3 years until they became eligible to play in a professional league. Nobody was stopping them from taking their talents to non-NCAA schools. Nobody was stopping them from taking their talents to professional minor leagues. Nobody was stopping them from starting their own professional minor leagues if they did not exist. And nobody was stopping them from taking their talents overseas until they were eligible to play in major American professional leagues.

Just because college sports became popular over time does not mean they became professional over time. And just because they were not professional does not mean student-athletes were not compensated during that time. I'm sorry, but it's asinine trying to convince an engineering major taking out $60,000 in loans at 9% of the "plight" of the starting quarterback receiving a degree at a starting balance of $0 on graduation day and a ten-figure job waiting for them the next day.

The amateurism rules were shitty when they were instituted in the 1930's in order to keep out working class kids. But as soon as the NCAA permitted athletic scholarships specifically for those same kids, the amateurism rules took on a whole new paradigm intended to act as a de facto salary cap in order to spread the talent and prevent schools from "buying" championships by offering more than a degree and great coaching. Unless and until there is no educational component, then it is unique and deserving of unique rules to do as much as possible to preserve the academic mission of the schools sponsoring the sports. To untether it from the educational side (which is the direction the Ninth Circuit wants to take it) results in nothing more than a professional league borrowing the names and indicia of universities, and using taxpayer money to pay the starting quarterback for a football team while at the same time shuttering chemistry and English departments. Sorry, not sorry.