Wharton Prof argues for compensating student athletes

The debate on how best to compensate student athletes rages on — and was fueled by this recent piece in The Atlantic titled "The Shame of College Sports" by Taylor Branch. Yesterday, the magazine's website published a response from Wharton professor Kenneth Shropshire, who is the Director of Wharton's Sports Business Initiative.

Shropshire says he's all for better compensating college athletes, who often bring in millions of dollars for their schools but only receive basic grant-in-aid to pay for tuition.

There are reasons not to pay student athletes, and the leading one is equity issues related to Title IX. More broadly, as Branch points out, is who gets paid what? The logistics are head exploding if you reflect on it too long. Branch tells us essentially, to just let the markets determine who should receive what (the star quarterback vs. the high jumper vs. the top WNBA prospect). Is that too American? Not really, but it would be radically chaotic in its implementation.

Some food for thought on a cloudy Wednesday.