than any single professional sports deal, with any network.According to research by Notre Dame economist Richard G. Sheehan, at least three-college football teams; Michigan, Florida, and Notre Dame, are each worth more than the NFL's Detroit Lions. Our Michigan Wolverines are worth an estimated $225 million. In 1997, when the Wolverines earned a Rose Bowl bid, they were paid $15 million for participating in the game, which was sponsored by AT&T6. That is not including the money the university profited by sales of tickets, tee shirts, and other souvenirs.The NCAA does not follow the same regulations that universities are forced to follow. In 1997 when the NCAA was debating on moving their national headquarters, 72% of the NCAA's 250 employees voted to stay in the Kansas City area. Oddly enough, the NCAA accepted Indianapolis' offer of about $50 million to move there. "Money drives it, greed drives it," says Tom McMillen a former college athlete, congressman and member of the Knight Foundation Commission of Intercollegiate Athletics, which attempts to reform college sports. Considering that the NCAA functions to make money, why not pay the player? In 1905, the NCAA promised President Theodore Roosevelt, "To keep college sports at an amateur level, secondary to a good education." Last year, three Baylor University coaches were convicted of wire fraud for filling out tests for star basketball players, to improve their grades. United States District Judge, Walter S. Smith says, "The evidence in this makes it clear that Baylor, like probably the majority of NCAA colleges and universities, is in the business of athletics, at least so far as basketball and football are concerned, to make money." Well if the NCAA is in the business of making money, how are they not going to compensate their workers?Recently, Steve Spurrier, head football coach at the University of Florida, signed a six-year contract that will pay him nearly $2 millio...
