INDIANAPOLIS, IN – The cancellation of college basketball’s March Madness tournament due to the COVID-19 crisis has left the NCAA scrambling to find new ways to exploit their 500,000 student athletes.
The tournament brings in almost a billion dollars to the NCAA through TV deals and ticket sales of which exactly zero dollars goes to the student athletes playing the games. This represents some 80% of the NCAA’s annual income. While insurance will cover some of the lost revenue, this still leaves a substantial shortfall for those who make large sums of money from US collegiate athletics.
“This is a catastrophe for all our wallets at the NCAA,” said Association President Mark Emmert, who collects a $4,000,000 salary off the backs of free labor. “But we want to reassure fans of college sports that we’re looking at every option to exploit these kids. We’ve had preliminary discussions to rent the kids out to oil companies for pipeline construction, so they can learn a trade to go along with their communications degree. There’s talk of broadcasting a dance marathon with a million dollar prize where athletes must dance for our pleasure until everyone but the winner collapses from exhaustion. We would then confiscate the million dollars, of course. And if that falls through we’ve also reached out to organ smugglers, most of these athletes have two top-of-the-line kidneys and you only really need one.”
The NCAA has been under increasing financial pressure after a series of scandals and widespread corruption. Of particular concern is the passing of California’s Fair Pay for Play Bill that will go into effect in 2023. The bill will allow college athletes the right to make some amount of money for risking their bodies and health for entertainment.
“These are the last few years where we have complete control of every student’s body and image,” said Emmert. “We need to make sure we’re squeezing every last drop of cash from these kids before we discard, sorry, graduate them into the world with an often useless degree and no health care.”
Emmert concluded his statements with a moment of silence for all the brackets that would never even get a chance to be busted this year.
