It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White CollegesThey attract money and attention to the predominantly white universities that showcase them, while HBCUs struggle. What would happen if they collectively decided to go to black schools?
I started reading this a little skeptically.
But was won over by midway through.
The NCAA reported $1.1 billion in revenue for its 2017 fiscal year. Most of that money comes from the Division I men’s-basketball tournament. In 2016, the NCAA extended its television agreement with CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting through 2032—an $8.8 billion deal. About 30 Division I schools each bring in at least $100 million in athletic revenue every year. Almost all of these schools are majority white—in fact, black men make up only 2.4 percent of the total undergraduate population of the 65 schools in the so-called Power Five athletic conferences. Yet black men make up 55 percent of the football players in those conferences, and 56 percent of basketball players.
A Billion Dollars sloshing around and the talent/labor force is working for free. No wonder some of the top football and basketball coaches make the more the the university presidents.
black colleges play an important role in the creation and propagation of a black professional class. Despite constituting only 3 percent of four-year colleges in the country, HBCUs have produced 80 percent of the black judges, 50 percent of the black lawyers, 50 percent of the black doctors, 40 percent of the black engineers, 40 percent of the black members of Congress, and 13 percent of the black CEOs in America today.
In a country where the racial wealth gap remains enormous ... institutions that nurture a black middle class are crucial. And when these institutions are healthy, they bring economic development to the black neighborhoods that surround them.
The article also notes that a lot of the top high school recruits know each other form tourneys and could collectively decide to go to a black college together. Get that to happen a few times and some of the big white powerhouses would be supplanted by black powerhouse colleges which could then upgrade their facilities and take in some of the wealth.
What it might take is getting LeBron or recently retired Wade to recruit kids to a black university. That'd make it easier.