This Column is Presented By...

Rashad Daoudi
For the Post

I have come to realize that I'm actually watching commercials, interrupted by a basketball game, when I'm viewing the NCAA Tournament.

A 40-minute tournament game easily turns into a more than two-hour event, thanks to television timeouts that occur 10 times each half. And it's not just at timeouts when the commercials are rolling. Trust me, the announcers will not hesitate to plug CBS's Chuck Norris, in Walker Texas Ranger, when a player is at the free-throw line.

CBS is brilliant at squeezing 60 seconds of commercials into a 30-second timeout. And all other stations must envy their use of commercials at halftime. You've got Bryant Gumbel telling you this halftime show is presented by Cingular, and 10 minutes of Cingular commercials making sure you remember.

I understand that CBS has to find some way to foot the $6 billion dollar bill that they paid to broadcast the tournament games for the next 11 years. (This doesn't include ESPN and ABC's deals) But if all this money is going to be made off college athletes, it is only just that they receive some compensation.

People will say these players are having their education paid for, so this should be payment enough. They will tell you that these players will go to the NBA soon and make millions. While this is true for some, many never will play a minute in the NBA.

It does not seem fair that so many are profiting on student-athletes except the students themselves. The NCAA comes down very hard on athletes and programs that give these players any handouts at all.

How can the NCAA glorify its athletes only to turn on them the minute they receive a gift? Can you really expect a star athlete, only trying to reflect the image that the NCAA and television make of him, to turn down an expensive suit from an agent?

Maybe if the NCAA gave its student-athletes some part of the revenue the athletes generate, they won't be so quick to leave college early for the dollar sign.

Shane Battier said it best in the March 2001 edition of Maxim magazine.

"I'm talking about improving the quality of life for the players," he said. "I feel there should be some sort of revenue sharing, some direct way that the cash gets to the players who earned it."

-Daoudi is a junior majoring in Communication Systems Management. He would leave school early if offered a high-paying job by anybody. Send him an e-mail at rashad530@excite.com.