ABSTRACT
The Penn State cover- up in Chapter 5 introduced us to college athletics with a look at the seamy side. In this chapter, we will take a broader and more detailed look at college athletics as a form of commercial entertainment (see Clotfelter 2011). It is the world of big- time college sports, and the intercollegiate golden triangle plays a prominent role in this world (see Nixon 2014). The people who run college sports on the campuses and in organizations such as the NCAA paint an idealized picture of intercollegiate athletics with genuine student- athletes who pursue their education while also playing sports. The inconsistency or tension between the commercial realities of big- time college sports and the rhetoric of the amateur student- athlete and educational justifications is an important part of understanding this big- time sports world and how it affects those involved in it.
