John Oliver Discusses the Sham of NCAA Amateurism

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John Oliver Discusses the Sham of NCAA Amateurism

John Oliver tells some funny jokes about things we've already known for a long time about the outrage of NCAA amateurism.

John Oliver didn't obliterate, eviscerate, or demolish anything on Sunday night, but he did humorously sum up several arguments against the NCAA's myth of the Student Athlete. Hours after the NCAA Tournament's field of 68 teams was announced, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver trained its sights on the NCAA and the rhetorical/logical/ethical problem of amateurism. There is literally nothing new here; if you are a sports fan with a brain and a heart, you have heard all of these arguments before.

It's simply ridiculous that not only are these revenue-generating athletes not being paid, and it's gross that everyone else in the chain of production is dead-set against paying them, while lining their own pockets. Everyone who will ever bother to know this already knows it. But this is for a larger audience—or one not so dialed in to this particular bit of shittiness, I suppose—and it is convenient that every argument against the NCAA is now in one place. And, yes, there are some very funny moments.