NCAA Profit Distribution: An Unsolvable Problem

Last night was the Men's Division I National Championship in basketball. Louisville won, as I anticipated, and I can't help but believing their run after the Kevin Ware injury and especially their comeback over Wichita State were too good to be true. However, this post is not a reflection of my cynicism of college or professional basketball but instead an argument for paying the players that bring in all the revenue from the most popular college playoff tournament in all the world.
The NCAA opposes the idea because they feel the athletes are being compensated with a "world class education." However, that education does not even begin to match the monetary compensation a star athlete would receive if they were to get a cut of the billions of dollars brought in every year by NCAA sports. The NCAA uses the likeness of a player to make money as well. Jerseys with the names of players are sold and yet not a penny goes back to that player with his name on the back. But if a player turns around and decides to sell his own jersey that could mean huge penalties for the university and the player.
I feel adamantly about paying athletes because they bring in the revenues, but how to do it is incredibly complicated. Do the best players get the biggest cut? Is that determined by seniority or statistics or some other factor? And if it isn't based entirely on play will there need to be a draft instead of just recruiting. If it does go to a draft then who would participate? Just the four major conferences, shutting the door on all smaller schools who are trying to compete?
Regardless of how it works I think it needs to happen. If a star player gets a career ending injury in college he is losing millions upon millions of dollars because he never had the opportunity to play in the pros. And on top of that they could lose their scholarship because they are no longer playing for the university. Compensation needs to be real, players deserve their cut, because without them none of those billionaires who see the greatest share would be seeing anything.

Here is someone who can articulate this argument a lot better than myself theatlantic.com