Graduation Madness

Think Progress is pressuring corporate sponsors of college basketball teams in this year's NCAA Tournament to take measures to improve the poor graduation rates among players at many of these schools:

Thirty of the sixty-five teams that qualified for the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament do not meet the minimal academic requirements defined by the NCAA. Graduation Madness is an effort to encourage corporate sponsors — who make millions by adorning these athletes with their company logos — to improve the academic success of collegiate basketball players using market forces.

I appreciate Think Progress's concern for these student athletes. Basketball and football players at the highest levels of collegiate athletics are too often treated as commodities—instruments of profit for university athletic departments, shoe companies, and television networks. But I'm not sure I agree with the strategy of going after Nike, Reebok, and Adidas. (There are much better reasons to go after these companies.) Personally, I would start by going after the NCAA, which in recent decades has demonstrated little concern for the well-being of college athletes in money-making sports.