... I do not think it means what you think it means.
There is probably no argument in the world I find more aggravating than the one that goes something like this: "Scholarship college athletes work for free because they do not get paid. Forcing someone to work for free is wrong. Ergo, we should pay college athletes."
Drives. Me. Bonkers.
The latest iteration of this argument comes from Matt Yglesias:
Today is the start of the annual NCAA men's basketball tournament—one of the most-pernicious but least-scrutinized forms of working for free that exists in the United States of America today. On the rhetorical level, the players don't get paid because of "amateurism". But there's nothing amateur about the sport. The tournament is the subject of a $10.8 billion broadcast rights deal and the major programs get additional broadcast revenue for their regular season and conference tournament play. The advertisers aren't amateurs, the TV stations aren't amateurs, the coaches aren't amateurs, the athletic directors aren't amateurs. The only amateurs around are the players. [Emphasis mine]
The idea that elite, scholarship-earning college basketball players are working for "free" is, by and large, a nutty one.* "Free" presupposes that tuition costs are zero. Tuition costs, however, are not zero: Duke University, to choose an example entirely at random, estimates that its yearly annual cost is $60,000. Plus, you get to go to Duke! I know that they pride themselves on taking smart athletes, but it's hard to believe they don't relax their standards just a little for that extra-talented player every now and then. As a University of Virginia grad, I can assure our admissions office turned a blind eye every now and again for a particularly sterling prospect. Those reduced standards are a subsidy in and of themselves, providing marginally deserving kids who lack academic qualifications a shot at a better life.
Furthermore, no one's forcing kids to go to college to work for "free." You can play ball in Europe! You could get a job at CostCo and play pickup hoops while waiting for draft tryouts! You could coach high school ball! You could lobby the NBA to change their age requirements!**
Now, as it happens, I think college students should be paid to play football and basketball. Or, at the very least, I think it should be an option. But spare me the sob stories about kids being exploited for their labor.
*Note: There is some percentage of college basketball players who do play for "free" insofar as they are walk-ons/non-scholarship athletes. If I'm guessing, though, this is a low percentage of players, and a very low percentage of players at elite schools who make up the majority of NCAA tournament teams. Division One schools can award up to 13 scholarships; Duke has 13 roster spots. You do the math.
**The real issue is that the NBA has in place a requirement that draftees be above a certain age in order to be drafted. The owners put this requirement into place to protect themselves from drafting high, and blowing tons of money on, high school players who skip college altogether and end up washing out of the NBA. Frankly, I don't have a problem with this and sympathize greatly with the owners who stupidly drafted the likes of Kwame Brown. But there's no point in getting mad at the NCAA for the NBA's rules.