College basketball's March Madness tournament, which starts Tuesday, will earn more than $1 billion in TV ad revenue for the NCAA — more than the Super Bowl, John Oliver noted on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. "There is nothing inherently wrong with a sporting tournament making huge amounts of money," he said, "but there is something slightly troubling about a $1 billion sports enterprise where the athletes are not paid a penny."
At this point you will probably be raising objections in your head, and Oliver will probably try to explain why those objections are baseless. "If it truly is all about the romance of amateurism, that's fine," Oliver concluded, making a hard bit of sense. "Give up the sponsorships and the TV deals, stop paying the coaches, and have the teams run by an asthmatic anthropology professor with a whistle."
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