On May 11, ESPN's Outside the Lines first made their report that one and done freshman USC point guard OJ Mayo had received tens of thousands of dollars from Rodney Guillory, who had been reportedly working as a runner for sports agency Bill Duffy Associates.

Allegedly the money, funnelled through paid airfare, meals, flat screen tvs, and other various paid expenses, had been provided to Mayo beginning when the star player was in high school.

First and foremost what should be made clear is that OJ Mayo is not the problem here. He is simply yet another in a long line of talented athletes who saw people around him (The schools, the coaches, the networks, etc.) cashing in as a result of the publicity he brought to his school by his talented play on the court, and made the conscious decision to "get his piece of the pie".

The problem in major college sports today, particularly basketball, a "billion-dollar business" (as ESPN the Magazine's Stephen A. Smith puts it) everyone involved profits big-time from the sport. That is, except for the players, without whom there would not be huge 100,000 person capacity arenas.

I see only two viable solutions to this problem. Solution A involves essentially taking the money out of the game. Get rid of the big network contracts, eliminate big NCAA Tournament or Bowl Game payoffs, abolish big coaching contracts. Yeah right, you say. That's not gonna happen. But what else can the NCAA do to preserve amateurism without appearing highly hypocritical?

Now, the revenue sharing for major college basketball, for the most part, is fair to the schools involved.

• 1/6 of the money goes directly to the schools based on how many sports they play (one "share" for each sport starting with 14, which is the minimum needed for Division I membership). (Source)
• 1/3 of the money goes directly to the schools based on how many scholarships they give out (one share for each of the first 50, two for each of the next 50, ten for each of the next 50, and 20 for each scholarship above 150). (Source)
• 1/2 of the money goes to the conferences based on how well they did in the six previous men's basketball tournaments (counting each year separately, one share for each team getting in, and one share for each win except in the play-in game and the Final Four). In 2007, based on the 2001 through 2006 tournaments, the Big East received over $14.85 million, while the eight conferences that did not win a first-round game in those six years received slightly more than $1 million each. (Source)

Fair to everybody except for the athletes involved. What should be done, is either the NCAA should take the big money out of the sport, or see that everyone involved gets their share, including the student-athletes themselves.