HackerTube.dev

The NCAA: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

LastWeekTonight · 15M views · 2015-03-16 · 20:54

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on the NCAA, arguing that the organization profits enormously from college athletes while insisting they remain unpaid amateurs. It covers the money in college sports, including big-school athletic spending, and the case for paying athletes.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it as a sharp, accessible primer on the NCAA's amateurism model and athlete compensation, including for readers outside the US.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2015–2019

Topics

Search by tags

What people said

avip · 2019-09 · Strong recommendation

In case you're lacking context (not all readers here are US basketball fans) - John Oliver has an excellent take on NCAA salaries issue [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
themartorana · 2016-05 · Recommendation

The "league" has billion dollar revenue, multi million dollar coaching salaries, enormous capital expenditures, and more. They are not "break even." If in fact you believe that student athletes are not exploited to an unconscionable degree, here is just a little educational material to get you started. [LINK] [LINK] [VIDEO] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] And I'm not alone calling it slave labor. I'm just one in a massive chorus. [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗
IkmoIkmo · 2015-04 · Recommendation

It an expense, not necessarily a cost. Their property values just rose for example. Over time the equipment ages which leads to breaking, and replacement because it's not state of the art anymore. If you expect it to last 20 years, then you can write off 1/20th every year, which are your actual costs. Meaning it's $100 per student per year, which is reasonably cheap because those are essentially your costs to have state of the art equipment available to you every year. Things like heating & lighting, employees, cleaning etc is added to that, but it's mostly independent from renovation as you had to pay that anyway before you renovated. It might go up a bit, it might go down because of more sustainable engineering for example. There's a lot more to it, of course, don't get me wrong. But $2k per student for non-teaching isn't quite the truth, either. But I think the notion of building decent public facilities and amenities is one of the best things we ought to do. It sadly doesn't happen often. But universities do it, libraries, rec centers, I think it's great. It has to happen in a smart way, of course, I don't support some of the ridiculous over the top projects you sometimes see. A pool in the shape of a buffalo, ugh, great example right there. Sadly it's often in the pursuit of collegiate sports and not really providing awesome amenities and facilities to the general student body. Reminds me of the piece about Alabama in this great Last Week Tonight [0] [0] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by LastWeekTonight, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources