Mark Emmert advocates for pro options for players

The President of the NCAA wants players who want to play professional basketball right away to have an easier path to do so, according to Myron Medcalf at ESPN.

Mark Emmert, the head of the NCAA, spoke about the issue during his Final Four media availability.

“I personally think that there needs to be more room for individuals who want to pursue professional sports to be able to do that, particularly in basketball,” Emmert said at the Alamodome.

“There needs to be the ability for a young person and his family to say, ‘You know, what I really want to do is just become a professional ballplayer.’ And they ought to be provided that opportunity if they don’t want to go to college.”

But Emmert stopped short of saying collegiate athletes should be compensated.

“And there is, as we said earlier, no interest in higher education of turning college athletes into employees that are hired and fired by universities,” Emmert said.

A commission was formed following the FBI scandal that broke last fall to study college basketball and examine what changes could be made to limit the amount of corruption.

Some of the ideas being looked at are allowing players a pathway to being a professional by eliminating the one-and-done rule and talking to the NBA about expanding and strengthening their G-League to serve as a “farm system” similar to baseball.

Some want to see the NCAA allow players to have relationships with agents while in college but having those relationships monitored.

It’s unclear what exactly will come out of the commission, but Emmert has been back-and-forth on many key issues in the past, so it is also unclear how much weight his statement holds.