Opinion: End the ‘Big Lie’ That College Sports Are Nonprofit

A recent court decision allowing colleges and universities that generate tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue from sports to pay direct benefits to student-athletes should be a catalyst for removing such institutions’ tax exemptions, a Boston Globe columnist opines.

While institutions that cite their educational mission to justify nonprofit status “provide unquestionable value to students and society, nowhere is it written that nonprofit status conveys a license to engage in unlimited commercial activity tax-free,” says John E. Sununu, a former Republican U.S. senator who writes regularly for the Globe.

“For years, advocates of paying college athletes have been pointing to a ‘big lie’—the idea that top college performers are amateurs,” Mr. Sununu writes. “In truth, amateur status became obsolete years ago. … The far bigger lie is that these major sports schools are nonprofit institutions.”