Am I the only one sick of all this expansion?

All the talk thus far during the off-season has been about expansion.

First, it was the tournament to 96 teams, a fact that every writer, blogger, and college hoops has lamented. Now the expansion talk is centering around the Big Ten and the Pac 10. Will the Big Ten raid the Big East for its football teams? Will the Big East be able to function as a conference with what may amount to mid-major football? Who is the Pac-10 going to add? Is it really possible that we may be looking at an NCAA with four super-conferences of 14 or 16 (or more?) teams?

Exact answers depend on what you have been reading.

Long story short, the Big Ten is looking at a number of schools -- Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas -- that they would like to add if they cannot get Notre Dame to join the league. The general consensus seems to be that if the Irish choose to remain independent (in football), that the conference will add three, or even five, teams.

I don't need to explain that this, like the expansion of the NCAA Tournament, is all about the money, do I? Big Ten teams earn $20 million in football payouts annually, while the Big East only pays their members $7 million. In order for the Big Ten to have a conference championship game -- a game that brings in huge amounts of TV revenue -- they need at least 12 teams. That's not it. Pete Thamel explains:

That would increase the Big Ten to the 12 teams necessary to have a postseason championship game and increase the league’s national profile. What it would not do is significantly increase the Big Ten’s television footprint for its successful new network, which is really the driving force behind its proposed expansion. That is why the Big Ten is toying with the idea of a 16-team league that could include colleges like Missouri, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Connecticut. If that happens, Crouthamel predicted other conferences would catch up by adding teams. The counterintuitive aspect of the Big Ten expansion talk is that it is not always the quality of the program, but the television market that it would deliver, that is the most important factor. Though probably not pining to watch Rutgers or Syracuse football, Big Ten officials like all the television sets in New Jersey and upstate New York.

Yup. All about the money.

So keep this in mind every time you feel the need to complain about an athlete -- be it a one-and-done college basketball player, or a college football player that skips out on his final season, or a high school baseball player that enters the draft with spending a day on a college campus -- giving up their education for a big payday.

The NCAA and their member institutions are willing to ruin college basketball and football for the extra money brought in by an expanded tournament and expanded conferences. The way the NCAA makes their money is through exploiting the athletes that play these sports.

Is it really that wrong for these athletes to want to get paid themselves for their on-field exploits?

Put yourself in their situation. What if you weren't allowed access to the salary that you make at your job, and instead your compensation was that your office would give you a free education in a field completely different from the one you are working in. Instead of your salary going into your bank account, it went towards funding the rest of the country's workers, people in a much less-profitable line of work.

That's exactly what is happening with these college athletes.

So don't question them when they decide its time to start making some real money.

They are only doing what the NCAA taught them to.