The problem is that without the huge income from sports there would be no money for the scholarships in the first place. In fact I attended LSU on an academic scholarship that was partly funded by the athletic department. Yes, it's not fair that a bright student won't get the same scholarship that a dumb athlete will get, but the dumb athlete brings in millions in ticket sales that fund his scholarship and scholarships for the rest of the student body. It's screwy but our society would rather spend money watching football than on science, but until thousands of spectators will pay $100 to watch me do long division we're stuck with this system.