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"On a lazy Wednesday night prior to the ascendancy of Web 2.0, I attended a debate headlined by outspoken director Spike Lee at the college basketball Mecca of the Midwest, Indiana University.  Spike lambasted college administrators for exploiting the talents of naive teen-aged athletes and even suggested the NCAA was a modern remnant of American slavery.  A number of attendees questioned Spike, wondering how scholarships and nationwide travel could not be considered sufficient perks for the college athlete.  But for Spike, \"perks\" were simply not equal to the millions made from advertising, merchandise, etc.\nIn years following, I have always remembered Spike's tirade when analyzing economic endeavors surrounding non-paid, non-professional athletes.  I can't help but wonder what Spike's reaction would be to this recent news: New York based Takkle - a social network for high school sports -has raised a total of $7 million in Series A funding.\nThe money is a combined effort from Liberty Associated Partners, WMG Investments and Greycroft Partners - firms obviously hoping for a respectable return from Takkle.  The company founder's also are adamant of profiting from the culture surrounding high-school sports, and even market their service to higher levels.  This statement is listed on the Takkle's about page:\n\"Great coaches need great athletes. Finding them has always been the trick - and now, instead of scanning box scores in local newspapers from Princeton to Portland, TAKKLE will be the most valuable resource for college recruiters. TAKKLE will offer full access to complete game statis-tics, as well as photos and videos for hundreds of thousands of individual athletes and teams from across from the country.\"\nSo my Spike Lee inspired questions: Are the high-school athletes featured on Takkle connected to a profit-sharing program?  Should a big business be constructed around 16 year olds?\nTakkle is not the lone culprit, but a number of startups like YourSports (which I previously covered) and LocalReplay are also vying for money from high school athletics.  I would be interested in opinions on the ethical  concerns surrounding this sector of social networking.  Leave a comment or ping me at (andyDOTangelosATgmailDOTcom)."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2007/11/08/profiteering-and-high-school-athletes-additional-funding-for-takkle/>