Re: Double Standard.
I think my post from a few hours ago goes to, at least partially, the causes of the double standard (or different standard). The paternalistic justifications are nonsense, so it's reasonable to question the motives of those who advance them. IMHO, The NBA and NFL are motivated by their inability and to create developmental leagues of any quality without serious effort (I should have wrote "laziness"). The media and fans are motivated by their interest in NCAA basketball and football and their general lack of interest in NCAA baseball and hockey.
Baseball and hockey have extensive minor-league systems with long histories. MLB's is well known, so I won't get into that.
(To develop players, the NHL uses the AHL and the ECHL. Before players are drafted, most, even some players from the US, have already played in leagues unconnected to educational institutions. In Canada [there are teams in the US], the best players in their late teens [some as young as 15] play in the CHL, divided into SIXTY teams playing in three different leagues. The OHL, for example, was formed from the Ontario Hockey Association, a league founded in 1890. The first teams of the league could actually compete for the Stanley Cup. Although these organizations were not formed by the NHL [and couldn't be formed by the NHL as they predate it], NHL clubs still utilize them. Though some of these CHL teams rake in the cash the players get nothing except a small stipend [$25-50 a week] and--wait for it--a scholarship. The CHL continues to be utilized even when an NHL team drafts a player. I'm not even going to go into Euro leagues)*
Of course, this is all very circular: these leagues develop young players outside of college because they have the infrastructure, either directly or indirectly (see the CHL). Well--then--the NBA or NFL should build the infrastructure, and then they can develop the players themselves. Of course, the NCAA already does a decent job--the teams are well coached, the games are important and pressure-pact. Are the coaches in the D-league better than the coaches in the NCAA? (The CHL, mentioned in the parenthetical paragraph and now this parenthetical sentence, have teams owned, run, and coached by former NHL players [Roy does, or did, all three at the same time) and provide better development than the NCAA [Seth Jones, an American phenom expected to go first or second in the draft, plays in the CHL, though for an American team])
This is my explanation for the different standards by the leagues. Why the double standard by the media and by the general public? They like and follow NCAA basketball and NCAA football, and want the best athletes in those sports to go to the NCAA. They don't give a shit, for the most part (NCAA hockey does well in certain North-Eastern markets), about college baseball or hockey. Since they don't care about those collegiate sports, they care or notice that these athletes don't go to college. If a tree fails to go to college in a forest and no one is around to something something.
Addendum: All hockey-related content is in parenthesis, so you don't have to read it. This heads-up probably should be moved to the beginning of the post.