Kicking and sanctimoniously screaming all the way, the NCAA continues to march down the path of professionalism while publicly proclaiming that its athletes are amateurs, pure as driven snow.

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The latest understatement of the obvious is the decision by CBS Sports (and apparent approval of the NCAA) to add the names and stats of college players to their fantasy college football game for this season. This had previously been off-limits because of the players’ “amateur status.”

CBS, of course, has an $11 billion deal with the NCAA, which gave them plenty of leverage in their dealings with the quasi-amateur governing body. Universities will divvy up most of that cash, at least the part the NCAA doesn’t keep to maintain its bulging bureaucracy.

The NCAA reassures us the amateur classification of its athletes still applies because there is no charge for CBS fantasy football, so neither CBS nor the NCAA is making profit from the game. But it’s no stretch to imagine that CBS will make money on the ads sold on that Web site, and that other money-making opportunities will avail themselves on the very page those names and stats are listed. Or that the NCAA might get a bump in its TV ratings as people now tune in to watch games they otherwise wouldn’t because they have a fantasy player in that game (it works for the NFL).

College athletes are already professionals whether they’re classified that way or not. The NCAA’s own constitution states that, “student athletes shall be amateurs…and should be protected from exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises.” If that were true, athletes ought to be protected from their own governing body and university programs, many of which operate as multimillion-dollar commercial enterprises.

In fact, courts have already determined that a college scholarship is indeed a professional contract, and athletes and universities are subject to many of the workers’ compensation laws that the rest of us abide by.

So, the question really is, how long will it be before we drop all pretenses and start calling major college football and basketball exactly what they are: minor league professional sports?