Should College Athletes Deserve To Be Paid

Jabari Hopkins Professor Camp EH-101 EA 29 October 2012 The Starved Athlete Imagine working for a private company that makes millions of dollars every year and not being compensated for your annual duties. Paying College athletes to play their sport would not only give them an opportunity to have a social life, but also help them have less stress during their collegiate careers. Why cant schools just pay their athletes to play sports?

One of the most controversial subjects we as individuals hear about this day in age is whether or not college athletes deserve to be paid. Many people argue that these athletes do intact, deserve to be paid for their time and hard work. NCAA athletes create a name for themselves by playing and performing well on their college teams. The better these athletes perform, the more publicity the school revives. This then leads to higher ticket sales and stores around campus selling jerseys and other clothing items with athletes names and numbers on the back. NCAA schools have become comfortable with using athletes’ names to bring in a revenue for the school, and yet the athletes never see any of that money. On the other hand, many people believe that these athletes do not deserve, nor should they expect to receive payment in return. They believe that these scholarships and the education are payment in itself. Some even bring up the question on if it is affordable or even realistic to pay college athletes.

The way the system is set up, it makes it very hard for a professionally athlete to sustain a typical life. Generally tuition for good colleges is about $25,000 per year, and some people would say “$100,000 over four years is a lot of money for an athlete”. It is but most athletes don’t even last 4 years at their colleges. Athletes have to deal with the shuffling of coaching staffs, who may or may not mistreat the athlete, forcing him or her to transfer to a different school. Additionally, teams may end an athlete’s scholarship following a series of uncontrollable injuries. Athletes in college are putting themselves at the same physical risk as the professionals involved in each respective sport. They need to be insured medically so their bodies cannot develop lingering problems due to injury and stress on the tissue, muscles and bones. Also the

College athletes, especially those who play Division I football and basketball, generate millions of dollars for the NCAA and their universities. In fact, former Texas A&M football player Johnny Manziel produced and estimated $37 million for

Because most college athletes spend the majority of their time (excluding classes) in practice, meetings, film review, or working out, they are unable to earn money to support themselves during their college careers (Greenlee, 2000). Even though their universities, athletic conferences and the NCAA continue to profit from their performances. I believe that college athletes should receive a stipend from their universities in addition to scholarships as long as they continue to be denied the opportunity to make any money for their efforts while they are in school.

A lot of the athletes wouldn’t have the “drive” to get better. A majority of athletes would say to themselves, “I’m already getting paid, so I don’t have to worry about getting better.” Although that statement is not true for everyone, I definitely think it’s true for some. Lastly, probably the most important reason I believe college athletes should not be paid is athletes are already receiving free tuition, housing, and meals for attending school in the first place. Athletes should not be getting paid extra money when they already have the cost of college paid for partially, if not fully. Many other students could use that money instead of paying someone just for playing the sport they

Paying student athletes has become a growing disputation among college athletes in recent years. College athletes have gained immense popularity among Americans over the past few decades. This has resulted into increased revenues for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its participating colleges. This often fuels the ongoing debate of whether college athletes should be compensated beyond their athletic scholarships. Because of the amount of income student athletes bring into schools, student athletes should be paid based on the amount of success, revenue, and popularity they bring to the school.

It would allow them to provide for themselves and teach them life lessons. Some athletic programs would not be able to afford to pay the student athlete, however. On the other hand, the NCAA and CBS signed a $10.8 billion television agreement, so they could find a way to help provide for the student athletes.

Most student-athletes playing a sport in college are there on an athletic scholarship. The scholarship is granted to them by their respective schools and is worth anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000. According to Edelman, the football program alone at University of Alabama brought in roughly 143.3 million dollars of revenue. In perspective, that’s about 2 million per player. Even though Alabama is an elite program and brings in more than the average football program, the NCAA brought in nearly $845 billion in 2011 per Sonny. Now it is obvious there many ways a university brings in revenue, but it is safe to say that a player is worth more than that $100,000 scholarship. In fact, a substantial share of college sports’ revenues stay in the hands of a select few administrators, athletic directors, and coaches. Now think about what college athletics would be without the world class athletes it has today, or without any athletes at all. If a school didn’t “award” athletes these scholarships, there would be

Secondly, According to Kenny Zuckerman and WalletHub “I'm not quite sure how I would distribute the dollars, but it would be some sort of formula based on getting a degree, the school profiting on that players' likeness and the merchandise deal the school has during that players four years of on the field playtime” (Zuckerman). With all of the ticket sales, merchandise sold, and the attention the athletes are bringing to the school, schools are making tons of money, but they can’t manage to pay their athletes just a small percentage of their profits. With this being said, college athletes need to be

College student-athletes are amateurs and should be treated as such. Playing in the NCAA as an athlete means that you are an amateur and not a professional. “Students are not professional athletes who are paid salaries and incentives for a career in sports. They are students receiving access to a college education through their participation in sports, for which they earn scholarships to pay tuition, fees, room and board and other allowable expenses.” (Mitchell). These athletic programs allow the players to continue playing the sports they love at a higher level while receiving a higher education as well. College sports would turn into a bidding war, create a “free agency” and ruin the overall idea of amateurism that the NCAA was founded on if salaries were involved. Larger schools that make more revenue or have more money to offer could easily persuade the top recruits to come and play for them. This would create a bidding war and a certain type of “free agency” that is foreign to the NCAA because the idea of being an amateur

If the issue of student athletes being paid was dropped from the world what would be the outcome? Since the Supreme Court nor a lower jurisdiction has passed a law about this issue then the results are the same as in today’s society. The NCAA will be getting all of the profit while only paying coaches and others. Now the question is how will student-athletes be paid? Joe Nocera, who is a writer for the New York Times, posted an article on his solution to paying student-athletes. Mr. Nocera argues that there would be a salary cap placed on every Division I football and basketball team. He stats that “for basketball, the cap would be $650,000. In football, it would be $3 million” (Nocera). While having the salary cap for those two sports Mr. Nocera also adds that there would be a minimum of a $25,000 salary for players in those respective sports. Now instead of recruiter’s getting recruits to come to school for the weight room or the academics, the athlete would now choose the school who essentially offers the most money. Mr. Nocera notes that the contracts that there would have to be contracts negotiated between the player and university. Another important aspect to the solution is the creation of unions to represent the athletes themselves. This is because, “salary caps, of course, violate antitrust laws-unless they are negotiated” (Nocera). To end his solution, he also notes that he would make the scholarships the players received

With the increasing popularity of college sports over the past couple of years, a very controversial topic has risen pertaining to whether college athletes should receive payment or not for playing. The main problem behind the topic of paying college athletes is that college sports rake in massive amounts of revenue for their respective schools, athletic staff, and the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) but the athletes which participate in these sports and create all the revenue reap none of the financial benefits. To create a better understanding of how profitable college sports are, I present the following quote from Tom Gerencer’s article, “How Much Money Does the NCAA Make?”, “The NCAA makes about $1 billion per year. College athletics as a whole pulls in about $12 billion annually.” (Gerencer 2016) After grasping how much the NCAA and schools profit from college sports, it is very easy to see why there is a problem and why so many people argue that college athletes should be paid for their play. Along with the many supporters of college athletes being paid, there are various people who believe they should not due to their beliefs of education being more important than anything else in college. Now, although college athletes not being paid is the main problem it is not the only problem; the NCAA, which is the organization which runs all college sports, are adamant about college sports being an amateur league and because of this they do not allow athletes

And if the scholarship was not enough, they also make countless media appearances, sports apparel sponsorship, and provided with top of the line staff. Student athletes can also just get a job to help pay off their school

The line between college and professional sports continues to blur where college sports now acts like the minor leagues for professional organizations like the NBA and the NFL. But unlike the minor leagues where players are paid to play in their respective sport, players or student-athletes in the NCAA receive $0 for playing for their school. They do however receive scholarships, some being worth up to $60,000 to pay for tuition and room and board. These athletes are able to obtain a free education through these scholarships but it is not enough. Two of the biggest sports in college athletics, football and men’s basketball, earn millions of dollars in revenue for schools around the country and for the NCAA, yet these athletes do not see one penny of it. The top coaches in these sports earn seven figure salaries with six figure bonuses depending on how well they do in the post season but the players that are generating the money are not being compensated for their efforts.