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Should College Athletes Should Be Paid?

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Since 1957, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has allowed schools to pay the room, board, tuition, and other fees of college athletes (Sack, Allen). Fast forward to 2016, the most recent year NCAA revenue statistics are available, the NCAA brought in $996 million in revenue. Out of that $996 million, not a single penny went to a student athlete. To put that number into perspective, you could purchase this island, Apo Island, a 2147 acre island located in the Philippines, which costs an estimated $72 million, 13 times!!! Or, maybe you want to watch Shrek on Blu Ray DVD, which goes for $14.99 at Target, you could buy over 66 million copies!!! Are you hungry? Well, if you are, go to McDonald’s with the NCAA, and they can buy …show more content…

March Madness itself brings in more than $1 billion each year in ad revenues (Green, Matthew). In 2011, NCAA President Mark Emmert and the board of directors agreed to allow Division I schools to pay a $2,000 stipend, to cover the expenses that the scholarship did not. At the time, high school athletes signed letters of intent, and were promised a $2,000 stipend. However, within a month, more than 125 athletic directors of universities and conference commissioners signed an “override request,” and the NCAA decided to suspend these payments. The athletes who signed before this suspension still received this $2,000 stipend, even without losing their amateur status. If you weren’t one of these players, and you somehow received $2,000, whether it is by taking money from the boosters, or directly profiting from their likliness, will violate NCAA rules, and will receive a suspension of some sort. Welcome to the NCAA. College football and men’s basketball COMBINED bring in more than $6 billion in revenue each year, which is less than two of the major leagues shown here. Out of the 120 programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), only 14 are considered profitable. That means that nearly 88% of the top football programs lose money (Davis, Seth). Not so fast! According to economic professor Michael Leeds, “schools quite often move around or spend money to basically get rid of excess revenue -- what would be called profit in a

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