Analysis: Should College Athletes Be Paid

With college basketball and football originating in the 1800’s, the game has had much time to adapt. Over the years, the sports have become more and more popular, gaining a bigger fan base, which has resulted in substantial profits from the sale of merchandise representing the teams and players. There is one thing that has not changed; all of the athletes are still not being paid. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, is an organization that regulates most aspects of

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) makes roughly $1 billion in income annually and the athletes do not receive any of it. This topic has been debated for many years and is still being debated. The debate dates back to the 1980s and now athletes are demanding that they deserve to be paid since profits are made off of them. Some athletes such as former and current basketball and football players came together with lawsuits to federal courts asking for rewards from profits NCAA makes gets of them. Research has opened several different opinions on this matter. There are many pros and cons for paying college athletes. College sports provide a huge source of the university’s income. The athletes, however, receive their scholarship

The NCAA has been around and evolved since the beginning of college sports. This organization is a non-profitable organization, but ironically makes more than millions of profit per year. Branch states “that money comes from a combination of ticket sales, concession sales, merchandise, licensing fees, and other sources—but the great bulk of it comes from television contract”(pg. 228). Meanwhile, the student-athletes do not receive any of this money. This is the start of an unsubstantial business between universities built around amateurism.

College sports have a big market on the major school levels. These major schools can bring in 30 to 40 million dollars per year to the school through the athletic programs. The players get none of this share of money even though they are the ones who have to put themselves at risk during these tough games that provide the school profit. You may say that these college athletes are getting a free education at their choice of university but some many say they should get paid. Today as much money that runs in and out of these schools there is a huge controversy to whether or not these student athletes should get rewarded for their hard work on and off the

It is the NCAA’s policy that no student athlete shall receive any special benefits or compensation in regard to their status as an athlete of a university. This basically means that no player can accept gifts or services with any special benefits from school or athletic personnel, or receive any benefits for outside entrepreneurship for reasons regarding their play. For example, a student athlete cannot sign a jersey with their number on it and exchange it for any type of compensation. However, over the past few years, many scandalous conspiracies of soliciting services to athletes for their commitment and play have surfaced. Due to the NCAA’s stance on this issue many of these violations have left athletics programs with sanctions that in reality are very unnecessary and hardly ever punish those who initially violated the rules. The fact is that the college athletics generates on average 10.5 billion dollars of revenue annually, and the NCAA organization alone, about 720 million annually. Of that 720 million that the NCAA accounts for, only 60 percent of that is returned to the Division I universities whose athletics accounted for almost all of it. The rest is dispersed into other funds such as championship games and the national office services, with a small amount being paid to division II and III schools. However, of that 60 percent paid back to the Division I schools, which amounts to approximately 430 million dollars, the majority is spent by the University on

College athletes put their bodies on the line each game they play. "In the 2013 NCAA tournament, Louisville player Kevin Ware suffered a horrific injury to his lower right

To pay or not to pay, that is the question. This question, one of disparity, confronts the NCAA all the time today. Football and basketball players generate billions of dollars in revenue for their schools but do not receive any. College athletes cannot be paid because of the “no pay” rules and the “Principle of Amateurism.” The NCAA will not have to deal with as many rule violations and scandals. Plus, the NCAA could still label an amateurism principle without actually crossing the line with professionalism. Because athletes are focusing solely on sports and have no time to do anything else, athletes need money to support themselves. Not only does the school acquire revenue from ticket sales, apparel and sponsorships, but it becomes more

In 1906 the NCAA was born as a discussion group and rule making committee. The NCAA is a Non-profit organization, which is why players cannot be paid. For years the NCAA has been using the words “amateur” and “student athlete” in order for them to control and limit the benefits of these players, but while watching these players it is clear to tell they are far from amateur in a skill level perspective, which is shown when they garner the attentions of millions every Saturday during football season or during March Madness. College athletes are money making machines for the NCAA. It is time for the NCAA to get their hands out of their pockets and pay these players like they deserve, paying college athletes has been discussed for years and years now, but with schools like Northwestern being able to unionize and the celebrity of these athletes on the rise this will still be a heated debate. These student athletes put everything on the line for the sport they love, their time, their education, their health, all just to make the NCAA richer when they are just another number to them.

College athletes are the face of the NCAA, without them it would be nothing. Even though they are the ones who keep it running, they are given no money. It is a corrupt system that takes advantage of its athletes. The athletes bring in millions of dollars to their schools, scholarships do not cover the full cost of attending school, they are forced to go to college before the pros, and the athletes work more on their sport each week, than the average american works on their job, yet they receive none of the revenue.

The NCAA is a multi-billion dollar industry that generated over $845 billion last year due to their players’ ability to entertain and perform to their fullest extent at all times. So with all of this money flowing in, why wouldn’t they provide their athletes a stipend? Well that’s a question that today baffles many. What they basically have in place is a corporation that makes tons of money and, oh yeah, they don’t have to pay their employees. Sounds like the perfect business model right? What has continued to be one of the most pressing issues in the world of sports today has now become a matter the NCAA can no longer afford to ignore. The service that college athletes provide to the institutions they attend in addition to millions of spectators all over the world is still not being rewarded in the manner that it should be for their above-average dedication, work ethic, and most importantly money brought in to their employer.

A very long debate in college sports is if the athletes should be paid. Author Jared Walch, talks about both sides of the issue, but later in the article it seems he sides with the argument that they should be paid. In the beginning of the article, he talks about why the athletes shouldn’t be paid. Walch first argues that this is all a choice for the athletes. They choose to put themselves in harms way of possible injury and not every athlete gets injured. Another argument that the author discusses is how to pay the athletes. Who pays the athletes and how do you distribute the money? The two programs to bring in the most money are football and men’s basketball. Women’s golf athletes are still college athletes. So even though they don’t make as much money, will they still be paid? Most athletes are already at school for scholarships. If you already have everything paid for by the university, what more would you need paid for? The author later goes into the morality and how paying the athletes would take away some of the entertainment of watching college athletes play. Towards the end of his article, Walch

College athletes put a lot of their time into the sport (43.3hours per week) and they still have school to worry about as well.

College athletes should not get paid. College athletes getting paid has a lot to do with most of the coaches being involved and letting them get paid. Most coaches get paid millions of dollars and most of the time that’s who the college players or their families are getting the money. Athletes wonder about getting money and how they are a going to get it. Well here is why college coaches make money off the player. The players are the ones who are really the reason why most coaches get paid the largest amount that they get. How good the player plays, their popularity etc. Coaches start off recruiting with a salary instead of a scholarship. But salary does not give a better deal than a scholarship.

Universities and the NCAA make a lot of money off the likeness of college athletes, however these athletes get no form of physical compensation. The NCAA claims to be a nonprofit company, but in a reality they’re a multi-billion dollar industry that is comparable to professional leagues such as the NBA and NHL, due to their players’ ability to entertain and perform to their fullest extent at all times. Over the 9-month 2013-2014 NBA season, the league grossed $4.7 billion, with athletes averaging $5 million salaries. In contrast NCAA Basketball grossed $2 billion over a month long tournament. Despite this staggering figure, the athletes received no compensation. In 2011 the NCAA signed a historic television deal with CBS and Turner Broadcasting,

Majority of these profits that are generated from student athletes playing on the field stem from ticket sales, donations, TV contracts, and royalties from licensing and merchandise. Joe Nocera from New York Times Magazine articulated this point very well when he said “It’s important to remember that billions of dollars are being generated by the players and coaches are making 4-5 million dollars a pop. The reason they have fancy stadiums, the reason they have 10 assistant coaches, the reason they have all of this, is because of the labor of the 19 year old kids on the field.” The NCAA is a tax exempt nonprofit organization with no shareholders that is thriving and making millions of dollars off of the backs of students who sometimes don’t have any money to feed themselves. Refusing to pay athletes all for the sake of their definition of amateurism. Claiming that athletes should play for the love of the game and not the money. Jay Bilas, a college basketball analyst, made an excellent point in the movie “Schooled: The Price of College Sports” when he made a comparison of a student who wasn’t an athlete making a salary compared to a student athlete getting paid. He said “My nephew is the student body president at the University of Kentucky. As student body president, he is provided with certain benefits that if he were an athlete, it would be considered to be a