College Athletes Should Get Paid Essay

The argument of paying college athletes outside of the scholarships they may be receiving is becoming a rather popular topic. “Should College Athletes Be Paid?”, an article in Santa Clara Law written by Ron Katz, Isac Vaughn and Mike Gilleran weighs both sides of paying student athletes. They argue the point that regardless how you look at the situation, a handful of college sports have become a business. Sports such as Men’s football and basketball being broadcast on television now generate approximately $750 per year for colleges. It is acknowledged that the ones who are bringing in this money (the student athletes) are not receiving revenue from the sport they are playing. The idea of treating all sports the same was possible back in the day but today you cannot deny that one sport may bring in much more than another. Therefore Gilleran et. al. concludes that each school should be able to choose if they want to start using the business idea and paying the athletes for their work. “Alabama head coach, Nick Saban’s contract extension calls for him to make $45 million over the next eight years. His players, on the other hand, receive only the NCAA scholarships that does not even cover their basic living expenses.” (Gilleran et. al. par. 27) How is it that

Many believe that paying college athletes is wrong because they are amateurs, or students first and athletes second. With tuition continuing to raise the average athletic scholarships aren’t covering the costs anymore. There is a misconception that most college athletes on athletic scholarships are getting everything paid for, in reality that’s actually false. For example, a Division I basketball team is granted thirteen scholarships each year. Of those thirteen scholarships the University is allowed to split them up however they feel. These scholarships are for incoming students from high school and returning student athletes that had their scholarship picked up for another year. According to author Mark Kantrowitz, less than 20,000 students a year receive an entirely free ride to college (O’Shaughnessy, 2011). That number is students total, not student athletes, that is a very small number when you see that there were 453,347 NCAA student athletes in 2012-13 (Brown, 2013).

Are college athletics becoming the new face of professional sport leagues? What is the value of going to college when you have a $24-million-dollar contract on the table to go play for the Yankees, Celtics, or the Broncos? Is there any person that would give the opportunity, experience, or money to go play for a college on a scholarship? Because that amount of money is so insignificant, it will not pay for his/her whole tuition and have a chance at a career ending injury in result. These are the questions that loom around the mind of a student-athlete entering this stage in their career. However, there is a serious fight to having high school students attend college, earn a degree, and then enter a draft to a professional team. The disgrace with college sports makes us ask: should Division l athletes be paid over and beyond their scholarship?

There are many people involved in the National College Athletic Association. Whether it is a manager, a coach, a student-athlete, or even a sales associate, those jobs make the NCAA happen. Without them, this association would not be where it is today. All jobs involved receive a pay-cheque, all but one; the student-athlete. The contract for the athletes indicate that they will receive a free education as well as free housing during their stay in the NCAA as a student-athlete; yet they don’t receive anything that is necessary for survival, such as food and water. The NCAA student-athletes deserve to receive some sort of fair payment for their hard work and dedication to their sport and organization.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, or so they say. In this case the phrase holds true, as it would be foolish to change a wildly successful college athletics system. Currently, athletes are able to earn their degree for free, while playing the sport they love, in a harmonious reltionship between amatuer athlete and college sports. Nonetheless, critics call for colleges to pay athletes a portion of the profits generated off of their services even though college athletes are already paid in the form of scholarships, free housing and other benefits. Furthermore, changes, such as sharing profits with student athletes could ruin a system that sucessfully supplies us with the ameteur sports that we love, while providing athletes with a free college education.

Most of us should be aware of college athletics’ plight. Over the past few years student athletes have gotten huge recognition. There is a controversy whether these athletes should or should not be paid. Even though they make a substantial contribution to their school, these student athletes are not paid by the university. In some cases they are the reason for increasing the College’s reputation. In addition, these athletes increase the profits of the university, therefore these athletes should receive a part of the profits. First and foremost, universities use these athletes as core marketers, also such student athletes’ training sessions are comparable to a full-time job, and they worked hard to get there.

Those that argue that college students are not receiving fair treatment would argue the point that these amateur college athletes are not truly as fortunate as the NCAA portrays. There is no doubt that many underprivileged young adults are indeed provided an opportunity to pursue a lifelong dream, yet it’s not as obvious when some of the statistics are examined. Though the NCAA and it’s institutions of higher learning do issue hundreds of thousands of scholarships throughout the year, they only make up a minuet percentage of college students, in fact in the same in the same time period of 2003 to 2004, “the N.C.A.A. institutions gave athletic scholarships amounting to about 2 percent of the 6.4 million athletes playing those sports, making that select group of athletes barely register statistically among the 5.3 million students at N.C.A.A. colleges and universities” (New York Times, n.d.). If the intent is to provide more opportunities to these underprivileged young adults then we all have a moral obligation to review not only how scholarships are awarded, but how many, as well as how they benefit the student athletes throughout their college years.

College athletics are great for many reasons. Not only does is it give young men and women the opportunity to play the sport they love, it markets colleges and universities very well. Some athlete’s ways of getting out of struggles back home is through their sport, and for most sports, before they step on a professional field, they have to play in college first. Although college athletics have many great aspects about it, there also negative features that highlight college athletics. In recent years, the payment of college athletes, and if it should happen or not, is a hot topic. College athletes are looking for compensation from his or her college or university, for the revenue him or her make for the school. I believe that college athletes should in fact be paid, but most importantly be unionized by the NCAA. For the NCAA to grow the next best thing is recognizing their athletes as employees. Every school is different from its revenue stream in athletics, but once athletes are seen as employees of the school, the deliberations between the athletes and head school officials can begin. Each year that goes by that the NCAA has yet to unionize college athletes, as well as find a way to compensate them, college athletics become more controversial and problematic.

Collegiate athletics is a multi billion dollar business. Competition across basketball, football, and other popular sports generate just as much money as they do excitement and entertainment to sports fans and the casual viewer. The driving force behind this behemoth are the athletes that don the uniform of the competing universities. These athletes, the most of which are black, dedicated time synonymous to working a full time job on top of being student in order to serve this money machine. What is so damning about this system then? The truth is that the student-athletes do not see a penny of the millions they earn for their schools. On top of that, they are stretched beyond reasonable means in order to serve their athletic program. In return, they are compensated with scholarships to attend the college. However, what might seem like a coveted opportunity is not what it seems.

When an athlete is offered a scholarship to play a sport at a university, he or she is being offered a free education, room, board, and food. It directly affects the student’s life, giving them all of the necessities they could

Why is it that college student-athletes do not receive payment for their respective sports? Many people are unaware of the life of a college student-athlete, whether division one, two, or three, the life of a student-athlete can be quite difficult. If people were more aware of what these college student-athletes undergo every day, they may be more willing to stick up for the matter. However, the fight cannot end with other people, for these college student-athletes must defend themselves as well, if a change is going to take place anytime soon.

Instead of getting what they are worth, college athletes are forced to pay costs like room, board, and travel expenses that are not covered by most athletic scholarships—leaving many college athletes living below the poverty line. In most cases, excluding the glamour sports of football and basketball, the average N.C.A.A. athletic scholarship is nowhere near a full ride, amounting to $8,707. In sports like baseball or track and field, the number is routinely as low as $2,000. Even when football and basketball are included, the average is $10,409. Tuition and room and board for N.C.A.A. institutions often cost between $20,000 and $50,000 a year. So because of the low number of scholarships given to student athletes and expensive college costs, the NCPA/Drexel report proposes an alternative solution. The proposed solution is to allow players to receive a portion of revenues (from TV contracts, for instance) and sequester those funds in an “educational lockbox,” which players can only tap to cover school-related costs. Players would receive the rest of the money only after graduation, potentially increasing graduation rates “Why college athletes deserve six figure salaries.”

Athletes in college have to determine if they are willing to put all their effort into the sport they love for no compensation. Participating in a sport is one of the most time consuming activities a student could do in college. On average, the college athlete will spend more hours competing and training than a person will work in a week with out pay. Now athletes are trying to be compensated for their work when they qualify for plenty of scholarships, have access to free benefits, and the equality of the individuals.

It is as if a huge scholarship isn’t enough. Critics on student athletes argue that colleges should be more concerned with the business of education not just entirely on if their team can be number one. Colleges have been noticed and criticized for their special treatment of their athletes. Desert News reports that,”...public universities now spend six times as much to support student athletes as they spend to support the education of the larger student body.” While some consider this a harmless treatment for those who provide something more for the college or university, it can also hurt the funding that goes into academics. The previous article also goes on to state, “spending on sports begins to crowd out spending on academics, which is currently happening at a ratio of at least 6-to-1.”

For years many people have argued whether collegiate athletes deserve to be paid or not.Although this topic has been a big issue for collegiate athletes and those who support those athletics, the rules have yet to be changed. This essay will argue why collegiate athletes deserveto be paid by addressing the revenue produced by college athletics, considering the hours of dedication athletes spend at their sport, and acknowledging what the NCAA considers “amateurism”. Some of the most known schools in America are known for its athletics programs not academics. Although some do have good academic programs when someone says the nameof a school like the University of Alabama or Clemson many people immediately think about football. Also schools like the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill or Duke, people oftenthink about basketball. All of these “big name” schools wouldn’t have their “big names” without the athletes that participate in the athletics of those institutions. So why aren’t these athletes being paid?In 2014 a legal writer named Marc Edelman contributed an article to Forbes entitled “21Reasons why Student-Athletes Are Employees and Should Be Allowed To Unionize.” In his 7threason he states “The NCAA currently produces nearly $11 Billion in annual revenue from college sports -- more than the estimated total league revenues of both the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League” (Forbes). Of this $11 Billion produced none of the money is given to