College athletics are a multibillion-dollar industry, and just about everyone is profiting off of it – except the workers themselves. Although the NCAA draws in about $11 billion dollars a year, the organization’s regulations ban athletes from profiting off of their platform at all. Considering how much money is floating around between the coaches, the universities, and the NCAA, it seems fair that many college athletes at big name schools are looking for some sort of compensation. The average college football player spends an average of more than 43 hours a week on their sport, and must spend countless more hours on their studies and other responsibilities at the university (Anderson). In a Huffington Post article, Shabazz Napier, a star of the 2014 UCONN basketball team, said there were hungry nights where he couldn’t afford to eat (Lemmons). For a player working far more than a full time job and helping bring in millions for the university, the coach, and the NCAA, it’s almost criminal that they can’t afford everyday necessities. The athletes aren’t looking for a huge paycheck, but it would be fair to let them capitalize on their status and earn what they can throughout their career. In 2012, Johnny Manziel electrified college football while at Texas A&M and took home the Heisman Trophy. A study by the university assessed that in one season, he had produced more than $37 million in media exposure for Texas A&M (Cooper). This doesn’t even include the countless merchandise
Actions towards paying athletes are being taken and according to the TCU Daily Skiff, “There’s a legislation being passed around in the Big 12 states to provide athletes with an extra stipend in addition to their all-expenses paid education. The idea is that these students are producing truckloads of revenue for the university and should see some of the fruits of their labor.” (Jennings, par. 2) Because athletes aren’t paid for producing such money, supporters feel some of the money made should go towards helping with extra expenses. An average student athlete has to pay for phone bills, transportation, entertainment, laundry, toiletries and other things. While the typical college student has the opportunity to work, athletes don’t. Some students in college receive academic full ride scholarships, which are the same as athletic full rides, but they have time to earn extra money on the side. If these students are receiving a full ride scholarship and have the opportunity to work then an athlete should be paid a compensation for his or her efforts on the playing field.
College sports is a multi-billion dollar industry. Each year thousands of high school students are recruited to play college sports, but under strict conditions. Students are required to do well in athletics while keeping up with their academics. College athletes spend up to forty five hours per week on practices, training, and games. In addition, they spend roughly forty hours on their academics. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) does not think it is necessary to pay these athletes because they want to maintain the “amateur sport” status. According to Stanley Eitzen in his “College Athletes should be Paid, “The universities and the NCAA claim their athletes in big-time sports programs
The popularity of college sports has risen tremendously throughout the years amongst Americans. The passion to watch college basketball, football, baseball, and other sports has generated billions of dollars to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and to various athletic programs throughout America. Even though, colleges are raking in millions of dollars from their sports teams. “Last year 's National Collegiate Athletic Association ("NCAA") basketball tournament generated over $70 million in gross receipts” (Goldman).The NCAA prohibits payments, beyond educational scholarships, to athletes who are the source of these revenues. College athletes spend countless number of hours in their sport every day by attending long and tiresome practices, workout sessions, and film sessions whilst balancing their academics, but do not receive any payment for their efforts. Athletes are putting their lives and careers in danger during practices and games by being vulnerable to any type of injury that might end their careers, and many of these athletes are not provided any type of medical insurance to fund their injuries. Colleges need to realize that athletes often feel exploited because while they generate revenues, they are scrounging to meet their basic necessities and sacrificing their academic and professional careers. Many college athletes, professional lawyers, and sports analysts have taken various initiatives to help
College athletic programs are among the most popular sporting events in America. With this rise in popularity, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its colleges have also seen a rise in revenue in recent years. In 2014, the NCAA made over 900 million dollars in revenue. Some collegiate coaches, such as Kentucky’s John Calipari, have yearly salaries in the millions, not counting incentives and endorsement deals. While, clearly, money is being made, NCAA regulations ban collegiate athletes from being paid. Many question this rule and argue that athletes at the college level earn and deserve pay for play. The debate to pay or not to pay college athletes rages on despite the latest court ruling supporting NCAA policies. Because colleges and universities earn such a profit from sporting events, many fans feel it is only fair to distribute some of the wealth to the players. Supporters of paying student athletes feel that these young men and women should be fairly compensated for the time demanded of the athletes and the stress put on the athletes, physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Those in favor of paying college athletes contend that athletic and academic work ethic at both high school and collegiate levels will improve, as well as, fiscal responsibility in these young adults. The NCAA argues that paying athletes would negatively affect their
Whether or not student-athletes should be paid has been a hotly debated topic since the 1900s. College athletes spend just as much time, if not more time, practicing and devoting time and energy to sports as they do academics. For this, many athletes are rewarded with scholarship money. However, many people believe it is not enough. Should we pay student-athletes a slice of the wealth or is a full-ride scholarship enough? (Business Insider). What if the athlete gets injured? Where does the money come out of to support each athlete’s salary? The huge amount of money being generated from college sports has led some people to think that the athletes are entitled to some of that revenue. While, some think that student-athletes should be paid, others disagree for various reasons.
A topic that is very controversial for everyone is, should student-athletes in college be compensated? There numerous evidence that supports in favor and many against the proposition of paying student- athletes who play sports for their university. As a college athlete, students are putting their bodies on the line each game they play. There’s possibility of suffering a traumatic brain injury or being paralyze after physical contact. These athletes are sacrificing their bodies and physical health at an opportunity to play a game which they love, and hopefully play it in the professional level. While that’s taking place, college football and basketball are big business that keep expanding. College sports bring in a large amount of revenues. The result is that many of them fail to graduate. Paying college athletes would not ruin amateur sport because even though most college athletes do get scholarship and should focus on their education it doesn’t help them if most of the time they are not attending classes to be in practice or games. College sports do make a high-income and athletes deserve a portion of the revenue they bring their programs.
More and more it’s discussed daily on whether if college athletes should finally be paid, or remain unpaid, this topic is very important because college sports are very popular in the United States. College athletes should remain unpaid because it wouldn’t be fair to the other less watch sports that don’t bring in a lot of revenue, it wouldn’t be fair to the female athletes they wouldn’t be paid equally, college athletes already have advantages and receive benefits, and paying the athletes would only benefit the big named universities and not the smaller schools. College athletes were all recruited out of high school to play a sport for a university of their choosing, if the athletes were good enough they would receive a scholarship, that comes with a free education, free housing, and a free meal plan. A discussed topic is should college athletes be paid because of all the hard work and revenue that they bring towards their universities, or should they remain unpaid because they are already receiving enough. In the article “Pay to play: should college athletes be paid?” Many get scholarships, which help pay for their tuition, supplies, housing, and sporting equipment. According to the NCAA, college athletes often receive grants worth more than $100,000”. (Birkenses & Bagaria Par. 8) A free education is already enough, college athletes get to go to school for free just because of their athletic abilities, which also
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.
Almost every week there is some sort of story that makes the news about a university breaking the NCAA rules. The debate is bigger than ever to start paying college athletes to play sports. It does not matter which sport it is, athletes need more than just a scholarship to pay for expenses outside of tuition, room, and board. A scholarship is strictly limited to these, but what about the expenses outside of those? It is time to start paying college athletes to play sports to cover the expenses that occur outside of a scholarship and the sport. With the growing costs of living, more and more athletes are looking for ways to get more money than
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
Around 60 percent of National Basketball Association players are penniless within the first five years of retirement. Countless of these athletes point their fingers to poor financial investments, funding their family and friends and having extravagant spending habits. If the NCAA agreed to begin paying student-athletes, the financial experience could help them develop a foundation of financial knowledge, and teach these young adults how to manage their finances and carry that wealth of knowledge to which ever career field they decide to take (Patterson). Student-athletes getting paid has gained so much momentum and controversy that the issue has made its way to the federal courts. The college football players at Northwestern University appealed the National Labor Relations Board to form a union. The main reason why these student-athletes went against the board was because they felt like they should be treated like regular employees and not students. An average college football player dedicates about 43.3 hours per week just towards football. That is 3.3 more hours than the average American work week. Another reason is even though the NCAA claims college athletes are just students, the NCAA requires that college athletes miss classes for nationally televised games that generate a large amount revenue. For example, the NCAA Division I football championship game is played on a Monday night. That means that the championship game requires football players to miss the first day of spring classes, which clearly demonstrates that the student-athletes are actually athletes first and students second. Also, the annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which generates about one billion dollars per year, affects more than six days of classes. Another clear indication that the NCAA cares only about how much money their student-athletes
Proponents emphasize that college athletics is a billion-dollar industry that generates significant revenue for its institutions and these institutions should share this revenue with their student-athletes. The NCAA generated over $845 billion dollars in 2012 from their college athletes’ performances at the highest level. This can be compared to a for-profit corporation that makes a lot of money but doesn’t have to pay its employees. (Why College Athletes Should Be Paid). According to a September 2011 study, for each NCAA Division I institution, their average football player generates $120,000 and their average men’s basketball play generates $265,000, annually for athletic department.
As of today, there are over 460,000 NCAA student-athletes that compete in 24 different sports while in college throughout the United States (NCAA). Over the past couple decades, the argument for paying these college athletes has gained steam and is a hot topic in the sports community. However, paying these college athletes is not feasible because most universities do not generate enough revenue to provide them with a salary and some even lose money from the sports programs. These collegiate student-athletes are amateurs and paying them would ruin the meaning of college athletics. Also, playing college sports is a choice and a privilege with no mention or guarantee of a salary besides a full-ride scholarship. Although some argue that
College sports are big business. For many universities, the athletic program serves as a cash-generating machine. Exploited athletes generate millions of dollars for the NCAA and their schools, and never see a dime. In terms of profit, if all ties with the university were eliminated, an athletic program acting as its own separate entity could compete with some fortune 500 companies. So, why do the vital pieces of the machine, the players, fail to receive any compensation for their performance? The answer lies in the money-hungry NCAA and their practice of hoarding all the revenue. College athletes should receive payment for their play to make their college experience more bearable because they create huge profits and
It is an age old debate on whether a college athlete should be paid. It is a high school student 's dream to play sports at the collegiate level. Many people question why the NCAA, coaches, and administrators are allowed to earn large amounts of money while the student athlete’s hard work and efforts are limited to a scholarship. Others feel that is should be considered a privilege that a college athlete can earn a college degree while enjoying what they love, by playing collegiate sports. Student athletes should not receive payment because they are already receiving payment in the form of an expensive athletic scholarship and are also able to receive the new cost of attendance stipend to assist with further financial burdens.