Collegiate Sports : Should Players Get 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 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.

Nevertheless, the revenue made by the NCAA from ticket sales, marketing and television deals is not used for education or research. According to Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer, 20 % of the money goes back to the involved schools but it does not go directly to the classrooms of the university. The profits are shared between the coaches, administrators and the rest of the staff as well as money to the athletic program to maintain it. According to NCAA.org “$199.6 million was Distributed to Division I schools to help fund NCAA sports and provide scholarships for college athletes” out of 996 million raised. In some cases money is taken from the school department to fund the athletic programs, for example the University of Tennessee took $18

What college athlete would not want to be paid to play the sport that he or she loves? The real question is, though, should college athletes be paid for their roles in a college’s athletics? They are many points to each side of this recent controversial topic, which is why this has been made into such a hot debate in the past couple of years. As of right now, these athletes are not getting paid, but many of them truly believe that they should. Others believe that they already are being paid through certain types of scholarships and don’t deserve anything more than that. With that being said, there are two sides of this topic that have quality points.

NCAA participation rates have been rising both in the number of teams and as well as the student athletes competing in college athletics. Women’s sports added 140 new programs and men’s added 111. Along with these added programs, the number of students who participate in the 23 sports sponsored by the NCAA has risen to 472,625 participants. (Johnson) The NCAA revenue for the 2011-2012 school year was $871.6 million and

The current athletics systems in many large colleges are no longer beneficial to student-athletes or the academic premise the schools were founded under and are in need of intensive restructuring. Ernest Boyer, former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching said, "I believe that the college sports system is one of the most corrupting and destructive influences on higher education" (1999). In fact, it is widely acknowledged that there is corruption by many college coaches in the areas of recruiting, eligibility, degree progress, and academic integrity of athletes. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), the national governing and accrediting agency for college athletics, possesses the duty of

University’s draft athletes to work within the NCAA, a, multi-billion dollar industry that regulates players to the point of management. All television revenue, ticket and jersey sales, promotions and other sources of income goes to everyone involved in the business except for the athletes creating the worth. According to USA Today Sports in 2014, the NCAA had total revenue of nearly 1 billion during its 2014 fiscal year, well beyond the revenue generated by the NFL, and NBA playoffs. (NCAA nearly topped $1billion in

For years now there have been the argument if college athletes should be paid to play or not. It is an ongoing debate between many people including the National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA), athletes, coach, and other various people. The has debate has gone far enough that a lawsuit has started over it. There are many arguments for college athletes being paid such as; the athletes do not have time to work, their images are being used without any type of pay, and how the NCAA and coaches make millions of dollars off of the players while the players do not make anything. On the flip side of this, arguments that the athletes should not be paid include; they get paid in other varies ways, the average college athletic department loses enough money already without paying the athletes, and the fact that not all college athletes are in school to become professional athletes anyhow so making money from their athletic abilities should not be an issue for them at all.

Should college athletes be paid? Let’s take a quick glance at the pros and cons of each perspective. For starters, in my opinion, yes, college athletes should get paid. What deserves debate, is the conversation of how to get this done. From my experience, in America, you get paid in proportion to the value you bring to the marketplace. College sports is one, if not the

When the topic is brought up about how college athletes should be paid to play, more then half of people instantly will disagree and say no way, what for? But have they really looked into all the answers pointing toward it might be a good idea to pay them? I know it sounds like I'm trying to say give them million dollar contracts and call it a done deal but that is not the case. Aside from the athletic and academic scholarships to pay for tuition, the money they would be receiving would be miniscule to what they could be making if they were working at a job instead. This money would basically cover small costs an athlete must make when living on his own, since there is no time for a job when the careful balancing act of school and sports is in place. Only a select few big time athletes will actually make it all the way to the show and receive a big payout. Once this money distribution to the players is in affect, it will clean up a lot of problems in college sports.

There have been ongoing arguments over the past decade of whether or not college athletes should be paid to play. Many argue that they do not have time to get real jobs because the requirements for the sport that they participate in are far too demanding. Others cite that these athletes are provided full scholarships to attend the schools at which they are playing the sport. However regardless of the argument, I still feel that college athletes should NOT be paid to play.

But something doesn't add up here. None of this money is possible without the athletes playing. So why do the overpaid coaches, the overpaid administrators, and the overpaid people that work for the NCAA get the money instead of the athletes playing in the game? So much money is being passed around and nothing goes to the

As a nonprofit the NCAA is often not compared to large companies even it makes comparable revenue. All television and video game revenue, as well as ticket, jersey, and souvenir sales made from college athletics all go to the NCAA, the conferences, the athletic departments, and the coaches. In fact, one study suggests, “Men’s basketball and football combine for $6 billion alone” (Mondello, Piquero, Piquero, Gertz & Bratton, 2013). None of that revenue goes directly to the student athlete even though the NCAA surely has enough money to do so if it chooses. USA Today writer Bruce Horovitz states in his article, March Madness Evokes Marketer Madness that, “The NCAA men’s basketball tournament generated $1.15 billion in television ads in 2013, well beyond the revenue generated by the NFL and NBA playoffs, according to ESPN” (Horovitz, 2014). Marc Edelman, a professor at City University of New York takes it a bit farther in his article The Case for Paying College Athletes, and claims, “The college sports industry generates $11 billion in annual revenues. Fifty colleges report annual revenues that exceed $50 million. Meanwhile, five colleges report annual revenues that exceed $100 million” (Edelman, 2014). In contrast, during the 2014-2015 season the NBA grossed about $5.18 billion in revenues according to Forbes Magazine, which was a league record high. The NCAA revenue money is also not evenly distributed among the schools, as top tiered athletic programs tend to make more money

The NCAA’s greatest fear about paying student athletes is the money itself. They worry it will be spread thin between all the sports departments, but with all the money circulating around the college sports industry, they should not have any concerns. The two most popular college sports, football and men’s basketball, generate over $6 billion in annual revenue combined; more than the amount the National

According the ncaa.org, the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association)‘s revenue in 2012 was 871.6 million dollars and 2013 was