Essay On Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

Each university associated with the NCAA differ in size and budgeting. Some schools would have no problem paying each student athlete at their school only because of their profits from their ultimate money sports such a football and basketball, while other schools struggle now to even field enough teams to remain an NCAA school. This is why I find it intriguing to see where each school lies on how this situation could affect them. Athletes being paid could also affect high school and pro sports as well which interests me more to research this topic. High school athletics could improve by students pushing harder at the high school level to reach the college level because of pay, while pro sports could have many different affects such as students not leaving school early because of pay at the college level now.

College athletics is a billion dollar industry and has been for a long time. Due to the increasing ratings of college athletics, this figure will continue to rise. It’s simple: bigger, faster, stronger athletes will generate more money. College Universities generate so much revenue during the year that it is only fair to the players that they get a cut. College athletes should get paid based on the university’s revenue, apparel sales, and lack of spending money.

Due to National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules and regulations no college athlete is able to receive any compensation or endorsement while participating in college athletics. These rules have long been challenged, however no changes have been made by the NCAA. With universities grossing close to $200 million a year college athletics has turned into one of the top industries in the world. The NCAA is a governing body of college athletics, but without people questioning the NCAA and demanding changes to the monopoly that the NCAA is nothing will happen to the unfairness to college athletes like it is currently.

The college athlete should get a part of that money that is giving to coaches because they're the ones playing in the games. “Sperber’s right, but the “haves” schools are only partially to blame. The villain of college athletics is still the NCAA, initially a two-person agency set up by Theodore Roosevelt to address the growing number of serious injuries in college football. Its bureaucracy has ballooned to more than 450 employees, seven of whom earn more than $400,000 a year, an additional six who earn more than $250,000, and four others drawing more than $175,000. These and the other 400-something salaries rely on the NCAA’s golden goose: March Madness, the closest thing Americans have to a domestic World Cup (king, Paying Division I Athletes Will Hurt Lower-Tier Schools).This shows how instead of the NCAA giving money to the players that play these sports and risk their careers they rather pay their employees.

College athletics is a billion dollar industry and has been for a long time. Due to the increasing ratings of college athletics, this figure will continue to rise. It’s simple: bigger, faster, stronger athletes will generate more money. College Universities generate so much revenue during the year that it is only fair to the players that they get a cut. College athletes should get paid based on the university’s revenue, apparel sales, and lack of spending money.

College athletics have been incredibly profitable businesses for many years. With the advent of televised sporting events, the profit margin has increased exponentially. The Texas Longhorns’ football program alone grosses 104 million dollars annually (forbes.com). So, where is all that money going? Most of it goes right back to the school. The athletes who practice for endless hours and devote their lives to the sports get nothing but the satisfaction of winning. So, should Division One college athletes be paid? Division One athletes should be paid because they generate a significant amount of revenue for the school.

Paying College athletes has been a trending topic around the National Collegiate Athletic Association over the years. Many have strong opinions about this topic, and the opinions vary. The discussion of paying college athletes began in 1991 when the famed Fab Five became a household name in the United States. The Fab Five is arguably the greatest recruiting class of all time; all attending the same school (Baxter). The Fab Five first created controversy when they started to question why the university and university officials were making millions and millions of dollars off their names, and they were just deprived hungry college kids not making a dime. Nike even made billions by copyrighting their famed black athletic socks, black

The NCAA’s annual income of over 900 million dollars is a considerable amount of revenue, however, the players themselves do not deserve to receive any portion of this cash (Thellin). If payment is given to just a certain sport or a certain gender of sports, such as Division 1 men’s football or basketball, players of other divisions and sports will most certainly want a share of that as well. This would also create a monopoly-type of business in collegiate sports, causing players to be drawn to certain colleges who will pay out the most. Paying athletes would undermine the primary role of universities which is to offer education. The experiences and education that athletes receive while in college cannot be equated to the amount they would receive were they to be paid.

It is easy to see that the athletes bring in more money than a small salary to support the players’ families, or to have some food to eat at night. College athletes definitely deserve to receive some sort of financial compensation for all the money they bring their university. Last year, the University of Alabama received six million dollars to play in the Peach Bowl in the NCAA College Football Playoffs. (Smith 1) Whereas the players that got them there, which some believe are worth around 100k a year, receive nothing other than their scholarship.

Your dream has come true; you're at college playing the sport you love, and at what cost? None. You are free to live your college life worry free and have been given the opportunity to continue your sports career. After you have completed your college education you can get a job, with no college loans that you have to pay off. You are also able to start making money right out of graduation. You get to experience this less stressful college life. The lives of athletes that walk-on and athletes not on a scholarship are stressful ones with many different things to worry about. Those athletes have to worry about how to pay for college and the loans they will have to pay back after graduation. They will have to pay for all their meals, books and the cost for dorms. But what got you here? There were many factors, but one that helped you the most was that you were a diverse athlete.

Imagine being a student athlete in college, stressing the thought of being broke and knowing the amount of free time that is available. Could be as much as a few hours or close to zero. Class work, homework, practice, and games all take time which also sums up the main jobs for a college athlete. All student athletes should be paid because they have to maintain more endurance for other reasons rather than just practice and games. They are not treated special or different because they play a sport, they are treated like any other regular college student.

Even though an additional $2,000 a semester does not seem like a lot of money, for some smaller market colleges this extra expense may create problems. That is why I suggest either requiring the NCAA itself to provide the extra money to the players or allowing the players to make money off of jersey sales, autograph signings, etc. By potentially taking this financial burden away from the schools and transferring it the NCAA you avoid putting undo stress on smaller schools and instead ask the NCAA, a multi-billion dollar industry, to barely dip into their huge expanse of funding/profit. Furthermore, the NCAA itself is considered a non-profit organization so instead of hoarding the billions of dollars a year that it earns it should be giving money back to the student-athletes who have made the NCAA what it is today (SOURCE). Even though many schools would not be able to pay student athletes the extra scholarship money many larger schools could easily provide this additional scholarship money. For instance, some schools already pay their head football coaches millions of dollars a year. One specific example of this is Alabama Head Football coach Nick Saban. Saban makes six million dollars a year and also receives other

People all over the United States believe that a selection of the money should go back to the players. They believe not much, but a little bit of the revenue made would go back into a fund to pay these college athletes. The argument against giving these players compensation starts with the athletic departments. These people say that the athletic departments already operate under the red. However, the athletic departments cannot operate in the red since they bring anywhere from $30 million to $163 million in revenue every year. The only schools that possibly operate in a deficit would be the smaller, less popular schools. Although to help out, the BCS, Bowl Championship Series, gives 83.4% of their $174 million in revenue from 5 bowl games to 6 different conferences. When the conferences develop the money, they split the money with the colleges of their conference. For example, in 2007, the $36 million made from the BCS championship game was disrupted to Florida and Ohio State along with their conferences (Saraceno). In addition to making the universities money, the athletes also create revenues for the schools with shoe companies, and also the TV networks. One shoe can make a massive revenue for the shoe company and also the athlete’s college on the assumption that this certain athlete is famous.

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

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