Essay On Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

College athletes are taken advantage of and deserve to be compensated for their services while playing sports. These students are exploited and used to make money and out of everything that particular school makes, the athlete never given a penny of it. All of the hard works, blood, sweat and tears that they put into that

College sports are one of the largest and fastest growing markets in today’s culture. With some college sports games attracting more viewers than their professional counterparts, the NCAA is one of the most profiting organizations in America. Recently there has been controversy in the world of college sports as to whether the college athletes that are making their universities and the NCAA money should receive payment while they are playing their respective sport. Many believe that these athletes should be paid. Others argue that they are already receiving numerous benefits for playing that sport from their universities. Many of the proponents of paying college athletes are current or former college athletes who believe their hard work and hours put into practice and competing go under appreciated. They feel that while the athletes are making the university money, the athletes do not receive any cut of these profits. Opponents feel that athletes already receive numerous perks and should not receive extra compensation on top of the perks they already receive.

Ever since college students started playing sports, back in 1879 when Harvard played Yale in the first collegiate sports game, the question of whether college athletes should be paid was addressed. From that point on athletes, coaches, and college administrators have brought forward points agreeing or disagreeing with the notion of paying college students. The students argue that they deserve to be paid due to the revenue that they bring for the college and because of the games they play and the championships they win. At first the idea of paying college athletes was out of the question, but now the argument has gone from a simple yes or no to a heated debate. Since college athletes are given a free education, they should not also be paid.

College athletes should receive some sort of payment for playing for their college. Many people believe that college athletes should be paid financially, because they are considered to be taken advantage of by the NCAA and most other school systems, because they should receive pay. Most college athletes are the main reason for huge profits from many merchandise sales; live events such as the game itself, and media and live coverage also provide sales increases. Differently from the professional sports, the athletes don’t get any type of cut. College teams may not have the same national expectations as the professional ones, but they are just as important, if not, even more important than professional athletes. Millions of dollars of merchandise,

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

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

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

College athletes should be paid for the benefaction that they put forth in making that athletic department at their school flourish. Colleges should provide monetary donations monthly along with the scholarships to the athletes to make it easier for them to take care of themselves. This could possibly even out the distribution of money between coach and

After all, these athletes are attending their respected school on a scholarship because of their talent, but what happens when that talent can no longer be used? What happens when an athlete is no longer able to share their talent due to an injury or other medical condition? In such circumstances where an athlete is no longer able to play due to a career ending injury, the individual loses their scholarship. Now, not only will the individual have to pay for a surgery, but also the rest of their tuition. According to an article in The New Yorker “Why NCAA athletes shouldn’t be paid” written by Ekow N. Yankah,"The athletes in major football and men’s basketball programs are disproportionately black, many from poor and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds”

College football players receive a lot of benefits by attending big name universities, especially if they’re on scholarship. Full football scholarships are given to the top athletes in the country, these scholarships include all their books, room and board, whole tuition paid for, and any sporting equipment needed. For some reason Division 1 football players still want more on top of everything previously stated. This is a pretty crazy argument due to all the “free” stuff that these big name athletes do get. Kain Colter, a former Northwestern university quarterback, filed a lawsuit against the NCAA describing the life of a college football player, describing it like a day of work.

The athletes put all of their time into college sports and they bring in a lot of money they at least earn some compensation. The money that they are making is being taken away from them by the NCAA, and they could at least deserve some of it. They risk losing their scholarship due to horrific injuries (Green). Athletes get hurt really bad all the

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

Lastly, and the biggest reason I think student athletes should get paid is because if a student athlete is injured while playing or practicing, the university isn't liable or mandated to pay for the students medical bills. The way the law is written, because student athletes aren't paid they aren't considered employees and as such don't fall under workers compensation laws. This means something as small as a sprain, all the way up to being paralyzed could, cost wise, potentially fall on the shoulders of the

Start by only giving athletes’ money at the end of their career to football and basketball players. These sports bring the most profit into the university along with the amount of people who come to watch them. This way the university doesn’t lose too much money because they’re giving back to the people who help them earn the money. It shows that the school is appreciative of their athletes’ and the fight that they put into every game. Football and basketball players also put the most time into their sports participating in 3 hour daily practices, work outs/training time, and film watching. The only problem with this is that the other sports would feel like they deserve to be paid as well because they also tried their best, and this would create tension throughout the school and its

First of all, college athletes are not getting paid for playing at universities. Many universities believe that students who receive athletic scholarships do not need any financial support because throughout these scholarships, students-athletes are able to receive the academic support programs they deserve as well as covering paid tuition. This benefit student athletes because they receive academic support, but what about their personal expenses? Universities should start to think about how they can support their students financially. If universities expect athletes to have high grades and a great grade point average why not give them an equal pay. These athletes spend over 20 hours per week practicing intensive workouts. Universities across the country are known for not paying their hard working athletes. This is the case of the Midwestern University. This university concluded that the players of their team did not have a job outside of their sport. When