Essay Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

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.

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

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 NCAA is one of the most profitable organizations in the world due to their monopoly on major college sports. Across the country there are over one thousand colleges and universities in the NCAA separated into 3 divisions, with a total of 89 different sporting events, and a staggering four hundred thousand student athletes in the organization. The NCAA makes money in primarily one way and that’s ad revenue for the commercials played during an event. In the Men’s NCAA Basketball tournament a 30 second add cost over seven hundred thousand dollars to run. The NCAA is a big business with millions of fans, so it is surprising that so few want to hold them accountable for the damages that they cause in their “amateur athletes”. The only difference

Not every college could afford the players they want to recruit. The uncertainty in the importance of each sport may come into to play when paying college athletes. Some players may make it to the national championship where millions of people watch them and others may not have even been televised and not won a game but they both get paid the same amount. If colleges were to pay their athletes, there would be no fair way to do it. However, people who say college athletes should be paid, they are not totally wrong. Athletes are putting their body on the line each game and they do bring in a lot of money from big time TV channels. At the same time, would schools will pay an individual player based on their talents? Some schools may not even have enough money to pay a certain player so they may lose their number one recruit. Also, if they start to pat their athletes, it may detract from the purity of the game. If the paying players start to come into play, these college sports may begin to go downhill.

Many high school athletes biggest dream is to become one of the men or women they watch every weekend playing the sport they love on television in front of the thousand in the stadium and the millions at home. Usually the only downfall to going to a favorite college teams game, is having to pay for the ticket to get in. Fans may think, “Where does all the money go to?” Because it doesn’t go to the player out on the field who is bringing the fans, TV contracts, and publicity to their games. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) makes an astonishing six billion dollars a year.

Whether or not college athletes should be paid is a topic that is much debated recently. Some athletes even want to form unions so they can have the rights to complain about working conditions and their pay, or lack of pay. While some people believe college athletes should be paid, it would be a grave mistake to pay college athletes. Athletes play when they’re just little kids with a dream and it is their job to make that dream come true. They do this by being the best they can, by vigorously training almost every day. They play through middle school and through high school so they can ultimately show their talents and get into great intellectual and athletic schools. You should graduate in whatever field of school you are interested in. that is their duty to themselves, they work to get the pay checks later on in life. If I paid an elementary school student to play for me they wouldn’t want to go to high school, and if I paid a high school student they wouldn’t want to go to college, if I paid a college student to play for me they wouldn’t want to go and become a professional.

How would you feel for doing something incredible but not receiving a reward? Becoming a professional is every athlete's dream. Professional athletes, for instance, Lionel Messi is paid over $2.2 million every month. Professional athletes earn millions of dollars, whereas, college athletes play their sport with their heart and soul, but they don’t get paid at all. I believe that college athletes should be paid because they work as hard as professional athletes, they need to take care of themselves and college athletes need to be looked at for their hard work.

If college athletes were to be paid, how would they make that work? Would they only pay basketball and football players? Would they only pay the men and not women? What about division I and division II college athletes? How much would they pay each athlete? Basically, according to Scoop Jackson, an ESPN senior writer, “There is no system of payment that can be put in place that is fair across the board to all students, all sports and all schools that participate in college athletics.”

According to ScholarshipStats.com “Athletic scholarships totaled over $3 billion, academic based and other financial assistance totaled over $11 Billion in 2014-15” (Scholarship Stats). A topic that has been going on throughout college sports is whether or not to pay college athletes. The problem with paying college athletes is that they are already being paid in different forms other than just cash or checks. They also receive freebies like tuition or housing but the biggest of problems is there is no equal way to pay them. Although people believe that paying college athletes would be profitable to college universities, they should not be paid to play because they are already receiving benefits that regular students do not get.

Athletics at college has been and continues to be a billion dollar industry. Over the past few decades, college athletics have increased the ratings and gained popularity across the world. Regardless of the type of sport being played, college athletics became a source of big money and a revenue surplus to the Universities. Colleges generate huge revenue, but the players are not compensated for playing.

I believe college athletes should be paid for using their talents to the will of their college and the NCAA. All athletes that participate in college sports fall into a stereotype of false beliefs. People across the country believe that just because a person receives a scholarship to play a sport it means that all of their classes and food is payed for, in full, and they require no assistance to pay for other expenses. In reality, this idea that players have everything paid for is very inaccurate. While Division one sports like football and basketball, most players on scholarship do earn full rides to live on campus and attend for free.

College athletes are some of the hardest working individuals around. Athletes have a routine that includes brutal practices, intense games, and difficult college courses. College athletes carry a tremendous weight on their shoulders. Compensation for college athletes has been a controversial subject for years. Many individuals have their arguments in support of each side. However, no definite decision has been determined in this matter. College athletes should get paid for their performance because their sport is their job; the players have other financial responsibilities they need to handle and their

When people think of college they automatically connect it to football or basketball, because these sports are a major part of any college’s means of funding and advertising. Athletics in college over the years has become increasingly big amongst the social media and people. Today you could turn on the TV and almost always see a college football or basketball game playing. With the increasing interest in these sports and their players, people are starting to question if the players should get compensation for the hard work and publicity they bring to their college. While many may be in favor of college athletes being paid, I am not. College athletes should not get any more money than they already have through

Imagine working hard every day, putting in multiple ours of practicing and studying, for a job that makes a billion dollars but won’t pay you. Does that sound fair? This is the situation with college athletes. College sports are a huge responsibility for these athletes and basically their living. They put in multiple hours weekly and always have busy schedules between their sport and school and for this they should be compensated. College athletics are a full time “job”, athletes bring in millions of dollars for these schools, and paying athletes would be beneficial for schools and athletes. College players should be paid or at the very least allow them to bring in some form of compensation.