Essay: Why College Basketball Players Should Be Paid

College sports are a phenomenon that keeps viewers coming back for more. Stated in an article on Money Nation the NCAA makes an estimated $1 billion per year and this number is still growing. What really is insane is that all that money is made off of college athletes, who don’t get a penny from that total number. The debate on whether or not college athletes should be paid has been around for decades and probably will still be here for years to come. Paying college athletes would make the teams unfair, change how hard players will work to get better, affect the amateurism of college sports, and lastly influence the athlete's willingness to participate in college sports.

When it comes to college athletics, there always will be a problem that arises. It is one of the most controversial topics there is. One of the main issues within athletics is the idea of whether to pay college athletes or not. Several studies have been done along with articles from various sources. This has been on the rise especially since “March Madness” is coming up. “March Madness” may only consist of three weekends, however, an 11 billion dollar deal is made to televise the games (Wilbon). This is when you have to take the time to sit back and contemplate whether these college athletes really are getting the fair end of the stick. Under NCAA laws it is forbidden to pay these athletes for their performance yet at the same time they

Have you ever heard of a business that made billions of dollars, yet did not pay their employees? Seems pretty remarkable doesn’t it? Well this business is known as the NCAA. According to an article in the New York Times, the NCAA made $770 million from just the three-week Men’s Basketball Tournament, but how much did the athletes who participated in said tournament receive? If you said zero then you would be correct. The athletes that poured their blood, sweat and tears into practice everyday and into the 30 plus game regular season did not see a dime. It is hard to fathom how an industry of

For example at the University of Texas an in state tuition is worth around $4,000 while out of state tuition is worth around $11,000. Now as previously stated, Texas football players’ fair market value is at $578,000 per year. So at the very least there is $567,000 per player that we really do not know where it goes. I understand that college athletes do not deserve all the money they bring in but if one really thinks about it there is no where else in the world of economics is there a person that spends over forty hours a week and brings in $500,000 per year for their institution, yet they are only compensated $11,000. The numbers do not match up. (Frommer, 2013) These numbers definitely do not match up when one takes into account coaches salaries. The average coaching salary in NCAA division 1 basketball is a massive $1.47 million per year. With Duke’s head coach, Mike Krzyzewski, making the large sum of $7.2 million per year . While Duke’s athletic director, Kevin White, brings in close $1 million per year. After looking over these stats, one quickly realizes why college athletes are not being paid. In 40 of the 50 states in the United States of America the highest paid public employee is not a government official, but the head coach of a college football or basketball team. In North Carolina the average income per household $45,570 while the tax rate is 5.8%. What this means is that on average each person in

Horace Mitchell, President of California State University-Bakersfield, NCAA Division I Board of Directors states “Head football coaches at the 44 NCAA Bowl Championship Series schools received on average $2.1 million in salaries. The highest paid public employee in 40 of the 50 U.S. states is the state university's head football or basketball coach. At the University of Alabama, the head football coach, Nick Saban, recently signed a contract paying him $7 million per year -- more than 160 times the average wage of a Tuscaloosa public school teacher.” The amount of pay and benefits that the coaches and universities receive because of the players is so substantial and just plain unfair. The players put the coaches on the radar and make great amounts of endorsement deals while the players themselves still struggle to get through college with hardly any money to spend.

For basketball there are 11 people who make the team so if you multiply the scholarship money by the number of players the you get $191,070. So, Shabazz Napier who was starving and had no money and was force to go to practice or a game the next day and go all out on multiple occasions and the school didn’t give him a dime that is absurd. I'm not saying to pay the athletes thousands of dollars for them playing but you can at least give them a couple of dollars so they eat especially when you have a $1,441,033 profit off of them.

Most people don’t know that college athletes are already getting paid in different ways than just direct money. "A student athlete at a major conference school on a full scholarship is likely receiving a package of education, room, board, and coaching/training worth between $50,000 and $125,000 per year depending on their sport and whether they attend public or private university"(Dorfman). These athletes get training and coaching for free that professionals pay $2,000-$3,000 per week for. They also receive free schooling if they received scholarships from the school. They can also have free room which means the athletes don’t have to pay for their houses. The average college student pays $20,000 in tuition that these athletes get

““Football and men’s basketball players at top sports schools are being denied at least $6.2 billion between 2011 and 2015 under National Collegiate Athletic Association rules that prohibit them from being paid,” according to a study by the National College Players Association and the Drexel University Sport Management Department.” (Hayes) The most valuable college basketball team last year was the Louisville Cardinals and a study shows that each player from the team was denied up to $6.5 million each in uncompensated labor. The basketball program there brought in about 42.4 million in revenue in the 2011- 2012 academic year, according to the Department of Education. That money could very easily be split up between each other players on the team and there would be a lot left over to pay the couches salaries and other stuff that they need to buy. If Louisville was able to bring that much money throughout the basketball season then other would definitely have enough money as well to pay off each of their student athletes per year. Also more people can fit into the football stadiums so if there were able to fit up to 100,000 people in a stadium and make the starting price of each

Student-athletes are going to school to learn, and many are lucky enough to do so for reduced cost, given the often generous athletic scholarships. If these athletes were paid, it would change their motives as students’’ (Martinez). Along with taking the focus off school, colleges would have to decide how much the athletes would make. The wages would not be fair since different sports bring in different amounts of money (Shenolikar). For example, men's NCAA basketball brings in a lot more money than a girls cross country team. This would cause many athletes to become upset which would just lead to more problems colleges would have to deal with, if they paid their

For example, “[Peyton] Manning's earnings including $15 million in endorsements” (“The NFL Economy). The earnings that Peyton Manning makes from just endorsements is almost half of what he makes from his contract. Colleges make a great deal of money from endorsements because of the athletes the universities’ athletes winning records and ground breaking plays. The athletes do not receive money from the endorsements that the colleges get from companies. Therefore some student-athletes have to leave school early because they do not have enough money to continue, or to pay their bills and leaving school for a career in professional sports is an easy way of making money ( Should College Athletes Be Paid?). If colleges were to pay their athletes the college would have big advantage because the student-athletes that don’t have enough money to stay at the school could stay and play sports for the college,while also learning. On the other hand,the primary function of academic institutions is to educate, and not to hire student-athletes for their contributions on the basketball court or football field.( Should College Athletes Be Paid?) Going to college is mainly for the function of getting an education and the sports activities on campus is just a extra thing for student also the sports activities can help get students into the

One of the main reasons that people believe college athletes should be paid, is because of how much money they bring in for the school.

It is true. Many players are from unfortunate situations and being stripped of the rights to work for necessities to get their college paid for is an unethical burden the NCAA has placed on these young adults’ shoulders. At the least, these athletes should be “getting a return on the time they put in” (H. Bruinius, personal communication, April 3, 2000)

Although athletes would be able to leave college with more than just a degree, they can take other classes to increase knowledge to earn more degrees. Even a little bit of money would be really helpful for these athletes who do so much for their school. It would help them out on their new path. Many athletes expect and believe that they should get paid more than just a fully-funded degree. For the athletes that work 90 hours a week for their time in college, the end of their college years, it may seem as if it was a burn out and can be damaging to the athlete. Paying the student-athletes would help them leave college with a little bit of money to help them out on there new path (“Top 10 Reasons College…”). If they stay in school just a couple more years instead of transferring to the pros, it would help them out in the long run so much because

College athletes are not being paid for their labor, which schools profit from. “The NCAA (National College Athletics Association) earns about $4 billion in licensing fees each year. In 2010, the NCAA signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS and Turner Sports to have exclusive rights to show the men’s college basketball tournament, which takes place every year” (Miller). Student-athletes are being exploited by the NCAA and there’s nothing they can do about it. Exploitation happens when student-athletes, who are making large amounts of money for their schools, often are not receiving any kind of admissible, quality education. Another form a student-athlete is exploited, the value of

According to Investopedia last year’s March Madness tournament generated one billion dollars in revenue. This money was made in three weeks on media rights, ticket sales, and TV advertising. College Basketball player that make this tournament deserve some of the money they make for the NCAA.