Nick Romano. Mr. Krebs. Cp English Ii, Period 1. 28 March

Collegiate sports have turned into a billion dollar industry and are probably just as popular, if not more popular than professional sports. College athletes put their bodies on the line to play a sport they love, many with hopes and dreams to one day make it to the professional leagues. Athletic facilities are the major money makers for all universities. Colleges bring in billions of dollars in revenue annually, yet athletes do not get paid. Some fans believe athletes should not get paid due to their sports level being “amateurish.”; however, this is far from the truth. There is much more to being a college athlete than just practicing and playing games. These student-athletes must practice, weight lift, go to meetings, travel, go to tutoring and study groups, all the while maintaining sufficient grades. This is very tedious work and is very time consuming. College athletes have a high standard to live up to (Frederick Web; Huma Web; Patterson Web ).

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

Universities can sell sponsorships to various companies for advertising (at a minimum of about $300,000 per year) and have recently begun naming their stadiums after large corporations in exchange for large donations. Most large athletic departments have lucrative deals, worth about $1 million yearly, with shoe companies. Many colleges receive a substantial amount in royalties for college merchandise, which is sold under official license; some schools receive up to $6 million annually from this source. Coaches also stand to make a significant salary (including base salary from school as well as television, radio, and shoe company stipends) with the highest paid football and basketball coaches currently earning $1-$2 million a year (Eitzen 2000). Even among schools who don’t produce these extreme amounts of revenue,

College sports is a multi-billion dollar industry. Each year thousands of high school students are recruited to play college sports, but under strict conditions. Students are required to do well in athletics while keeping up with their academics. College athletes spend up to forty five hours per week on practices, training, and games. In addition, they spend roughly forty hours on their academics. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) does not think it is necessary to pay these athletes because they want to maintain the “amateur sport” status. According to Stanley Eitzen in his “College Athletes should be Paid, “The universities and the NCAA claim their athletes in big-time sports programs

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

Should college student-athletes be paid has become a much debated topic. The incentive for a student-athlete to play a college sport should not be for money, but for the love of the game. It has been argued that colleges are making money and therefore the student-athlete should be compensated. When contemplating college income from sporting events and memorabilia from popular sports, such as football and basketball, it must not be forgotten that colleges do incur tremendous expense for all their sports programs. If income from sports is the driving factor to pay student-athletes, several major problems arise from such a decision. One problem is who gets a salary and the second problem is how much should they be paid. Also, if the income

Many people believe that the college athletes are just like the professionals because they train and work just as hard as hard as the pros. First of all college students are working and training so hard because they want to make it to the major-leagues some day. “Students are not professional athletes who are paid salaries and incentives for a career in sports. They are students receiving access to a college education through their participation in sports, for which they earn scholarships to pay tuition, fees, room and

The NCAA believes “that a student-athlete is a student first and athlete second.” Student-athletes benefit more than from playing a sport that they love. The graduation rate is higher among the student athletes than the general student body. “NCAA studies show that student-athletes enjoy high levels of engagement in academics, athletics and community: have positive feeling about their overall athletics and academic experiences: attribute invaluable life skills to being a student-athlete: and are more likely to earn similar or higher wages after college than non-student athletes.”

(Attention Getter) What if I told you that for decades, students have worked over 40 hours a week and received absolutely no pay. College athletes are expected to balance the immense workload of school work and represent their school well in athletics.

College athletics assume a large role in the entertainment industry of America. Each week, millions of people tune in to watch their favorite team, buy tickets to go to the games, or spend money on university athletic merchandise to show their pride. The NCAA and universities benefit enormously from college sports. The top 10 total revenues generated by universities were all well over the $100,000,000 mark in 2012 (“College Finances 2012”). The University of Texas tops the list with $163,295,115 total revenue from athletics (“College Finances 2012”). Last football season, Texas A&M University quarterback Johnny Manziel won the Heisman Trophy. As the first freshman to ever win the trophy, he propagated over 1.8 million media impressions which translated to $37 million of media exposure (Cook). The University’s licensing revenue jumped 23% this past year due to the success of one player (Cook). The NCAA itself generated $871,600,000 in revenue from the championship games (“College Finances 2012”). All of this revenue is impossible without the student-athletes. The NCAA is strict on making sure that athletes should be treated no different from any other student (Blias). However, the athletes are involved in a heavily commercialized multi-billion dollar industry. As amateurs, athletes remain restricted solely to scholarships as the only form

College sports coming to an end with another emotional chutes and ladders match between the best teams within the NCAA. March Madness knocking at the door, along with a overwhelming “$11 billion for three weekends” that these teams pull in for NCAA (Michael). You have the best athletes in college competing in one of the most vigorous sports competitions in the USA. Now exactly how much do these athletes get paid for bringing in billions of dollars and putting on these shows for thousands if not millions to watch? Absolutely none of that is given to them not even a penny. There payment is the $5,000 to $10,000 scholarship that some of them have. Video games, ticket sales, advertising, and merchandise

With the increasing popularity of college sports over the past couple of years, a very controversial topic has risen pertaining to whether college athletes should receive payment or not for playing. The main problem behind the topic of paying college athletes is that college sports rake in massive amounts of revenue for their respective schools, athletic staff, and the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) but the athletes which participate in these sports and create all the revenue reap none of the financial benefits. To create a better understanding of how profitable college sports are, I present the following quote from Tom Gerencer’s article, “How Much Money Does the NCAA Make?”, “The NCAA makes about $1 billion per year. College athletics as a whole pulls in about $12 billion annually.” (Gerencer 2016) After grasping how much the NCAA and schools profit from college sports, it is very easy to see why there is a problem and why so many people argue that college athletes should be paid for their play. Along with the many supporters of college athletes being paid, there are various people who believe they should not due to their beliefs of education being more important than anything else in college. Now, although college athletes not being paid is the main problem it is not the only problem; the NCAA, which is the organization which runs all college sports, are adamant about college sports being an amateur league and because of this they do not allow athletes

“The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), formed in 1905, set laws requiring college student-athletes to be amateurs in order to be eligible for intercollegiate athletics competition. According to the NCAA, requiring college student-athletes to be amateurs protects them from being exploited by professional and commercial enterprises” (Schneider). College sports is a business, and a booming one at that. With ticket sales, merchandise, and booster funding, universities can bring in huge amounts of money from collegiate athletics. “During the 2013-2014 year alone, the NCAA’s gross revenue totaled 497,600,000, with a majority the revenue generated through various media rights payments” (Grimmett-Norris). In addition, since 1988, the NCAA has received over 150 million a year from CBS alone for the rights to broadcast the annual men’s March Madness basketball tournament, on top of millions being generated by students play, school sponsorships contracts can also generate universities tremendous amounts of revenue. For example, in 2014 Oregon signed a record-breaking contract with Under Armor valued at over 100 millions dollars. Meanwhile, a recent study found that a college football player at the University of Texas is worth, on average, $578,000,

A lot of people throughout the world go into college thinking that playing a division one sport would be something that would be a really significant thing to do and that it won’t be so difficult to do, as the individuals who are getting recruited and going to play a college sport to play the game. In college athletics today, teams are practicing and working out usually around five times a week. Student athletes have to manage their time between all their school work, practices, and sometimes even a part time job on the side. Not only is it a lot of stress put on these particular students, as they have a lot to do throughout the week juggling between all these aspects of being a college athlete, but it is a lot of sleepless nights as well.

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