Opinion Of Non-College Athletic Association

Allowing universities to pay students athletes to participate in sports would require a complete overhaul of the NCAA rule book. At this stage, too many questions need to be answered: how much would athletes get paid? Where

In his article “The Shame of College Sports,” Taylor Branch (2011) describes how universities are focused on advancing and receiving money from major athletics and having star athletes, but how the universities are not caring for the “student athlete.” The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has made college sports into an unmerited business. However, as years progress more athletes are getting smart and are taking the NCAA to court. The more students that challenges the rules by the NCAA and take them to court, the secrets and undermining values of the NCAA come out and the closer the NCAA comes to an end.

McKenzie, Richard B. "Does the NCAA Exploit College Athletes? An Economics and Legal Representation." Hein Online. N.p., n.d. Web. Apr. 2013.

College athletic programs are among the most popular sporting events in America. With this rise in popularity, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its colleges have also seen a rise in revenue in recent years. In 2014, the NCAA made over 900 million dollars in revenue. Some collegiate coaches, such as Kentucky’s John Calipari, have yearly salaries in the millions, not counting incentives and endorsement deals. While, clearly, money is being made, NCAA regulations ban collegiate athletes from being paid. Many question this rule and argue that athletes at the college level earn and deserve pay for play. The debate to pay or not to pay college athletes rages on despite the latest court ruling supporting NCAA policies. Because colleges and universities earn such a profit from sporting events, many fans feel it is only fair to distribute some of the wealth to the players. Supporters of paying student athletes feel that these young men and women should be fairly compensated for the time demanded of the athletes and the stress put on the athletes, physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Those in favor of paying college athletes contend that athletic and academic work ethic at both high school and collegiate levels will improve, as well as, fiscal responsibility in these young adults. The NCAA argues that paying athletes would negatively affect their

The payment of college athletes will kill the principles of recruiting.High school students want to continue their sport at the collegiate level is for the increased level of play, competition, team bonding, and the college athlete experience. College recruiters love to offer an athlete the

College athletes have much more responsibilities to worry about than pros, and scholarships don 't help athletes that much and they often don’t even finish college. The problem is college athletes don 't get paid when they have twice the responsibilities of pro athletes. college athletes have to juggle their sport practices and games, being on the road a lot of the time, going to classes everyday, and going to work so they can have money to eat. The solution would be to take out of all the money college athletes make from games, and memorabilia. NCAA is a billion dollar organization and they don 't pay the very people who make them the

Paying college athletes would at least help the athletes leave college with a little bit of money to find them to find them a new

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) governs all laws regarding college sports under the Division I, Division II, and Division III conferences. Its sole purpose is to protect student-athletes on and off the field, and regulate all games and scholarships affiliated with the students. Right now there are 1,121 colleges and universities under the NCAA (NCAA, n.d.), leaving a chunk of schools out—those who do not participate in Division I, II, or III conferences. Since an immense amount of colleges and universities are associated with the NCAA, this organization plays a significant role in regulating college sports. Within these regulations, there is a common issue that lingers around student-athletes and their coaches. This issue has to do with the role that a student-athlete holds, and if he or she should be paid for it. It is an ethical decision that poses problems regarding the education institutions and their members.

Over the course of the past few decades, college athletics have drastically increased in popularity throughout the United States. Television channels, news stations, and live-stream broadcasting websites have made viewing college sports more accessible. With the increased fan base, many people have debated over the issue of whether college athletes, specifically Division I recruits, should be compensated for their contribution to the university. Intercollegiate sports provide a crucial amount of the institution’s revenue, as well as attract prospective high school students to attend. Yet with this surplus of income, no athletes are compensated for their participation within an athletic program. Written within the National Collegiate Athletic Association rules and regulations, it states that athletes are not allowed to participate in any athletic competition if they have ever been paid, or promised to be paid, by their respective institution (NCAA). This sanction enforced by the NCAA has been a topic of debate for years as many avid sports fans provide key examples of the benefits that paying athletes would have on the school and the environment of college athletics as a whole. As a college athlete myself, I support the other side of the argument, in congruence with the NCAA, because I have first-hand experience with the responsibilities and time-management that a student-athlete at the college level requires.

Every year the NCAA helps Universities provide more than 2.7 billion dollars in athletic scholarships to more than 150,000 students. Full scholarships cover tuition and fees, room and board, course related books, and a full meal plan. The majority of each scholarship allotted per student is taken care of through the schools income rather than the NCAA themselves. The National College Athletic Association acknowledges twenty four different sports and over 460,000 athletes that compete in the organization. In the 2014 fiscal year the NCAA had a total revenue of over one billion dollars, with nearly eighty point five million in surplus. Since 2008 the NCAA’s total revenue has already doubled and is still on the rise yet the NCAA claims to be a non-profit organization. With all this profit going to the NCAA people fail to recognize where the money is coming from, and not necessarily where the proceeds are going but where they are not. Every athlete that competes in a collegiate sport, whether on scholarship or not help supply the NCAA’s income; every athlete that helps supply the NCAA’s billion dollar industry is not allowed to receive one cent in payment for their service. Although this may seem fair to many, 460,000 hardworking athletes believe different.

Student athletes would expect to be respected by the university. They would want to be seen as important components of the team as opposed to simply revenue markers for the university. Students were the ones who chose to sign to that school, after all.

Throughout these articles, the main ideas were athletics taking precedence over academics, transitions from high school to college, why athletes cheat, fairness of regulations, and reform of NCAA policy. While all of these are very different concepts, they come together to help audiences understand all facets of college athletics and the relationship with academics. Although these topics are common through all of the articles, not all authors shared the same views on issues, nor did they all regard them with the same level of

Since the inception of high profile intercollegiate athletics, there has been a debate regarding the place of athletics within the structure of higher education. Within the last few decades, this debate has intensified as intercollegiate athletics has transformed into a multi-billion dollar industry that shifted the way athletic departments operate. College athletic departments have been able to generate millions of dollars in revenue through corporate partnerships, television contracts, alumni and donor support, and ticket sales (Toma, 2003). Specifically, this athletic revenue is primarily generated by football and basketball programs. College athletics has entered the “show business phase as football and basketball have evolved into commercial entertainment products (Duderstadt, p.69).” As the commercialization of collegiate athletics continue grow, the concept of student-athlete amateurism has become increasingly strained as there has been a push for providing student-athletes, specifically in football and basketball, additional compensation for their play.

The NCAA continues to prohibit payment to its student athletes, while its member universities continue to seek new ways to increase revenue from the athlete’s accomplishments. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the nonprofit governing body of college athletics. The primary task of the NCAA is to oversee the actions of all student athletes and universities to verify that both parties abide by the rules and regulations within the principles of amateurism, defined by the Association. However, the NCAA has been ruthlessly exploiting the athlete’s talents in the hopes of maximizing profits.

College athletics are great for many reasons. Not only does is it give young men and women the opportunity to play the sport they love, it markets colleges and universities very well. Some athlete’s ways of getting out of struggles back home is through their sport, and for most sports, before they step on a professional field, they have to play in college first. Although college athletics have many great aspects about it, there also negative features that highlight college athletics. In recent years, the payment of college athletes, and if it should happen or not, is a hot topic. College athletes are looking for compensation from his or her college or university, for the revenue him or her make for the school. I believe that college athletes should in fact be paid, but most importantly be unionized by the NCAA. For the NCAA to grow the next best thing is recognizing their athletes as employees. Every school is different from its revenue stream in athletics, but once athletes are seen as employees of the school, the deliberations between the athletes and head school officials can begin. Each year that goes by that the NCAA has yet to unionize college athletes, as well as find a way to compensate them, college athletics become more controversial and problematic.