Should College Athletes Be Paid?

Over the past 30 years or so college athletics have gained immense popularity and has resulted in an amazing amount of revenues from the NCAA and its Subsidiaries. The debate as to whether college athletes should be paid even beyond their athletic scholarships. While reading this paper it will answer the question as to whether college athletes should be paid by exploring the reasons for and against the payments of these athletes beyond their scholarship.

Paying student athletes has become a growing disputation among college athletes in recent years. College athletes have gained immense popularity among Americans over the past few decades. This has resulted into increased revenues for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its participating colleges. This often fuels the ongoing debate of whether college athletes should be compensated beyond their athletic scholarships. Because of the amount of income student athletes bring into schools, student athletes should be paid based on the amount of success, revenue, and popularity they bring to the school.

With college basketball and football originating in the 1800’s, the game has had much time to adapt. Over the years, the sports have become more and more popular, gaining a bigger fan base, which has resulted in substantial profits from the sale of merchandise representing the teams and players. There is one thing that has not changed; all of the athletes are still not being paid. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, is an organization that regulates most aspects of

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) makes roughly $1 billion in income annually and the athletes do not receive any of it. This topic has been debated for many years and is still being debated. The debate dates back to the 1980s and now athletes are demanding that they deserve to be paid since profits are made off of them. Some athletes such as former and current basketball and football players came together with lawsuits to federal courts asking for rewards from profits NCAA makes gets of them. Research has opened several different opinions on this matter. There are many pros and cons for paying college athletes. College sports provide a huge source of the university’s income. The athletes, however, receive their scholarship

College athletics is a billion dollar industry and has been for a long time. Due to the increasing ratings of college athletics, this figure will continue to rise. It’s simple: bigger, faster, stronger athletes will generate more money. College Universities generate so much revenue during the year that it is only fair to the players that they get a cut. College athletes should get paid based on the university’s revenue, apparel sales, and lack of spending money.

Only 2% are drafted into the NFL for instance, while the other 98% are getting a $200,000 education for free. There are eighty scholarship players on each of the 112 Division 1-A teams. This costs a university $16,000,000 to pay for an entire roster over four years (1 “College Athletes Shouldn’t Be Paid”). With all of that money being thrown around, it would be difficult for a college to determine which athlete gets paid how much, and if one sport deserves to get paid more than another.

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.

In America sports wherever there is people, there will also be sports. Sports have played a major role in American history. To some people sports is all they have. It is just the way that things are. The issue in sports now is that the NCAA exploit the sports world and the very backbone of the corporation is the poorest. It is an issue that has been around for quite some time now. The issue is that the sports world face is the fact that college athletes are not paid, although they perform in a multibillion dollar industry. The NCAA basically has a monopoly on college athletics, and generate about one billion dollars a year. College sports are extremely demanding both in and out of season, and these athletes put their future on the line. The NCAA should be legally obligated to compensate athletes, based solely on the fact that the money made, is from their performance.

Whether or not student-athletes should be paid has been a hotly debated topic since the 1900s. College athletes spend just as much time, if not more time, practicing and devoting time and energy to sports as they do academics. For this, many athletes are rewarded with scholarship money. However, many people believe it is not enough. Should we pay student-athletes a slice of the wealth or is a full-ride scholarship enough? (Business Insider). What if the athlete gets injured? Where does the money come out of to support each athlete’s salary? The huge amount of money being generated from college sports has led some people to think that the athletes are entitled to some of that revenue. While, some think that student-athletes should be paid, others disagree for various reasons.

Helen Hayes expresses that “ the expert in anything was once a beginner.” This quote relates to all athletes in pursuance of making themselves noticeable. Being an amature at sports is an athletes worst fear. Any athlete who is passionate about their sport, wants to succeed in the world of sports; therefore, the rising athletes want to continue their success in college. College is a place where the athletes start to receive fans and begin their journey of success. However, beginning the college experience is like throwing away one’s money because of all the collegian’s expenses. Many college athletes of today are accumulating debt in college instead of collecting money for their dedication and hardwork. The ongoing debate on whether or not college athletes should be paid is starting to raise sport fans and athlete’s attention about the issue. People are starting to realize the true facts about playing college sports and that it is not just fun and games anymore. Athletes are merely performers and the audience is just enjoying the show. With that being said, college athletes are being profited off of without receiving their paycheck. College athletes should be paid because the college they are attending is expensive, businesses are profiting off of them, and the hard work of an athlete is not being paid for.

One of the most controversial subjects we as individuals hear about this day in age is whether or not college athletes deserve to be paid. Many people argue that these athletes do intact, deserve to be paid for their time and hard work. NCAA athletes create a name for themselves by playing and performing well on their college teams. The better these athletes perform, the more publicity the school revives. This then leads to higher ticket sales and stores around campus selling jerseys and other clothing items with athletes names and numbers on the back. NCAA schools have become comfortable with using athletes’ names to bring in a revenue for the school, and yet the athletes never see any of that money. On the other hand, many people believe that these athletes do not deserve, nor should they expect to receive payment in return. They believe that these scholarships and the education are payment in itself. Some even bring up the question on if it is affordable or even realistic to pay college athletes.

Is an athletic scholarship really enough of a “payment” to reimburse athletes for the billions of dollars made by the NCAA every year? This issue of paying collegiate athletes, especially football and basketball players, has been around for many years. Athletes, students, bystanders, and NCAA analysts and authority figures have a strong opinion about paying college athletes. Whether college athletes should be paid or not is a debate topic that is more prevalent today than ever.

As of today, there are over 460,000 NCAA student-athletes that compete in 24 different sports while in college throughout the United States (NCAA). Over the past couple decades, the argument for paying these college athletes has gained steam and is a hot topic in the sports community. However, paying these college athletes is not feasible because most universities do not generate enough revenue to provide them with a salary and some even lose money from the sports programs. These collegiate student-athletes are amateurs and paying them would ruin the meaning of college athletics. Also, playing college sports is a choice and a privilege with no mention or guarantee of a salary besides a full-ride scholarship. Although some argue that

As a nonprofit the NCAA is often not compared to large companies even it makes comparable revenue. All television and video game revenue, as well as ticket, jersey, and souvenir sales made from college athletics all go to the NCAA, the conferences, the athletic departments, and the coaches. In fact, one study suggests, “Men’s basketball and football combine for $6 billion alone” (Mondello, Piquero, Piquero, Gertz & Bratton, 2013). None of that revenue goes directly to the student athlete even though the NCAA surely has enough money to do so if it chooses. USA Today writer Bruce Horovitz states in his article, March Madness Evokes Marketer Madness that, “The NCAA men’s basketball tournament generated $1.15 billion in television ads in 2013, well beyond the revenue generated by the NFL and NBA playoffs, according to ESPN” (Horovitz, 2014). Marc Edelman, a professor at City University of New York takes it a bit farther in his article The Case for Paying College Athletes, and claims, “The college sports industry generates $11 billion in annual revenues. Fifty colleges report annual revenues that exceed $50 million. Meanwhile, five colleges report annual revenues that exceed $100 million” (Edelman, 2014). In contrast, during the 2014-2015 season the NBA grossed about $5.18 billion in revenues according to Forbes Magazine, which was a league record high. The NCAA revenue money is also not evenly distributed among the schools, as top tiered athletic programs tend to make more money

“The NCAA is a private, non profit association consisting of over 1000 members” (Goldman). The NCAA was founded in 1906 and is a large association representing bigger schools and universities (“What’s the Difference…”). NCAA schools are organized into three divisions, D1, D2, and D3 (“What’s the Difference…”). Division 1 schools are typically the largest, division 2 schools are smaller than D1 schools, and division 3 schools are the smallest of the NCAA institutions (“What’s the Difference…”). You cannot pay the more talented players on the team more money. This will cause strikes amongst the other teams and other very valuable players. If certain players are paid differently, it can also potentially change the athletes’ attitudes. When you pay one athlete more money than another athlete, the higher paid athlete becomes more of an individual and less of a team member. However, individualizing team members is not the purpose of any team sport. Paying more talented players more money will teach that player bad habits with their teammates and could eventually lead the player to think they are superior to their team. The only factor that could really determine different pay between athletes would be the different divisions of the NCAA: Division 1, Division 2, and Division 3. One might think that a Division 1 school would pay their student athletes more than a Division 2 or 3 school because it is a larger school. This leads to