Should College Athletes Be Paid?

Football is a challenging sport that not many individuals are blessed with the skills in order to play. As stated in the article “ Top 10 Reasons College Football Players Should Get Paid “ Players who stay in college for four years might sacrifice a year or two of earnings In order to stay in school long enough to earn a degree” , you must be dedicated to your grades and credits you need to succeed. There are by far 100 reasons why college football athlete should get paid. They invest about 50-60 hours a week and lower to 40-50 hours a week once the season and classes begin along with 12 -15 hours of weight training and 15- 20 hours a week getting ready for the spring season. They invest their blood, sweat, and tears just to do what they love and put their all into it in order to have a chance to get drafted to a better school and pursue their dreams. There are thousands of foundations that are invested in the colleges make money off of the players but the individuals that are actually doing most of the work, the real hard work, don't and that's unfair and yes we all know sports are not meant to be fair but when it comes to your career you have to do what you have to do. Let's talk more about the other factors that claim why college football athletes should get paid. majority of the coaches make $53.4 million in salaries and 0% goes the athletes.

The grand debate of whether to pay college athletes continues today; yet, there are so many other amenities provided to the athletes that they are practically paid through those. College athletes are considered amateurs therefore they should not be paid. This debate has been going on for many years and there has not been a consensus on what to do.

Kids grow up loving to play sports in their free time. They never get paid to play when they are at a young age. They do it for the love of the game and for the need for competition. This is the way that it is in college right now. College athletes compete with all their hearts to be the best they can for their schools. They don’t get paid a cent. It has been a common debate if that is the right way to do it. Should it be that college athletes do not deserve to get paid for playing a sport? It should not be this way. College athletes certainly should get paid to play.

Arian Foster, former running back for University of Tennessee, said “Indentured Servant definition is exactly what a student athlete is; [they] get food, accommodations, and training, but not paid.” (qtd. in Finkel, Martin, and Paley). Being a college athlete is a full time job, add in the travel, homework, and having to go to class. Is there even anytime to work a part time job to make some money? All college athletes are under a giant spotlight. Every move they make is watched and judged closely by the NCAA to make sure they don’t break the amateur rule. They are not allowed to accept anything from anyone, and many don’t have enough money to even buy themselves food to eat. College athletes not only draw audiences to the games, but

“From 1992 to 1996 the University of Michigan had a group of five young men known as the “Fab Five”, and their star player was Chris Webber. Throughout all four years they made millions of dollars for their athletic department as well as for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), but while doing so they somehow seemed to be making a large amount of money themselves. The public did not want to believe they could be taking part in gambling as Chris Webber would talk about how he did not have enough money to buy even a Big Mac from the dollar menu at McDonalds, so when the “Fab Five” would show up to practice in their new cars, fancy clothes, and gaudy jewelry, the public would not take notice. Because the public tends to take pity on the poor college athlete struggling to pay for food they instead took his side and agreed college athletes should somehow be reimbursed believing they had done nothing wrong. Eventually the truth came out that Chris Webber and his teammates had received thousands from Ed Martin, a big gambler in Michigan who made thousands, and he was arrested for money laundering. Along with that came speculation that Webber and his teammates had also taken place in “point shaving”, although never proven it was never forgotten. (Torr, 64-65) The NCAAs’ reasons for not paying athletes are as followed, the NCAA feels college athletes are still considered amateurs, athletes number one priority on college should be focusing on his or

How in today’s society is it equitable to have a person perform labor, benefit off of their actions and that person not being compensated? Each year over 400,000 collegiate student-athletes both male and female, compete on 3 different division levels nationwide. During the lifespan of these athletes’ careers a select few become the face of their respective universities, who in turn generate uncountable amounts of revenue. Over the past couple of years the debate of paying college athletes has heated up and has been argued whether paying student-athletes would take the amateurism out of the game. Both ways they are involved and providing illegal services for cash to survive in a financially strapped economy. At what point does the NCAA

For centuries the world has been playing a variety of sports and more recently we have adopted a college lifestyle for the subject. The athletes dedicate their lives and sometimes bodies for the sport, all just for a chance to make it to the next level. Why risk your body and education for a chance of making it big, these special individuals completely throw the danger out the window and risk it all for the entertainment of the fan base, according to the source ‘Should college Athletes Be Paid?” in Upfront magazine the author Joe Nocera says” College football and basketball are multibillion-dollar businesses. They have billion

Put yourself in the shoes of a college athlete. Imagine having a daily routine the consist of waking up early for either a workout or practice. After those long early mornings, you head to all your classes. And now that you are going to classes and find out your failing a class, you now have a tutoring session. Finally, you head for another practice at night that will end late which gives you hardly any time for school work. Now just think about what college athletes go through. No time for a job, and not a lot of time to have fun. Do you think you could, do it? For a period, there has been a controversial debate whether college athletes should be getting paid. There are people out there that believe scholarships and other benefits are not enough for those college athletes. College athletes are the ones putting in a great amount of time throughout the week, month, and even years and are either receiving a small amount of scholarship money or even a full scholarship. The colleges athletes should get paid to

College athletes have always been worked beyond imagine, and it is ridiculous to think that even in today’s society, college athletes are not paid. Unlike regular college students, student athletes are not able to work jobs or make extra money because they put over forty hours a week in to their respective sport. More often than not college athletes are taken advantage of because they put their bodies at risk for injury and have no insurance or income to make it worthwhile. Of course, some college athletes do go on to make millions of dollars, but that is only the case for a small percentage of college athletes, and since college sports brings in billions of dollars a year, college athletes should earn at least a small profit. Furthermore,

In recent years, the issue of paying college athletes has come to the forefront. There is an entire market for college sports and the associations that oversee these college teams, the ones that broadcast their games on television, and the sponsors that support them make a huge profit. This brings the question, why aren’t the students who are giving their time to these sports being paid? There seems to be a misconception that college athletes aren’t being paid and that is wrong. Just in Florida, to be a student at high profile institutions such as the University of Miami, Florida or Florida State University costs an arm and a leg. Adding on the cost of living, books, and miscellaneous expenses, students are burdened by higher and higher costs of getting education, even if they have the intellect for it. Those who qualify as good enough to be athletes for these schools however get a free pass. Many athletes, especially football or basketball players, have the four years of their university expenses taken care of simply because they have the talent that the school wants. They not only get “a full, free ride… [they get] tutors, study tables, human alarm clocks...[their] game is their resume” (Daugherty). I believe that because of all the perks that college athletes get for playing for a university, they should not get paid to play on top of all that.

Every year at the beginning of the college football and basketball seasons the same intense debate comes up: should student athletes be compensated for their work. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently estimated that college athletics is a $10-billion marketplace (Suggs). That is $500-million more than Major League Baseball (MLB) (Brown), and $2-billion shy of the National Football League (NFL) (Belzer). It’s quite obvious college sports are making money. However, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules, “You are not eligible for participation in a sport if you have ever: taken pay, or the promise of pay, for competing in that sport” (NCAA Regulations). While college sports, particularly football, have brought in huge amounts of

Student athletes commonly go to school for one reason: their love for the sport they participate in. These student athletes get scholarships from large Division 1 schools, which means things such as schooling, board, and food will be paid for by the school so the student athletes do not have to pay for these benefits themselves (Patterson). If college athletes are to be paid, it will cause unfair compensation between players who are valued or played more than others. When student athletes are rewarded with a scholarship, they have nothing school related that they would need to pay for. This can lead them to blow all of their income on unnecessary or dangerous things such as drugs and alcohol which could get them removed from the team they

When the topic of college comes up, many things come to mind. Those are the glory days for most of us. The college parties, the struggle to find a balance between having fun and maintaining a good GPA, and not to mention the amazing athletic departments that colleges offer. Everyone enjoys sports but does anyone ever stop to wonder how much goes into preparing for those games? There’s very much work that goes in the preparation of a student athlete other than just showing up for practice. It’s definitely a lot more work than your average college student which is why the question whether or not college athletes should get paid comes up. Football alone brings in millions of dollars a year; and with all that cash

Johnson and Acquaviva make the point that between weight training sessions, film room, practice, individual workouts, travel, and finally competition, these “student-athletes” cannot feel much like students.” (Brill 7) This further validates the point that college athletes should be paid if they are spending so much time on athletics, and helping the school earn money along the way. If college athletes were paid, it would motivate them competitively as well because the revenue the program brings in is partially based off performance for signing TV deals and getting bids to postseason games that earn more money for the school. The more successful a team is, the more money they will be able to negotiate for in TV deals and the more likely they get bids to play in post season games to generate extra revenue. Universities also make a fortune off of selling Since the players are the source for this revenue by playing in these games, they would be even more competitively driven to perform their very best because as a result they would get paid more money and generate more money for the school at the same time. A win-win scenario for both the student athletes and their respective universities. Many of these college student-athletes come from low income homes as well. The argument could be made that if the university is able to help these athletes families with a form of pay without making significant sacrifice, then they

Those who argue for paying college athletes all point to a common reason: the hypocrisy of the term “student-athlete”. Although the NCAA repeatedly states that they are students first, this is simply not the case in Division I athletics. As an NCAA Division I athlete—especially in the “big” sports like basketball and football—a student-athlete has to schedule everything around their sport. It is difficult for the athlete to schedule the necessary classes for their major, because they have to find class times that do not interfere with their practices, workouts, and meetings throughout the day. On top of that, Division I athletes often have to miss classes because of games, especially games that are far away and require an overnight stay. Consider the famed “March Madness”. Those basketball players are hardly ever in class during that time. Imagine the players on the teams who make it all the way to the Final Four or championship. They are gone for three straight “weekends” from Thursday through Sunday, not including travel times, and the rest of the days are filled with intensive practices to prepare for the next rounds of the tournament. Too often, they are hardly students at