Should College Athletes Be Paid?

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 ).

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.

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.

But why should a student athlete be paid in the first place? Their just athletes right? They go to school just like everyone else? What makes them so special? What makes a college athlete different than the average student is the amount of revenue that they help bring to their selected colleges. This type of revenue is made up from ticket sales, merchandise, media rights and contributions. “USA today” reported that the University of Texas generated $167.7 million dollars from their athletic programs, and that’s just one school. With this in mind, imagine just how much money other colleges are making from their athletics. Sure one can make the argument that they should not be paid because they are not professionals, but one can’t ignore the fact that they are bringing in millions of dollars and seeing none of it.

For years now there have been the argument if college athletes should be paid to play or not. It is an ongoing debate between many people including the National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA), athletes, coach, and other various people. The has debate has gone far enough that a lawsuit has started over it. There are many arguments for college athletes being paid such as; the athletes do not have time to work, their images are being used without any type of pay, and how the NCAA and coaches make millions of dollars off of the players while the players do not make anything. On the flip side of this, arguments that the athletes should not be paid include; they get paid in other varies ways, the average college athletic department loses enough money already without paying the athletes, and the fact that not all college athletes are in school to become professional athletes anyhow so making money from their athletic abilities should not be an issue for them at all.

Both sides of this argument have a strong case for why student athletes should, or should not be compensated. The problem might not be what it looks like at first. The main problem is the amount being spent on college athletes and the rising tuition costs for these universities. Duke University 's golf team spent an estimated $20,405 per player (Branstetter). The amount of money being spent on one player on their golf team is represented in the insane amount of tuition which is 60,000 dollars a year at Duke. This is a huge reason as to why colleges are so eager to get a cut of a 60 billion dollar industry. The issue of paying student athletes is not so one sided as athletes work very hard between school and sports, or that

If college athletes were to start being paid, many questions would start to surface. The big question that would pop up first is, “What sports get paid?” Statistics show that football and basketball are the major revenue sports that actually make money for their universities, while most other college sports do not. While football brings in on average the most revenue, basketball is close to second. Another question that may be asked is, “How will the money be split?” Like many others, the writer believes that the biggest question lies in which areas of competition would get paid. Famous Fab Five member Jalen Rose states that, “Every student athlete should be paid $2000 a year” (Salvador). However, if you do that, in fairness, would one pay a star football player and a star rowing team member the same amount of money? Or would a woman athlete get paid just as much as a male athlete? If this not the case then it becomes extremely unfair and would just cause controversy. Fairness is important when coming to this, especially the fairness between females and males. There are several different questions that need to be reviewed and that proves why college athletes should not be paid. It would cause absolute chaos and a plethora

A topic that is very controversial for everyone is, should student-athletes in college be compensated? There numerous evidence that supports in favor and many against the proposition of paying student- athletes who play sports for their university. As a college athlete, students are putting their bodies on the line each game they play. There’s possibility of suffering a traumatic brain injury or being paralyze after physical contact. These athletes are sacrificing their bodies and physical health at an opportunity to play a game which they love, and hopefully play it in the professional level. While that’s taking place, college football and basketball are big business that keep expanding. College sports bring in a large amount of revenues. The result is that many of them fail to graduate. Paying college athletes would not ruin amateur sport because even though most college athletes do get scholarship and should focus on their education it doesn’t help them if most of the time they are not attending classes to be in practice or games. College sports do make a high-income and athletes deserve a portion of the revenue they bring their programs.

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

First, some say that college athletes should be paid because of the fact that the schools and the NCAA make billions. In an article from USA Today, it stated: “NCAA made more than $1 billion for the year” (Mama). On the other hand, they should not be paid because tons of the athletes get scholarships, they are rewarded with a free education, and they are technically getting around twenty-thousand dollars a year. First, in an article from Scholorshipstats.com in statistics from 2015 regarding the amount of scholarship money that was given out was nearly 2.2 billion dollars.

College athletes should not be paid. “ They argue that the main purpose of going to college is to get a education, not to make money” (“Should college”...1). College is not a job, it is a place to learn. Also many college athletes receive scholarships to attend that school. “The value of the scholarships athletes receive during four years of college can be well over $250,000” (Weiss et al.1). Therefore, athletes

Most student-athletes playing a sport in college are there on an athletic scholarship. The scholarship is granted to them by their respective schools and is worth anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000. According to Edelman, the football program alone at University of Alabama brought in roughly 143.3 million dollars of revenue. In perspective, that’s about 2 million per player. Even though Alabama is an elite program and brings in more than the average football program, the NCAA brought in nearly $845 billion in 2011 per Sonny. Now it is obvious there many ways a university brings in revenue, but it is safe to say that a player is worth more than that $100,000 scholarship. In fact, a substantial share of college sports’ revenues stay in the hands of a select few administrators, athletic directors, and coaches. Now think about what college athletics would be without the world class athletes it has today, or without any athletes at all. If a school didn’t “award” athletes these scholarships, there would be

Kristi Dosh wrote an article titled “The Problems With Paying College Athletes”. Her main argument against athletes getting paid is, where will all the money come from? She says that there are only fourteen schools that are making profit without have to rely on institutional support. Those schools include, Notre Dame,