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Should College Athletes Be Paid? Essay

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More than 460,000 student athletes compete in the NCAA alone, many of which are D1 athletes and participate in one the major sports (NCAA). With college athletics on the rise for popularity, March Madness basketball tournament generates more than $1 billion each year in ad revenue (Green). The last audited number for revenue released by the NCAA reported was a yearly revenue of $871.6 million (NCAA). Many think with all the money floating around these athletes should be paid in some way, others argue otherwise (Debate). There is strong controversy whether college athletes should be compensated other than scholarships. Many people believe that college athletes should be paid. One person that strongly believes so is Ed O’Bannon. Ed O’Bannon a former UCLA Men’s Basketball player and was one the first to sue NCAA in 2009 for using his name and image in video games (Breslow). Others followed after him ranging from football to even some baseball players asking for their share. In 2016 finally the players that had been in NCAA basketball video games or football in the past decade were paid a settlement on average of $1000 dollars (ESPN). The lawsuit also brought an end to EA sports making college games in 2013(ESPN).
Sizeable profits in large part is the reason why many believe these athletes should get paid. Some profits came from video games others from TV deals. ESPN employs over 8,000 worldwide (ESPN). On average a TV subscriber to ESPN is paying $6.04 in 2014

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