Should College Athletes Be Paid?

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 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.

University’s draft athletes to work within the NCAA, a, multi-billion dollar industry that regulates players to the point of management. All television revenue, ticket and jersey sales, promotions and other sources of income goes to everyone involved in the business except for the athletes creating the worth. According to USA Today Sports in 2014, the NCAA had total revenue of nearly 1 billion during its 2014 fiscal year, well beyond the revenue generated by the NFL, and NBA playoffs. (NCAA nearly topped $1billion in

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.

“But Whittenburg beats Anders to the ball, retrieves it and with the clock showing 0:02 he heaves a 35-foot desperation shot. Charles, reading the shot all the way, leaps, snatches the ball from the air and slams the ball into the net with a second left” (Espn). Fans all over the world pay hundreds of dollars to view college sports games similar to this one. People are about as entertained as they can get. But how much do they players make for this? It 's an argument that pops up every year approaching the legendary NCAA basketball championships. College athletes should not be paid by the NCAA because it would be too difficult to determine the amount each player earns from the NCAA, schools can have unfair advantages over one another recruiting wise, and athletes who receive full scholarships gain advantages for the rest of their life.

If the NCAA decided to pay college athletes, it would create more problems than solutions. For example, if student-athletes are offered a salary, most likely the cost of school tuition will go up because the money paid to the student-athletes must come from somewhere and the revenue from sporting events and memorabilia will not be enough to cover all student-athlete salaries as well as expenses to run all the college’s sports programs. In addition, not all college sports draw the same fan base and therefore, income is greatly varied between sports programs which in turn will create an unfair balance when determining the salary for each student-athlete. All student-athletes regardless of which sport they are participating would expect equal pay.

Have you paid attention to all of the news that has been surfacing about collegiate sports lately? It is a big topic now days in the world of sports on weather college athletes should be getting paid to play sports. College athletics have gained great popularity of the past few decades, and have brought schools lots of revenue. A lot of college athletes think they should be getting paid for their services they do for their school. College sports like basketball and football generate over six billion dollars a year, but none of it goes to the athletes. Athletes should be paid for all of the time and dedication they put forth to their sport and the effort they put towards school to be eligible to play, athletes should get paid for all the money they bring to their school by playing sports, and players should also be paid for putting their bodies on the line while playing sports.

One of the hottest debates in the sports industry is if college athletes should be paid. If you want to pay these athletes, how would the college determine the dollar amount that should be paid? Should the basketball team make more than the football team? Should the the soccer team be paid as well? Cheerleading? Chess team? Should everyone on the team get a salary? What if your college is good at football and your basketball team is awful? Rather than thinking about these questions, the college board is just better off not paying athletes like how they did in the old days. For example, “When the National Collegiate Athletic Association was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1905, the institution was devoted to the belief of not providing a salary to the college-athletes who took participated in the organization. It is based on the belief of amateurism, and it was a remarkable idea” (Meshefejian). However, The continuous growth of NCAA causes a huge amount of revenue to come into colleges and this cause controversy to whether if athletes should be paid for what they do. The opinions on this subject can be grouped into two general categories. Some feel that college athletes should not be paid because education comes first and athletes are already paid in full. Others feel that college athletes should be paid because playing a sport is a full-time job and it would make the sport more competitive. Although some

Many debates, court cases, and articles have been produced the past couple of years debating whether college student-athletes should be paid. I specifically chose this topic because it pertains to me, and I can relate to both sides of the argument. Being a student-athlete at St. Lawrence University, I can attest to how much time athletes put into their sport and all the hard-work put in on a daily basis. On one hand, I see how the student-athlete deems him/herself as a full-time athlete and spend more time practicing and working out for their team than they do in the classroom, which entails them to some sort of compensation. I can also see the other side of the argument, and how the athlete is either getting paid with a scholarship

What has been a hot topic for several years now is why the NCAA still refuses to pay their student athletes as well as ban them from making any financial income off their names. The amount of time put in to athletics can interfere with performance in the classroom. They are students first and athletes second and the purpose of the scholarship is to get an education while competing in athletics. A highly controversial topic for several is the amount of time put in to athletics can interfere in the classroom while at the same time, they are students first and athletes second NCAA athletes have gone on for several years trying

During the last several years, there has been a concern regarding paying college athletes. On “5 Reasons Why NCAA Athletes Should Be Paid,” Dominic Alessi explains that college athletes needed an organization to make regulation and rules for them instead of them policing themselves. It led to the operation of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Now, it helps support the universities by bringing in billions of dollars per year. However, the NCAA did not allow college athletes to be paid because from the NCAA’s point of view, students are amateurs. There specific reasons Alessi gives for paying college athletes are they spent most of their time at practice; during reason, they are out of class too often; and they are employees of NCAA.

Over the past few years there has been a huge controversy to take place in the college sports world. Should athletes get paid to play in college? Is the benefit of a free education enough for college athletes? Many experts have argued both sides, in which both are valid but neither one has come up with a deciding factor on why or why not a college athlete should get paid. There is a huge amount of positive and negative outcomes that can be pulled from the situation. College Athletes should not be paid to play because it’s completely unfair to other athletic programs, it would take away the passion and intensity of the sport, and they receive enough compensation as it is.

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

College athletics is a very diverse organization involving a lot of students, mainly as the players, and non-students such as officials, coaches and others. The leading governing body for college athletics is the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA. College sports is itself a big industry involving sponsorships, TV networks, endorsements, retail products and marketing. But in spite of it being a big business, the players are not compensated for the work they deliver. This opens up two opinions: should players be paid, or should they not? Kristi Dosh’s article, “The Problems With Paying College Athletes”, discusses the various problems with paying college athletes, and the biggest question being where will the money come from. On

championships. US the viewers, the fans, the spectators, we are paying the NCAA to see our favorite players play the games they love because the want to. They aren't getting paid anything, besides saving them lots of money for college. NPR asked their twitter this question “Should student-athletes be paid?” People that said no said this because if they are good enough to play pro then they will make millions of dollars. If they leave the college with a degree and being known in that area for the sport then they might have some luck finding a job. Although this might be true, there is also the struggle of some school not being able to pay all the athletes It all depends on the school you are going to, because if only a couple of schools are paying their athletes than the student athletes of the other school will get frustrated with that school. (NPR