Should College Players Be Paid?

The hot topic in amateur sports has been as to whether or not college athletes should be paid. The NCAA amateur rule states that an athlete in college sports cannot be paid other than their athletic scholarship. These athletes spend a tremendous amount of time at school practice and then working on schoolwork after practice. The NCAA is an organization that oversees all of the athletes that make up the basic unit of intercollegiate sports. The success of the NCAA whether it’s through the sale of merchandise, game day revenue or NCAA tournaments that each individual sports has, despite the absolute success of these tournaments these athletes receive any monetary compensation .Some of the main reasons why the NCAA lack of payments are that it wants to maintain its amateur status and

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 ).

College athletes should be paid because of the hard work, dedication and effort they put into their respective sports. These athletes are a major source of income for their schools and they are not receiving a penny for it. These college athletes deserved to be paid, colleges are using these athletes to get money and they are never given anything but a pat on the back and a good job. College athletes work and train extremely hard to perform at the highest level possible. In most cases, they spend more time training and preparing for their sport than they actually do learning and studying. They put so much on the line to play and they get nothing in return. These college athletes literally make their schools millions of dollars every

They house you, feed you, clothe you, educate you, give you a living stipend, and you get to travel the world. These opportunities are priceless”. Most scholarships to universities provide you with every necessity, if not more, so what else could you possibly need? The athletes obtain their compensation with the benefits they already received from the scholarship, so allowing the players to be paid more than what the scholarship contributes may lead to mismanagement and the students trying to negotiate separate deals with the NCAA.

These people think this because athletes are already being given a free ride to college. An athlete may be given a full paid scholarship; however, if they begin to fail a class they will lose their scholarship. It is hard for athletes to keep their grades up when they’re always on the road and have so much work responsibilities on their backs. This unneeded responsibility can affect them in many ways. One way is that if they are always stressing out about loosing their scholarship they will not play as well as they should. Athletes are not only worried about losing their scholarship, but they could possibly lose their sports job. An athlete trains for 45 hours a week, that’s more then a full time job. A full time job is 40 hours. Training for 45 hours a week is hard work and then trying to manage schoolwork on top of that is even more difficult. The main reason why people think they should not be paid is because they have no way of doing so. College athletes are undoubtedly some of the hardest working people in the world. Not only are they living the life of an average student, they also have a strenuous schedule with their specific sport. One of the most discussed topics in the world of college athletics is whether or not student-athletes should be paid money for playing sports. The people who disagree with the idea have some good arguments to make. Primarily that the athletes get to go to school for free for

College sports has become extremely popular over the past few years. With the March Madness tournament held in March and the new College Football Playoff held in January, the NCAA has achieved a great deal of attention and high television ratings. Although colleges make tons of money off of their athletes, college athletes receive plenty of compensation. Paying student athletes would cross the line between professionalism and amateurism and would violate the essence of being a student athlete.

Sports have been a big part of culture in the United States since the 1900’s. Sports has become a multibillion dollar business of sort, with spots such as baseball, basketball, and football captivating americans.With american sports gaining popularity, the growth of college sports went on the rise. In 2013, The National Collegiate Athletic Association statistically generated $912,804,046 (Alesia, 2014). With all of this income that the NCAA brought in, one has to raise the question, should college athletes be paid? Even though college athletes are student athletes, they should be paid because they are practically employees to the college without compensation.

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.

One of the most important reasons why college athletes should not be paid is that most schools just simply can not afford to pay their athletes. Maxwell Strachan from the Huffington post reported that spokeswomen Meghan Durham from the NCAA stated that only about twenty colleges make more money on athletic programs than they spend on athletic programs. This shows that most colleges are not making any money off of their athletic programs and even if a college makes a

One of the reasons why the NCAA will not pay athletes is because it would compromise the integrity of intercollegiate athletics. Student athletes should be paid for three main reasons: college athletics play an important part in the amount of revenue a university brings in, players drop out and turn to professional sports early because of the money and fame, and it would help with any financial burdens that the student might have while trying to get an education.

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.

Robert and Amy McCormick, law professors at Michigan State University, believe that some student-athletes attend college to play sports and that due to scheduling conflicts between class and practices they do not have full choice as to what major they would like to take (Cooper, 12 – 13). “The way football and basketball players in Division I programs manage juggling sport and school, the McCormicks maintain, undermines the NCAA’s contention they are student-athletes.” (Cooper, 12-13).

College athletes have traditionally never been paid in the modern era. The amateur tradition that we know actually began in Victorian times during the 19th century. (Classical athletes in Greek and Roman times were always professionals no matter what their status.) This state of affairs has been accepted over the last 200 years in Western culture.

College athletes should not get paid. College athletes get scholarships that help with money, they get a lot of health benefits through the college, and they have a bunch of different options for school help. So many college athletes are playing the sport because they have received a scholarship from the college. The NCAA found “More than 150,000 student-athletes receive $2.4 billion in athletic scholarships each year”.

“Heading to the NFL, Michigan’s Jake Butt Says College Players Should Be Paid” exemplifies the reasons why college athletes should be compensated for their hard work. As explained by Jake Butt, “I should be the example of why college athletes should be getting paid in college or why I can't use my name to benefit off my likeness in college”(Butt). This college athlete’s chance of becoming a NFL player was ruined all because of an injury to his ACL. Though he may have diminished his career, the University of Michigan still receives payment based off of his name. The university gains money from their players, hurt or not. The revenue that the college/coaches receive come from the fans. This money is sometimes never given to the players that were