Should College Student Athletes Get 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 ).

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.

One of the many controversial issues regarding college sports is whether athletes should be paid or not. The argument against paying college athletes is often that they are already paid in the form of full ride scholarships for a free education, for one, and two that college is for amateurs and to pay them would mean that they are professionals and not student-athletes. But as a college student myself I can tell you a scholarship does not cover all the expenses of college. College sports is big business there is no question about it, but how is a non-profit able to generate billions of dollars on the backs of athletes who never see that money? Karl Marx would call this an exploitation of labor. The essential issue here is that, given the measure of cash that is put into school sports and the enormous benefits that big time college athletics create, would we be able to truly say that the players are amateurs? Or are they just slaves working for the universities? In Dorfman 's article, Pay College Athletes? They 're Already Paid Up To $125,000 Per Year, he supports that athletes should not be paid. On the other hand, in Nocera 's article, Here 's How TO Pay Up Now, he defends that athletes deserve to be paid as well as Taylor Branch’s article in The Atlantic titled The Shame of College Sports. In this essay a connection will be made between Karl Marx 's views and their implications on college athletics.

It is mid-February and for college athletes and fans everywhere that means that the College Football “Bowl” season is over and “March Madness” is around the corner. The “Bowl” Season is a series of college football games from the elite teams, sponsored by various corporations and “March Madness” is a 68 team single elimination tournament to decide who the best team in college basketball is. For the students involved they get a chance to have their legacy live on forever and for some it is a chance to show professional teams they have what it takes to compete on the next level, but for the universities it is a chance to bring in millions of dollars in revenue. As a student-athlete, and a volunteer basketball coach, I believe that it is unfair that student athletes across the country have decided to give their lives to these sports in hopes that they get lucky and “win the lottery” by making in into professional sports. I believe that student athletes have earned the right to be compensated for their hard work, dedication and commitment to these universities across the country.

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.

The student athletes at most universities can be compared to employees, yet receiving no wages (Cooper 12). Along with time in the classroom and being a full-time student, athletes are expected to spend just as much time on their respective sport. In an article “Top 10 Reasons College Athletes Should Be Paid,” Dave Anderson explains that a college athlete spends just over 43 hours a week devoted to their sport. Those hours are spent with mandatory lifting workouts, conditioning workouts, watching film, position meetings, and practice. As I stated earlier, all this time that is spent on their sport is in addition to the time spent in the classroom with homework and studying. All of that added up well surpasses the time of the average work week at 40 hours and these athletes can quite honestly be looked at as workers for their universities.

What college athlete would not want to be paid to play the sport that he or she loves? The real question is, though, should college athletes be paid for their roles in a college’s athletics? They are many points to each side of this recent controversial topic, which is why this has been made into such a hot debate in the past couple of years. As of right now, these athletes are not getting paid, but many of them truly believe that they should. Others believe that they already are being paid through certain types of scholarships and don’t deserve anything more than that. With that being said, there are two sides of this topic that have quality points.

Whether or not student-athletes should be paid has been a hotly debated topic since the 1900s. College athletes spend just as much time, if not more time, practicing and devoting time and energy to sports as they do academics. For this, many athletes are rewarded with scholarship money. However, many people believe it is not enough. Should we pay student-athletes a slice of the wealth or is a full-ride scholarship enough? (Business Insider). What if the athlete gets injured? Where does the money come out of to support each athlete’s salary? The huge amount of money being generated from college sports has led some people to think that the athletes are entitled to some of that revenue. While, some think that student-athletes should be paid, others disagree for various reasons.

Helen Hayes expresses that “ the expert in anything was once a beginner.” This quote relates to all athletes in pursuance of making themselves noticeable. Being an amature at sports is an athletes worst fear. Any athlete who is passionate about their sport, wants to succeed in the world of sports; therefore, the rising athletes want to continue their success in college. College is a place where the athletes start to receive fans and begin their journey of success. However, beginning the college experience is like throwing away one’s money because of all the collegian’s expenses. Many college athletes of today are accumulating debt in college instead of collecting money for their dedication and hardwork. The ongoing debate on whether or not college athletes should be paid is starting to raise sport fans and athlete’s attention about the issue. People are starting to realize the true facts about playing college sports and that it is not just fun and games anymore. Athletes are merely performers and the audience is just enjoying the show. With that being said, college athletes are being profited off of without receiving their paycheck. College athletes should be paid because the college they are attending is expensive, businesses are profiting off of them, and the hard work of an athlete is not being paid for.

This also allows for no free time to be able to relax. As we have learned student athletes are constantly putting in time and effort into their particular sport, they also have to go to class and study when outside of class. Student athletes are required to take a minimum of twelve credit hours per semester, but to graduate within four years you must take at least fifteen credit hours per semester. As you can see student athletes have a full schedule of not only athletics, but academics too. Although a lot of college athletes are on scholarship and getting their schooling paid for, they still won’t have any money to eat a

Most college athletes spend most of their time practicing or studying. College students sometimes have to get jobs to help them pay for school, or to even help them live on their own. College athletes, however, don’t have time to get a job because they are either studying or practicing. On top of going to class, the students also have to have time to do homework and attend group sessions.

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

Do you believe that it’s fair for student athletes to have a requirement to pass in school to play a sport? Athletes should be required to make good grades to play a sport because it helps the athlete learn responsibility, it makes it fair for the following teammates , and it will make the athlete study harder.

In high school, students are always taught that education comes first. In high school, students can’t participate in sports for two weeks if they have a D or an F. By putting sports first in college, like many athletes do, they should be rewarded for sacrificing their school work and grades. Spending hours upon hours on their energy-consuming athletic events, many students find that their performance in the classroom is affected. After taking a full day of classes, labs, multiple hours of practicing, running, and/or lifting weights, they find that their bodies get very worn down and tired. This affects their focus in the classroom and on their school work (Smith). With that jam-packed day, add in homework assigned in classes all while trying to get the recommended eight hours of sleep per night is unreal and asking way to much of a college student. Since they are paying for their classes and taking the chance of not doing well in their sport, the least the school could do is pay them for troubles. This could easily be because of the time spent away from school and missing class. Many athletes play on scholarship, causing their focus to veer from academics to their sport (Birkenes and Bagaria). Since the school is taking away their time towards education, the athletes should get some sort of