Should Student Athletes Be Paid Essay

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 ).

     Instead of putting the money in the athlete’s hand, the majority of it goes to the coaches. In the past, Florida Gators coach, Steve Spurrier, signed a six-year contract for over $2.5 million a year, not including benefits. Also, the Iowa State basketball coach earned $1.1 million a year (Espn.com). A scholarship-athlete can’t receive $200 a month but his coach can get $2.5 million a year. Who is the one playing the game, the coach or the athlete? Without the players, coaches would not get paid as much as they do. Nobody goes to the college game to see the coach in action, they go to see the players. The players determine how good the coach is anyway. How well they play reflects the ability of the coach. In the NCAA the coach has complete control over the athlete due to the one-year grant-in-aid contract. “Placing the financial aid awards in the hands of the regular university financial aid committee

Kids grow up loving to play sports in their free time. They never get paid to play when they are at a young age. They do it for the love of the game and for the need for competition. This is the way that it is in college right now. College athletes compete with all their hearts to be the best they can for their schools. They don’t get paid a cent. It has been a common debate if that is the right way to do it. Should it be that college athletes do not deserve to get paid for playing a sport? It should not be this way. College athletes certainly should get paid to play.

Tyson Hartnett says, “Contrary to what all the opponents believe, being an athlete is a full-time job. On a typical day, a player will wake up before classes, get a lift or conditioning session in, go to class until 3 or 4 p.m., go to practice, go to mandatory study hall, and then finish homework or study for a test.For a little extra money to see a movie or go out to dinner once a week, my freshman roommate worked a job at the university, earning about $7/hour. He would work his butt off all day, with two or sometimes three basketball training sessions, plus classes and homework, and go to that job for a few hours late at night. He would come back exhausted, but he needed whatever money they would pay him. However, once the season started up, he couldn 't work that job anymore.” Student athletes should be paid due to school and playing a sport taking up all of their time. This is basically the same principle as having a job and going to school. Playing a sport and going to school is equal to working and going to school.

“The NCAA admits that a "full scholarship" does not cover the basic necessities for a student-athlete”(NCPA). In the playing of college athletics the NCAA bans the paying players for all college sports activities. In the past many colleges have gotten in trouble and have gone on probation for paying their players. College make a lot of money off of endorsements and the selling of merchandise. When a college sells a impactful players jersey or put their picture or name somewhere the college is making money off the jersey or picture and the player is making no money at all. When a college sells a impact players jersey or put their picture or name somewhere the college is making money off the jersey or picture and the player is making no money

Many people disagree on the argument whether or not college athletes should receive compensation. For starters college athletes shouldn’t be paid because there are no other scholarships or college activities that offer compensation. College athletes are not professionals they’re still just amateurs competing against other amateurs. “The NCAA’s position is that they are amateurs, people who play for the love of the game, not for personal gain. The players’ first priority, the NCAA says, is receiving a good education” (“Compensation for College Athletes”1). If a student goes to college their main focus should be on educating themselves and in a way college athletics is their lesson preparing them to make money with that profession. College athletes should not gain monetary compensation because they already receive

Does it make sense for an academic institution to run a multimedia dollar entertainment business without paying the employees? “The Irony is that, while sports events generate millions for each school, the workers are not paid.”(1) College Athletes are non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and game requiring physical skill. In this paper I will talk about how much college athletes should be paid, why they should be paid and if schools increase graduation rates by paying students.

Anyone could say or think that “no they aren’t getting paid,” but you have to think about what they are getting in replacement of a check. First payment in my eyes, is that, I quote “The average NCAA athlete on scholarship gets, per year, about $10,000” (http://www.marcusfootball.com). Not to mention the outstandingly-talented students that receive a full-ride (everything paid for). Over the full four years of playing the sport that is saving approximately $40,000. That amount of money is tremendous to families and could be very helpful for them.

“It’s down to seven seconds. You see the time…Whittenburg…. Oh it’s a long ways, Oh he’s there! They won it…on a dunk!” Billy Packer said this when covering the historical run by the NC State Wolfpack to win the Division 1 NCAA tournament in a dramatic fashion. A team with no chance of making the tournament, let alone winning the championship, does the impossible and wins the NCAA Division 1 championship. Despite NC State being a smaller school compared to the big basketball powerhouses like Virginia, UNC, Houston and many others, they had players work and will their way to the finish line. If players were paid, you wouldn’t see players like Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, or Ralph Sampson on different teams. It would be the college with the most money, could pay the best student-athletes, the most money and Cinderella stories for the most part would disappear. Dynasties of college sports would be made. Money would ruin college sports more than it already has. It has already stripped championships, ruined players images and futures, and tarnished reputations of colleges. The Fab 5, the near “3-Pete” for Oklahoma University, and the USC Trojans football team scandal, are just a few instances where college sports were affected wrongly by the idea of “play for pay.” Colleges and Universities should not pay students to participate in college sports because of all the benefits the athletes receive, the fact that the colleges wouldn’t be able to pay for other

Is an athletic scholarship really enough of a “payment” to reimburse athletes for the billions of dollars made by the NCAA every year? This issue of paying collegiate athletes, especially football and basketball players, has been around for many years. Athletes, students, bystanders, and NCAA analysts and authority figures have a strong opinion about paying college athletes. Whether college athletes should be paid or not is a debate topic that is more prevalent today than ever.

In America people are paid for virtually anything nowadays; but for some reason we hold our superiorly achieving college athletes to a different moral standard where they showcase their highly profitable talents for free. College athletes such as Ben Simmons and Lonzo Ball, whose names alone bring in sell out crowds everywhere they go, are not paid, yet bring in insurmountable of profit to universities that not otherwise be possible. This begs the question: Do college athletes deserve to be paid for their time, skill, and profit they bring to the universities? College athletes should get paid for their play due to the fact that their job is working for their teams, the university makes enormous amounts of money off of them, and sometimes a

In trying to decide what research topic I wanted to use, I took many ideas into thought. I decided that the one idea that interests me most is whether student athletes should be paid or not. This is very intriguing to me since my master’s program is sports management. In order to do this research there must be many ways to use research as well as ideas from other people. This project is a very big topic in today’s discussion amongst sport fans, college administrators, and student athletes themselves. Media has recently put more pressure on this topic as well with the Northwestern decision to unionize as well as pointing out an athletic director gaining an $18,000 supplement for a wrestler at their school winning a national

Athletes who play basketball can also expect a full scholarship when they are being recruited by any Division 1 or Division 2 school. Most basketball players that are on a team are on full scholarships. NCAA Division 1 basketball has 13 scholarships to award to their players. They can have as many players as they need on their team, but only 13 can be on scholarships. Division 2 basketball teams can have 10 players on full scholarships. Basketball players are treated like royalty at most colleges because of the money the sport will generate for the school. Basketball is the second highest income-producing program for a college “(15 percent of revenue, 8 percent profit)” (Jones 50) Colleges sign sponsorships contacts with shoe and apparel companies worth up to 2 million dollars.

That was nearly five hours per week more than any other sport, and 10 hours per week more than a majority of sports in the survey.”(Pope 2007). So after all those hours a week practicing keep in mind that they are still going to class and also have hours of homework to do every night. “Experts agree that students who work more than 15 to 20 hours per week often experience decreased school success” (College Board). Student athletes don’t have time to work. For the student athletes who do work their grades have been dropping according to local surveys. There is also limitations are where they can work student athletes cannot work for school alumni or the boosters. That rule is in affect because boosters or alumni could give money to players and that is against NCAA regulations. Students are not allowed to accept money from any one it could result in a loss of scholarship or a post season ban for the team. The ban affects the team by loss of scholarships or worse the death penalty. The death penalty is when a program does something so bad that the sport gets shutdown permanently and the school is not allowed to participate in that sport. So why make schools go through that just so you don’t have to pay

Also, athletes would not have enough time between their sports and education to hold jobs. College athletes usually dedicate about 50 hours per week to their sport (Nocera 2). Because athletes do not have enough time for jobs, 86% of college athletes that are covered by full scholarships live below the poverty line (College 1). Shabazz Napier, the star point guard of Connecticut, complained of hunger after leading his team to win the March Madness men’s basketball tournament. “I just feel like a student-athlete, and sometimes, like I said, there’s hungry nights and I’m not able to eat and I still got to play up to my capabilities. … When you see your jersey getting sold — it may not have your last name on it — but when you see your jersey getting sold and things like that, you feel like you want something in return.” (Phillips 1). The NCAA and the colleges earn enough money made by college athletes, to get the athletes out of poverty.