Should The BCS Replace The Salary System

"Surely, the NCAA and Division I-A football can join the other 23 intercollegiate sports and devise a system that determines a true champion, preserves the integrity of the game and levels the playing field, LaVell Edwards, Former Brigham Young University Coach.” This statement was made to the Senate last summer by the only coach to win a national championship at Brigham Young. In every other collegiate sport in the United States the champion is decided by a playoff system. Even the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL the champion is decided by a playoff. The excuse that most of BCS executives is that you cannot have one hundred twenty teams playing in a playoff. Nevertheless, the FCS formerly Division 1-AA who has one hundred forty teams plays under a very effective 16 team playoff format. The BCS has infringed themselves among college football due to the root of all sins, money. In January 10, 2010

“A 2007 Gallup poll showed that 85% of college football fans supported a change to a playoff system of some kind. 69% of fans surveyed preferred the idea of a playoff tournament involving the top four, eight, or 16 teams to replace bowl games while 16% favored a one-game playoff between the top teams emerging from bowl games.”

The System for college athletes isnt perfect, and needs to be worked on, a big problem we cannot seem to agree is how to compensate the student-athletes who drive the NCAA. I would like to start off with a question. Are college athletes being compensated enough for the effort they put forth today? Every Day they wake up early and represent their university whether they are putting in work in class or on the field. Each student-student athlete generates tons of money for their university and they don’t see a dime other than their scholarship that may or may not been renewed every year. Keep that question in mind while reading this essay, and form your own opinion.

On January 12th 2015 Ohio States football team strapped on their helmets and laced up their shoes to play The Oregon Ducks football team in the BCS Championship Game on National television. This year was particularly special because the NCAA changed the format for the Bowl Season for this year but for the foreseeable future. This year was the first year of the playoff system, in years before this the

College sports are a phenomenon that keeps viewers coming back for more. Stated in an article on Money Nation the NCAA makes an estimated $1 billion per year and this number is still growing. What really is insane is that all that money is made off of college athletes, who don’t get a penny from that total number. The debate on whether or not college athletes should be paid has been around for decades and probably will still be here for years to come. Paying college athletes would make the teams unfair, change how hard players will work to get better, affect the amateurism of college sports, and lastly influence the athlete's willingness to participate in college sports.

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.

The debate on whether college athletes should be paid to play is a sensitive controversy, with strong support on both sides. College athletics have been around for a long time and always been worth a good amount of money. This billion dollar industry continues to grow in popularity and net worth, while they continue to see more and more money come in. The student-athletes who they are making the money off of see absolutely none of this income. It is time that the student-athletes start to see some of this income he or she may by helping bring the National Collegiate Athletic Association. There are many people who do not think this is in the best interest of the student-athletes or Universities, but that being said there are also many

College already get the perks just for playing football. They are offered a college degree for free with scholarship programs. People that graduate without scholarships are forced to struggle paying off all of

The big time/more recognized conferences (SEC, Big10, Big 12, Pac12) have big time deals with TV channels which means they have more revenue coming in than the smaller conferences such as the MAC and Sun Belt. It wouldn’t be fair for the smaller conferences because they have less revenue coming in, which means they would have less money to pay their players.

Ashby claims in a recent article, Ohio State got beat by Virginia Tech in the first game of the 2014 season and would have had absolutely no chance of winning a National Championship if the computers were still in control (Ashby). However in the 2015 College Football Playoff, the Buckeyes claimed the final #4 spot in the College Football Playoff and ended up winning the whole playoff. However, with a four team playoff, the Ohio State Buckeyes did not even get the chance to defend their throne in the 2016 CFP because they were ranked #7. Expanding the playoff would only make the job easier for the selection committee and would make a more fair and exciting College Football Playoff. Give a chance to teams that deserve an opportunity to win the CFP.

Even though an additional $2,000 a semester does not seem like a lot of money, for some smaller market colleges this extra expense may create problems. That is why I suggest either requiring the NCAA itself to provide the extra money to the players or allowing the players to make money off of jersey sales, autograph signings, etc. By potentially taking this financial burden away from the schools and transferring it the NCAA you avoid putting undo stress on smaller schools and instead ask the NCAA, a multi-billion dollar industry, to barely dip into their huge expanse of funding/profit. Furthermore, the NCAA itself is considered a non-profit organization so instead of hoarding the billions of dollars a year that it earns it should be giving money back to the student-athletes who have made the NCAA what it is today (SOURCE). Even though many schools would not be able to pay student athletes the extra scholarship money many larger schools could easily provide this additional scholarship money. For instance, some schools already pay their head football coaches millions of dollars a year. One specific example of this is Alabama Head Football coach Nick Saban. Saban makes six million dollars a year and also receives other

Is it fair for an organization to make $912 million in revenue and not pay the employees that bring in all that money? This only sounds right if the organization being discussed is a circus and the employees not being paid were the performing animals. The National NCAA is a fully commercialized multi-billion dollar industry that regulates players to the point of exploitation. Every staff member from the NCAA, universities athletic staff, and the event staff are paid from the television revenue, ticket and jersey sales, likeness promotions and other sources of income. The ones who are left out, the athletes, are the ones who actually create the value.

A playoff system would extend the 13 week regular season by at least a month, which would interfere with athlete’s college studies and would also potentially led to more injuries from playing. There is a lot wrong with college athletics. Many football and basketball players are funneled through the system without receiving much of an education. Coaches and administrators are paid salaries that invite questionable ethics. Too many athletes arrive on campus completely unprepared to be educated and solely interested in the development of their bodies. Some people have forgotten how important a college education is. Making the college football season longer only hurts the players. Most college athletes don’t go on to become professional athletes. The more class time they can get the better.

Should the NCAA allow college football athletes be shown the money…or not? This is a debatable question facing college sports. College football players generate billions in revenue for the NCAA and intercollegiate athletic departments of their respective universities, yet are only compensated by colleges through athletic scholarships that cover tuition, room and board, and books. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), on one side of the debate are the defenders of amateur passion, asserting that to play for pay would destroy campus sports and a football player should play for the love of the game. The National College

“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