Student Athletes Are Deserving Of Economic Remuneration

In his article “The Shame of College Sports,” Taylor Branch (2011) describes how universities are focused on advancing and receiving money from major athletics and having star athletes, but how the universities are not caring for the “student athlete.” The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has made college sports into an unmerited business. However, as years progress more athletes are getting smart and are taking the NCAA to court. The more students that challenges the rules by the NCAA and take them to court, the secrets and undermining values of the NCAA come out and the closer the NCAA comes to an end.

Not only do the players play hard for the school, but they also have the potential to earn money through commercial signings and endorsements by third party sponsors. The NCAA should lift the “Principle of Amateurism” and establish a newer one that resembles the one of the Olympics. The Olympics’ amateur model resembles the NCAA’s “Principle of Amateurism” except for the fact that they do not have restrictions on commercial opportunities such as

Intercollegiate sports have been around since the 1850s to promote athletes to play for the love of the game and not for income. Recently, two different decisions have endangered this tradition: the decision by the National Labor Relations Board to recognize the Northwestern University football team as employees of the university and a federal judge’s decision regarding payment to football and men’s basketball players. Both decisions favor the idea of paying NCAA athletes because their games generate massive income; from ticket sales, merchandising, and TV and marketing contracts, that benefit the university, but not the athletes themselves (Majerol). Nonetheless, NCAA athletes should not be paid because of the problems that would arise from

In 1995, several years after he stepped down as the NCAA’s executive director of 36 years, Walter Byers published Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes. The title didn’t belie the book’s content. Among Byers’ confessions was the deception he sought in coining the well-worn phrase “student-athlete” to describe college athletes.

that student athletes are students who gain access to a college education through their participation in sports, for which they earn scholarships to pay tuition, fees, room and board and other allowable

From the start of his article, Berry appeals to logos by using a quote from George Bernard Shaw, famous Irish playwright and critic, indicating “Progress is impossible without change” (552). Throughout the rest of the introduction, he gave the reader advantages and disadvantages on the current standing the NCAA has on the compensation of student-athletes. The argument he makes for both sides is sincere, and with every claim given there is a logical reason proceeding it. For example, he explains the current model “compromises the quality and scope” of student-athlete education by correlating it to the clustering of majors, where large quantity of athletes ascribe to the same major (Berry 555). The terminology in the introduction is simple and does not pertain to an audience only focused in law. The author then follows the intro with his first main point of defining amateurism. He defines amateurism figuratively at first as “for the love the game” before using historical context to explain amateurism in England during the nineteenth century (Berry 557, 558). The author illustrates during the next couple of pages the evolution of the official NCAA definition of amateurism from the early twentieth century to the mid-twentieth century. For an article in the field of law, not much jargon

(Solomon 1) In the NCAA there are many laws that prevent the athletes from doing certain things. These laws are called the “Laws of Amateurism”. In general, amateurism requirements do not allow salary for participating in athletics, or prize money above actual or necessary expenses (NCAA Center). However Judge Claudia Wilken partially granted class action status in a lawsuit concerning the use of college athletes' names and likenesses. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled the plaintiffs, including former and current Division I men's basketball players and Football Bowl Subdivision players, will be allowed to challenge the NCAA's current restrictions on what athletes might receive in exchange for playing sports. The ruling sets up the prospect of a fundamental change in scholarship rules and the concept of amateurism (Berkowitz 3). This would help athletes to be able to fight for the compensated pay.

The NCAA’s policy on amateurism has been around since the creation of the NCAA by Theodore Roosevelt. This policy was created to prevent teams from hiring ringers to play in games and to limit point shaving/corruption in collegiate sports. Currently, prospective student athletes have to be certified as an amateur by the NCAA Clearinghouse in order to compete in any competitions. Over the last decade, there has been an increase in the National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA’s policy on Amateurism. As previously stated, this policy has been around since the creation of the NCAA, but the elements of the policy are almost the same. According to the NCAA Manual, a student-athlete is considered an amateur if they have not: “signed a contract with a professional team, received payment for participating in athletics, played with professionals, received benefits from an agent or prospective agent, or agreed to be represented by an agent” (NCAA, 2015).

The NCAA is one of the most profitable organizations in the world due to their monopoly on major college sports. Across the country there are over one thousand colleges and universities in the NCAA separated into 3 divisions, with a total of 89 different sporting events, and a staggering four hundred thousand student athletes in the organization. The NCAA makes money in primarily one way and that’s ad revenue for the commercials played during an event. In the Men’s NCAA Basketball tournament a 30 second add cost over seven hundred thousand dollars to run. The NCAA is a big business with millions of fans, so it is surprising that so few want to hold them accountable for the damages that they cause in their “amateur athletes”. The only difference

One of the biggest challenges paying college athletes is the legal power of the term student-athlete. When President Roosevelt created the NCAA to protect young athletes, he also emphasized that the NCAA would “serve a secondary purpose in ensuring ―no student shall represent a college or university in any intercollegiate game . .

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 ).

The first president of the NCAA, Walter Byers, once stated, “All of this is not fair, and I predict that the amateur code now based on a forgone philosophy and held in place for shear economic purposes, will not long stand the test of the law” (Schooled-The Price of College Sports). So why has it? This controversial issue on whether college athletes should be compensated or not has been debated for years, but still has not been resolved. Although the highly disputed debate on whether to pay college athletes or not is very intricate, evidence clearly shows they should be further compensated.

As stated by Andrew Zimbalist in the U.S News and World Report, an amateur is someone who engages in the activity for fun, not commission. The NCAA President Mr. Mark Emmert believes this is what keep the associations going that he is running, but when push comes to shove things have changed over the years. The revenue that the NCAA benefits from is hypocritical to the idea of amateurism. As the sponsors grow and television deals are being made everyone is forgetting the main reason behind all of this success, the athletes. The athletes are the ones who made this possible and they are seeing none of the benefits from it. In 2011 the Chancellor Brit Kirwan of Maryland University, stated in a New York Times article that it is the entire NCAA fault for this altercation “The huge TV contracts and excessive commercialization have corrupted intercollegiate athletics,” he said. “To some extent they have compromised the integrity of the universities”. In addition, the NCAA violates its own dedication to amateurism by the sale of video game licenses, game merchandise, footage, and anything else that reels in profit for the NCAA. The athletes are the promoters for the merchandise, but only the NCAA and the universities receive the expediential amount of money grossed in. Today the NCAA is manipulating the gifted athletes by creating a system that benefits off of their

As of today, there are over 460,000 NCAA student-athletes that compete in 24 different sports while in college throughout the United States (NCAA). Over the past couple decades, the argument for paying these college athletes has gained steam and is a hot topic in the sports community. However, paying these college athletes is not feasible because most universities do not generate enough revenue to provide them with a salary and some even lose money from the sports programs. These collegiate student-athletes are amateurs and paying them would ruin the meaning of college athletics. Also, playing college sports is a choice and a privilege with no mention or guarantee of a salary besides a full-ride scholarship. Although some argue that

The NCAA continues to prohibit payment to its student athletes, while its member universities continue to seek new ways to increase revenue from the athlete’s accomplishments. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the nonprofit governing body of college athletics. The primary task of the NCAA is to oversee the actions of all student athletes and universities to verify that both parties abide by the rules and regulations within the principles of amateurism, defined by the Association. However, the NCAA has been ruthlessly exploiting the athlete’s talents in the hopes of maximizing profits.