Student Athletes Research Paper

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) makes roughly $1 billion in income annually and the athletes do not receive any of it. This topic has been debated for many years and is still being debated. The debate dates back to the 1980s and now athletes are demanding that they deserve to be paid since profits are made off of them. Some athletes such as former and current basketball and football players came together with lawsuits to federal courts asking for rewards from profits NCAA makes gets of them. Research has opened several different opinions on this matter. There are many pros and cons for paying college athletes. College sports provide a huge source of the university’s income. The athletes, however, receive their scholarship

Student athletes should not be paid. A misconception is that all athletic programs in the NCAA make head-over-toe profit. There are three divisions of intercollegiate athletics, and frankly division three athletic programs don’t make as much or have a profit when compared to division one programs. “Critics of paying college athletes note that only a small number of them compete in sports or on teams that actually generate revenue”. (Paying College Athletes) The truth is only a fraction of athletic programs are actually profitable, while most pose a cost to the institution. The question arises primarily in division one programs and typically in the sports of basketball and football. The argument is made that these institutions receive millions of dollars from their student athletes’ performance, in return they should be paid.

College sports are big money makers now a days. For most universities, the athletic department serves as one of the main sources of cash flow. Athletes are used to create millions of dollars for the NCAA and the schools that they participate in, and never receive a penny. If we are talking about profit, if all bonds with the university were removed, an athletic department representing itself could compete with some of the most successful companies. So, why does the most important parts of the machine, the players, do not receive any money for their training and participation? The answer lies in the NCAA which keeps all the money and their practice of keeping all the revenue for future use. College athletes should be paid for their

There has been considerable controversy over the past years on whether or not National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes should be paid or not. Fans, players, and the board of the NCAA all have their separate beliefs on why or why not the athletes should be paid. These young athletes work their hardest on the fields and attract millions of fans and think money fans pay to watch them perform, can go to them. The University of Alabama made approximately $124 Million dollars in operating revenue in 2008. Based upon those statistics, you can see that athletes have a reasonable argument of why they should be paid a salary when the school is able to afford to do so. While one side believes they should be paid, another side believes they shouldn’t be paid because instead of receiving pay, that possible salary is substituted with a scholarship and education.

As the debate of whether or not athletes should be paid grows, it is understandable why some people would say they shouldn’t. For example it would basically be an unfair playing field as you will have teams such as Alabama worth approximately $683 million dollars compared to a much smaller college like a Missouri State at $66 million. This will cause a major problem and only further the uneven gap that bigger schools already have over smaller ones. Another argument is the benefits the athletes receive from scholarships. Some will argue that athletes who are attending school on scholarships will say that they are basically getting a free education, including free books, and sometimes free or reduced living through the dormitory system provided by the universities

The first reason that athletes should be paid is that most of the money that a school makes comes from the athletes. Profits should be shared among those that actually do most of the work. A writer for Huffington Post writes, “As Rodney Fort, a sports economist and professor of sports management at the University of Michigan, succinctly put it, ‘The money is already there.’ The NCAA alone brought in nearly a billion dollars in revenue in its most recent financial year, and top-tier athletic programs regularly bring in tens of millions of dollars as well.(Strachan, 2015).” This quote states that the NCAA makes enough money and they can afford to pay their players. But aside from being affordable, what is also worth noting is that all current school athletes receive zero financial compensation for playing. Sports injuries are a real risk that these athletes take on every day. It is a risk that is not financially compensated by the school. A writer for Business Insider states, “In 2014, the ten schools that made the most money in college sports averaged $144.8 million in athletics revenue, $132.5 million more than the average those schools spent on scholarships, $12.4 million.(Gaines, 2015).” This quote states another reason why college athletes should be paid: schools make much more money than they spend on scholarships and the schools should use the remaining money to pay their players. Instead of using that money, they set that money aside to help pay for high administration salary and raises. Most of the

By 2017, the National Collegiate Athletic Association had not amended the status of banning student-athletes from being paid. This, in turn, has allowed higher educational institutions to exploit college athletes into making revenue-generating opportunities without giving college athletes their fair share (Blutman, p 7). Individuals of the NCAA are against paying college athletes claim that there is no compelling strategy to quantify a fair share of all athletes. However, the college athletics association, NCAA, is a billion-dollar generating enterprise established by athletes who did not receive any amount as compensation (Blutman, p 8). Regardless of the questions and lack of an adequate compensation

The first thing to address when discussing college athletes and compensation is the steadfast argument held on to by the NCAA’s supporters that college athletes receive a free education, and therefore do not deserve to be compensated beyond that. This argument does two things: it distracts from the primary issue, that college athletes are prevented from profiting off of their name and likeness, and serves as a flat-out lie. In fact, according to the NCAA’s own website, only 56% of Division I athletes receive “some” form of athletics aid, meaning that even less than that receive a full free education to go with the 44% who receive no compensation at all (NCAA Recruiting). Add in the fact that athletes are typically put into majors that will be convenient for their schedule and not majors that can offer them something later in life, and this often used argument holds no weight at all in this discussion.

In the year 2014, the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) made almost one billion dollars through ticket sales, merchandise licensing, and TV contracts (Sports). Yet, none of that money ever ends up in the pockets of the athletes, who are responsible for bringing in all of the revenue, who train for countless hours per week, leaving little time for anything outside of sports. Practice and constant travel, added to the stresses of school work, make it difficult for a college athlete to hold down a job. The NCAA is unfairly making money from the athletes, and the athletes should get a cut of the profit. College athletes should be paid to play.

As writer Jon Saraceno would say, “The NCAA [National Collegiate Athletic Association] is a tax-exempt organization that operates as a monopoly, its rulebook denser than the New Testament” (Saraceno 38). He explains that the NCAA has various rules, and coaches and players do not know what is right or wrong. Others view that athletes are already receiving pay with scholarships. Athletes in higher revenue generating sports, comparable to basketball and football, are usually more likely to earn a full-ride scholarship. Full-ride scholarships allow an athlete to attend institutions at little to no cost. Without full-ride or partial scholarships, certain players could not afford to attend school. This is due to the poverty in areas where

Before I get into my argument, let me first explain to you what the NCAA is. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was founded by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 as a non-profit organization to oversee the athletics and education for more than 450,000 student athletes. The NCAA governs 23 different sports including football, basketball, hockey, gymnastics, cross-country, volleyball, and many more. The NCAA is dedicated to helping student-athletes succeed on the field, in their academics, and throughout the rest of their life. Now that you know a little bit about what the NCAA is, let’s get into the controversy surrounding paying college athletes.

How is it fair that college athletic programs rake in so much money from their respective sports and don’t have to pay for their labor? College athletics plays a major role in the sports world today and will continue to be as it is growing more and more popular. With this, is the ever-growing issue of athletes in their respective programs being paid as employees. This issue has been clouding college athletics for some time and it is becoming a much larger topic since athletes feel that they should be compensated for their services. Also, there have been several lawsuits filed against universities and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Even though colleges offer full scholarships to athletes,

Over the last few decades college athletics has gained immense popularity since the turn of the century. Many people even prefer collegiate sports to professional sports. Whether it is football or basketball, no matter the sport, college athletics bring large amounts of money to their respective Universities as well as increasing the popularity. Many Universities make millions of dollars off the games and the merchandise they sell. The only reason that the Universities make this kind of money is because the student-athletes fill the seats. Yet, even with the Universities making that kind of money off what the student-athletes do, the student-athletes aren’t paid, and there lies the problem. According to NCAA rules, “You are not eligible for participation in a sport if you have ever: Taken pay, or the promise of pay, for competing in that sport” (NCAA Regulations 1). So, that leaves the question “Should College Athletes Be Paid?”

College sports isn't what everyone makes it out to be. Some people relate college sports to High School sports only to the extent of: it's a level harder. Many feel that college sports isn't that big of a deal. What little people know is being a collegiate athlete is a job. The life ou hae is set out for you on the court. Most of the free time off the court is spent doing homework. There's hardly any time for a social life, and or time for your family. Being a collegiate athlete isn't just about playing sports anymore, this is your job.

The first and foremost reason student athletes should receive some form of payment is simply because there is plenty of money to go around. As previously stated, the NCAA makes over 11 billion dollars annually across all their sporting platforms. This is no way a modest amount of money. The problem today is how that money is distributed among those within the NCAA system. For example, Alabama’s head football coach, Nick Saban, is slated to make more than 11 million dollars this year alone. Additionally, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany is said to be receiving a 20 million dollar bonus at the end of this year (Armour NP). And this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to higher-ups in the NCAA receiving outrageous salaries while players get nothing. In 2013, the average salary for a BCS eligible football coach was 2.05 million dollars, and in today’s 2017 world that figure would only be higher. Additionally, the average salary of a division I men’s