Student Athletes Should Be Paid

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.

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

College sports is a multi-billion dollar industry. Each year thousands of high school students are recruited to play college sports, but under strict conditions. Students are required to do well in athletics while keeping up with their academics. College athletes spend up to forty five hours per week on practices, training, and games. In addition, they spend roughly forty hours on their academics. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) does not think it is necessary to pay these athletes because they want to maintain the “amateur sport” status. According to Stanley Eitzen in his “College Athletes should be Paid, “The universities and the NCAA claim their athletes in big-time sports programs

In the recent past, college athletics has gained massive fame in the United States. The immense fame of the college athletics has developed over the past twenty years. The massive development and fame of the college athletics have resulted in improved incomes for the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). Due to increased revenue received by the NCAA, the participates in athletics in the colleges has fuelled the argument of whether the college athletes need to be paid and rewarded more than just the athletic scholarships. In this research paper, I will take a stab at to respond the question whether they should be paid by delving the explanations for and against the payment of the college athletes (Adams and Becky 108).

Only 2% are drafted into the NFL for instance, while the other 98% are getting a $200,000 education for free. There are eighty scholarship players on each of the 112 Division 1-A teams. This costs a university $16,000,000 to pay for an entire roster over four years (1 “College Athletes Shouldn’t Be Paid”). With all of that money being thrown around, it would be difficult for a college to determine which athlete gets paid how much, and if one sport deserves to get paid more than another.

College athletes should be paid. The athletes put in as much work as the people who do get paid. Why should they not be paid? There are many pros for why they should get paid, but there are also many cons on why they should not get paid. The athletes should get paid because of how hard they work in season and the off-season. Do not pay all of the athletes, but pay the ones who are at a D1 college. The athletes should get paid because they put in the same amount of time as the pros do, and the pros get paid.

College athletics have been incredibly profitable businesses for many years. With the advent of televised sporting events, the profit margin has increased exponentially. The Texas Longhorns’ football program alone grosses 104 million dollars annually (forbes.com). So, where is all that money going? Most of it goes right back to the school. The athletes who practice for endless hours and devote their lives to the sports get nothing but the satisfaction of winning. So, should Division One college athletes be paid? Division One athletes should be paid because they generate a significant amount of revenue for the school.

No one expects somebody to work two fulltime jobs and not get paid for it. Nobody would think it would be fair to work so hard and not receive any form of compensation. This is exactly what is happening to student athletes. Student athletes are not only fulltime students, but also are fulltime athletes. There are two very decisive sides to this argument. On one side the NCAA claims that the student athletes are amateurs and cannot be paid. They also claim they are paid in other ways such as a full ride scholarship to a top level education. The other side of the argument states that the work load of a fulltime student and a fulltime athlete is almost unmanageable and the NCAA is making millions off of their work and sweat. This is an issue

Some college athletic departments are as wealthy as professional sports teams. The NCAA has an average annual revenue of $10.6 billion dollars. College athletes should be paid because of the amount of revenue that they bring to their college. Each individual college should pay its athletes based on how much revenue they bring to the college in which they attend. The colleges that win their Division title, their Conference title, or the National championship, give bonuses to the Head coach of that team. If colleges have enough money to give bonuses to coaches, that means they have money that is left over for the athlete who gives them recognition to pay them. College athletes should be paid based solely upon the performance and success that they have.

With another academic school year passing by, college football fans were able to join another out the seat nail-biting highlighted NCAA football season. Majority of the people would agree that college football is just as competitive and popular as the NFL. The annual revenue of the top 25 college football teams can reflect that assumption by grossing over 1.2 billion dollars alone. There is one major difference between the two associations which is NFL players are paid off the money they help bring in and college student athletes are not. Providing scholarships to the athletes isn’t enough anymore if the NCAA Football wants to perceive themselves as a money making competitor, and not reward the athletes that helped bring in that type of money.

Research from “College athletics programs make a lot of money, send little to academics” the University of Texas at Austin brings in a average of 184 million dollars each year through athletics. The question that floats everyone's mind is why are the athletes not getting paid . Some believe paying them will no longer show value of the game. However others believe they should be paid because they dedicate their lives to the sport. The NCAA must recognize the benefits of compensating college athletics because, college athletics work hard everyday , makes the sport more competitive and helps players support themselves financially.

Luckily their revenues do not correspond. Spending millions more to pay players would only make a more difficult financial situation for schools that are already subsidizing athletics. If they expand athletic costs by millions of dollars, that means they’ll be draining the academic budgets even more than they already are. Although Huma, the NCPA and CAPA president says, “The idea that there 's not enough revenue out there is ridiculous. The major conferences recently signed television deals worth an additional $1.2 billion over their previous deals,” he says. He also notes that “schools already share athletic revenue in a variety of ways. If the NCAA is seriously worried about the schools that aren 't making money, the association could institute a revenue-sharing program that would distribute the money more equitably.” (Huma, 2014). Even though student athletes work incredibly hard to not only stay good but also thrive in their collegiate endeavors, that doesn’t mean the university they attend should pay them for it. That’s their choice to play, college is a place for obtaining an education. Not trying to get paid for playing a sport like a professional. The question of whether or not student athletes should get paid arises primarily in reference to student athletes who play football and basketball at NCAA Division I institutions with high profile and high income athletic programs. The argument is that because some institutions receive millions of dollars from the

Out of 238, only 23 Division-One athletic programs generated money on their own to cover their expenses in 2012 ("Privilege, not job: College athletes shouldn’t be paid"-Kate Murphy). Even if the sport team's and sporting event's attract a lot of attention and media coverage for school. The money is no were near enough to cover all the athletic departments expenses. People tend to forget that the athletes are not the only ones on a college team. There are coaches for almost every position, team trainers, team scouts, medics, equipment managers, etc. The schools and universities have to pay these people. This is the people careers. Their way of living. This is how they pay their bills. They are not playing a game like the athletes. They are doing their jobs. On average each team has five athletic trainers. Average salary of each athletic trainer is $44,000 a year. Which is less than the average of the total college costs for many colleges which is now over $50,000 a year. If the colleges are paying these trainers almost the same amount of the total cost for one year. Then still have to pay the workers in the athletic department. They are not going to have enough money to pay every single athlete

The money that these programs bring in goes to pay for the facilities, training, and all other expenses. (usatoday.com) People tend to forget that most athletes tend to get paid in scholarships. Let’s not forget the experience an athlete gets while in college. Besides, an athlete plays college sports because of their passion, not because they make money from it. Here’s ten possible reasons why a college athlete shouldn’t be paid; college athletic programs cannot afford to pay college athletes, most elite college athletes receive sports scholarships (which is payment enough), playing college sports is a privilege, there is no fair way to pay college athletes, students are not professionals, paying students athletes will cause cuts elsewhere, the NCAA is a not-for-profit organization, college students are financially irresponsible, paying college athletes to play will not stop the corruption of the system, and paying college athletes would ruin

Recently, the topic of compensating student athletes has become a popular subject of debate within the media. Deciding whether or not to pay student athletes may seem simple at first glance; however, further research into the debate reveals many economic studies that provide persuasive information benefitting one side over the other. Paying student athletes would be more economically efficient and to not allow payment would be considered price fixing, also this would reduce the negative externalities faced by the student athletes in the future. Although paying players would have economic benefits, it would also have high costs to the fans in the form of higher ticket prices and a loss of competition within college sports. Student athletes should