Student Athletes Should Be Paid Essay

One other argument that paying college athletes should be done is that because of the large profits that they generate, they should see some of the money. To give an idea of just how much the NCAA alone makes, “The NCAA had $60,908,876 in net assets for the year ending Aug. 31, 2013, bringing its total net assets of $627,325,275. It distributed nearly $504 million to Division I members” (Doyle). Later, I will discuss individual programs and how much individual schools can make in a year off

There have been many recent debates over whether collegiate athletes should be able to receive money for what they do. The NCAA is a non-profit organization, but that does not mean they do not make profits. As a matter of fact, they make huge profits each year. The NCAA makes about $1 billion per year (Gerencer). The NCAA’s revenue has an upward growth trend that shows that the $1 billion it makes is going to increase. The NCAA should deregulate its policy about players profiting from the NCAA, so that they can earn a fair wage for the work that they do. Overall, from a financial standpoint the NCAA generates more than enough revenue to pay athletes and still maintain a substantial profit margin.

The NCAA’s annual income of over 900 million dollars is a considerable amount of revenue, however, the players themselves do not deserve to receive any portion of this cash (Thellin). If payment is given to just a certain sport or a certain gender of sports, such as Division 1 men’s football or basketball, players of other divisions and sports will most certainly want a share of that as well. This would also create a monopoly-type of business in collegiate sports, causing players to be drawn to certain colleges who will pay out the most. Paying athletes would undermine the primary role of universities which is to offer education. The experiences and education that athletes receive while in college cannot be equated to the amount they would receive were they to be paid.

Big time college athletes should be paid for their efforts because an athletic scholarship does not cover the full cost of college attendance. (“Study of Scholarship Shortfall Numbers Reveal College Athletes Pay To Play”; Thompson; D’Aquila). While in the recruiting process many high-school athletes are under the impression that they will receive a “full scholarship” for college and won’t have to pay anything (“Study of Scholarship Shortfall Numbers Reveal College Athletes Pay To Play”). However, college athletes often end up paying for necessities such as school supplies and clothing from their own pocket (“Study of Scholarship Shortfall Numbers Reveal College Athletes Pay To Play”). This is partially due to the NCAA setting a maximum

The purpose of going to college is to get an education, regardless of playing sports. According to D. S. Eitzen, “The universities and the NCAA claim their athletes in big-time sports programs are amateurs and, despite the money generated, the NCAA and its member schools are amateur organizations promoting an educational mission” (n.pg.). If college athletes were paid, they would be more focused on excelling in their sport than school. It is important that college athletes focus on their education to prepare themselves for their future career, since most will not become professional athletes. While it is essential for athletes to focus on their education, they also need to focus on their sport because they are student-athletes, not strictly students. The most successful student-athletes keep the perfect balance between athletics and academics. If the NCAA added a salary to these student-athletes lives’, the balance in their lives would be disrupted and they would be less successful. In March of 2016, the NCAA President, Mark Emmert, stated, “‘Our view is that this is about student-athletes playing other student-athletes, not employees playing employees’” (Karaim “College Athletics”). College athletes are not employees, therefore their sole focus should not be on earning a salary for playing their sport. The NCAA does not want to pay athletes because it believes that by paying college athletes they will be taking the focus away from balancing academics and athletics. Even though the NCAA should not pay college athletes, they should be compensated for dedicating their time to the university in both academics and

Intercollegiate athletics are no longer just a sport, it has turned into a big business. The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) currently has an operating budget of approximately $530 million in unrestricted assets. The NCAA had generated a total revenue of nearly $1 billion during its 2014 fiscal year from member schools. With all those facts about the revenue that NCAA is generating, the situation of student athletes getting paid rises up. Student athletes who are on a full scholarship receive tuition fees for regular classes, summer schools, books, room and board, and some medical cost. Time is very limited during the day for student athletes to get a job. Most of the time coaches will not allow the student athletes to

Before entering college, high school athletes work very hard honing their skills, hoping for college recruiters come to their games to scout them. Parents are hoping that their athlete child gets a full scholarship to college which will unburden their parents and give their child an open door of opportunities to become successful. Once in college, the student works even harder training sometimes multiple times a day and even playing on a national stage. These tasks are expected of them, as they have do this without payment in their earlier years of high school success. Sometimes money can cloud the mind. The revenue that is made through the athletics department should help to support

Athletic programs in the NCAA make billions of dollars each year from marketing, broadcast contracts, ticket sales, merchandising, and even sponsorships. They are getting paid for the

The NCAA uses the excuse of athlete amateurism to justify not paying athletes. Audrey C Sheetz, a Brooklyn Law School student, explains in her journal article, “Student-Athletes vs. NCAA”, “Amateurism...values the

But, is money such a big problem for these student-athletes? Don't they receive scholarships? How much more money do they need? The truth is that "full" scholarships do not always entirely cover tuition and cost of living. However, these students can still do what a majority of students do, which is to get loans. Still, some of these student-athletes do not qualify for such loans, so there is still a gap between the money they get and the total cost of attendance. This gap,coupled with the fact that football and basketball players help generate so much revenue, has caused some intercollegiate teams to provide their athletes with extra compensation, which is in direct violation of NCAA bylaws. 41 Harv. J. on Legis. 319.

If the NCAA starts paying the student athletes it will cause countless problems for the athlete and university. Paying college athletes salaries would be extremely costly and cause many financial problems for the NCAA and most colleges across the country. Kristi Dosh, a contributor from Forbes magazine stated: “the NCAA released data showing that only fourteen universities out of three hundred and forty-seven university are turning a profit without having to rely on institutional support (like student Fees of a check cut directly from the university coffers)” (Dosh 1). For example, take a university like Western Kentucky they spend 5.6 million on grant-in-aid. Grant-in-Aid is “a grant to a school for an educational project” (Merriam-Webster 1). It relies on 8.2 million for the school to balance the school financial plan. Another program Virginia relies on 12 million in student fees to break even. These school will have countless amount of problems coming up with the money to pay these students.

“According to Jeffrey Dorfman, only a few collegiate sports actually bring in money. College football, as well as men’s and women’s basketball, are the money makers as far as collegiate athletics is concerned. Most other programs are actually cash strapped,” (Patterson). In 2010, only twelve out of the 120 FBS Division-1 schools broke even or made a profit, (Bokshan). This all makes it way too difficult to even begin thinking about paying student athletes. It proposes so many different questions. Since only football and basketball generates profit, should those players be the only ones paid? Now, that wouldn’t be fair to all of the other student athletes. Also, where would the money come from? As mentioned before, only a fraction of programs actually generate profit. So does that mean it should be the responsibility of the school to pay these athletes? If that is the case, universities will lose money out of their general funds. This would result in taking away money from academic scholarships to the students who do not play sports, classroom resources, professors’ salaries, and more. “Other questions include how much should students-athletes be paid, how often, will it work in a similar way that professional contracts work, etc? All these questions reveal how difficult it would be to change the college athletic system to compensate college

In the past few decades college sports have grown immensely in popularity nationwide, especially when the bigger events such as March Madness and the College Football National Championship arise. Even though the NCAA considers themselves to be a non profit organization, March Madness is such a huge event that in 2011 the NCAA made an agreement with CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting System to let them broadcast the games until 2024 for $10.8 billion, but during March Madness they make almost $800 million every year from jersey, ticket, and product sales ("Revenue"). Depending on how far some of the colleges go these universities could make an extra few million also. None of the money the colleges or the association makes is given to the student athletes. They are the ones that work so hard to help bring in all of the revenue for their schools and the NCAA but get nothing in return. Besides bringing in revenue for their school if they prove that they are a good collegiate school it will make high school students look further into their school and potentially attend that university. According to the NCAA for any student athlete to be eligible and still be considered amateur they are not allowed to receive salary for participating in any athletic program nor are they allowed to be given prize money above necessary expenses, ("Amateurism") However a common view is that college athletes should not be paid because most of them already receive a free education and get

Johnson and Acquaviva make the point that between weight training sessions, film room, practice, individual workouts, travel, and finally competition, these “student-athletes” cannot feel much like students.” (Brill 7) This further validates the point that college athletes should be paid if they are spending so much time on athletics, and helping the school earn money along the way. If college athletes were paid, it would motivate them competitively as well because the revenue the program brings in is partially based off performance for signing TV deals and getting bids to postseason games that earn more money for the school. The more successful a team is, the more money they will be able to negotiate for in TV deals and the more likely they get bids to play in post season games to generate extra revenue. Universities also make a fortune off of selling Since the players are the source for this revenue by playing in these games, they would be even more competitively driven to perform their very best because as a result they would get paid more money and generate more money for the school at the same time. A win-win scenario for both the student athletes and their respective universities. Many of these college student-athletes come from low income homes as well. The argument could be made that if the university is able to help these athletes families with a form of pay without making significant sacrifice, then they

College athletes make plenty of money for the NCAA and they don’t receive as much as they deserve. Without the athletes, the NCAA would not be able to make TV deals nor generate any money at all. The NCAA made $770 million in TV right deals alone off of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, “March Madness”. How much of that money went to the athletes? None at all. The NCAA makes money off the athletes in many other areas. John Brill, in his article “Should College Athletes be Paid?” informs us that, “The NCAA defies its own devotion to amateurism are the sale of video game licenses, game merchandise, footage, etc. that provide direct profit for the association.” The NCAA is taking advantage of the gifted athletes for a couple years at time to create a large amount of money that only benefits the NCAA and schools. Besides the NCAA using the athletes to make money, the college athletes must put a lot of their time into the sport.