College Athletes : National Collegiate Athletic Association

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

With the universities pulling in more than twelve billion dollars, the rate of growth for college athletics surpasses companies like McDonalds and Chevron (Finkel, 2013). The athletes claim they are making all the money, but do not see a dime of this revenue. The age-old notion that the collegiate athletes are amateurs and students, binds them into not being paid by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This pay for play discussion has been talked about since the early 1900s but recently large steps are being made to actually make a change. There are many perspectives on the payment of collegiate student athletes coming from the NCAA, the athletes themselves, and the university officials.

The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) makes millions of dollars in revenue from broadcasting and advertising student-athletes. If you take the revenue of the NCAA (all one dollar bills) and stacked them on top of each other, they would easily exceed thirty-five stories in height, which would be the equivalent to the RSA Battle House Tower in the state of Alabama. Meanwhile, the NCAA is sitting on this expansive “lump of cash” and does not have any idea what to do with it, and by no means wants to share their revenue with athletes. The NCAA needs to use this “lump of cash” to, in a sense, pay their employees. Student-athletes work day and night to enhance their on-field abilities to provide high quality performances for their

Right now in sports, there is a huge debate on whether or not college athletes should be paid. For years now college athletes have gone out and performed on national television, working hard to make it to the next level. They have given it there all, and not only that, the athletes bring in about $11 billion in annual revenue from college sports. Now days, sports is a business, and college sports are the same. Division 1 college sports provide a lot of income for the universities. Many athletes receive scholarships and a little more. While the prospect of receiving a free college education is something few would complain about, when the issue is more closely examined it becomes clear that it is not enough. Many people think that college athletes shouldn’t be paid, or already are by scholarships and benefits. College athletes should be paid for participating in college sports to help them financially, give them the money they played hard to earn, and to eliminate under the table payments.

Since the 1950’s the NCAA has promoted an idea that student athletes that are given a full scholarships are receiving a free ride for their education. In this article Ramogi Huma, and Ellen Staurowsky highlight controversial issues about how college athletics are run. In the article it is noted that 45% of football, and 52% of basketball players do not graduate. The two programs that revenue the most money for an athletic program are Men’s Football, and Men’s Basketball. The article debates that the NCAA uses the money that athletes in men’s football and basketball generate from their play to assist in funding other programs in the athletic department. While athletes are generating millions of dollars for their universities, the athlete spends on average of $3,222 in out of pocket expenses. While attending these universities these athletes live at or under the poverty line. If these athletes were allowed access to the fair market like the professional athletes, the average FBS football and basketball player would be “worth approximately $121,048 and $265,027 respectively (not counting individual commercial endorsement deals)” (Huma). The NCAA maintains that these athletes are amateurs and to keep their eligibility to participate in college athletics they can receive zero compensation for their talent. By maintaining this view point the NCAA allows athletes to only receive grant-in-aid’s which reward the athlete with free tuition, and room and board and can receive no other

Most student-athletes playing a sport in college are there on an athletic scholarship. The scholarship is granted to them by their respective schools and is worth anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000. According to Edelman, the football program alone at University of Alabama brought in roughly 143.3 million dollars of revenue. In perspective, that’s about 2 million per player. Even though Alabama is an elite program and brings in more than the average football program, the NCAA brought in nearly $845 billion in 2011 per Sonny. Now it is obvious there many ways a university brings in revenue, but it is safe to say that a player is worth more than that $100,000 scholarship. In fact, a substantial share of college sports’ revenues stay in the hands of a select few administrators, athletic directors, and coaches. Now think about what college athletics would be without the world class athletes it has today, or without any athletes at all. If a school didn’t “award” athletes these scholarships, there would be

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.

As citizens of the United States of America we all have the freedom to be able to choose what we want to do with our lives. Everyone has the right to the pursuit of happiness. So why is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) able to force high school basketball players to attend college for at least one year before they are able to enter the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft? If the athlete wants to enter the draft out of high school then should be able to do so. It is their life and they should be able to make choices based on what think is the best for themselves. There should not be a rule implementing that athletes must attend college. We would never allow this if a male or female did not want to go to college to

The issue at stake in this particular paper is the situation of college athletes and the treatment they receive from the NCAA. The NCAA is currently financially and academically exploiting college athletes at very young age. The NCAA generates billions of dollars though the hard work of the student athletes, and the athletes are given no monetary compensation. The NCAA also expects college athletes to fully participate in academics, but with the rigor of the athletic

The question has been posed as to why does the National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA exist? In the early 1900s the game of football became extremely dangerous by becoming more physical and less controlled. Safety of the sport started a movement that has last through today. The 1905 season saw over a dozen deaths and more than one hundred other injuries related to the sport. Not only was safety of the sport an issue, but the issues of competitive balance by allowing anyone to play was getting out of hand. Institutions took charge and banned the game from their schools. A rules committee was formed at the capital in 1906 and coined the name Intercollegiate Athletics Association. The name was later changed to what we know it today, NCAA. This association’s initial formation was to protect the young people from the dangerous and exploitive athletic practices of the time (NCAA). Currently those very principles that the NCAA was created on, is one of the most discussed topics of sport world.

Imagine you are a college athlete. You have worked hard throughout your life to get to where you are today, a Division I college athlete. However, the grind doesn’t stop there. You still have to put in about 40 hours each week on your sport, attend mandatory team workouts and meetings, and travel and compete for your school. Not to mention you still have difficult college classes, sleep, and your social life to worry about. You are well aware of the sacrifices you have to make, but your school? Now that’s another story. They require you to hold a certain GPA and play well enough to keep your hard-earned scholarship, and when you do well on the field, no matter how many awards you win, the school gets the ultimate prize: Money. Yes, college athletes receive scholarships, which do cover a good amount of the cost of college. However, do they cover textbooks and meal plans and other numerous expenses? Former NCAA basketball Final Four MVP Shabazz Napier said “ there are hungry nights that I go to bed and I’m starving”. If this doesn’t tell the NCAA that something is wrong, what will? I strongly believe that NCAA Division I athletes should be paid a certain amount of money because they make money for the NCAA. Therefore, they should be treated like any other paid employee and receive fair compensation. Not paying the athletes is likely an antitrust violation and also morally wrong.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) revenue for the 2011-12 season was $871.6 million, most of which came from games and media agreements (NCAA n.p.). However, the student-athletes who actually put on these games are not paid a single dime. These athletes put their blood, sweat, and tears into their game and aren’t legally paid for something that creates such a huge revenue for the school as well as the NCAA.

The main issue at hand is that the NCAA is currently benefiting extremely well financially from the top powerhouse conferences (Southeastern Conference, Pacific 12, Big 10) and its billion dollar a year athletic programs (LSU football & baseball, USC football, and Michigan football & basketball for example). The Association has full control over these student athletes, and through various legal loopholes, they exercise this power to exploit their unrecognized workforce to generate billions of dollars in revenues. In doing so, the Association restricts the amount of compensation athletes may earn, rather paying them semester stipends for school related purchases.

College athletes are not being paid for their labor, which schools profit from. “The NCAA (National College Athletics Association) earns about $4 billion in licensing fees each year. In 2010, the NCAA signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS and Turner Sports to have exclusive rights to show the men’s college basketball tournament, which takes place every year” (Miller). Student-athletes are being exploited by the NCAA and there’s nothing they can do about it. Exploitation happens when student-athletes, who are making large amounts of money for their schools, often are not receiving any kind of admissible, quality education. Another form a student-athlete is exploited, the value of

College sports are big business. For many universities, the athletic program serves as a cash-generating machine. Exploited athletes generate millions of dollars for the NCAA and their schools, and never see a dime. In terms of profit, if all ties with the university were eliminated, an athletic program acting as its own separate entity could compete with some fortune 500 companies. So, why do the vital pieces of the machine, the players, fail to receive any compensation for their performance? The answer lies in the money-hungry NCAA and their practice of hoarding all the revenue. College athletes should receive payment for their play to make their college experience more bearable because they create huge profits and