Pay to Play
Over 70 percent of full time employees work 40 hours or more a week (Wesley, Daniel). These individuals have what many would consider to be a job. So why is it when an athlete spends 40 or more hours a week dedicated to a sport it is considered anything less (Alessi, Dominic)? College athletes cannot be paid or accept any free merchandise of any sort because of rules currently set by the NCAA. The reason for this ruling is to keep the integrity of the “amateur” athletics. It’s an amazing fact that these “amateur” athletes find a way to bring in billions of dollars annually by just being mediocre at their trade. By this logic people should be lining up to buy season tickets to see their math teacher run a 7.2 forty yard dash or pull
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The money is made from the selling of tickets and merchandise based on college athletes. But these athletes see none of the money. Is it fair for a group of people to be exploited through a system in which they receive little to nothing in comparison to what they are worth? The average value for a division 1 football player is $137,000 and the average value for a division 1 basketball player is $289,000(Alessi, Dominic.). If we compare this to the tuition for in-state schools then the athlete is being greatly under compensated. In a similar comparison value of the basketball player even if the athlete is given a full ride he is still worth much more money than the tuition. The University of Alabama alone is a very lucrative business like many other big name schools. The University of Alabama reported over receiving 143.3 million in athletic revenues. This is more money than all 30 of the NHL teams and more than 25 of the 30 NBA teams (Edelman, Marc.). The reason for this unequal distribution of wealth is that on the professional level the money is split between the coaches the faculty and the athletes. While in college none of that money goes back to the athletes. Because of the unevenly disturbed wealth to the athletes and the faculty, the highest paid public official in 40 of the 50 states is a head college football or basketball coach (Edelman, Marc.) College athletes should be paid because the …show more content…
This couldn’t be further from the truth in many cases. One thing everyone must remember is that nothing in life is absolutely free. Even the athletes who do receive full rides still have to pay anywhere from $3000-$5000 per year for expenses (O’Shaughnessy, Lynn). Full rides aren’t given out like lollypops, only a percentage of division 1 athletes receive one. The only division one sports that have the ability to offer full rides are: football, men and women's basketball, and women's gymnastics, volleyball, and tennis. A shocking and more surprisingly fact is that in these Division I sports, athletes receive a full ride or no money at all. Schools are only allowed so many scholarships. This means not all the athletes get a scholarship, much less a full ride, and they sacrifice time that could be used for school, on the their given sport and still have to pay tuition. On average a division 1 athlete will receive $13,821 for men and 14,660 for women (O’Shaughnessy, Lynn). These values are much lower than the cost for any division one school’s tuition. It is clear to see that by no means all division 1 athletes receive a free education. But let’s take a look at the education they receive. An athlete’s education is greatly stunted by sports. Most people did some extracurricular after school in high school, imagine how it affected your studies
What most people don’t is that not all athletes get the full-ride scholarships that people think of. Most collegiate sports don’t even offer full-ride scholarships; instead they have a set amount of money that they can do whatever to give scholarships. According to a U.S. News article, “The average athletic scholarship is about $10,400. Only four sports offer full rides to all athletes who receive scholarships: football, men’s and women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball” (O'Shaughnessy). Just to put this into perspective, there are twenty-four total college sports, and only these 4 offer full scholarships. This showcases the rarity of a full-ride in college athletes. Looking into it even more, most of those college athletes come from low income families, “86 percent of college athletes come from below the poverty line” (Hayes 1). A college athlete's schedule is also very hectic. In an article showing the schedule of a football player, it lists, “6am-7am: Wake up,
There have been much controversy weather universities should pay student athletes. The nation is divided into two groups, financially compensating the student-athlete or not. One side declares Division I and Division II schools make millions of dollars off ticket and merchandise, therefore, the athlete should receive a salary. The argument arises when for instance in football or basketball, schools make millions for winning bowls or tournaments, which the money awarded to the schools goes far beyond a four-year education. Video games along with last names on jersey have been banned for sale since college athletes were used without receiving financial compensation. On top of this are the multimillion dollar sponsorship deals universities are making with athletic apparel companies. The other side argues student athletes receive a free college education from prestigious schools and therefore should not receive financial gains. They declare a student-athlete receives free national exposure and paying them will uneven the playing field in college sports. In addition, a student will be deducted income taxes from their salary if paid. Most imply, some of the students come from inner city neighborhoods and some cannot read or write at a college level. As a result, these athletes are assigned tutors and therefore pass the courses with ease. In all, college sports have become huge money makers, but the question arises whether an
Actions towards paying athletes are being taken and according to the TCU Daily Skiff, “There’s a legislation being passed around in the Big 12 states to provide athletes with an extra stipend in addition to their all-expenses paid education. The idea is that these students are producing truckloads of revenue for the university and should see some of the fruits of their labor.” (Jennings, par. 2) Because athletes aren’t paid for producing such money, supporters feel some of the money made should go towards helping with extra expenses. An average student athlete has to pay for phone bills, transportation, entertainment, laundry, toiletries and other things. While the typical college student has the opportunity to work, athletes don’t. Some students in college receive academic full ride scholarships, which are the same as athletic full rides, but they have time to earn extra money on the side. If these students are receiving a full ride scholarship and have the opportunity to work then an athlete should be paid a compensation for his or her efforts on the playing field.
College athletics is a billion dollar industry and has been for a long time. Due to the increasing ratings of college athletics, this figure will continue to rise. It’s simple: bigger, faster, stronger athletes will generate more money. College Universities generate so much revenue during the year that it is only fair to the players that they get a cut. College athletes should get paid based on the university’s revenue, apparel sales, and lack of spending money.
These factory owners are the college athletic directors and presidents, while the unpaid workers are the student athletes. When you describe it like that it sounds unfair but this is the reality of college sports. However, the NCAA gets out of having to pay their athletes by calling them merely amateurs and not professionals. The NCAA also believes that they are nice enough to the athletes by offering loopholes in their no-payment policy. For example in college football if your team makes a bowl game, athletes can be gifted up to $550. While its great for the players and they all enjoy this loophole, it’s saddening that these athletes sacrifice their bodies for their school and then go crazy when they get an iPad mini or an Apple TV. The coaches rewards however are enough money to buy their whole team twenty iPad minis each. When Missouri made a bowl game for football a couple of years ago, the team got iPad minis and Apple TVs, while their coach got a bonus of $850,000. The coach, Gary Pinkel, has a contract with Missouri of $2.8 million. A stat from 2012 says that the average division 1 football coach has a salary of $1.64 million, while basketball was reported at $1.5 million in 2014. While the coach lives in luxury, many college athletes can barely afford to live at college. Famous basketball star and former college basketball player at UCLA, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, believes that college athletes deserve to be paid. In discussing his time at UCLA he states, “Despite the hours I put in every day, practicing, learning plays, and traveling around the country to play games, and despite the millions of dollars our team generated for UCLA—both in cash and in recruiting students to attend the university—I was always too broke to do much but study, practice, and play...” (Eromosele). He also argues that millionaire coaches can earn more money
With this large time restriction, it can be close to impossible to find and maintain a job. Student athletes need extra money in order to maintain a stable financial base. It would make so much more sense if athletes were compensated for the work they are putting in. They clock countless hours practicing and forming their game. A typical college athlete will spend just as much time practicing their sport as a normal job. They do all of this just so people on the side can reap the benefits. Student athletes should receive financial compensation because coaches and schools receive billions while the athletes receive nothing (Hopkins,par.7). It is scary to think how out of hand this could get if something is not changed. Why not give the money to the people who are working for it? Why not the players? Lack of time is not the only reason college athletes should be paid. The amount of money that the athletes generate is the main reason that the players should be payed.
The student athletes at most universities can be compared to employees, yet receiving no wages (Cooper 12). Along with time in the classroom and being a full-time student, athletes are expected to spend just as much time on their respective sport. In an article “Top 10 Reasons College Athletes Should Be Paid,” Dave Anderson explains that a college athlete spends just over 43 hours a week devoted to their sport. Those hours are spent with mandatory lifting workouts, conditioning workouts, watching film, position meetings, and practice. As I stated earlier, all this time that is spent on their sport is in addition to the time spent in the classroom with homework and studying. All of that added up well surpasses the time of the average work week at 40 hours and these athletes can quite honestly be looked at as workers for their universities.
These same individuals work 40 hours in their game each week; these "individuals" are college competitors. The NCAA, the governing body for significant college games, is the business doing this to college competitors. This is an issue of abuse and control by expansive institutions over basically destitute individuals, the NCAA is controlling them in bearings to profit for everybody while doing everything conceivable to keep the players out of the money. College Athletes merit benefit since they get huge income into their system, the NCAA, and they put huge amounts of time into their game. The competitors at these institutions acquire huge amounts of money into their school each year and merit pay. These Universities are misusing these competitors by not giving them back what they make for their school. The numbers say it all with regards to the misleading of the competitors by their own schools. In 2004, more than 40 schools acquired more than $10 million, with 10 of them getting over $30 million. A few competitors around the country are worth more than $1 million to their
The argument of paying college athletes outside of the scholarships they may be receiving is becoming a rather popular topic. “Should College Athletes Be Paid?”, an article in Santa Clara Law written by Ron Katz, Isac Vaughn and Mike Gilleran weighs both sides of paying student athletes. They argue the point that regardless how you look at the situation, a handful of college sports have become a business. Sports such as Men’s football and basketball being broadcast on television now generate approximately $750 per year for colleges. It is acknowledged that the ones who are bringing in this money (the student athletes) are not receiving revenue from the sport they are playing. The idea of treating all sports the same was possible back in the day but today you cannot deny that one sport may bring in much more than another. Therefore Gilleran et. al. concludes that each school should be able to choose if they want to start using the business idea and paying the athletes for their work. “Alabama head coach, Nick Saban’s contract extension calls for him to make $45 million over the next eight years. His players, on the other hand, receive only the NCAA scholarships that does not even cover their basic living expenses.” (Gilleran et. al. par. 27) How is it that
The idea of paying college athletes to compete is not new, unlike most people think. This debate has been around since the 1800’s. The college sports industry makes about $11 billion in annual revenues. Fifty colleges report annual revenues that exceed $50 million. Nationally in 2010-11, the top 15 college basketball programs generated roughly $293 million, less than a third of what the top 15 football programs generated, baseball makes very little money compare to basketball and football according to Jeffrey Dorfman. These revenues are coming from multiple sources, such as ticket sales, sponsorship, and broadcasting rights. The National Collegiate Athletic Association recently sold broadcast rights to its annual men 's basketball tournament for upwards of $770 million per season. At the University of Alabama, the head football coach, Nick Saban, recently signed a contract paying him $7 million per year; more than 91 times the average wage of an Orange County public school teacher. However, the facts I have mentioned so far concerns football only. Football and basketball are the biggest sources of athletic revenues in the majority of universities. So with all this money involved, should student athletes get a percentage of the revenue their sport brings to the university?
One of the most controversial subjects we as individuals hear about this day in age is whether or not college athletes deserve to be paid. Many people argue that these athletes do intact, deserve to be paid for their time and hard work. NCAA athletes create a name for themselves by playing and performing well on their college teams. The better these athletes perform, the more publicity the school revives. This then leads to higher ticket sales and stores around campus selling jerseys and other clothing items with athletes names and numbers on the back. NCAA schools have become comfortable with using athletes’ names to bring in a revenue for the school, and yet the athletes never see any of that money. On the other hand, many people believe that these athletes do not deserve, nor should they expect to receive payment in return. They believe that these scholarships and the education are payment in itself. Some even bring up the question on if it is affordable or even realistic to pay college athletes.
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 first part of this that I will discuss is if all student athletes should receive compensation. I believe that they should, but to a point. The student athletes who participate in programs that compete at the Division I level should definitely receive some sort of payment. These institutions usually charge high ticket prices to main sports such as football and basketball. They generate staggering amounts of profit off of the student athletes who play for these schools. For example, a Penn State football ticket goes for $55 at the lowest face value price. Penn State usually has an attendance of 100,000 or more for every home football game. There are at least 6 home football games a season. So if you do the math, 100,000 multiplied by $55 equals $5,500,000. There are a handful of student tickets, so I will say there are approximately 20,000 student tickets sold at around $25 each. 80,000 multiplied by $55 equals $4,500,000, after adding in the student tickets, it still brings the total up to $4,900,000 per game in ticket sales alone. Additional to the ticket sales, there is merchandise and
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,
Should playing a collegiate level sport be considered a job? One of the loudest debates in the sports world is whether or not college athletes should receive a share of the revenue they produce for the universities. Men’s basketball and football players generate millions of dollars a year through ticket sales, television contracts, team merchandise, and much more. So why don’t they get a share from the profits? Does this mean that big time universities are exploiting their college athletes so that they can cash in from their talents? College athletes in today’s day in age are beginning to put in their opinion of how they should receive a salary. Did they forget that they are still students at an institution? Most of the big time college athletes, such as basketball and football players, are at the school with a full athletic scholarship, which is already worth thousands of dollars. Everyday students pay to be a part of the school, and athletes receive the benefits of going to school for free, and enjoy all the extra benefits that come with the tough work as an athlete. These athletes receive first class treatment. They are given private flights to away games, first class hotels, and many other luxuries. They do not pay for tuition, transportation, food, or team facilities. On top of that, they should receive a salary? Not a chance. “The law professors find that college athletes meet all three because a coach has much control over what they do; athletic scholarships amounts