Research Paper On Paying College Athletes

Paying student athletes has become a growing disputation among college athletes in recent years. College athletes have gained immense popularity among Americans over the past few decades. This has resulted into increased revenues for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its participating colleges. This often fuels the ongoing debate of whether college athletes should be compensated beyond their athletic scholarships. Because of the amount of income student athletes bring into schools, student athletes should be paid based on the amount of success, revenue, and popularity they bring to the school.

College athletics are becoming more like the professional leagues except for one big issue, money. Student athletes bring in a vast amount of revenue for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) not to mention recognition and notoriety regarding the athlete’s university. However, the debate continues as to whether student athletes should or should not receive payment for playing college sports.

Secondly, there is a major difference between professional sports and college sports. “Students are not professional athletes who are paid salaries and incentives for a career in sports. They are students receiving access to a college education through their participation in sports...student athletes are amateurs who choose to participate in intercollegiate athletics as part of their educational experience, thus maintaining a distinction between student athletes who participate in the collegiate model and professional athletes who are also students” (Mitchell). The collegiate athletes’ incentive is the access to an outstanding education. College athletes playing a college sport is not a career or a profession. “The NCAA plays a critical role in the maintenance of a revered tradition of amateurism in college sports”(Ross). This quote is laudable because

College sports are one of the largest and fastest growing markets in today’s culture. With some college sports games attracting more viewers than their professional counterparts, the NCAA is one of the most profiting organizations in America. Recently there has been controversy in the world of college sports as to whether the college athletes that are making their universities and the NCAA money should receive payment while they are playing their respective sport. Many believe that these athletes should be paid. Others argue that they are already receiving numerous benefits for playing that sport from their universities. Many of the proponents of paying college athletes are current or former college athletes who believe their hard work and hours put into practice and competing go under appreciated. They feel that while the athletes are making the university money, the athletes do not receive any cut of these profits. Opponents feel that athletes already receive numerous perks and should not receive extra compensation on top of the perks they already receive.

Ever since college students started playing sports, back in 1879 when Harvard played Yale in the first collegiate sports game, the question of whether college athletes should be paid was addressed. From that point on athletes, coaches, and college administrators have brought forward points agreeing or disagreeing with the notion of paying college students. The students argue that they deserve to be paid due to the revenue that they bring for the college and because of the games they play and the championships they win. At first the idea of paying college athletes was out of the question, but now the argument has gone from a simple yes or no to a heated debate. Since college athletes are given a free education, they should not also be paid.

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

Student-athletes should not be paid to play in order to maintain the purity of amateur sports and their obligation to prioritize getting an education. The NCAA was started by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 in order to implement the safety measures in college sports. Back then, it was “impermissible to recruit athletes solely on their athletic ability, much less to offer athletic scholarships” (Gilleran, et al). The rules behind intercollegiate sports that stand today were set in place for a reason. The NCAA mandates that student-athletes must not receive a salary to maintain their amateur status. Universities favor the athletic department since they tend to bring in the highest revenue, but participants know

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.

But why should a student athlete be paid in the first place? Their just athletes right? They go to school just like everyone else? What makes them so special? What makes a college athlete different than the average student is the amount of revenue that they help bring to their selected colleges. This type of revenue is made up from ticket sales, merchandise, media rights and contributions. “USA today” reported that the University of Texas generated $167.7 million dollars from their athletic programs, and that’s just one school. With this in mind, imagine just how much money other colleges are making from their athletics. Sure one can make the argument that they should not be paid because they are not professionals, but one can’t ignore the fact that they are bringing in millions of dollars and seeing none of it.

If the NCAA decided to pay college athletes, it would create more problems than solutions. For example, if student-athletes are offered a salary, most likely the cost of school tuition will go up because the money paid to the student-athletes must come from somewhere and the revenue from sporting events and memorabilia will not be enough to cover all student-athlete salaries as well as expenses to run all the college’s sports programs. In addition, not all college sports draw the same fan base and therefore, income is greatly varied between sports programs which in turn will create an unfair balance when determining the salary for each student-athlete. All student-athletes regardless of which sport they are participating would expect equal pay.

Bennett, Dashiell. “Only 22 Of 120 Division I Athletic Programs Made Money Last Year.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc., 15 Jun. 2011. Web. 28 Oct 2014.This supports Frank Crumley’s claim that most athletic programs “work in the red.” The author also shows how football is the big money maker. Not all departments can pay their players. Therefore, it would be unfair for departments that can pay their players to do so. The figures come from the NCAA annual report of revenue and expenses for Division I sports. This is one of my main arguments against paying football players.

I understand why the NCAA doesn't allow players on getting paid because they are trying to keep it amateur and it will cost the school a lot of money and it will bring athletes to schools who don’t have what they want to study for which can be a problem. But I'm not saying to pay them tens of thousands or millions but at least help take care of your players by giving them at least 100 dollars or something. There are a majority of students who live in poverty can't afford a lot and for some students the scholarship was their breakthrough to become an athlete who makes millions and takes their family out of being poor but they have a long way there and already have one road block in it.

Most people don’t know that college athletes are already getting paid in different ways than just direct money. "A student athlete at a major conference school on a full scholarship is likely receiving a package of education, room, board, and coaching/training worth between $50,000 and $125,000 per year depending on their sport and whether they attend public or private university"(Dorfman). These athletes get training and coaching for free that professionals pay $2,000-$3,000 per week for. They also receive free schooling if they received scholarships from the school. They can also have free room which means the athletes don’t have to pay for their houses. The average college student pays $20,000 in tuition that these athletes get

Even though an additional $2,000 a semester does not seem like a lot of money, for some smaller market colleges this extra expense may create problems. That is why I suggest either requiring the NCAA itself to provide the extra money to the players or allowing the players to make money off of jersey sales, autograph signings, etc. By potentially taking this financial burden away from the schools and transferring it the NCAA you avoid putting undo stress on smaller schools and instead ask the NCAA, a multi-billion dollar industry, to barely dip into their huge expanse of funding/profit. Furthermore, the NCAA itself is considered a non-profit organization so instead of hoarding the billions of dollars a year that it earns it should be giving money back to the student-athletes who have made the NCAA what it is today (SOURCE). Even though many schools would not be able to pay student athletes the extra scholarship money many larger schools could easily provide this additional scholarship money. For instance, some schools already pay their head football coaches millions of dollars a year. One specific example of this is Alabama Head Football coach Nick Saban. Saban makes six million dollars a year and also receives other

If student athletes were to see how much money they are worth to the NCAA, they will most likely be shocked that they are worth so much but never say that money or get a penny of it. The NCAA puts students athletes that are in Division I are worth $172,048 dollars, this is just including how much the NCAA says student athletes are worth in Division I. This amount of money is not including from what the NCAA makes in the inside of the game which is where all the money come in from televised games, tickets, concessions, and many more. Student athletes should at least be getting paid at minimum so that they have some wiggle room to enjoy themselves when they aren’t studying, in class, or training for their next game.