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Should Student Athletes Be Paid Research Paper

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One of the uttermost common controversial topics in our world today is whether or not college student athletes should receive compensation for their athletic abilities. This has been a topic of discussion for many years now, and the topic seems to become more and more relevant as our world evolves. Before choosing a stance, there are a few questions that are necessary to be answered. Should all student athletes receive compensation? What determines the amount each student athlete receives? Will all student athletes receive equal compensation or will the student athletes who participate in the programs that generate the greatest amount of revenue be paid more? If the student athletes do begin to receive compensation, can they gain more for …show more content…

I am in favor of these student athletes receiving the compensation they certainly deserve. 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 …show more content…

Of course there are schools that generate an abundance of revenue compared to others. With this being the case, there should be a fixed percentage of each school’s revenue for each sport that is designated as payment money for the student athletes. This can be their payroll budget, similar to major league sports teams have. So say the football team has 100 athletes, and their budget is $2,500,000, each athlete can receive $25,000. This creates fairness and should eliminate any controversy among the athletes when receiving compensation. A few of the larger sports programs such as basketball and football will bring in substantial amounts of revenue compared to the smaller ones such as soccer and volleyball, but the amount of revenue the student athletes earn each of these programs is one of the key determinants in deciding the amount they should

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