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Analysis: Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

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The NCAA has been facing much turmoil as of late due to the many scandals and investigations recently. With more and more people watching and attending college sports, the money generated from these events has grown exponentially. As basketball and football generate the most profit for the universities, many people are starting to believe that the athletes of those sports should be receiving part of the profit. The question that many people seem to ask is should these college athletes start to get paid to play their designated sport? Some reasons on the pro side include: the end of under-the-radar recruiting by coaches, the fact that the athletes are the reason for the profits, and that the scholarships don’t cover as much as people think. …show more content…

An ESPN columnist, Scoop Jackson, explains that this topic shouldn’t even be an argument because these colleges are allowed to be making the money that they do. Scoop relates these colleges to businessmen in the sense that in order for these colleges to offer the amount of knowledge and opportunities that they do, they need to be making money. “Instead, we subconsciously and constantly look at college sports as something different” (Jackson 1). Jackson is explaining how most people let the “school” part blind them into thinking that the educational piece changes the dynamics of what is really going on and that it exempts athletics from being about something other than money (Jackson 1). Jackson is able to push his argument very well by comparing college to a business, because as most students are able to see by the second they step in that every little thing in a college town has a price. Jackson explains that there just is not a fair way for every single college to divide up payments for every single football and basketball player, because then the better athletes on the team will be asking for more while the bench players will think it’s unfair. “Changing our mindset doesn’t solve the problem or lessen the intensity of the debate….But a small reality check in thought as least would give us a new starting point to change the discussion” (Jackson 1). Jackson isn’t trying to argue, he is here to get it into the people’s heads that it just is not possible to pay collegiate athletes. The system of payment to an athlete is an obstacle that the NCAA will have to overcome before they start to divvy out profits from the schools to the

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