Analysis: Why College Athletes Should Not Be Paid

The popularity of college sports has risen tremendously throughout the years amongst Americans. The passion to watch college basketball, football, baseball, and other sports has generated billions of dollars to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and to various athletic programs throughout America. Even though, colleges are raking in millions of dollars from their sports teams. “Last year's National Collegiate Athletic Association ("NCAA") basketball tournament generated over $70 million in gross receipts” (Goldman). The NCAA prohibits payments, beyond educational scholarships, to athletes who are the source of these revenues. College athletes spend countless number of hours in their sport everyday by attending practices,

Many college athletes are not able to provide themselves with basic necessities such as food, clothing, and other basic necessities. “Thus, in a study sponsored by the NCAA, football and basketball players reported having less money available after expenses than non-athlete students” (Goldman). Even Though, college athletes put countless hours of hard work into their sports in order for their athletic programs to be successful, they are not be being requited for their efforts which will help them survive by providing them with food and other basic necessities. “Almost fifty-eight percent say the money they have is inadequate” (Goldman). By not being able to provide for themselves, many student athletes tend to use a different route in order to get money, which is getting a part-time job. Athletes are compensated only through scholarships and/or a part-time job according to the NCAA rules. Student athletes usually do not have the time to be employed to a part-time job with their full time schedules of school and practice. “By accepting a part-time job, athletes are compelled to sacrifice study time for work hours. The student-athlete would be better served spending their time studying to achieve a college degree, rather than working at a part-time job” (Acain). Also by taking a part-time job athletes are more

The system of college athletes has been running for hundreds of years without any fault until most recently. Changing the entire system will cost an enormous amount of money, which many colleges and universities cannot provide because they do not have the same revenue generated by larger universities such as Texas, Alabama, and USC. “You get the superstar programs like Texas, USC [University of Southern California], Alabama that run away with the lion's share of the money. And then you get the other programs that are trying to compete with them but can't keep up, so their expenses run up, but their revenues don't go up commensurately”(Karaim). Not all colleges will be able to provide some type of payment to their athletes because they do not produce the same revenue compared to larger universities. Due to this fact, many say that the system of paying athletes should be left alone, letting it run like it has been previously. However, I believe that athletes should be paid a stipend of at least 500$ per month to fulfill their basic essentials in order for them excel in their sports and