Being A College Athlete

“Colleges and the NCAA generate more than $10.8 billion per year off of athletics” and yet, student athletes do not get paid at all for their hard work. They put in a great amount of time, effort, and work into being a student athlete. Being a college athlete is exceptionally laborious and can be both mentally and physically exhausting. There’s far more that goes into being a collegiate athlete than most individuals realize. Many people just see these athletes as the average student that in addition, gets to do what they love as an extracurricular. However, being an athlete as well as a student is so much more than that. Being a college athlete puts strain and stress on young adults in various ways that only other athletes can truly understand

College athletes must work extremely hard in the classroom, harder than most students, as well as extremely hard in their sports, and that results in them not being able to obtain a part time job outside of their sport. Additionally, the university and NCAA make a large amount of profit off sports as well as the memorabilia associated with sports that athletes fuel the sale of. They do not get to obtain any of the money that is made off of these items. Last of all, college sports are a full-time job. When an athlete decides to pursue athletics in college, it shows that playing that sport is a passion of that individual and that they have worked hard to get to the point they’re at. It’s important that the NCAA begin to pay college athletes because without college sports, everything would be changed drastically for the NCAA as well as schools across the country. There are numerous reasons why student athletes in college should get compensated for their hard work, however, these are the three main reasons that will be discussed in this

As stated previously, athletes have a jam-packed schedule and don’t have time for anything else like a job. These athletes have such hectic schedules for one purpose: to perfect their craft. Perfection takes time, and this is why they work so hard. However, due to this concept, college sports become a full-time job. Since student athletes spend the majority of their time on their sport, they deserve to get paid for it. Athletes spend, on average, 43.3 hours a week on their craft. That’s between practicing and game days. Take basketball for an example, during the season, they normally have two games per week. The season begins at the beginning of November and ends in March. That’s five months of playing, practicing, and traveling for; on average, 43 hours a week! That is a lot of work and time being put in to not get any compensation out of it. There is absolutely no doubt that this is a full-time job because to be a full-time employee, one must work at least thirty hours a week. These student athletes definitely surpass that. These sports become less extracurricular and more of a lifestyle once they reach the collegiate level. They aren’t doing it just for “fun” anymore. They are doing it to hopefully pursue a career out of it as well as to assist them in paying for their education. In the past, college sports have been more amateur which is why they didn’t get paid.