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College Athletes Should Be Paid

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College athletics is a multibillion dollar a year industry. From the NCAA basketball tournament to the college football playoffs, to the lucrative multi-year television contracts, there are endless revenue streams available. These profits have led to high contracts for coaches, large salaries for school and conference presidents, and state of the art athletic facilities. The only group that has not seen a piece of the proverbial pie is the athletes. Today's college athletes are bound by the rules of amateurism; meaning that these athletes can't receive any compensation other than scholarships, for their play. In my opinion, these athletes should be paid. Student athletes have to balance a full course load on top of their team requirements. They also have no guarantees in case of injuries, both during their playing careers and after. And finally, because scholarships do not equate to fair compensation. The basis for the NCAA’s …show more content…

To the NCAA, amateurism means that their athletes cannot accept salaries, contracts, benefits from agents, and prize money above any necessary expenses. The reason, according to the NCAA’s website it has adopted amateurism rules, is “to ensure the students’ priority remains on obtaining a quality educational experience and that all of student-athletes are competing equitably” (NCAA). Meaning that their governing bodies believe that paying these athletes would somehow take away from their ability to gain a meaningful educational experience from college. They also believe a payment system would detract from the fairness that college athletics is based upon. In my opinion however, the NCAA uses the term ‘amateurs’, to hide in reality what these athletes are. College Athletes are employees, who are repressed, under paid, and devalued. College athletes are working for the NCAA, earning

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Well, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary an amateur is “a person who does something poorly: a person who is not skillful at a job or other activity”. These athletes are far from an amateur by these standards. They are hand chosen from high school, given a scholarship worth thousands of dollars all because they don’t have any skills? If these athletes played so poorly than they wouldn’t be able to bring in the billions of dollars that they do annually and no college would pay so much money to bring them there. The college athletics departments have many of the same resources that pro teams do.

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Other sports fans do not want to see athletes paid because they say “ it will destroy their notion of amateur athletics.” They stick with the belief that a “free education” is compensation enough for what the athletes provide for the school. Even more so, amateurism gives people something to relate to with the student-athletes-something they no longer maintain with professional athletes.

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In the last few decades, college athletes have become very popular in the United States of America. College athletes increased popularity has generated a very large some of revenue for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). In 2014 alone, the NCAA generated total revenue close to 1 billion dollars (Berkowitz). As a result of this increase in revenue a debate about whether or not college athletes should be compensated has started to be discussed among colleges. Every day college athletes are working hard in the classrooms to meet academic standards and in practices to keep the games competitive.

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I strongly believe NCAA athletes should be paid for their contribution to the NCAA. These athletes are directly responsible for the generation of revenue for the NCAA and the Universities. Head coaches garner up to seven million dollars a year and the top-tier athletes currently receive $5,000. There 's no arguing that the players contribute more to a team than the head coach. If athletes were paid more, the likelihood that more athletes would achieve their four years of eligibility with the NCAA would be higher.

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Many argue that student athletes should not be paid because they receive a scholarship. People feel that the promise of their education being paid for is enough for college athletes. On the other

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The NCAA website clearly states that amateurism is essential in their programs. They require all athletes to adhere to their code of being an amature. In 2008, the first major footstep was

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It's a controversial topic, whether college athlete be paid or not. College athletes should not be paid. Their scholarships are payment enough, paying them could make the public lose interest in college sports and they earn way more than someone with just a high school diploma. If they were paid, it seems like they'd be benefiting too much.

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The topic of whether or not to pay college athletes has been a controversial debate for many years. While many people argue that athletes work for the school, making them student workers, others argue that they simply hold the athlete title. The debate is not only about paying them, but who all will get paid and where their income will come from. When deciding on which side to choose, there are many factors one must consider. We must contemplate what it means to be a college student, what it means to specifically be an undergraduate student, and what it means when they sign the contract to play their sport.

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The sum of money handed to these athletes throughout the full four years does not add up to some athletes to seriously take the sport to the next level. In accession to this college athletes are already getting paid when in college when it comes to the best services like best gyms, free health insurance for injuries, transportation, food and even equipment. Universities today are losing an enormous amount of money on sports to ensure the recruitment of more college athletes. The priority of colleges today is prioritized around games for instance "The University of Cincinnati froze tuition, but it will pay more than $80 million (borrowed) to spread out its football stadium" (Mitchell). The principles behind colleges in today's society have diminished and vastly target anything involving sports.

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College athletics have established themselves alongside professional sports as a staple of American society. The NCAA lists one of its core values as a commitment to “the pursuit of excellence in both academics and athletics.” Despite NCAA’s intentions to provide a strong environment to help student-athletes learn and develop, many issues are still brought to light, such as compensation, academics, and career paths after college. With all the various rules and regulations that college athletes are subject to, the role of the typical student-athlete at a university has become uncertain and muddy. These athletes bring in exorbitant amounts of money for the university, yet they are not allowed to be paid.

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The million dollar question; should college athletes be paid? This is an immense debate, but if you were to ask me, I would say yes, college athletes should be paid. There are a plethora of reasons why college athletes should get paid. College athletes should get paid because of the amount of time they put into their sport, the amount of money everyone else is making off of them, and their overall importance to the school. There are a myriad of reasons that people can argue the opposite way, but, the reasons they should get paid definitely outweigh the reasons they shouldn’t get paid.

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College athletes deserve to be paid because they are the only ones not being paid in the college sports industry. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) generates eleven billion dollars annually, some of which could, and should go to college athletes. “USA Today reported last year just how much money the top 10 coaches in college football made. Nick Saban from Alabama topped the list earning roughly $5.5 million in 2013 alone” (Seibold). The coaches are making millions of dollars and the players aren’t.

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College sports in America are massive in terms of popularity and coverage. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) have many sponsored division I sports including, basketball, baseball, American football, soccer, and many more. College athletes have been putting their health and time to the side with little to no financial security. The NCAA, while supposedly a non-profit organization, profits greatly from the sports with no compensation to the players. Most players spend north of 40 hours weekly in practices and games, which is as much as a full-time job, with their only benefits being a possible scholarship and boarding.

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Amateurism in college athletics is an exploitation of the athletes who participate in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports. The amount of work that is done by these athletes to help their respective institutions generate millions of dollars in revenue, goes seemingly unnoticed when identifying the substantial amount of money flow in NCAA sports and the amount of people, from stakeholders to alumni, that benefit from this source. Amateurism, the foundation of NCAA sports, has been in place for over a century of time dating back to the early 1900s. Any athlete who is making money for work they’ve done outside of their institution is not being exploited, however, an athlete can easily be placed on the other end of the spectrum

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1646 Words | 7 Pages

Amateurism in college athletics is an exploitation of the athletes who participate in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports. The amount of work that is done by these athletes to help their respective institutions generate millions of dollars in revenue, goes seemingly unnoticed when identifying the substantial amount of money flow in NCAA sports and the amount of people, from stakeholders to alumni, that benefit from this source. Amateurism, the foundation of NCAA sports, has been in place for over a century of time dating back to the early 1900s. Any athlete who is making money for work they’ve done outside of their institution is not being exploited, however, an athlete can easily be placed on the other end of the spectrum when he or she is withheld from recognizing the true monetary value of their talents and likeness that are being used for the profit of the school or others. The NCAA is understandably satisfied with the continuous growth of its’ revenue each year, yet the problem they face of having people accept that “student-athletes” are just amateurs is growing as well.

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