Essay On Should College Athletes Get Underpaid

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The NCAA made 770 million dollars in revenue over a 3 week period during March Madness last year. How much money did the athletes that made all of that money possible receive? $0. Due to the popularity of college sports and the NCAA, companies and universities around the country have been benefiting by making millions of dollars in profit off of advertisements and sponsorships attached to different universities. Collegiate athletes in the NCAA should receive pay for their work because they bring in millions of dollars to their schools and perhaps college athletes would not abandon the NCAA to go to the NFL if they were economically compensated for. The debate of whether or not collegiate athletes should receive pay is one that is on the hot …show more content…

Some say that these athletes receive scholarships and good education which is satisfactory enough for the work they do. “Athletes who generate this substantial revenue are still unpaid for, if one considers scholarships as pay, they are underpaid in proportion to what they generate. In professional football and basketball, for example, players are paid approximately one-half of the revenues generate” (Gilleran,Katz,Vaughn.) The idea of an Athletic Scholarship was introduced in the 1950s when an institution’s revenue in athletics was based primarily on ticket sales to home games. Scholarships that these athletes receive has helped avoid unionization, workers compensation and wages for college athletes. But in the modern day world it makes sense to re-examine this subject in light of the significant revenue changes that these universities receive yearly. “The institutions reaping significant television revenue and BCS (Bowl Championship Series) revenue could now devise a process of compensation to their athletes that comports with traditional American notions of fairness in the marketplace, just as they have adjusted to comply with the gender equity provisions of Title IX, which was implemented in 1972. The process of