Summary: NCAA Athletes Should Be Paid

NCAA athletes took the NCAA to court. Ed O’Bannon, a former NCAA athlete, led the charge for the student athletes. O’Bannon argued that the athletes are being taken advantage of because the schools make millions off of the players’ likeness, meaning the schools make money on selling a jersey, or bobble head of the players and the players deserve some of that money and it should be put into a trust fund for the player. Judge Claudia Wilkin decided the O’Bannon case and gave the athletes everything they wanted in 2014, but in a court of repeals the ruling was reversed and the college just had to pay for the full cost of attendance at the university and did not have to pay for the trust of each athlete (Nocera). This was a small step for college

He says the main problem with paying NCAA athletes is the fact that universities cannot afford to do this as many of them do not make money already, fewer than 2 dozen to be exact. Nocera says every sport of every university should have a salary cap, much like the NFL or the NBA. This idea would not cost as much as paying every player any amount. He says that the salary cap should be set with a player minimum and if you combine all of the players’ minimum salaries that should be half of the salary cap. This would add stratigies in basketball to get a bunch of players at the minimum and then one really good player with the remaining budget. This amount does not have to be tens of thousands but could just be hundreds on top of everything the athletes get now. If you set the football cap at 3 million and basketball at 650,000 thousand that would still not equal the amount that a lot of coaches of major programs make so it is affordable according to Nocera. If you take some of the money programs spend on facilities to try and recruit players that war and spend it on the salary cap it is affordable and could happen without breaking the bank. Nocera also agrees with Wilbon because he thinks an athlete should be able to use the Olympic model to make some income if they can. Nocera also says that a players’ scholarship for the education should be available for eight years so if the player goes pro and gets hurt and cannot play or does not make it they can come back and get an