About Paying College Athletes

Paying college athletes for years has been a hot topic among the sports’ arena. Young men and women for years have worked hard to achieve their goal of becoming a full or even partial scholarship athlete on the college level. Training for some starts as early as three years old and they continue through recreation center ball, middle, and high school. The dedication to their craft is endless and to them, the next level prize and that is a full scholarship to a four-year university.

As these students move up, although they are on scholarship, many are leaving family situations that are less than desirable and the financial need is a strain on the people left behind. Even though the education is free, basic needs still need to be met. Many families are struggling to close the gap needed to make sure they are taking care of home.

College athletes should be paid for the hard work, dedication, and the revenue they generate for the school. Paying student-athletes to play sports is a highly debatable topic and will continue to gain in popularity until it is taken seriously. The NCAA and universities benefit greatly from the current system that is in place at a minimum a review should be conducted to see if there is a way to also benefit the players. When a student-athlete has worked hard their entire high school career in whatever sport they choose, one of the goals is a four-year scholarship to the college of their choice. College athletes are regularly viewed as the absolute most fortunate students in the world. More often than not if they are talented enough and have the grades, they are offered a full scholarship for college. While those scholarships cover all the costs of school, it also places them in the spotlight for potential next level success. However, the colleges are making a great deal of money off the star power of many of these athletes. Many of these student-athletes draw crowds and generate millions of dollars in revenue for the colleges they attend. Unfortunately, the rules set forth by the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) are preventing this from happening. The National College Athletic Association (NCAA) is an organization that administers intercollegiate athletics. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016) It was formed in 1906 to draw upped competition and eligibility rules for intercollegiate sports. In 1921, the first official championship event took place. It was called the National College Track and Field Championship (Britannica). It eventually extended its jurisdiction over all intercollegiate sports and their college associations and conferences (Britannica).

The NCAA is the governing body when it comes to all sports and they are the deciding factor in how athletes are handled. They control almost every aspect of how a sports program is run while generating millions of dollars at the expense of the college players. Numerous individuals believe school competitors should be paid because monetarily, they are being exploited by the NCAA and educational systems (Carden). These associations are rounding up colossal benefits from stock deals, live occasions of media inclusion. In contrast to the expert groups, however, the competitors don’t get a cut. School groups might not have indistinguishable national weight from some expert ones, yet they are similar, as energetically pursued by many loving fans. Huge amounts of stock, shirts, tickets, sustenance, and fan gear is sold on account of their exhibitions, however, regardless of being the fundamental reason the occasions are creating income; the players don’t see a dime. Numerous competitors feel disheartened and abused because they don’t get any of the cash that is produced for them. For what reason would it be advisable for others to keep profiting from their execution while they get nothing back? According to Santesteban and Leffler in the article “Assessing the Efficiency Justifications for the NCAA Player Compensation Restrictions.”, “The NCAA’s limits on compensation of college athletes has been allowed despite these inefficiencies on the notion that it preserves amateurism in college athletics.” This is in place to keep the integrity of the sport. As you move to different levels even professionally or overseas, sometimes it loses the purpose of the game, and that is the competitiveness and good nature of the sport. School sports wouldn’t exist without the competitors, and it’s not reasonable that these dedicated, hard-playing people don’t get the chance to profit by deals credited straightforwardly to them. The NCAA and different associations will even put a school player’s name on a shirt, cap or other sportswear and never send a penny to the player.

College athletes don’t exclusively have the capacity to get a level of income produced for them, yet additionally, have the capacity to seek after business arrangements and openings (Carden). Numerous athletes are held once again from seeking after these sorts of arrangements by their school, although there’s nothing in directions that should bar it. (Carden) On the opposing side, however, many coaches, college leaders feel the exact opposite. They emphatically think that college athletes are paid through the scholarship funds that they receive. Some people feel that if we compensate the athletes it will solve the problem of agents, team boosters, and others who are willing to break the rules. (Emmert) The only thing that this will do is make the college more competitive in the recruiter’s eyes. They will not only be competing for talent, but they will also have to sell out to the highest bidder. With the cheating, shaving points and all that occur within the confines of the sport, do we really know that is fair across the board. They also feel that many of the college athletes already don’t invest enough time in the college aspect of the scholarships they receive. They agree that the only focus would be that they win ball games to make sure they are fairly compensated. This can cause a whole set of other problems, such as the value and ethics that come with playing the games.

According to Emmert, “We have to be willing to take hard stands based on our principles.” In stating this he feels that if everyone is held to the same standard then it continues to be semi-fair across the board. Now does taking money off the table make it fair all around? Maybe not for all intents and purpose it holds everyone accountable by the same standards. As the president for the NCAA Emmert’s answer was to start a $2,000 student-athlete expense allowing, multi-year scholarships, and scholarships also based off of academics. This could help lessen some of the financial strain that some of the student-athletes speak about. This leads into more opposing viewpoints that have caused this to be a heated debated in most recent years.

According to Sanderson and Siegfried in the article The Case for Paying College Athletes, there are so many reasons one could argue that college athletes deserve compensation. The NCAA ratings for college sports have never been higher, and schools, as well as coaches, have in some cases have gained celebrity status. Along, with the status have come hefty compensation packages for the coaches. On average, a football college coach is paid between 4-7 million per year. Same for college basketball coaches whose salaries can range from 1.2 million to 2 million dollars per year. This leads to the argument since the college and coaches are receiving these high amounts of money from the performance of the team, then why isn’t the athlete who is causing this success to be paid as well? This article argues that although the colleges receive a good amount of money from how their team fairs in the season. They rarely operate in surplus. Not leaving enough money after scholarships, equipment, training, rehabilitation, and salaries for coaches, trainers to pay the athletes.

According to Berry Taylor, “Consider that both college and professional athletes have the risk of injury almost every day, showcasing their talent for their team and fans – but only one team will get paid regardless of an injury. Because of a clause within their contract, professional athletes will receive some sort of compensation.” College officials need to consider what happens if and when a player is injured. There is a stream of revenue lost when a star player is hurt, also the money it costs the program to rehab them can be justified as payment for the college athletes services. When a student-athlete looks at the overall picture they cannot understand how there is not enough money for them to at least receive a stipend to use as they please. This leaves a strong argument in favor of the no compensation rule because to provide all that a great sports program needs to be successful, the funds have to be used to fund it.

In conclusion, although the sports program needs funds to operate a successful program and to provide what the athletes need to be successful, in the end, the athletes’ deserve some compensation for what they produce on the court and the field. The money they generate in merchandise profits, in bringing wins to the program, also placing themselves that risk for injury should be a valid reason for the stipends. As athletes, they buckle down on the field each day to acquire fans and wins for their school; it’s only reasonable that they get a small profit for their endeavors.

Works Cited

1. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. Encyclop?¦dia Britannica, Encyclop?¦dia Britannica, Inc., 19 May 2016, www.britannica.com/topic/National-Collegiate-Athletic-Association. Carden, Art. Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 26 July 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2018/07/26/college-athletes-are-worth-millions-they-should-be-paid-like-it/.
2. Emmert, Mark. “Paying College Athletes is a Terrible Idea.” Wall Street Journal, Jan 11, 2012. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/915023391?accountid=10008.
3. Martinez, Madisen. “Should College Student-Athletes Be Paid? Both Sides of the Debate.” CollegeXpress, 20 Mar. 2017, www.collegexpress.com/articles-and-advice/athletics/blog/should-college-student-athletes-be-paid-both-sides-debate/.
4. Sanderson, Allen R., and John J. Siegfried. “The Case for Paying College Athletes.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 29, no. 1, 2015, pp. 115-138. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1651522584?accountid=10008, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jep.29.1.115.
5. Santesteban, Cristian J., and Keith B. Leffler. “Assessing the Efficiency Justifications for the NCAA Player Compensation Restrictions.” Antitrust Bulletin, vol. 62, no. 1, 2017, pp. 91-111. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1889376745?accountid=10008, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003603X16688838.
6. Taylor, Berry. “Should College Athletes be Paid Or Not?” University Wire, Apr 01, 2016. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1777597237?accountid=10008.

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