Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

Pay College Athletes Currently, sports are clearly used for a business opportunity, not for the love of the game. Did you know that in 2011 the NCAA signed a 14-year contract with CBS and Time Warner Cable worth 10.8 billion dollars for just three weekends of men’s college basketball? The NCAA claims to be a non-profit association but they make an average of 11 billion dollars in annual revenue. Many people don’t realize the NCAA treats student-athletes like employees. College basketball and football players are often forced to miss classes to be on nationally televised productions and don’t receive any pay or compensation for missing classes multiple times a week to bring in revenue for the NCAA. For this reason and many others, student
The average scholarship is worth $25,000 a year and over four years that totals just $100,000. While $25,000 may sound like a large amount of money for a college student, but there are many things that money has to cover in order for the athlete to attend college. The average tuition and fees for an in-state four year university is $22,261 per year; which does not include multiple textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars each. What happens to that scholarship if they’re released from a team? How is the athlete supposed to continue paying for college if they’re from a low income family? Tyson Hartnett, writer for the Huffington Post and former college student, says “For a little extra money to see a movie or go out to dinner once a week, my freshman roommate worked a job at the university, earning about $7/hour. He would work his butt off all day, with two or sometimes three basketball training sessions, plus classes and homework, and go to that job for a few hours late at night. He would come back exhausted, but he needed whatever money they would pay him”(Hartnett). This example sheds light on a common challenge student athletes face. Many athletes who are barely squeaking by while working a minimum wage job. It is unreasonable to expect student athletes to consistently be required work harder than the average student and not
Marc Edelman, a writer for Forbes, said in his 2014 article, “This year, the University of Alabama reported $143.3 million in athletic revenues - more than all 30 NHL teams and 25 of the 30 NBA teams” (Edelman). This quote proves that universities and the NCAA makes more than enough revenue to pay their athletes. The Toronto Maple Leafs, a professional hockey team, make 142 million in annual revenue which is the most in the NHL but is less than University of Texas, Ohio State University, University of Michigan, and University of Alabama. I fail to see how public universities continue to claim they cannot afford to pay athletes with these profit margins. Marc Edelman also says in his article “Last year, the average salary for a BCS eligible football coach was $2.05 million”(Edelman) and “The average salary for a premier NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball coach also exceeded $1 million”(Edelman). These two excerpts show that universities pay their coaches top dollar for their leadership of a sports team but still claim they can’t afford to give athletes any type of compensation for their efforts. In 40 of 50 states, the honor of highest paid public officer belongs to the head coach of a state university’s men's basketball team or football team. Nick Saban, head football coach at the University of Alabama, makes $7 million dollars per year. Doesn’t that seem