Preview

College Athletes Be Paid

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
478 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
College Athletes Be Paid
Should College Athletes Be Paid?
Frankly, there is no simple answer to the question of salaries for college athletes. The NY Times Upfront article “Should College Athletes Be Paid?” poses two fantastic arguments; “yes” says Joe Nocera, author of Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA, and “no” says Bob Williams, Sr. Vice President of Communications a NCAA. Although Mr. Nocera makes the valid point of how much revenue college athletes earn for their schools, Williams states how college salary would end the focus of academics for athletes, as well as sparking a controversial new “industry” in college.
The evidence pointing towards the fact that college athletes generate massive revenue for their universities proves that college sports are profitable. “The NCAA and the college
…show more content…
“Paying athletes would force many schools to make tough choices and field fewer athletic teams.” (Williams 23) Williams goes on to argue that robbing other potential college athletes of the learning experience in college sports is not the way to go. “The NCAA is committed to fairness and helping all student athletes achieve their dreams.” (Williams 23) Furthermore, he even recognizes the NCAA has work to do, and that there is no simple answer to this problem.
The complexity of these arguments proves little hope of a simple solution. The NY Times Upfront article “Should College Athletes Be Paid?” poses two fantastic arguments; “yes” says Joe Nocera, author of Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA, and “no” says Bob Williams, Sr. Vice President of Communications a NCAA. Although Mr. Nocera makes the valid point of how much revenue college athletes earn for their schools, Williams states how college salary would end the focus of academics for athletes, as well as sparking a controversial new “industry” in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    “The college sports industry generates $11 billion in annual revenues. Fifty colleges report annual revenues that exceed $50 million. Meanwhile, five colleges report annual revenues that exceed $100 million,” (Mitchell & Edelman). The money collected by the NCAA, goes towards the sports and the programs, not the players themselves, however, the NCAA says that “Student-athletes are at the heart of the NCAA’s mission,” (NCAA). “Some athletes and their supporters believe that college athletes deserve some type of financial payment for their services and contributions to their institutions, an opinion that has lead to player-initiated lawsuits, court cases, and strikes,” (Garcia).…

    • 1189 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Today, sports are no longer fun and games, sports are a business, and college sports are no different. Division I college sports provide a huge source of universities’ income. The school receives money from ticket sales, television contracts, and sport-related merchandise, along with many other sports related revenue builders. The athletes on the other hand, receive their scholarship and little more. While the idea of receiving a free college education is something few would complain about; when the issue is more closely examined it becomes evident that it is not enough. Universities are exploiting athletes, and recently the problems that this creates have become more prominent. More and more athletes are now leaving school early to enter the professional leagues in order to make money. There have also been more reports of violations surrounding university boosters and alumni paying players. Furthermore, athletes have been accused of making deals with gamblers and altering the outcome of games. All of these problems could be minimized, if not completely eliminated, by adopting a program for compensating student athletes. College athletes are exploited by their schools, which make millions of dollars off of them. This leads to violations, students leaving college early, and student-athletes that cannot even afford to do anything that their sport doesn’t sponsor. The NCAA and professional leagues can work together to institute a plan to compensate these athletes and remedy all these problems.…

    • 3415 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Pay for Play

    • 2844 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Ever since the National Collegiate Athletic Association was formed in 1905, their role in regulating intercollegiate athletics has involved many different tasks. These tasks include making athletics safe in order to prevent injury, marketing athletic events, regulating and changing rules in order to make college sports more fun for the fans, and enforcing the key principle of college sports: amateurism. Amateurism in college athletics means that athletes are unpaid. As a result, the NCAA has had to deal with deciding how to handle issuing and assigning monetary value of scholarships and grants. However, the NCAA has not had to manage the debate over college athletes getting paid to play. In a day where more and more college athletes are leaving college early to enter the professional leagues it is time to ask a question: Should division-I college athletes get paid? The question is based on the assumption that there is a place for college athletics within a university. The NCAA should be looked at economically because the universities within it generate profits through their athletic departments and operate as businesses by assessing costs, revenues, etc. With that assumption established, because of the market inefficiency and exploitative characteristics of the NCAA, division-I college athletes should get paid in a free-market environment. Division-I college athletes recognize that they are exploited and receiving a scholarship worth less than their market value, so they have no incentive to not cheat and accept illegal payments.…

    • 2844 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 2014, the NCAA had a gross revenue of about one billion dollars, distributing 547.1 million dollars to D1 schools. The money that D1 schools rake in from athletics is about 79% of their total income per year and helps them improve their respective school in academics, extracurricular activities, research, clubs and societies, and a multitude of other areas. Unfortunately, the athletes that bring in all this money receive absolutely no revenue and are essentially treated like slaves so that the school can prosper. Even though many people would argue that athletes should play the sport for the love of the game, their commitment, sacrifice of education, and risk of injury or permanent damage suggest they should get some compensation for their performance.…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The NCAA manages everything in college sports, and is considered a non-profit organization, all of the money they make is redistributed to the colleges that are part of the NCAA. Just football, and basketball generates 6 billion dollars a year, and not one penny of that money would've been made if it were not for the student athletes. In "Pay To Play: Should College Athletes Be Paid?," Adele Birkenes and Akash Bagaria who have written six articles about student life states "It is only reasonable that student athletes have a share in the millions of dollars that their sports businesses bring in." The statements by the authors bring to light this one simple question, why can the athletes be rewarded for making the NCAA and colleges successful? Although paying college athletes is not an easy decision for the people in charge, many support paying student athletes. There has been many proposals dating back to the 1950's, but there are five proposals that have a very good chance of getting passed, and used. In the article "Point/Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes," Dennis Johnson states "...former NCAA President Miles Brand's suggestion and allocate athletes include a $2,000-$3,000 cost of living increase to full scholarships...This would provide the athletes with the needed income for clothes, laundry, sundries, travel,…

    • 1883 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Best Essays

    The notion of paying college athletes has been an ongoing and controversial debate for student-athletes, coaches, schools, media and most certainly the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Many would argue that playing major college sports is more like a job versus an extracurricular activity. As with the majority of many student athletes, some attend college with the aspiration of becoming professional players thereby college is seen as a means to end. Although student-athletes already receive compensation via full and partial scholarships to participate at the college level, passionate conversations will continue to be a topic of debate because of the enormous revenue generated by college sports.…

    • 3400 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    We often look at college athletes as miniature stars. The question is, why should student’s athlete get a paycheck for playing amateur level sports? Athletes complain about how they do not get enough for playing a sport. They are forgetting that they are being rewarded with a half or full scholarship. The main goal for these athletes is being academically successful. Not who has the best jump shot or who fumbled a ball, that does not matter. The essence of playing college level has been taken out of place, now replaced with the mindsets of professional athletes. Did they forget? You are not professionals. The love of the game has been through extortion for the love of money. Paying college athletes will lead the students astray from what they attended the institution to accomplish in the first place, that is, to earn a degree, not to gain a compensation.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In recent years, colleges throughout the nation have come across plenty of controversy concerning the idea of whether or not athletes should be paid to play sports in college. To this day the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) deems this a violation of their rules, and that is no matter what the amateur status of the players who make college athletics a billion-dollar business is not going to change (“Associated Press”, 2013). Even though the issue is constantly being debated and to some the answer remains "up in the air" still to this day (Dabad, n.d.), I think the answer is quite simple on why college athletes shouldn’t be paid.…

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    For years the question, “Should college athletes be paid?” has appeared in the debatable world. College athletes across the nation have argued that they deserve compensation for the particular sport in which they participate in. “We deserve a check for what we do,” Southern Miss football player, Urell Johnson stated. “Win or lose, our sport is our job. We work all day, every day. If you think about it, the athletic department brings in the most revenue to the university.” Non-athletes, such as students (like myself) and faculty, have disagreed with the idea of reimbursing athletes who are still in college. Paying college athletes would be absurd, being that it would be too expensive, produce avaricious athletes, and most of all, it would be injustice to every other young adult attending college.…

    • 2104 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    College athletes should be paid in order to: help them financially accommodate their expensive lifestyles, give them the money they played hard to earn, and to eliminate unethical recruiting and under the table payments. Considering how hard it is to support yourself while playing sports in college, the millions of dollars universities and the NCAA makes off of you and your teammates, and the unfair advantages in recruiting that some colleges deploy, paying student athletes should be heavily considered by everyone that calls themselves a sports…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Are College Athletes Paid

    • 2258 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The term, “student athlete” is a polarizing one. In today’s America, college sports -- particularly football and basketball, are as much a part of the sports enthusiast’s landscape as is any professional sport. In any case, with enthusiasm comes money. In this case, billions of dollars are generated by television viewership, merchandise sales and university boosters. College athletes are the driving force behind an industry where television executives, university presidents, athletic directors and coaches are compensated in a manner which makes them among the most wealthy people in the world. The athletes receive in return an education from a well respected university, along with name and sometimes facial recognition in their fields of interest. However,…

    • 2258 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “These schools should facilitate the educations of student-athletes through scholarship grants, but not through a system of salaries dependent on supply and demand, which ultimately detracts a student-athlete from picking a school, and detracts them from attending a school, for the right reasons”(Meshefejian). Students getting paid would distract them by which school pay their athletes the most. Them getting paid would also be a hard decision on who gets paid the most.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Paying College Athletes

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Paying college athletes has been a controversy for over a century, dating back to what is considered to be the first intercollegiate competition. Fact is college athletes want to get paid beyond a scholarship. Yes, scholarships pay for the student’s tuition, books, classes, living expenses, etc., but they have no money to buy clothes, pay for parking, food, etc. Expecting the players to get paid millions of dollars is obviously unrealistic, but paying them as if it was a full time job, at least minimum wage is adequate enough. For the 15 highest paid coaches in Division 1, together they bring in around $100,000,000 every year.…

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The common argument to college athletes being paid is that they are “Student Athletes.” Taylor Branch the writer of The Shame Of College Sports agrees that the NCAA makes “Student…

    • 1421 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is no question that NCAA athletes help produce billions of dollars in revenue for the NCAA and their respective schools. More specifically, college basketball and football programs generate the bulk of…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays