Compare And Contrast Ncaa Vs College Athletes

Student athletes vs. NCAA College athletics has grown into an integral part of universities across the nation. It has become an enormous industry that draws in a whopping load of finances to the universities. Many people may ask, where does all of the money go made by ticket sales and school merchandise? School officials will say to fees, athletic equipment, and travel costs. On the other hand; athletes may say, they have no idea. The debate about whether or not college athletes should be paid has been an ongoing discussion. In my essay, I will be analyzing the various perspectives as to why college athletes should be paid by participating in collegiate sports. Athletes and many others may argue that the hard work and dedication put into
One quote in the article follows, “the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) gets a cut; universities get a cut; coaches get a cut. The only ones not cashing in, it seems, are the players themselves” (Majerol 1). This is an interesting scenario because the ones who are doing the work are not being paid. But why? The NCAA considers collegiate athletes “amateurs”. However, how can a collegiate athlete be an amateur if they are working almost 40 hours a week and competing nationally? Sounds like a professional to me. In the world of video games, Madden (professional football video game), NBA 2K (professional basketball game) and NCAA (collegiate football/basketball video game) are very popular games. Every player’s name is displayed on the back of their jerseys and in more modern games, each player facial features resembles the players face in real life. The NFL and NBA (National Basketball Association) allows this because their professional athletes are paid by the game makers for the marketing usage of their names. On the other hand, college athletes were not being paid for the usage of their names in the video games; therefore, discontinuing the production of all NCAA football and basketball
Injury risks get higher as the level of play increases. Concussions, broken bones, torn ligaments are common injuries seen in college athletics and the players have to go through the pain of these injuries. In the workplace, if someone gets hurt on the job, they can receive workers compensation. However, being that college athletics is a job, why are the players not paid for getting hurt on the job? According to the NCAA, when only analyzing football injuries, “the overall injury rate in NCAA football is 8.1 injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures (games and practices combined). There were more than 41,000 injuries and 25 million athlete exposures from 2004 to 2009.” That is a lot of athletes getting hurt year by year and not getting compensated. As previously stated, this is only a statistic for football. In an extreme case, Devon Gales of Southern University football, took a very bad hit at their game versus the University of Georgia and has become paralyzed from the waist down. Now the University of Georgia did take very good care of him as if he was on the UGA team; however, he did not receive compensation for now potentially being in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Anything can happen in the world of sports, especially collegiate sports. Men and women’s basketball, soccer, track and field, all have high rates for serious