The Argument for Paying NCAA Football Players

2003 Words5 Pages

Even the waterboy gets paid! NCAA football is a billion dollar a year empire, in which coaches, executives, school presidents, board members, athletic trainers, athletic directors, equipment managers, Waterboys, towel boys, ball boys, and even team mascots all receive a chunk of the revenue. Everyone gets paid except the athletes, who don’t receive a dime of the money. That’s because it’s against NCAA rules to pay college athletes with anything other than an athletic scholarship; anything else, and it’s deemed as an improper benefit, thus making an athlete ineligible if he/she were to accept. The NCAA defends its rule of “no-pay” by claiming that all its student-athletes are “amateurs” and not employees; therefore, they’re legally not compensated. The argument over whether student-athletes should be paid or not, is particularly unsettling within the sport of football, because NCAA football is the most popular and profitable sport of all college athletics. The NCAA’s discrepancy over whether it should pay its players or not, currently has the association fighting a lawsuit filed by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, who’s suing for compensation on behalf of former Division I football and men’s basketball players. The lawsuit challenges the NCAA’s use of student-athletes’ images and likeness for commercial purposes (PBS.org). In recent months the argument has been geared more towards whether current student-athletes should be paid or not, particularly football players, who like former Texas A&M star quarterback Johnny Manziel, provide the athleticism and entertainment that makes NCAA football the million dollar empire that it is. So, should college football players be paid?
If there is any argument to be made for college footb...

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