College Athletes Should Be Paid

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College athletics have gained immense popularity among Americans over the past few decades. This has resulted in increased revenues for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the participating colleges which has fuelled the debate of whether college athletes are allowed to be compensated beyond their athletic scholarships. The debate as to whether or not college athletes must be paid has really been cooking up over the past recent years. It seems to arise every March when the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament arrives, and once again when the college football season begins. Should college athletes get paid to play? Forget about the game-winning touchdown, forget about the cheerleader girlfriend, and forget about the gold ball. …show more content…

Over the past few decades, college athletics have gained supporters all across the United States. Whether it is Football, Basketball, or Baseball, ever since the turn of the century, intercollegiate sports have brought in a surplus of revenue to their respective universities. A recent study found out the University of Texas’ Athletic Program had the highest revenue of any other university at a little over $120 million. Yet with this large sum of money no college athletes are legally paid for their work.The notion of paying college football players has been an ongoing debate since the early 1900’s. With current television revenue resulting from NCAA football bowl games and March Madness in basketball, there is now a clamoring for compensating both football and basketball players beyond that of an athletic scholarship (3). Many people say that athletes do not need to be paid because of many reasons, however college athletes must be paid because they hold down a full time job, college athletes are bringing in huge amounts of revenue for the colleges, and the future of college athletes is very …show more content…

College athletes deserve a share of the money that they help to generate. It may seem odd and unjust to pay college athletes, but the reality is that compensation of such athletes is a necessity not only to keep competition at a steady level in college athletics, but also to encourage students to graduate and get their college degrees. It is not probable to pay an athlete $5,000 or even $10,000 per semester, but if each athlete got paid $2,000 over the course of the semester, this would give them some spending cash and an opportunity to start managing their money. Most athletic programs can’t afford to pay athletes on their own, so the NCAA needs to consider this idea of paying these athletes with the money they deserve. Athletes earn their schools hundreds of thousands of dollars, increase enrollment, and if they do well, provide a recruiting piece for generations. Few opposers to college athletes getting paid will say that athletes do not need to be paid because of many arguable and controversial reasons, however college athletes must be paid because they hold down a full time job, they are bringing in huge amounts of revenue for the colleges, and the future of these athletes is very harsh. To emphasize a point, Top NCAA executives are getting $1 million per year while an athlete can not even earn $50 from signing a few

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