College Amateurs Athletes

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Every March, 68 teams, 1020 players, millions of fans, and hundreds of millions brackets get ready for what is the biggest sporting event every year. The NCAA March Madness Tournament generates billions in revenue that goes to the NCAA, sponsors, TV deals, officials, workers, athletic directors, conference commissioners, and basically everybody but the actual revenue-generating workforce. Ever since the NCAA was founded in 1906, it has always maintained that its student-athletes are amateurs within their respected sports. The NCAA continually maintains that these athletes need to be recognized as students first. But in the college sports industry this is not the case. The NCAA exploits these “students” through their contribution to the universities, conferences, and the entire NCAA institution. Looking into the life of a student-athlete, the student aspect is very much neglected. This has much to do with the NCAA’s own policies and programs. This is how the out dated, old-fashioned, traditionalist NCAA runs their organization. This $60 billion industry only looks to profit off of their tyrannical rule and, in turn, has become one of the most hypocritical institutions in modern America.
It is well-established that college athletes, specifically football and basketball players, create enormous revenues for the NCAA. While they do receive scholarships as compensation, their off-season work, game day preparations, and game performances do more than their scholarships justify. Legally, how can such a business and industry such as the NCAA not pay the actual workers that bring in the revenue? In fact, looking into the change in court decisions and growth of the NCAA it has been proven that college-athletes are and should be classified ...

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Sundram, J. (2010). The Downside of Success: How Increased Commercialism Could Cost the NCAA Its Biggest Antitrust Defense. Tulane Law Review, 85, 543-570. Retrieved December 3, 2013, from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=bbf2a44f-cd32-4870-8ee0-bdae909d14b5%40sessionmgr198&vid=4&hid=113
National Collegiate Athletic Association. (n.d.). NCAA Public Home Page. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from http://www.ncaa.org/

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