College Athletes Should Be Paid

1344 Words3 Pages

College sports attract thousands of fans to games every weekend. This used to just be the people who bought tickets to view the game from the stadium. Recently, the amount of fans that can view games has dramatically increased due to television deals that allow games to be broadcasted all over the nation. These deals generate lots of revenue for the NCAA and its members. In 2012, the NCAA generated $797,598,000 of revenue. Television and marketing rights made up 90% of that amount and that doesn’t include the money that individual universities made from ticket and apparel sales. With all of the money that college sports generate, the question arises, “Should the athletes be paid?” This question has caused great controversy because of all of the differing views on the subject. Many believe that athletes are already fairly compensated through scholarships and don’t deserve to be paid but there are many others, especially outside of the NCAA, that believe college athletes should be paid in some way. The NCAA is a non-profit organization that governs college athletics. They set up the rules that college student-athletes must abide by in order to compete in college sports. These rules require that the athletes receive no compensation for their talents outside of an …show more content…

One must be enrolled as a student at whichever school they wish to play. This status as a student is what many hold as the biggest reason college athletes should not be paid. They are students first and athletes second. However, because student-athletes generate so much revenue for their respective schools, some believe they should be considered employees and be paid as such. Osborne refutes this by saying, “[…] student-athletes do not generate revenue […] spectators do not change the nature of what student-athletes do, nor does it make them revenue generators. The sports are the revenue generators

Open Document