The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and many colleges/universities, especially at the Division I level, have an incredible amount of surpluses at the end of each year. The issue that arises when one is to look at the surpluses of DI schools and the NCAA is where all that money is coming from. Many say it is the TV air time for the entire world to see, which in many cases does bring in a lot. The thing that no one seems to want to talk about with this issue is the young men and women providing the entertainment many find themselves watching, otherwise known as the “student-athlete.” These are the college athletes that are playing in the big sporting events we watch year-round. With all the entertainment these 18-22 year old men and women are giving us, many think they are much like the professional sports leagues. The difference is that the professional sports league players are not getting an education. This is their job until they are unable to compete anymore. For college athletes, this is the complete opposite. They are getting the education and giving entertainment similar to NBA or NFL players are giving, which brings in a large amount of money. What separates the two are that NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, etc. players are considered employees of the team they play for. College athletes are considered students first, and athletes second. Employees in the United States are determined to be employees by 6 different standards. Every standard has a reason to be answered yes. These college athletes provide so much to the NCAA and their university that we should consider them to be employees, but with the benefits athletes can get for playing in college, for example scholarships and the opportunity to get into professio...
... middle of paper ...
...the university than the sports they are playing. With the athletes dedicating an extreme amount of time and energy, and getting no compensation for the time and energy, it is unfair to these athletes, according to McCormick. What this quote says is many people’s reasoning behind their agreement with college athletes being considered employees. There is a large financial gain for the NCAA and universities and virtually none for the athletes bringing in the large amount of money for the former.
Works Cited
http://www.statisticbrain.com/college-enrollment-statistics/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/ncaa-college-athletics-statistics/ http://cuw.summon.serialssolutions.com/search?s.cmd=nextPage()&s.fvf%5B%5D=IsFullText,true,f&s.fvf%5B%5D=IsScholarly,true,f&s.light=t&s.q=%22college+athletes%22+employees
http://0-search.proquest.com.topcat.switchinc.org/docview/921994999
These professors argue that student athletes, under common law and NLRB’s (National Labor Relations Board) employee criterion, do in fact fall under the classification of an employee (Cooper). Under common law, four tests determine if someone is an employee or not. Three of these rules are as follows: “(1) the right of others to control a person's activities; (2) whether that person is compensated; and (3) if that person is economically dependent on that compensation.” According to these guidelines the employer-employee relationship is plainly synonymous to that of coaches and student-athletes. For one, coaches have a significant amount of control over their student-athletes’ activities, two, athletic scholarship money is considered compensation, and third, student-athletes are highly dependent on these scholarships for their food, living, and education. Even after realizing that a student-athlete falls under what the law defines as an employee, we can agree that any D1 student-athlete who works upwards of 40 hours a week to perform at a high level of competition for the universities benefit is essentially working a full time job on top of school work
Imagine a business that brings in $60 million each year ,and the people fueling that industry receive none of the revenue(Wieberg). These same people work 40 hours in their sport every week, these “people” are college athletes. The NCAA, the governing body for major college sports, is the industry doing this to college athletes(Edelman). This is an issue of exploitation and control by large institutions over primarily poor people, the NCAA is guiding them in directions to make money for everybody while doing everything possible to keep the players out of the money. College Athletes deserve profit because they bring in large revenue into their program, the NCAA, and they invest tons of time into their sport.
... being paid. Many people prefer watching college sports over professional sports based on the idea that money isn’t involved in college sports. They are competing and giving everything they have for the love of their teammates, the love of their school, and above all, their love for the game. Paying athletes would ruin this standard of intercollegiate athletics. For all these reasons, college athletes should not be paid beyond their full ride scholarships.
Today there are over 450,000 college athletes and the National College Athletics Association (NCAA) faces a difficult decision on whether or not college athletes should be paid. Many people believe that they should and many believe they should not. There are several benefits that college’s athletes receive for being a student athlete. Why should they receive even more benefits than their scholarship and numerous perks?
Recently college athletes have been granted permission to work, from the NCAA. Even with this permission, their jobs are still regulated. One regulation to the athletes working is that they cannot work for alumni of the school. The NCAA has this rule because they feel if athletes work for people with close ties to the school then they will be receiving special benefits while working. These special benefits include, (but are not limited to), athletes being paid while not at work and higher salaries then other workers doing the same job (Anstine 4).
Attempting to pay student-athletes as full-time employees would be almost impossible to pull off and difficult to do fairly. If athletes were treated as employees of their respective university or college the issues professional sports have would enter into the college game. Students could potentially strike and also schools with more funding could simply offer to pay athletes more than other schools could. Subsequently turning collegiate sports into smaller versions of their counterparts, money hungry professional sports, which is something I do not think anyone desires. Many people enjoy college athletics for the sole reason that the athl...
...College Athletes Be Paid to Play? Michigan State Law Professors Robert and Amy McCormick Say Division I College Athletes Qualify as 'Employees' under Federal Labor Laws." Diverse Issues in Higher Education 23 June 2011: 12. Questia School. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
One of the strongest arguments against student athletes getting paid is that many people feel they already are getting paid, through their financial aid package. Sports Illustrated author, Seth Davis, states in his article “Hoop Thoughts”, that “student athletes are already being payed by earning a free tuition. Which over the course of four years can exceed $200,000, depending on the school they attend. They are also provided with housing, textbooks, food and academic tutoring. When they travel to road games, they are given per diems for meals. They also get coaching, training, game experience and media exposure in their respective crafts” (Davis, 2011). This is a considerable amount of income. While the majority of regular students are walking out of school with a sizeable amount of debt, most student athletes are debt free. Plus they get to enjoy other benefits that are not made available to the average student. They get to travel with their teams, t...
Over the years, the debate on whether or not to pay collegiate athletes, specifically Division 1, has increased greatly. With athletes bringing in millions of dollars to their respective schools, many believe it’s time to make a change. The debate has been ongoing since the 70’s, maybe even earlier, but it really came to the attention of many in the early 90’s, specifically 1995. Marcus Camby, a basketball player for the Toronto Raptors, admitted he took money and jewelry, from somebody who wanted to be his agent, while he was playing at the University of Massachusetts. This was one of many incidents that involved a player accepting money and other gifts from an agent and/or booster. I believe that college athletes deserve to be paid in some fashion. They devote their whole life to their sport, whether or not they are the starters, and most will not go on to the pros, even though they contribute to the team. They sell tickets, jerseys, T-shirts etc. for their school, and see none of the money. Coaches sign six figure deals with shoe companies, like Nike, Reebok, Converse, and the players are the ones wearing the shoes and jerseys, the coaches have on whatever they want. Even though just recently the NCAA Committee allowed athletes to get a job; between schoolwork, and practices, they don’t have enough time to find a job. Most of the kids come from poor backgrounds, and don’t have enough money to do normal college things, like going out to eat, going on a date, or out to the movies.
There are many aspects to an NCAA players eligibility, most of them are disputed against. One of these topics is players getting paid. Numerous questions are raised by this topic. The largest of these questions is “Should NCAA players get paid?.” Surprisingly, the pros for paying the athletes outnumber the reasons for not paying them. The athletes are basically workers for their school, they devote hours to their sport, they take time out of their classes, thus making their scholarships less valuable, and the NCAA teams would be more successful.
College athletes are undoubtedly some of the hardest working people in the world. Not only are they living the life of an average student, they also have a strenuous schedule with their specific sport. One of the most discussed topics in the world of college athletics is whether or not student-athletes should be paid money for playing sports. The people who disagree with the idea have some good arguments to make. Primarily that the athletes get to go to school for free for playing sports. Another argument is that if student-athletes were to get paid then it would ruin the amateurism of college sports. People who are against paying the athletes do not want to see the young people become focused on money. “Paying student-athletes would dramatically shift their focus away from where it should be - gaining knowledge and skills for life after college” (Lewis and Williams). This is very understandable because one of the biggest reasons college sports are so popular is because the athletes play for school pride and for bragging rights. They play because they enjoy the game, not because it is their job. Most people that disagree with the idea of paying the athletes fail to realize what really goes on behind the scenes. At most Universities around the country the bulk of the income the school receives is brought in through the athletic programs. In fact the football and basketball teams usually bring in enough money to completely pay for the rest of the athletic programs all together. To get a better understanding of how much has changed in the world of college sports a little history must be learned.
The proposal of payment toNCAA student-athletes has begun major conversations and arguments nationwide with people expressing their take on it. “This tension has been going on for years. It has gotten greater now because the magnitude of dollars has gotten really large” (NCAA). I am a student athlete at Nicholls State University and at first thought, I thought it would be a good idea to be able to be paid as a student-athlete.After much research however; I have come to many conclusions why the payment of athletes should not take place at the collegiate level.The payment of athletes is only for athletes at the professional level. They are experts at what they do whether it is Major League Baseball, Pro Basketball, Professional Football, or any other professional sport and they work for that franchise or company as an employee. The payment of NCAA college athletes will deteriorate the value of school to athletes, create contract disputes at both the college and professional level, kill recruiting of athletes, cause chaos over the payment of one sport versus another, and it will alter the principles set by the NCAA’s founder Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Under Roosevelt and NCAA, athletes were put under the term of a “student-athlete” as an amateur. All student athletes who sign the NCAA papers to play college athletics agree to compete as an amateur athlete. The definition of an amateur is a person who “engages in a sport, study, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons” (Dictonary.com).
College athletes juggle busy academic and practice schedules all throughout their stressful weeks, so why shouldn't they be compensated for their time dedicated to sports? NCAA rules strictly prohibits players from being paid for all the hard work they do to protect “amateurism”, but are you really an amateur putting in over 40 hours a week between practice and other activities? Although students earn a college scholarship, that doesn’t cover living expenses, and access to a degree at the end of their career, players should be paid because schools, coaching staffs and major corporations are profiting off their free labor.
The huge amount of money being made off college sports has led some to question whether student-athletes can be considered amateurs any longer, and whether they should, instead, be paid for their efforts, the argument can be made that the opportunity to both receive an education and get the exposure to win a major professional contract more than compensates NCAA athletes for their
I believe that college sports should be considered a profession. Athletes deserve to be paid for their work. College athletics are a critical part of America’s culture and economy. At the present time, student-athletes are considered amateurs. College is a stepping-stone to the professional leagues. The NCAA is exploiting the student- athlete. Big-time schools are running a national entertainment business that controls the compensation rate of the players like a monopoly (Byers 1).