Should College Athletes Be Paid?

2590 Words6 Pages

College athletics are becoming more and more like the professional leagues except for one big issue, money. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) makes billions every year off these student athletes. March Madness is one of the biggest money makers for the NCAA, in 2010 the NCAA signed a 14 year deal worth almost $11 billion with CBS and Turner Sports that would give them the rights to shows the games (USA Today, 2010). Football and basketball bring in the most money at universities, so why not pay the athletes? Especially when the universities, NCAA, and coaches are all getting paid. With all the revenue that football and basketball bring to a university, I believe that football and basketball players should get a share in that.

Opposing Arguments

The majority of student athletes are on scholarship, so why pay them when they already go to school for free? Student athletes are in school to learn and play sports for their respective universities not to be paid to play. If they get paid it’ll be just like professional sports. Even if you do pay the students, it would be hard because of Title IX, a federally-mandated law, if conferences and schools decide to increase the value of student-athlete scholarships to cover living expenses, they have to do it for women’s programs as well. With that said it might lose money because women sports don’t make as much money as men sports. Another factor that is being overlooked is the competitive disadvantage this would pose for smaller schools. The big time conferences, the SEC, Big10, Big12, and Pac12 all have big time deals with TV channels and such so they have more revenue coming in than the smaller conferences like the MAC, and the Sun Belt. With this said it wouldn’t be fa...

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...o get injured on the job you get workers compensation, right? College athletics is a job, but if you get hurt they can’t do anything about it, even if the injury is a life-threatening one. This results in many people trying to sue the NCAA because they believe this isn’t fair but that is another discussion. College athletes deserve to be paid based on all they do for their university.

Works Cited

Edwards, Harry. “Share the Wealth”

16 December 2011. Web. 18 April 2013

ESPN. “College Athletics Revenues and Expenses-2008”

2008. Web. 18 April 2013

O’Toole, Thomas. “NCAA reaches 14-year deal with CBS/Turner …..now”

22 April 2010. Web. 18 April 2013

Schneider, Raymond G. “COLLEGE STUDENTS' ……STUDENT-ATHLETES.”

June 2001. Web. 18 April 2013

Wieberg, Steve. “ Ex-QB sues NCAA, EA Sports over use of athletes' likenesses”

7 May 2009. Web. 18 April 2013

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