Reasons Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

1. Less than 2% of college athletes go on to become professional athletes
2. An even smaller number of college football players, 1.7%, go on to play professionally. With the extreme vulnerability to life altering injuries that football players face, there is an ever growing need for these athletes to be paid
3. College football players put their bodies on the line without any monetary compensation, while their schools bring in millions of dollars per year on the backs of their athletes
4. According to Business Insider, the average division 1-A athletic program brings in $55,189,211 of revenue for their University. Of that football brings in the most money at $29,635,946. Universities generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from the athletic programs. What do the athletes get in return? Zero
5. Some argue that the scholarships athletes receive is sufficient compensation for their efforts. In reality student athletes are unable to get the same out of their education as a normal student. Marc Edelman of Forbes, reported that the average college football player spends 43.3 hours per week on his sport, which is more than the average American works. Additionally, student athletes miss classes due to tournament and game schedules. Furthermore, depending on what season a sports is in, athletes will miss most or all of breaks such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. These athletes are quite literally being treated like slaves. In no other walk of life would this be acceptable.
6. The NCAA is a business. According to USA Today, the NCAA makes over a billion dollars per year from college sports. It’s time that college athletes be treated as employees rather than uncompensated volunteers. The NCAA says it’s athletes are just students, but in all actuality the athletes and teams are cash cows for their University and the NCAA
7. It doesn’t stop at not paying athletes, the NCAA does not allow athletes to monetize themselves in anyway. Meaning they cannot sign endorsements, sell their own merchandise, receive a percentage of jersey sales or in any other way receive compensation for their efforts. If students athletes pursue in these endeavors, they can lose their scholarships and be prevented from competing in college athletics
8. If I was in control of the NCAA, I would allow and encourage student athletes to monetize themselves. Additionally, I would encourage Universities to pay their student athletes. I think the best way to do this, is to allow Universities and their athletic programs to provide a budget to each of their sports teams, to which the teams could spend how they like on athletes.

Sources

• https://www.businessinsider.com/college-sports-revenue-2016-10
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcedelman/2014/01/30/21-reasons-why-student-athletes-are-employees-and-should-be-allowed-to-unionize/#41ae66308d05
• https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2018/03/07/ncaa-reports-revenues-more-than-1-billion-2017/402486002/

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