College sports have been one of the most popular forms of entertainment for people in America in the past century.  According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) website, there are more than 460,000 college athletes each year across the nation that play one of twenty four different sports.  Very few of these amateur athletes go on to have a professional sports career.  As of right now, college athletes are not paid extra in any way for playing their sport.  Most college athletes receive a scholarship for playing their sport, but no extra money is given to them on top of that.  The question of whether or not they should be paid has been brought up heavily in recent years and it has been a highly debated topic by sports analysts and many fans.  There are two main sides to argue for this issue.  Either college athletes do deserve to be paid or they do not deserve to be paid are the most popular viewpoints of this question.  However, some people have an opinion on this issue that is a mixture of both of the major two arguments.  There are many different components of college athletics that factor in to the decision of whether or not the athletes should be paid.  There are three different divisions of athletics in the NCAA and each college athlete's situation is different in each sport that they play and division that they play in.  Also, male college athletes have a very different experience than female college athletes and their sports are considerably different.  Based off of all of the money generated by college sports and the amount of time put in and risk, all college athletes deserve to be compensated in some way for their efforts and Division I football and men's basketball players deserve to be paid the most. 

One of the major reasons why college athletes deserve to get paid is that they attract a great amount of interest to the sports.  College sports are a very big form of entertainment for people across the United States.  In some regions, college sports are more popular than professional sports.  For example, there are no professional sports teams that reside in Alabama, so football at the University of Alabama is what the majority of the people in the state watch on Saturdays in the fall.  All of this popularity for the sports creates an enormous amount of revenue for each athlete's respective university and the NCAA.  With an increasing amount of interest in college sports the past few decades comes a major increase in the amount of money involved.  Television companies have contributed greatly to the change in college sports revenue landscape.  In fact, the NCAA and CBS/Turner Sports agreed to a $10.8 billion deal for viewing rights for March Madness (the NCAA basketball tournament) for the year 2011 through 2024 (Wilbon).  The athletes that play in those tournament games make no compensation at all while the NCAA is making billions of dollars.  Much of the revenue for each University comes from ticket prices at the games, concessions, and team merchandise sales.  That money adds up especially when some college football stadiums hold over 80,000 fans at a time for a game.  During 2014-2015 there were twenty eight schools that had over $100 million in athletic revenue, according to the U.S. Department of Education.  This is a huge jump in number of schools as there were only three schools to have over $100 million in athletic revenue during 2007-2008 (Solomon).  This shows how more money is generated in college sports each year and recently there has been an enormous increase.  The fact that almost thirty NCAA schools generate more than $100 million is incredible as that is a very large amount of money.  The athletes that actually play in the games are mainly responsible for all of the money and attention given to the university because without them there would be no games.  Therefore the athletes deserve to get some of this revenue, even if it is a very small percentage.  As Michael Wilbon insists in an article on ESPN, "how could anybody stand on principal and argue against paying the people who make the events possible in the first place?" It would only be fair for the NCAA to share even a tiny slice of what they make off of these games.  

The top college athletic programs in the country are basically set up like a business that generates over a hundred million dollars per year.  These top teams are formed into several conferences, where they can negotiate things such as television rights deals for games.  With conferences negotiating these deals, the amount of money has increased greatly for these multi-year deals.  As of May 2012, "the combination of football and basketball television rights fees for the Big Six conferences are as follows: Pac 12 Conference: $3 billion, 12-year deal with ESPN and Fox. The Pac 12 also has started its own cable network. Big 12 Conference: Combined $2.5 billion, 13-year deal with Fox and ESPN/ABC. Also, the Big 12 has a $78 million, four-year deal with FSN. Atlantic Coast Conference: $3.6 billion, 15-year deal with ESPN/ABC. Southeastern Conference: $2.25 billion, 15-year deal with ESPN/ABC, and $825 million, 15-year deal with CBS College Sports. Big Ten Conference: $1 billion, 10-year deal with ESPN/ABC, and a $72 million, six-year deal with CBS for basketball only. Also, the Big Ten Network has a $2.8 million, 25-year deal with News Corp. Big East Conference: $200 million, six-year deal with ESPN/ABC" (Gilleran Katz Vaughn).  In all of these deals, the conferences and colleges are making a great amount of money and are doing it under a business model.  Since the colleges and conferences act as businesses, then they should compensate all of their workers for their contribution towards the business.  The conference employees get paid for their work in the form of a salary and the university workers get paid back too.  The athletic directors for the schools and the coaches for the sports get paid a large amount for their job in the form of salaries also.  However, the athletes are technically working for the business (the University) and they do not receive any compensation for their work besides their school scholarships.  If you consider the amount of time and effort that college athletes put into their sports, it is absurd that they don't receive any compensation from it.  They are basically full time employees for their teams and deserve to receive compensation that is related to their big contribution to their team.  

College athletes are fully committed to their sport and spend countless hours each week towards their sport.  It is agreed that everyone, including athletes, are in school to get their education.  That is why college athletes receive scholarships, to pay for their education.  However, student athletes do not always get to take advantage of their education, because they are basically being forced to be fully committed to their sport because they are on scholarship for that sport.  According to an interview with professional football player Richard Sherman, who played college football at Stanford, the commitment to playing college football is like having a full time job.  One of the biggest disadvantages of college athletes' busy schedule is that they might not have enough free time to have a part time job.  As there are several students in college that struggle to get by, many regular college students get part time jobs so that they can earn some extra spending money to have.  With the busy schedules college athletes have with practices and team meetings, they most likely do not have enough time to get one of these part time jobs.  Also according to Richard Sherman, athletes have a much harder experience trying to find time to study for tests or do homework and take full advantage of their free education compared to normal students.  For example, as a college student, when I get done for class for the day, I usually go back to my dorm and rest for a few hours then start doing homework or studying.  When an athlete gets done with class for the day they then have to go straight to practice and then they might have a team meeting after that.  They will get back to their dorm or house late in the day and will most likely be tired from practice and they still have to take care of the same academic responsibilities as regular students do.  With the full on commitment college athletes have towards their team, they deserve to be able to have a small amount of spending money when they do not even have time to do things that regular students can like get a job.

There are many risks involved in playing college sports.  There are several possible injuries that can happen while playing a sport and there can also be life altering effects from some injuries.  

One concern about my topic is that it would be very difficult to decide how money would be distributed to college athletes if it were decided that they should be paid.  Questions come up on who would actually pay the athletes, the NCAA or their own University.  People also wonder if you could get away with paying men more than women without violating Title IX.  Some others want to know if Division II and Division II athletes would get equal pay as the Division I athletes.  These are reasonable questions to look at, however I believe that the only difficult question is figuring out who would be responsible for paying the athletes.  I believe that if college athletes were to get paid, then it should be done based on how much revenue their sport produces.  Therefore the male athletes would be paid more than the female athletes because football and men's basketball generate so much more revenue than any women's sport does.  Also, a Division I football program produces much more money than any Division II or III team does, so therefore they should not be paid equally.

College sports have been one of the most popular forms of entertainment for people in America in the past century.  According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) website, there are more than 460,000 college athletes each year across the nation that play one of twenty four different sports.  Very few of these amateur athletes go on to have a professional sports career.  As of right now, college athletes are not paid extra in any way for playing their sport.  Most college athletes receive a scholarship for playing their sport, but no extra money is given to them on top of that.  The question of whether or not they should be paid has been brought up heavily in recent years and it has been a highly debated topic by sports analysts and many fans.  There are two main sides to argue for this issue.  Either college athletes do deserve to be paid or they do not deserve to be paid are the most popular viewpoints of this question.  However, some people have an opinion on this issue that is a mixture of both of the major two arguments.  There are many different components of college athletics that factor in to the decision of whether or not the athletes should be paid.  There are three different divisions of athletics in the NCAA and each college athlete's situation is different in each sport that they play and division that they play in.  Also, male college athletes have a very different experience than female college athletes and their sports are considerably different.  Based off of all of the money generated by college sports and the amount of time put in and risk, all college athletes deserve to be compensated in some way for their efforts and Division I football and men's basketball players deserve to be paid the most. 

One of the major reasons why college athletes deserve to get paid is that they attract a great amount of interest to the sports.  College sports are a very big form of entertainment for people across the United States.  In some regions, college sports are more popular than professional sports.  For example, there are no professional sports teams that reside in Alabama, so football at the University of Alabama is what the majority of the people in the state watch on Saturdays in the fall.  All of this popularity for the sports creates an enormous amount of revenue for each athlete's respective university and the NCAA.  With an increasing amount of interest in college sports the past few decades comes a major increase in the amount of money involved.  Television companies have contributed greatly to the change in college sports revenue landscape.  In fact, the NCAA and CBS/Turner Sports agreed to a $10.8 billion deal for viewing rights for March Madness (the NCAA basketball tournament) for the year 2011 through 2024 (Wilbon).  The athletes that play in those tournament games make no compensation at all while the NCAA is making billions of dollars.  Much of the revenue for each University comes from ticket prices at the games, concessions, and team merchandise sales.  That money adds up especially when some college football stadiums hold over 80,000 fans at a time for a game.  During 2014-2015 there were twenty eight schools that had over $100 million in athletic revenue, according to the U.S. Department of Education.  This is a huge jump in number of schools as there were only three schools to have over $100 million in athletic revenue during 2007-2008 (Solomon).  This shows how more money is generated in college sports each year and recently there has been an enormous increase.  The fact that almost thirty NCAA schools generate more than $100 million is incredible as that is a very large amount of money.  The athletes that actually play in the games are mainly responsible for all of the money and attention given to the university because without them there would be no games.  Therefore the athletes deserve to get some of this revenue, even if it is a very small percentage.  As Michael Wilbon insists in an article on ESPN, "how could anybody stand on principal and argue against paying the people who make the events possible in the first place?" It would only be fair for the NCAA to share even a tiny slice of what they make off of these games.  

The top college athletic programs in the country are basically set up like a business that generates over a hundred million dollars per year.  These top teams are formed into several conferences, where they can negotiate things such as television rights deals for games.  With conferences negotiating these deals, the amount of money has increased greatly for these multi-year deals.  As of May 2012, "the combination of football and basketball television rights fees for the Big Six conferences are as follows: Pac 12 Conference: $3 billion, 12-year deal with ESPN and Fox. The Pac 12 also has started its own cable network. Big 12 Conference: Combined $2.5 billion, 13-year deal with Fox and ESPN/ABC. Also, the Big 12 has a $78 million, four-year deal with FSN. Atlantic Coast Conference: $3.6 billion, 15-year deal with ESPN/ABC. Southeastern Conference: $2.25 billion, 15-year deal with ESPN/ABC, and $825 million, 15-year deal with CBS College Sports. Big Ten Conference: $1 billion, 10-year deal with ESPN/ABC, and a $72 million, six-year deal with CBS for basketball only. Also, the Big Ten Network has a $2.8 million, 25-year deal with News Corp. Big East Conference: $200 million, six-year deal with ESPN/ABC" (Gilleran Katz Vaughn).  In all of these deals, the conferences and colleges are making a great amount of money and are doing it under a business model.  Since the colleges and conferences act as businesses, then they should compensate all of their workers for their contribution towards the business.  The conference employees get paid for their work in the form of a salary and the university workers get paid back too.
