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 Pac 12 Conference are $3 billion, 12-year deal with ESPN and Fox, and the Pac 12 also has started its own cable network (Gilleran Katz Vaughn). The combination of football and basketball television rights fees for the Big 12 Conference were a combined $2.5 billion, 13-year deal with Fox and ESPN/ABC and the Big 12 has a $78 million, four-year deal with FSN. (Gilleran Katz Vaughn). The combination of football and basketball television rights fees for Atlantic Coast Conference were $3.6 billion, 15-year deal with ESPN/ABC. The Southeastern Conferencen was $2.25 billion, 15-year deal with ESPN/ABC, and $825 million, 15-year deal with CBS College Sports. The Big Ten Conference was, "$1 billion, 10-year deal with ESPN/ABC, and a $72 million, six-year deal with CBS for basketball only." (Gilleran Katz Vaughn). On top of this, the Big Ten Network has a $2.8 million, 25-year deal with News Corp. The Big East Conference combined football and basketball was $200 million, with a six-year deal with ESPN/ABC (Gilleran Katz Vaughn).  These are all the major conferences in the United States.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.  There are contact sports at every level of competition.  Football, basketball and soccer are some of the main contact sports.  At the college level, these contact sports become extremely physical. Sometimes this extreme physicality can become dangerous to the players, especially in football.  College football players experience long term damage to their bodies due to the extensive physical work that they put through their bodies every day in college (Hart).  In college football games players are almost constantly getting hit hard in the head, which can cause them to have long term effects to their brain.  These long term effects on their brain can cause a major change to their quality of life when they are older (Hart).  If these athletes are putting themselves at risk while they are playing sports for their college, then the college should take this into consideration.  In order to keep the athletes in mind, the colleges could pay them some money for each game, as they are putting their own health on the line for the college team.  Some of this money could be used to get help if they experience any of these long term health effects in the future.  

The way that college sports are broadcasted and promoted by television networks and social media creates several college athletes that are considered very popular.  The Heisman trophy winner of college football instantly becomes a household name across America after they are given the trophy.  Many college players are famously known by several people across the nation.  Many of the best college athletes have created a brand for themselves that could potentially be worth a lot of money.  For example, Jadeveon Clowney played football at the University of South Carolina and was known across the nation as one of the best defensive players in college football and was shown on ESPN and SportsCenter performing huge hits that caught the attention of sports fans across the country.  He had a brand in college where he could have been making large amounts of money doing commercials for several companies.  However, NCAA rules prevented him from making any money off of his college success.  Clowney worked hard and built up his brand and he deserved to be making money off of it.  The NCAA should either change their rules or they should at least give some amount of money to all college athletes since they cannot get paid by other sponsors.  Other college students that excel in academics rather than sports are allowed to publish research papers that they write without any rules that prohibit them from doing this.  All college students deserve to be able to make money off of their hard work and for reaching out to people outside of their university.

The main opposition to my argument is that college athletes are already given scholarships and that is enough to be paid because college educations are priceless.  I agree that a college education is one of the most valuable things in life and not everyone gets the opportunity to have a free education.  In fact, this one fact made me seriously question my argument on this issue.  However, I feel that a scholarship is not enough for what some college athletes deserve.  With the amount of time that athletes put into their sport, they sometimes do not even get to fully get the most out of their free education.  Many college coaches say that the athletes are getting athletic scholarships so they are at school to play sports.  They may have to do work for their sport instead of doing homework or studying for a test.  According to many players, including Richard Sherman, college athletes will not get nearly the amount of time to do school work compared to normal students because they are so wrapped up in the busy schedule of their sport.  This means that they are not getting to take full advantage of their scholarship.  Also, the large amount of revenue for each athletic program at every school far outweighs the cost of scholarships for each player.  

All college athletes put in the time and effort and contribute to their school where they should be rewarded for their work by more than just scholarship.  However, the college athletes that truly and fully deserve to be paid big money are the football and men's basketball players of the schools at the Division I level.  After everything is said and done, football and men's basketball are the two sports that generate the most revenue for each school and these two sports are the most popular across the nation (Cowherd).  The most money generated in college sports also comes at the Division I level, not Division II and Division III, the other two divisions under the NCAA (Edelman).  It would simply not be fair to pay the football players the same as the athletes on the swimming and diving team, because the football players bring in so much more money for their school than the swimming and diving team.  Several people say that if you were to pay athletes, then they should all be paid the same across the board.  That statement may seem fair, but it is not even close the amount of exposure and money that football and basketball players bring in to their school than other smaller sports.  I am not saying that the athletes of these smaller sports do not deserve to be paid or compensated.  I am just saying that all athletes do not deserve to be paid the same and football and men's basketball players should be compensated the most.

With so much attention given to college sports these days, more attention needs to be given to the actual athletes and their personal lives.  This issue matters because as of right now colleges are taking advantage of some of their athletes by not crediting them enough for what they deserve.  With all of the money that is earned in the sports industry today, it is appalling to me that none of it is earned by the actual athletes.  Athletes give up several things in their college life to fully devote themselves to their sport and they deserve to be compensated for it.  The current system of not paying athletes needs to be changed or improved upon, because college athletes do deserve to be paid.

