For many years, college athletics has been a major player in the world entertainment for the general public. Throughout a given year, thousands of college athletic games are aired on TV, discussed about on the radio, and reported online. However, there has been an ongoing debate regarding college athletics. A problem with college athletics remains, the athletes who dedicate numerous hours, week days and weekends to their sport and on top of that being full-time students, are not receiving any type of compensation for their work, but if compensation were to be presented it could lead to more success not only on the field, but also in the classroom. The NCAA is largely to blame for the exploitation of the athletes. By looking at the responsibilities college athletes are asked to balance out on a daily basis, it becomes evident that college athletes are essentially working full-time jobs; a job that grants no type of compensation for the work. This lack of compensation is partially due to the selfishness and greed of the NCAA and the organizations fear of losing personal profits and partially due to the lack of attempts to try and resolve the issue; this issue must be addressed and resolved immediately to prevent further exploitation of these men and women. 

The NCAA is a non-profit organization that has been the head of college athletics for roughly 110 years.  The NCAA was originally created to protect student-athletes, but now it seems to be doing quite the contrary. Three authors, Mike Gilleran, Ron Katz, and Isaac Vaughn, collaborated on an article, titled "Should College Athletes Be Paid?", that comes from Santa Clara Law that discusses what the NCAA was in 1906, when it was created, and how different it has become 100 years later; how it was in 2006. As previously said these authors talk about the original intention of development of the NCAA, to protect college-athletes. This article contained direct quotes from the president of the NCAA in 2006, Myles Brand. Brand says in the article, " "Amateur defines the participants, not the enterprise."" Here Brand was describing the player and organizations relationship. Essentially the NCAA as an organization has transformed into an enterprise, however the players are still classified as amateurs meaning the NCAA doesn't have to show them any money. This direct quotes really puts the NCAA end game into perspective, generate as much profit off of these athletes as possible, but make sure they aren't seeing any of that many and its directly flowing back into the NCAA. However, that is completely unfair because if the organization is going to transform into an enterprise, reforms must be made to all the rules not just some.  Another article representative of the greed of the NCAA is an article titled, "An Economist Explains Why College Athletes Should Be Paid", economist Dave Zirin discusses how the NCAA is the only reason that college athletes have not received pay. The NCAA strictly upholds the rule stating college athletes can't be paid, in order to make sure they wont be able so that the NCAA wont have to loose any personal profit. Zirin believes if this rule didn't exist, than college athletes would be receiving pay by now. He proposes a simple solution saying the best way to put this into effect would be to have it be on a conference level. Each specific conference as a whole would decide whether to pay their students or not, and the economists strongly believes that most all conference would decide yes. Zirin also talks in his article about the NCAA and the only reason they heavily enforce the regulations regarding athletes being paid is due to self-interest and greed. Another article regarding this topic, "Why College Athletes Should Be Paid", brings up the relevant fact that NCAA executives make around 1 billion dollars a year. The NCAA recently signed a contract with CBS for $10.8 billion, proving that the NCAA does not lack in extra dollars. The NCAA executives know that if that regulation were to vanish the universities would start looking to them for money because they know how much profit they bring in each year. 

Although the NCAA has been the area everyone has turned too to place blame for the issues regarding paying college athletes, it is not the only area that has an issue; another issue falls on the athletic directors and coaching staff and the amount of money they receive annually. The amount of money athletic departments have made has increased a significant amount over the years. In the article, "Playing in the Red", from the Washington Post, written by sports reporters Will Hobson and database editor for investigations, Steven Rich records of spending trends of colleges from 2004 up until 2014 were pulled and examined. This article talks about how college sport departments are making large amount of revenue due to media broadcasting, large time donors, and endorsements. According to a graph from the NCAA financial reports, " In 10 years, 40 athletic departments in college sports' wealthiest conferences saw earnings surge by nearly $2 billion and spent it almost as quickly as it came in" (The Washington Post). When athletic-directors are asked to justify their spending's generally the response has something to do with having to keep up with competition; because a lot of these schools who are spending millions of dollars are also in large financial deficits. It also talks about student mandatory fees. A student mandatory fee is a requirement by a university for each student to pay an allotted amount of money that will go towards the athletic department and as stated in the article, "Students paid $114 million in required athletics fees in 2014, up from $94 million in 2004"(Washington Post). These athletic departments who are bringing in millions of dollars in excess, yet are still asking students to pay mandatory funds are displaying greed and irresponsibility. If athletic departments would spend their money smarter and not just throw it around like its and endless supply there would be more than enough money to compensate the athletes with and take away the need for the mandatory student fee. How can these schools ask students, including athletes the only reason the money is generated, to pay extra to the department that already is making excessive amounts. For athletic departments its all about competition among each other, but if the departments continue making all this money then immediately spending it on unnecessary things, the athletes are going to start getting frustrated because they are not seeing any type of compensation. 

  In the " Journal of Economic Perspectives", a scholarly peer reviewed journal the article "The Case for Paying College Athletes" written by Allen Sanderson and John Siegfried, addresses this very issue. The authors point out how numerous football coaches have been put on "celebrity status" and received increased compensation. This article also talks about the importance college athletics has on a university. For example when a university faces a financial loss on athletics rather than going on a budget the university will invest more money the next year to try and improve it.  This fact emphasizes how important financially college athletics are to a school. College athletics bring in large amounts of revenue to schools each year, however the only people seeing any of these dollars are the head coach and the NCAA, not the individuals who are the only reason the money is being generated.  

That brings the argument into the next category, that is that college athletes are practically working a full-time job; a full-time job that essentially grants no type of compensation other than occasional recognition. College athletes are expected to do a lot more than any other average student is, on a daily basis. A typical schedule of a college athlete is to wake-up attend mandatory workouts or meetings, then attend class during the day then directly head to the field or court for practice and maybe more meetings. Then after all of that it is a requirement of the NCAA that student-athletes have 8 hours of supervised study hall per week during the season and in off-season 16 hours per week. Not only are these student-athletes expected to perform well on the field and at practice, but are also expected to succeed in the classroom. Their incredibly tight schedule gives them absolutely no time to have an actual paying job even if they wanted too. With the amount of hours these student-athletes are putting into their athletics, it would come close to adding up to the same amount of hours a regular student may build-up from working a job where they earn minimum wage. How does that seem fair? They both work just as hard, both also have school to focus on, both put in as many hours as the other, but only one of them is getting paid. Another alarming factor is that according to, Matt Hayes, 86% of students live below the poverty line; which he wrote in the article, "Report Concludes 86 percent of student athletes live in poverty." A statistic provided by Hayes from this is article is, " the average out of pocket expense for full scholarship athlete was approximately $3,200 per year during the 2010-11 school year." That is a lot of money for a student who comes from a family that fall below the poverty line. College athletic departments are making millions but as stated before, are giving no earnings to the ones generating the money. These athletes simply need a small salary per semester to pay for general, essential needs such as groceries, clothing, and other personal items. Having the money to pay these students isn't the issue it all falls back to the NCAA not wanting to share. An interesting point that the Hayes exclaims is that Duke basketball players were valued at $1,025,656 (Matt Hayes).  Its crazy to think that single team alone is worth that large of an amount of money but don't get compensated. 

When a high school athlete enters the college athletics world, they take on an entirely different experience than what they had been used too. In an online debate, former NBA hall of fame player Kareem Jabbar talks about the what the perception of college athletics, that is that people's perception of college sports is a continuation of a high school sport. When in reality college athletics is a $6 billion industry. Jabbar argues that not paying college athletes is a form of exploitation and provides an example from his career. He talks about an athlete he knows who was on scholarship and blew out his knee. No one paid for his surgery and because of that he could no longer play, therefore his scholarship was revoked and couldn't finish school. This was a detrimental situation that because a student who was also an athlete was hurt, he couldn't finish school because who could not afford it. 

As Eric Sobocinski put it in the Marquette Sports Law Review, in his article, " College Athletes: What is Fair Compensation", student-athletes are the victims in this situation. Sobocinski believes the universities ask way too much of these athletes and as a result the students end up focusing on the wrong objectives, which is getting a college degree. The high-pressure all athletes have put on them to win every game takes away from their education. If these athletes were receiving compensation for just showing up and putting in effort every day at practice, that would alleviate some of the stress and would allow students to focus more on exceeding in their academics. 

Not only is the no-compensation rule for college athletes exploitation of these men and women, it could potentially be violating the law. According to an academic journal, Harvard Law Review " Sherman Act Invalidation of the NCAA Amateurism Rules", the NCAA rule classifying all college athletes as amateurs violate the Sherman Act.  In this journal review the main focus is the amateurism rule, and that is if a college athlete puts his or her name into the draft their eligibility as a collegiate player is revoked and also if any college player receives any form of compensation beyond scholarship their eligibility is revoked. According to this article the "no-draft" rule prevents college athletes from exploring into the potential of them going into the professionals before their time as a college player has ended. This rule restricts players and makes it so they do not want to explore their talent in comparison with professional at an early time than we they graduate. If college athletes were allowed a reasonable amount of compensation it would make players less likely to want to draft earlier because the main reason any college athletes wants to entire into professionals as early on as possible is so they can start to make money as early as possible. Giving compensation would not only encourage athletes to stay playing at the collegiate level for their allotted time, but it would also keep these students at the university meaning they will actually finish college and graduate. Therefore it would be beneficial to pay these athletes for the schools, because the athletes would play for them longer, and for the individual players because they would get to finish under-grad. 

The debate over college athletes and if they should receive compensation or should not has been being debated for many years. It is not only immoral, but in some ways a violation of a law, according the Harvard Law Review. The NCAA, an organization whose executive president brings home $1.7 billion a year, and athletic directors whose departments are generating millions of dollars and then quickly spending that money, has been exploiting college athletes by heavily enforcing the rule classifying them as amateurs. This rule is being upheld by the NCAA strictly for the reason of the NCAA not wanting to share any of the profits, the profits they are not directly responsible for making. If not for all of the student-athletes none of the money the NCAA so tightly holds onto would be in existence. These men and women who have signed contracts with universities have essentially signed onto a full-time job. The countless hours on the field sometimes tend to hinder the amount of time the athletes can put into their academics. All athletes are expected to perform well in the classroom and on the field, in order alleviate some of the stress athletes need to be compensated for their hard work and dedication. If we start compensating these athletes it will not only incentives them to perform well on the field, it will allow them to focus more on school, as well as want to finish out their years as a college athlete as opposed to entering into the professionals early on to try and make a profit. It is evident that compensating college athletes will be beneficial not only to the universities, but also to the individual athletes, which should be important to the NCAA seeing as the whole purpose of the organizations existence is to protect the athletes. 

