Over the course of time, college sports and their roles in society have shifted. Each sport in some way has impacted the financial and cultural world. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, governs and unifies the major universities who participate in college athletics. As of today the NCAA includes over one thousand one hundred schools. It sponsors twenty-four different sports that each school is eligible for. The NCAA is split into three divisions, I, II,and III. The whole purpose of the organization was to help reform college sports and give the student athletes the opportunity to succeed. It has done that, but now it is time for the NCAA to have some reform of its own. The student athletes have succeeded over the years going one to become professionals athletes or regular people. The problem is that the major college sports and athletes in recent years have come to make the NCAA a large amount of money. In fact, the NCAA made over one billion US dollars in 2014 off of television, merchandise, and ticket deals. The NCAA is not the only organization taking advantage of the current system though. The universities and colleges governed by the NCAA are allotted certain percentages of these deals and stand to make a lot of revenue as well. They use this money to pay for new facilities or coaches so they can say they are still a non-profit. The athletes and their teams are the ones who perform and make it possible for all of this money to be made. However, they do not see a cent of it. It is actually illegal, in the eyes of the NCAA, to receive money, food, or gifts in exchange for their likeness or from people looking to help them out. This whole notion that the NCAA and schools deserve all of the money is astounding and should be fixed. The college athletes who make the NCAA and their schools money should be paid for their services. After all they spend the majority of their time slaving away to benefit their athletic aspirations. These students are being unfairly taken advantage of. 

Division I college athletes are given the opportunity, for the most part, to receive a free education with some perks such as free rooming, food, and books. Unfortunately for many athletes, this isn't enough. I come from a place in Florida where dozens of kids go to play sports at prominent major colleges. Some of these kids are my close friends. I have talked to them about the particulars of their scholarships and money on campus. Every single person has told me that they feel taken advantage of and they do not have enough to eat on several occasions. These situations should not be happening when the school is making an excess amount of money on them. I believe these student should be able to collect a check to get an extra meal or save up for a car or rent. 

How money is distributed, spent, and made produces a topic for everyone in today's society. Everyone wants a slice of the pie. That means that there are obviously two sides to this economic and moral argument. Both sides have good pressing views. Critics of compensation say that it will ruin the sports and it will prohibit the athletes from actually caring about their school work. Advocates will say that their scholarships do not cover all their necessities and how it is absurd for them not to be paid the money they are earning. The argument is solely due the values of oneself. People against the move to pay the players also seem to always say that the money is not there. With the NCAA alone making one billion dollars in 2014, I think we can all come to the consensus that there is definitely the money. What I find interesting is that it is a well know fact the NCAA makes one billion in profit a year off of these athletes, but yet people still say that there is no money to pay the athletes. I think that is just deception at it's peak. 

In an article called "College Athletes Need Pay, Not Perks" Jay Bilas a former Duke basketball player and current college basketball analyst for ESPN is quoted saying, "'When you are profiting off someone else while restricting them from earning a profit, that's exploitation.' He added: 'No other student on any campus is restricted from earning whatever they can earn in whatever area they can earn it.'" This solely explains what I believe. In the collegiate sports world there is more than a financial problem, there is a moral problem. These young men and women are being taken advantage of. They have no rights in the eyes of the court system, NCAA, and their schools. It is appalling that they can do virtually nothing to stand up against the NCAA. How can a person be told to work out all day, play their heart out, risk their health, sacrifice school and personal time, and not be compensated for their work? It sounds an awful lot like a demanding job. And let's face, it being a major college athlete is like having a job. How would you like to do all of those things without being paid? The second people started watching college athletes on television and making money off of them is when they were not amateurs anymore.  The struggle between large corporations and their inhabitants alludes similarly to the labor laws passed to protect workers compensation and health. I think this whole scheme is a  disservice to society. A new labor law is coming and it has to do with American college athletes. 

A person's likeness is their name, attributes, or anything associated with them personally. The NCAA prohibits players from making money off their likeness. For instance, at the Ohio State University the football program was sanctioned by the NCAA because a few players were given tattoos for an exchange of autographs. No player can make money off of their signature. The irony is that the  NCAA makes money off of selling those peoples jerseys. Now, technically they don't have the players name on them but there is only one number ten on the team. It is hypocritical that the NCAA can sit there and rake in all of this money in jersey royalties, but a player cannot make a couple hundred dollars for some autographs or a commercial. The current Louisiana State University running back just auctioned off a game-worn jersey for relief in the South Carolina flooding. It was bought for one hundred one thousand dollars. I am glad he donated the jersey, but imagine if he could sell that and save up to pay off his mom's house. The NCAA is robbing these players of themselves. Every other college student can make money off of themselves at any any time. In Dr. Ken Reed's article "Solution Regarding Paying College Athletes or Not is Simple" he quotes Patrick Hruby for a great example: "Nobody in America has to deal with the restrictions on income that the NCAA imposes. Actors and musicians can go off to college, be on scholarship, and still make money off their talent. It's morally wrong, and un-American, to prevent athletes from doing the same." Dr. Reed goes on to explain that this money or whatever they are being given is not a gift. They are exchanging something just like the the NCAA is exchanging television rights to cable providers for billions of dollars.

A survey was taken in 2014 of the top ten schools in America that made the most money from sports. This survey averaged the amount of revenue versus the average amount spent on scholarships. The difference is astonishing. The mean revenue for those schools was one hundred forty-four point eight million dollars. The average spent on scholarships is twelve point four million dollars. That is a net difference of one hundred thirty two point four million. So the NCAA makes one billion and the schools make upward of one hundred million and there is no money to spare for the players? I understand that in order for the events to happen the schools and NCAA have to pay for staff, coaches, athletic directors, and facilities, but you cannot say that costs one point one billion. It is shameful the organizations decide to do this their players. These players are going through Hell to get on the field and make these games and meets worth the contracts the NCAA made. In the long run a lot of these players are only there to make it to the next level. They have no other way out of the ghetto. Things happen to people. Those players could get hurt or even though they were stellar in college the pros did not work. The NCAA and universities were supposed to help him or her be successful but yet they prohibited them from making money off of theirselves when they could. Instead the schools decide to spend their money on senseless things like paying Duke men's basketball coach ten million a year. Is he really worth that? Most definitely not. A Huffington Post writer, Maxwell Strachan, says that these schools stay labeled as a non-profit strictly because they spend every dime they make as soon as they can on new unnecessary things. 

According to Time magazine in 2013, if college football would reallocate its money to the same revenue sharing system as the NFL, all eighty-five of the Texas A&M football scholarship recipients would get a check for two hundred  twenty-five thousand dollars a year. But the NCAA determines that this is not okay. Instead they decide to give the money to the school for their personal use. The schools then use that to benefit everyone but their players. The growing tension on this subject is because of the recent television contracts being sold. The NCAA and the Bowl Championship Series, the NCAA's former football playoff system, just agreed to deals in 2011 with television networks worth up to five hundred million dollars over  four years. The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament's, otherwise known as March Madness, tv deal is being bought by Turner/CBS Sports ten point eight billion dollars over a time frame of thirteen years. I think it is just ridiculous that not even a small portion of that money can be going towards paying the players. That money is more than a small country's GDP.

In a CNN interview by Sara Ganim, attorney Jeffrey Kessler argues that these athletes are professionals who are not getting paid. He even goes as far as saying it is illegal and and unjust. He brings up a point rarely mentioned: most of the players will not stay and get their education. Once they see or smell the money they will throw their degree out of the way for the paycheck. He and I agree that paying these players not only helps them save for their future but also gives them a reason to stay in school and get their degree. There are more reasons to give the players some money other than morality. 

Of course there is the alternative side to this argument. Why college athletes should not be paid. Assuming that we are putting the excuse of the financials not being there away, there are a few reasons why some people say it would not work. They are the scholarship is enough compensation, it would ruin the sports by giving some schools an unfair advantage, and the logistics of the the payment would be too hard to determine. First of all, like I said previously, the tuition isn't enough. Kieran McCauley would prefer to argue that it is. He says that many students come out of college with enormous student loans and would rather, "play a sport for four years if it meant they did not have to take on that financial hardship." The problem is that they didn't spend enough time or weren't good enough to play the sport. Also, they didn't have to focus on their respected sports they could have focused on their grades and gotten an academic scholarship. The players scholarships don't always cover the food necessary for athletes as well as the extra spending cash the athletes can't make through a job because they already have one that doesn't pay (their sport). McCauley also argues that the logistics of distributing the payment would be too difficult. Tiffany Patterson of Smart Asset agrees. McCauley gives a solid example here:

"The NCAA reported that 28.3 million viewers watched the 2015 NCAA Men's Division I National Championship between Wisconsin and Duke. They also reported there were 3.1 million viewers for the 2015 NCAA Women's Division I National Championship between Notre Dame and UConn. Obviously those numbers are vastly different, so should the men and women basketball players be paid differently? The statistics show more people are interested in watching the men play, but is that the women's fault who work so hard too? They can't control the popularity and ratings of the sport they play."

They both defend the notion that the payments would cause lawsuits because you cannot go right with paying the players the same amount or different amount and whether different sports get the same mount of money or not. Well frankly, we live in America. This a capitalistic economy, meaning that the better are rewarded with more. Some players and sports bring in more money than others You have to treat it that way. It is how the business world works and thats how this should work. People say that paying players would ruin the sport by giving the athletes a reason to slack in their aspirations and giving some schools an unfair advantage. It is true that some players would indeed slack off but there is always that slim population. For the most part, I believe that the small taste of money would bring good spirits and show the players that working hard pays off and that it isn't over yet. Theres always next year or the pros. Now, some schools would have an advantage because they would make more money and could offer more money to players but isn't that true now? You cannot say the Wofford College football program could offer the same as the University of South Carolina. The coaches are better at the bigger school and the boosters donate more to facilities. It would stay the same in the eyes of advantages. Critics of the pay for play movement come up with some good concerns but all of them can be answered with a even better solution. 

I believe have a solution for this whole thing figured out. Now obviously I don't know the exact numbers but a broad system can be put into place relatively simply. The first thing to be put into order would be something called the Olympic Model. For a long time the Olympics didn't allow for athletes to be paid. Then they adopted a system that allows for players to earn money off of their likeness, whatever that would be. All of this money from commercials, autographs, and endorsements would be the athletes pocket change. That is what they would spend for a night out on the town or an extra meal or clothes. Then a salary system much like the NFL's would be put into play. Each university would have a total salary cap for each sport that can use to pay their players. Every sports cap would be based on the amount of revenue they bring in. Then within the sport each player could earn a maximum amount. Great players could make fifty thousand a year versus role players who earn ten thousand and so on. Here is the catch though, That large sum of money should be put in some sort of trust that can only be used in terms of helping family, emergency, housing, or after they graduate/leave college. I believe this is a system that is not only a compromise both sides could come to terms with but that would benefit the society as a whole. 

College athletes are being exploited for others personal greediness. It is a problem in our society that needs to be changed. This is an important issue to deal with. It affects society. We as people cannot sit idly by and watch young Americans be taken advantage. This affects the sports we love and cherish as well as the television networks we watch and adore. We can all join together and stop these corporate monsters from stealing all these players' hard earned money. Put yourself in their shoes. How would you like your money taken from you? People have an innate sense to succeed and if they can find a way they will. This money will help them.

