
I remember the October of my senior year of high school I received an offer from a division one soccer program to play on a two-year scholarship. I maintained a very strong senior season until I broke my leg in a tournament a few months later. Enduring a broken leg for three months and not being able to play soccer or even walk for that matter was miserable to say the least.  The worst part of it all, however, was receiving an email from the coach at the College of Charleston informing me that they would be unable to uphold my scholarship because of my injury, especially considering the fact that they didn't know what level I would be at when coming back.  I remember at the time how completely devastated I was knowing that I had lost my scholarship and spot on the team because of an event that was out of my control.  Luckily, even though I wasn't able to play soccer in college I still had the grades and resources to be able to attend a good college and receive a quality education, but what if I didn't?  College basketball player Karl Hardrick committed to the University of Oklahoma but after sustaining a knee injury, he also lost his scholarship yet he didn't have the monetary resources available to receive a higher education. As a result of his circumstances, he was unable to attend college and grasp at the opportunity for a greater future, even though the situation was almost entirely out of his control. College Basketball athletes deserve to be paid as often times they spend their whole lives training to be able to receive a scholarship and gain an education at a top American college. 

At first, the idea of paying college athletes seems a bit ridiculous, especially when that idea involves paying just a particular event in a particular sport.  One could argue that this wouldn't be fair to the hundreds of thousands of other student-athletes who would obviously expect the same compensation.  After all, how can there be a conclusion that one sport deserves to be paid more than another sport does and what can make one come to that conclusion?  Wouldn't paying college athletes turn college sports into a business rather than what it is really is supposed to be focused on, which is a higher-level education for a better future? Isn't giving students scholarships and, on occasion, free meal plans enough payment for a young adult who is just playing a sport for their school? Wouldn't paying just one gender bring up that dreaded Title IX, part of the education amendment of 1972 that works against gender discrimination? Surely there is no way that there could be a way to work around all these issues and rebuttals while still coming up with a sensible solution right?

According to Forbes, the NCAA March Madness tournament earned upwards of 1.15 billion dollars in revenue just from TV ads in 2014, and is expected to increase year by year.  The NCAA makes a total of 1.7 billion dollars per year through march madness and have even discussed adding another round of 64 into the tournament with CBS and Turner Sports so that profits can increase even more.  The president of the NCAA, Mark Emmert, makes about 1.7 million dollars per year. Duke University head coach Mike Krzyzewski is the highest paid basketball coach in the country, with a yearly salary of 9 million dollars.  College basketball announcers are the highest paying industry involving radio and television making nearly 100 thousand dollars per year. However, the athletes that give all of these people their jobs don't receive a penny.  In fact, the NCAA declares these student-athletes 'amateurs' and prohibits compensation, advertisement, and endorsements.  

Not only does declaring athletes 'amateurs' not promote their growth and opportunity, it often hinders it. Todd Gurley, a football star at the University of Georgia received a ban from the NCAA in 2014 for signing autographs for someone who offered to pay him.  Johnny Manziel was also accused of signing autographs, however no evidence was found supporting this claim.  Nonetheless, the NCAA still forced Manziel to sit the first-half out of the following match. Student-athletes are getting punished and forced to receive consequences because they are simply doing a good deed for others.  A lawsuit involving former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannan is still among the circuit court of appeals.  The lawsuit involves O'Bannan being unaware that his name was used in NCAA 2007, a college basketball video game.  The NCAA argues that as an 'amateur', they have the right to Ed O'Bannans name.  One may note that this is additional profits for the NCAA that the players themselves don't receive any of, or in this case, even know is happening.    

The bottom line is that college basketball players train upwards of 60 hours a week, and are expected to not only attend these trainings but then also perform at a high level.  On top of training, student-athletes must maintain their academics and try and establish a balanced social life.  Often times not all of these duties expected of these athletes are done whole-heartedly which makes it very difficult for them to succeed and get the whole college experience.   It is quite obvious that the NCAA has a lot of money that they earn through the use of college-athletes and it is quite obvious that these athletes need to be reimbursed for the hard work that they put in week in and week out.  The question is however how these students that earn the majority of the money can be compensated in a way that would be fair to everyone involved in this hot debate.  

My idea to solve this problem involves a similar system to the way professional soccer tournaments are handled in Europe.  Qualifying into the bigger tournaments rewards those teams with a good amount of money, but the further one progresses in the tournament, the more money that is earned for that team.  If we transitioned this system into the March Madness college basketball tournament, it would compensate the teams that are playing more, especially playing more on TV, earn more for their efforts.  This would motivate teams to work harder to make it to the tournament, and improve the developmental process for college basketball players, and better prepare those who want to become professionals. Since the women's March Madness tournament also earns itself quite the heathy revenue, this same system could apply for the women, except naturally on a much smaller scale considering the revenue is lower.  Applying this system to both genders means that it could eliminate the issue violating Title IX regarding gender equality.  The money would be distributed on a fixed scale to the team that earns the money.  For example, 10% goes to the coach, 50% goes to the program, and then 40% goes to the players.  Granted, the scale would be much more detailed than just these three categories, however the idea is ever-present.  Distributing this money to the whole team will give more motivation to the whole team to succeed, as well as to the school as money could be earned to reinvest back into the school.  This increased competition to succeed in March Madness would mean better competition in the tournament and a higher level of intensity that would bring more viewers to watch and ultimately make more money for the NCAA.

My plan would be to have the NCAA start with an opening pot of whatever their forecasted revenue for the tournament is and then plan to distribute this money on a fixed scale that is in accordance with how much money each tournament makes. Teams that make it to the first four, the qualifying stage, and get eliminated will receive 3% of revenue, while the team that moves forward earns 2%. From that stage on the goal would be to have the percentages of each matchup have progressively higher stakes the further the team goes in the tournament.  The winner would naturally receive more money than any of the other teams involved. By establishing this system, the Title IX debate gets eliminated, as there is no gender discrimination, but rather a fair and established system that rewards players on success.  

Some of the issues that could come up with this plan may seem apparent, however this system would be practically fool proof and leave the NCAA with a better plan going forward that wouldn't have them keeping money that the players that work for them earn themselves. One might argue that the same teams would remain successful and there would end up being a hierarchy of sorts throughout college basketball.  Wouldn't that just influence more students to strive to become top student-athletes for the sake of money? 

The counterargument to these doubts is in the tournament itself.  Year after year more and more upsets are seen in the tournament.  The NCAA national championships have literally earned themselves 'March Madness' because of the unpredictability that comes with the tournament.  There has never been a bracket that predicted every game correctly. Only once in NCAA tournament history have all four one seeds made it to the final four, and that was in 2008 when Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina, and UCLA successfully maintained the odds. Three times a number 11 seed has made the final four, and the lowest seed to ever win was 8 seed Villanova in 1985.  All these facts can lead one to assume that there is no guarantee as to which teams would do well, and which would tank, especially considering that money would motivate even more players to work towards becoming student-athletes and with a higher pool of competitors, naturally more teams would be able to get top-recruits and the competition would drastically improve. Regarding the assumption that many students would attend college purely to play a college sport and earn money doing it, while that may be true, in some ways the concept of getting paid to play a sport in college may motivate students who wouldn't have normally pushed to attend college actually try.  Due to the fact that more students would push to get paid to play college basketball, this would increase the academic standard in the United States also, as students would then have to compete not only with students who want to learn and earn a degree at a certain university, but now the students who are trying to earn a spot at a university because of their athletic talents.  Another idea that could be possibly proposed is the thought of having a higher grade point average (GPA) requirement to ensure that those playing a spot in college don't just focus on the sport itself but balance both out to ensure that the students are getting the most out of their college experience.  

Margaret Thatcher once said "I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work.  That is the recipe.  It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near."  If college student-athletes who work their tails off aren't reaping the full rewards of their efforts, then slowly they will start to have less and less motivation to work hard.   By pushing to reimburse those who currently earn billions just for others to reap their rewards, not only are we promoting proper ethics and ultimately doing the right thing, but we are also teaching these college athletes that hard work does get rewarded, as well as being able to teach them all the things that they wouldn't learn if they didn't have the chance to attend college.  So many important aspects of life are taught through college life, like responsibility and accountability as it is often a young adults first time on their own for an extended period of time.  The issue however, is that there simply will not be change if college athletes don't try and make a change happen.  Many are frightened that if they were to stand up against their teams or the NCAA, they would face the consequences and possibly lose playing time, their spot on the team, or even worse, their scholarship.  However, if a whole team were to protest what is happening around them, or even better the whole country, then how could the NCAA possibly keep allowing business to run as usual?  The NCAA would hopefully have to end up making a decision where they can either pay the players and still earn money, just less, or they would be forced to make no money at all, considering every player would refuse to play without compensation. Either way, we can not afford to keep allowing the NCAA to steal money from student athletes, for the players sakes and for the sake of integrity. 
