Student-athletes are exactly what their title says: students first, then athletes. They go to colleges and universities all over the country to continue their education and continue playing the sport they love. This sport, whatever it may be, sometimes provides a few perks for the student. Student-athletes can receive scholarships to go to a school at a discounted price, some even for free. While scholarships are without a doubt a great thing, they have become a bit outdated, and are now not an appropriate compensation for the modern day student-athlete. College athletes should be paid on top of the sum of their scholarship for many reasons: they are plastered all over television, they generate millions, if not billions, of dollars for schools and universities, and they have to deal with the stress of not only being a college student, but also being an athlete who is held to a higher standard than regular college students.

College sports are played all over television and radio stations across the nation. The games are watched by hundreds of thousands of people and the players' faces are shown nationwide. These players are being exploited on national television with absolutely no compensation from it. Their names and faces are well known by everyone, from children to adults to professional scouts. They quickly become attached to whatever sport they play due to their national fame and notoriety. These players become celebrities and yet, they receive no income and no compensation for being a nationally known individual. College athletes cannot even accept gifts given to them by the university, its coaches, or any alumni without being suspended. If a player does accept any gift or any amount of money from one of the aforementioned sources, they are suspended indefinitely and can lose up to a year of eligibility in the NCAA. If something like this is discovered, it turns into a national scandal, especially if the player is on a top team or it is probable that they enter professional sports after they graduate. Some Ohio State football players were recently suspended and ordered to pay for tattoos that they received in exchange for signed memorabilia (Cohen). The estimated cost of one of the tattoos was one-hundred dollars. These players were suspended for trading memorabilia that could be worth hundreds, or even thousands, for tattoos worth around one-hundred bucks. This leads into one suggestion that is very well supported: let the athletes profit from their own fame. This argument would allow the athletes to sign endorsement deals with companies like Nike and Under Armor, who dominate the sports marketing world, in order to profit from the fame that they have created for themselves. It would also allow athletes to be able to sell their autograph and memorabilia in order to make money. This argument takes the NCAA out of the equation so they are not taking a direct financial loss. Another upside to this form of compensation is that it also keeps the university from taking a financial hit. The players would be profiting off of the fame that they created themselves and the money comes from those willing to pay it. This eliminates the opposing argument that smaller tier schools cannot generate as much money and cannot afford to pay college athletes (CNN). If this method of compensation is adopted, athletes will not be suspended for accepting gifts or for signing autographs. This would take a lot of heat off of the NCAA from people who agree that it is too strict when dealing with athletes and money, while also protecting the money that the NCAA does generate from college sports.

The two most popular college sports are football and men's basketball. These sports can generate millions of dollars for their universities per season, not to mention the money they produce for the NCAA. March Madness, the NCAA men's basketball playoff, is a huge money maker. It profits from networks televising and broadcasting each game, merchandise sales, and ticket sales. CNN called the players "pawns" in a "massive industry" (CNN). These players receive no form of compensation for the ridiculous amount of money that the NCAA tournament generates every year. In 1994, March Madness pulled in $89 million (Acain 309). It is called March Madness because the entire tournament happens in March. So in one month, men's basketball generated $89 million. The players involved received nothing in return, except for one team who received the championship. However, there is no monetary compensation for this championship, so the NCAA reeled in all $89 million for themselves. Richard B. McKenzie brings up a valid argument: a music student is allowed to sell his or her music for profit, while generating little to no money for the university, yet a football player or basketball player who generates millions of dollars cannot sell their own autograph or jersey (375). McKenzie also says that a music student can be as narrow-minded as a student-athlete, meaning that their ultimate goal may not be an education, it may be to make a career out of what they love doing. These music students are sometimes offered the same scholarships as athletes, even getting full ride scholarships and attending the university for free. McKenzie questions why they are allowed to profit from their talents, while student athletes are not. Former University of South Carolina head football coach Steve Spurrier was quoted saying that "twenty years ago, fifty years ago, athletes got full scholarships. Television income then was what, $50,000? Now everybody's getting what, fourteen, fifteen million bucks, and they are still getting scholarships" (Cohen). The commissioner of Conference USA, one of the many conferences of division I college sports, was also quoted, stating, "when you have coaches making $5 million and the student package is still a basic scholarship, something has got to give" (Wolverton). Coaches receive large salaries with bonuses for reaching the playoffs and winning championships. In the power five conferences, the top five conferences in college football, coaches make millions of dollars per year. Their players receive nothing but a scholarship which may or may not cover the cost of attending school. College sports have turned into a spectacle, meaning that people pay to see them, and entertainment stations pay for broadcasting rights for them. They generate millions of dollars for the NCAA, for the university that they represent, and for the coach that they play for. Preventing the athletes from receiving a minuscule percentage of these profits is immoral. They are the ones who risk injury playing the sport, give up spending time with friends, and sacrifice all of their time to their sport and studying to stay eligible. A suggestion separate from the one involving allowing players to sign endorsements is that the players should receive an extra two thousand to five thousand dollars on top of their scholarship to cover the full cost of attending school. This money would cover parking tickets, cell phone bills, off-campus housing, and other small fees that come with being a college student (Wolverton). Along with this extra money for the players to cover the full cost of school, players have formed a group called All Players United. This group is an advocate for this plan of compensation, and they also argue for permanent scholarships, meaning if a player is injured and it is career ending, he or she would continue to receive the same scholarship money so he or she can continue school, and better medical coverage so that the players do not have to pay out of pocket for injuries that they may sustain while playing the sport that they are receiving scholarship money for (Wolverton). The argument against this way of compensating athletes is that smaller schools do not have the money to supply each scholarship athlete with extra money. The NCAA has stuck beside the smaller schools in order to keep from this suggestion passing, and many people are calling for an entire restructuring of the NCAA. It was originally structured as a non-profit organization, but the revenue that is generated by college sports no longer allows it to be a non-profit organization. They pull in billions of dollars each year from college sports, and many advocates for this plan say that the NCAA should be responsible for dishing out the extra thousand dollars for each scholarship athlete. This method of payment has been rejected once already, but it is still gaining support and another trial is very likely. It was rejected on the grounds that the proposed $5,000 was not given with clear enough reasons and that it was just an estimate. It was also rejected because, according to the judges, the NCAA is required to allow its schools to give athletes scholarships that are equivalent to the cost of attendance, and the NCAA is not required to give permission to schools to give athletes any greater amount of money (Tracy and Strauss). The judges have allowed the NCAA to use the amateurism model to surpass previous cases against them, and with the recent rejection of the $5,000 stipend suggestion comes the preservation of the amateurism of NCAA sports. This prevents players from being paid and also keeps the NCAA from being forced to pay college athletes. The NCAA claims amateurism so they do not have to follow anti-trust laws, even though they are generating more revenue than many businesses that are forced to follow these laws. 

Another reason college athletes deserve to be paid is because college sports were made into video games in the 90's and early 2000's. EA is the entertainment business that made these video games. They have a specific division for sports games, called EA Sports. EA sports used to make NCAA football, basketball, and baseball video games. These games were wildly popular and brought even more attention to specific athletes on specific teams in the NCAA. In 2009, Ed O'Bannon, a former UCLA basketball player, sued the NCAA. His legal team argued that the contract O'Bannon signed also signed over his rights of publicity, but those contracts were worth billions of dollars and that he was entitled to some of the profit. The judges sided with Mr. O'Bannon and a settlement was reached that dished out nearly $20 million to O'Bannon and the other players that became involved in the lawsuit (Tracy and Strauss). The video games are no longer produced, so the NCAA does not have to pay for the players to be used in the video games. This was the first time that a lawsuit for any form of payment to a former athlete by the NCAA was successful, and it was the beginning of a slippery slope for the NCAA. Now, more and more athletes are uniting and standing up for their rights to publicity. 

All college students are stressed, but student-athletes are under more stress than the average college student. They face stress that a normal student does not have to face. They have to deal with the typical college stresses: class, homework, getting enough sleep, and having a social life, as well as worrying about their on-field performance and having even less time to do school work. According to a study done by the Routledge group, student-athletes stress level is nearly double that of the average college students' (Lu 263). College students and college student-athletes answered questionnaires about their stress levels in eight categories, and the student-athletes scored nearly double that of the average college student in almost every category. These high levels of stress are extremely unhealthy for anybody, especially a young adult who has to balance the physical stress from playing a sport as well as the mental and emotional stress of being a college student. Stress can be very detrimental to a person's health, not only mentally, but also physically. It has been linked to many physical signs as well. Fatigue, high blood pressure, and headaches can be stress-related. These may not seem like life changing factors, but added to the physical demands of being a student-athlete, they can have devastating effects. Many athletes "burnout" of the sort they play in college (Lu 255). They become too tired, either physically, mentally, or both, to go to practice or to go to class and then their performances suffer. They either do not get to play or play poorly in their next competition, which can result in loss of scholarships. Another consequence is that they do not go to class because they are too tired from other classes and practices and games, so their GPA drops and they become ineligible to play. This can also result in the loss of a scholarship because the coach and school become frustrated and realize they are wasting scholarship money on a player who cannot even participate.

Revenue sharing is another suggested way of paying athletes. Revenue sharing would involve the NCAA sharing some of the money that is generated with the athletes. This would mean that the NCAA and the affiliated schools would take a financial loss, which they try to avoid at all costs. The proposed agreement is that the players will receive a fraction of the revenue that is generated by the team they are on. This way, the athletes are not taking money directly from the university or any outside source that could potentially change a student-athlete's mind about which school they are going to attend. The athlete would receive money that he or she helped generate (Acain 336). Those who oppose revenue sharing say that it would not be fair because the sports that do not generate as much money would not have as much money to give to their athletes. This is no different than the job market. Certain jobs pay more than others for many reasons such as difficulty and availability. The sports that make the most money are typically the sports that are more well-known and have more potential players.  Football and basketball teams bring in the most money, and they also combine to form the largest percentage of college athletes (Acain 329). 

The issue of deciding to pay college athletes or not has existed for over 30 years now. The NCAA exploits college athletes by allowing their faces and names to be shown all over national television, but not allowing them to receive any compensation for it. Many people seem to agree with the NCAA and say that college athletes should not be allowed to receive compensation in order to keep the integrity of college sports. Professional sports athletes often do let the money go to their heads, but refusing to pay a college athlete for their incredible talents and for the popularity that they can bring to a university is absurd. Many people say that college athletes should be paid, because they are treated like celebrities in all other aspects. They are famous around college campuses and in their home towns. They are also expected to conduct themselves a certain way outside of whatever sport they may be participating in. These rules are often strict and take away some of the "college experience". College sports generate billions of dollars for universities and for the NCAA. These athletes should be compensated using one of the plans that have been proposed. It would allow for many more athletes to become student-athletes and continue their education, instead of trying to go straight to professional sports from high school for financial reasons. 

