In today's culture, college sports have grown to be one of the United States biggest forms of entertainment. Who are the ones producing this entertainment? Student athletes. Since the beginning, the NCAA, college institutions, and even ourselves, have been benefiting from the hard work of the college students, and yet we haven't given them anything to show for it. The college sport platform has grown far too large for the athletes to receive no further source of money past educational purposes. It's time we take a stand for these student athletes and pay them for the efforts they put into sports during their college career because it is unethical to not reward these young men and women.  

The NCAA generates massive amounts of revenue every year.  In 2014, they generated an absurd $80.5 million dollars in surplus (Berkowitz). Another place where a large part of the money is produced is through broadcasting rights. The Pac 12 recently started up a TV station to stream out more of their conferences sporting events, the Pac 12 Network. In the past three years since their start, the Pac 12 Network has been able to give back between 1 and 1.5 million dollars to their schools every year, which is a very successful start for the company (Smith, Ourand). Now lets look at the SEC Networks revenue in comparison. The SEC Network pays out a whopping $7.5 million annually to each school in their conference (Smith, Ourand). How is it right for the NCAA to receive all of this money and not give any of it back to the ones who are the backbone of the industry, the athletes? This is why I think the athletes should receive a portion of the money. Without the players, there is no NCAA and there is no money so it's only fair to reward these athletes for their hard work in the business they are working in. 

Not only are these athletes bringing money to the school, but also they are attracting a number of future students to their institutions. I currently attend the University of South Carolina, and being that the school's football culture was one of the best in the country, it put USC very high on my list of schools for college. Its widely known that "football schools'' or "basketball schools" appeal to a large amount of the population of teenagers who are looking for schools that offer a typical college experience. My professor once asked our class if the schools football team persuaded them to attend USC and just about the entire class raised their hands. These college sports programs are doing so much for their institutions and they need to be compensated for it.   

These athletes are treated as employees and it's hard for the NCAA to deny that. Northwestern's football team even attempted to prove this to be the case in a court of law. In 2014 various players on the Northwestern football team attempted to disprove a major principle of the NCAA that "major athletes are students first and not employees" (Wolverton). During the hearing quarterback Kain Colter brought up many compelling arguments to prove that college athletes are in fact employees for their school. He spoke of football often requiring weeks of commitment ranging up to 60 hours, football being placed ahead of education, health benefits that should be offered to the athletes, and unfair medical procedures to injured players (Wolverton). These are all valid reasons to why student athletes should be seen as employees. When asked if "the players established sufficient evidence to be deemed employees", former chairman of the NCAA responded by saying, "I think they did--whether they can convince the hearing officer is another matter," (Wolverton). Unfortunately, former Northwestern football players refuted Kain Colter's statements further in the court shutting down the hearing. The former players spoke of things like how the coach rescheduled practice multiple times so the players could balance both school and sport and how "gave us life skills needed to be successful"(Wolverton). Even though Northwestern's attempt to unionize college sports was unsuccessful, it was a start to initiating change and it brought light upon the issue.  

Another reason college athletes should be paid is because of the money struggles that student athletes face while in school. The National College Players Association conducted a study to find out more about the lives of student athletes and their findings were quite alarming.  It turns out that "The room and board provisions in a full scholarship leave 85% of players living on campus and 86% of players living off campus living below the federal poverty line." (The Price of Poverty). That's nearly the entire population of the student athletes. All of these athletes have extremely rigorous schedules that demand the players to put hours upon hours of work into their sports leaving no time for them to obtain a part time job. The athletes coming from low income families most likely are going into the school with the money they made over the summer and are hoping it last them the duration of the school year. Yes, I agree that the students are receiving money from the school through scholarships, but scholarships don't pay for things like food, gas, school supplies, , things that a typical college student has to pay for on their own or through their parents. The athletes have virtually no way to earn money while at school so the NCAA should at least be giving out stipends or some form of money that allows the students to live comfortably while in college. It doesn't have to be an extremely large amount, but at least something so these players don't have to worry about each dime they spend at school. 

Arian Foster, former Tennessee running back, first hand experienced the hardships that came along with money in college. During an interview for the film "The Price of College Sport" Foster spoke of how there were multiple times where he would go home after a game to an empty refrigerator (Foster). Arian Foster said, "There was a point where we had no food, no money, and so I called my coach ...  we don't have no money and I'm hungry. Either you give us some food or like I'm gonna go do something stupid" (Foster). Their football coach then went out and bought 50 tacos for the four of those players so that they could eat which in fact is an NCAA violation (Foster).  When I hear that it's a NCAA violation for a coach to give his players food so they can have a meal for it makes me question the motives of the NCAA. Do they even care about the players or is money thing that matters to them? It is difficult to live comfortably as a college student when getting your next meal is never guaranteed. 

A counterargument to this issue would be that these athletes have meal plans and on campus dining to get food whenever they please. This is partially true, but remember these athletes are on strict schedules that often times run late into the night. Here at USC, Russell House closes at 9:00 P.M. (Brasington). Being a college athlete I know that after hours of physical activity you tend to become extremely hungry after practices. Since our lacrosse practices here at USC sometimes end at 11:00 P.M., getting food after afterwards requires me to use my own money, which is a pain to do. If student athletes were paid or even given monthly stipends these issues could be resolved. I don't see why the NCAA doesn't take action to fix these problems when they most definitely know they are happening all over college campuses.  The NCAA is receiving too much gain off the athletes not to give back to them, not to let them fully enjoy their college experience. 

The simple problems the athletes face blow my mind.  Arian Foster is a perfect example, "You go outside and there's like hundreds of kids waiting for you at the tunnel, you're signing autographs, you're taking pictures, then I walk back, and it's like reality sets in. I go to my dorm room, open up the fridge and there's nothing in the fridge. Hold up man, what just happened, why don't I have anything to show for what I just did?" (Foster). This is the quote that inspired me to pick the topic of paying college athletes for my argumentative essay. These athletes are working their tails off every single day of the week and providing entertainment in a stadium that seats 170,000 people all for nothing in return. College athletes should be able to charge money for autographs just like professional athletes. If someone has a good or service to offer that people are willing to pay for then they should be able to make money off of that good or service, that's just how the world works. Technically its "illegal" for student athletes to make money off of autographs but in reality there is nothing illegal about it. It's the NCAA who makes deems it as illegal and I don't think that's ethical to do. The student athletes are the universities circus animals. They are trained to go out and perform in front of an audience, and audience who pays money to see them and they are the stars when out on their stage. Then when it's over, they must snap back into reality. The reality that they are being used for the gain of those around them, that someone else is taking everything they have just earned. Yet the athletes do it again and again because their voices are unheard and meaningless to their "master", the NCAA. 

There are also many valid reasons to why paying college athletes is wrong and could be a grave mistake for the industry, one of those being that college sport is an amateur sports league. Some of the athletes have the skillsets of professionals but only a very small portion. Maintaining amateurism also helps ensure that the focus of the student athletes remains on education, the reason why students attend college ("NCAA.org").  I agree with the fact that declaring college sport as an amateur league does shift the focus of student athletes towards education. The odds of a player getting drafted into a professional league are pretty slim so education needs to be taken seriously or else college would be a waste of time for those who go undrafted. But I think when the NCAA calls college sport "amateur" it is yet another case of them saying something because they can. If someone says that athletes should be paid, the NCAA can simply respond with saying that "amateurs don't deserved to be paid, that's what the professional league is for". But today's college sports have grown into an industry so big that the NCAA could easily be seen as a professional league.  Now days some schools are packing their stadiums with over 100,000 people. Last year Ohio State filled Ohio Stadium to 101.2% capacity with 106,296 fans (Gull). Events with that much attention and that many people don't resemble amateurism. 

Another reason college sport should not be classified as amateur is because of how intense the training is for the athletes. Alabama is widely known as one of the best football teams in the country.  They have won 4 of the last 7 National Championships and 16 total (A Breakdown). How is the team so successful? Sabanization. Alabama's head football coach has devised a way of coaching that takes the sport of football to a new level, which many other coaches are trying to adopt, they are calling it "the Sabanization of college sport" (Staples). There are many things that Nick Saban does to make his program different than others. One thing he does is hire mental conditioning coaches and speakers for his players so that he can change how his players think (Staples). Saban even hires nutritionists to regulate what his players eat (Staples). When coaches are going to measures such as these to ensure a winning football season they begin to make college sport resemble that of professional sport. Where do we draw the line between amateurism and professionalism with college sports? I think that since the NCAA has so many similarities with professional sport that we should also be paying the student athletes like we do professional ones. 

One major issue with paying college athletes is that finding a way to distribute pay is remarkably difficult to figure out. There are so many factors that come into play when deciding the best way to do so, and many people who disagree on how it could be done. Scott Jennings brings up a good point when he say's, "Unionization could well pit different sports against each other... Do we really want union reps on college campuses organizing student athletes against each other?" (Jennings). Football and basketball are typically the two sports that bring in the most money for schools. So do we pay them more money than say tennis? I don't think we would have very happy tennis players if that were the case and it would most likely arise issues between sports because tennis players put in just as much hard work for their sport as football players do for theirs so it really wouldn't be fair to give one program higher pay than the other. But then we would have football players say how their wouldn't even be a tennis program without the revenue the football team makes to help them out. The complexity of the situation makes it easy to just disregard paying the athletes so no one has to worry about the issues it causes. Jennings also talks about how unionizing and paying athletes would kill the camaraderie between players (Jennings). He says, "What would stop an All-American from demanding first class airfare and a penthouse suites, opposed to scholarship athletes that fly coach and share a regular hotel room?" (Jennings). The stars of the team would be seen as superior to the less talented players on the team and I agree that that would eventually take away the close bond that todays sports teams have. 

Something else that comes to mind if we were to pay athletes salaries based on performance is the problem it would cause when we talk about recruiting. If we begin to pay athletes, top ranked Universities are going to sweep the floor with best recruits in the nation. Lets say we have a top 10 ranked, high school basketball player who is looking for colleges to go to, Alex. Lets say Alex loves where he currently lives on the east coast and plans on going to college close to home. Alex has two options on where he can go to school. There is unranked, School A, only about an hour away that gives him an offer to play for them. This is his dream school and he is excited to have the chance to play there. Then there is #1 ranked School B, all the way on the west coast who also wants to have Alex on their team.  School A offers him $5,000 salary per year to play with them, and highly funded School B offers Alex a $15,000 salary per year. He comes from a low-income family so Alex knows that going to School B would better him in supporting his family back home, so he takes their offer of $15,000 a year. School B just lost an amazing player because they couldn't afford to pay Alex as much as their competitor which isn't fair. This would also change the game completely because schools with insufficient funding would have a difficult time getting talented recruits. If scholarship money were the only money involved, the case would be much different. This is the one reason I can agree with why we shouldn't pay them; it's an extremely hard process to devise an ethical way to compensate the athletes. 

Although there have been some clever ideas on how effectively pay the athletes. Alex French talks about how we can solve the issue by paying the athletes the way musicians are paid. Say a campus bookstore were to sell a jersey of a popular sports player at the university, instead of giving the athlete money up front, the athlete would be paid in royalties and would receive a portion of the sales price for every jersey bought (French). Now the players are being rewarded for what they bring to the table in helping the University make money. French also suggests that if we were to pay athletes it be through an escrow account (French). An account that holds all the money a player has earned throughout their college career and is not accessible until that player earns their degree (French). This forces athletes to stay focused on school because if they screw up in school none of their money earned will be worth anything to them. With more research and thought I think this could be a successful way to compensate athletes. 

It's time to take a stand for student athletes around the country. These players participate in a billion dollar industry and receive nothing but cheers from the crowd.  The students are dedicating up to 60 hours week training for their sports and doing everything a real world employee does but are still treated as solely "students" (Wolverton). Being a college athlete at my previous and current college I want to fight for the right of the players. I know the stress that is put on these students who have to balance their sport, social, and academic life as well as having to worry about finances. I find it extremely wrong for institutions to make millions upon millions of dollars from these athletes' hard work and not give them anything but a free education. The players deserve more and they deserve justice for the services they provide to the millions of viewers around the world.

 

 
