College athletics is a job in modern day America, because of the money associated with it. Should college athletes be paid?  For years this topic has been debated as the NCAA has seen increased profits.  The NCAA runs a multi-billion dollar business where the employer gets all the money and the people actually creating these billions receive nothing. Why is this allowed in the NCAA? This would not be tolerated if the situation did not deal with college amateurs. College students do not have enough time to get a job and play sports. In this literary work I will provide background analysis on the NCAA. This paper will explain why college athletes should be paid due to the increased revenue of the the NCAA as well as the time commitment.

To better understand the NCAA, one needs to know the history behind the billion-dollar business. The NCAA was formed in response to President Theodore Roosevelt's concern to change rules in order to lessen injuries. Years later the concern about injuries was replaced with the concern of recruitment and financial stability of programs (Tredway).  After World War II, television made sports more accessible on a national market rather than local. Players began to get more exposure, increasing competition and recruitment costs. To aide the situation the members of the NCAA agreed to a sanity code, which set a limit on compensation and set limits on recruitment costs (Tredway). Since then technology has advanced and so has television programming focusing on advertising. Advertisements has become a main source of revenue for the NCAA. Recently, CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting paid more than $10.8 billion to the NCAA for exclusive TV rights to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) March Madness Tournament (Pebbles).

The rules in sports have always been subject to change throughout time. The NCAA and the NBA work together because they both benefit from the players and the money involved in the business. The NBA had a rule that wouldn't allow the teams to sign players until their class had graduated from college (Barbash). This changed when the NBA lost in court against Spencer Haywood, an all American basketball player who won gold at the 1968 Olympics. The Supreme Court ruling was that the NBA could not enforce its rule against signing high school players or college underclassman (Barbash). The NBA was faced to settle creating the hardship rule that allowed players from low-income families to be drafted regardless of when they graduated college. This led the way for the early entry rule which allowed high school players and college underclassmen to be drafted to the NBA (Barbash). This rule  paved the way for players such as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Dwight Howard and many others were able to go straight from high school to college. By 2005, the rule changed requiring players to have at least one year of college in order to be drafted to the NBA. The changing of when players could be drafted only caused more problems. Players such as John Wall, former point guard from Kentucky, enrolled in the University of Kentucky knowing he would only stay in school for the required year then leave for the NBA. This hurts the game of basketball because great players do not stay at the University but for one year. One of the most notable players to have taken advantage of this rule was Kyrie Irving, former Duke point guard. Kyrie Irving played 11 games (Kyrie Irving Bio) and only started 8 of those 11 but still went on to be drafted number one in the 2011 draft. More players are taking advantage of the "one and done" rule because the more time they spend in college the greater the risk of potential injury, but more importantly the more money they could lose when being drafted. If players are paid in college, the incentive would be greater to remain in school.

Scholarships do not compensate. Here's an example of why this is in fact true. Nick Johnson was Pac-12 player of the 2014 University of Arizona Wildcats basketball team. Nick Johnson was also estimated to have made $2.23 million for the University (Pallack).  In 2014, the NCAA made $750 million from the NCAA basketball tournament, of which Nick Johnson was a participant. The money made by the NCAA does not compare to the scholarship they gave Nick Johnson, which was worth $41,000. It is not only the universities and the NCAA benefitting from this business but also coaches and investors. Therefore anyone who is involved and not an athlete is getting paid.  Jim Harbaugh, former head coach of the NFL San Francisco 49ers, left the organization to become head coach of NCAA Michigan Wolverines. Harbaugh signed a contract worth $7 million (Goodbread), however this contract is not the highest in the NCAA. Nick Saban, head coach of the University of Alabama salary is $80,000 more than Harbaugh's salary (Goodbread). These high salaries are not only in football but also transcend into basketball. Duke head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski earns $9.7 million per year and John Calapari, head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats earns a little over $7 million per year (Uthman).  Universities and coaches both receive millions but the actual players are not compensated by their scholarship. 

Paying college players will not ruin sports. Opposition may suggest that if athletes are paid, bigger universities can just pay to be great. The universities with the most money can afford to buy whoever would make their teams better and create athletic dynasties. However, athletic programs have already been buying players indirectly using the university's money to attract recruits. Oregon recently built a $68 million, 145,000 square foot football training facility (Berkes). This entices players to come to the university because of the luxuries Oregon can offer, such as sixty-four 55-inch television screens in the lobby of its barbershop, brand new locker and weight rooms. (Berkes). Although there is a possibility that universities with smaller revenue will not be able to recruit the top players, 95% of the top 100 players go to these big schools anyway and the percentage is higher in football (Pebbles). Based upon this evidence, paying players will not have a greater effect in determining where high school athletes choose to attend college. 

In the contemporary article by Kieran McCauley, her argument is that student athletes should not be paid because they are compensated by their scholarship they receive, therefore the athletes do not have to worry about debt when they graduate nor do they have to worry about searching a job. McCauley then gives supporting evidence to her argument.  She states that in the state of Pennsylvania, the average debt of a college graduate is $32,528 (McCauley). Student athletes do not have to worry about paying for housing, meal plans, or paying for textbooks. McCauley is right when stating the facts about tuition however and the benefits of the athletic scholarship however, she is wrong when she states that student athletes do not have to worry about the burden of finding a job after college. In the sport of football there are a little more than a million high school players, however only 6.5% of those players will play in college and 1.6% of players will play in the NFL (NCAA.org).  There is no guarantee that players will be signed to play for a professional team. The author of the article makes it seem like college athletes only play sports stating, "When you look at it that way, plenty of college students would be happy to play a sport for four years if it meant they did not have to take on that financial hardship" (McCauley). Student athletes are students first and athletes second. It is understandable that athletics may be the only catalyst for many to even attend college, however they are expected to perform as students as well. These athletes still have to attend the same classes and have the same requirements for their degree as a full-time student. On top of being a student, athletes have practice year round with few breaks. In essence, being a student athlete is like a full time job with benefits, yet receiving below minimum wage although they are the primary wage-earners for the institution.  Sure a full scholarship is nothing to sneeze at, but much more is required and as such, they should be compensated.  McCauley brings up another argument that it will be hard to pay athletes fairly. She mentions how it would be unfair to pay an athlete who is viewed by millions the same amount of money an athlete would receive that is not televised.  How the money is handled and distributed would be a difficult task but if athletes are paid different amounts, then that is unfair to all athletes involved. Just because millions are not viewing an athlete does not discredit their hard work they put into their craft.  What about the millions that the institutions receive as a result of the athletes efforts? McCauley elaborates on the distribution of revenue problem by stating statistical facts about viewership.  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 (McCauley).  She then suggests that men and women be paid differently, however this is unconstitutional. To solve such problems, universities can put all the money together and distribute the revenue equally among all athletes, this is the only way to guarantee equality for all athletes.  

Throughout the many years of college athletics, there has been numerous players caught violating NCAA rules when it comes to money. Johnny Manziel, former quarterback for Texas A&M and 2012 Heisman trophy winner, was paid $7,500 for autographing mini football helmets (Rovell). This violated NCAA by-law 12.5.2.1, which states that student-athletes cannot allow products with their names and likenesses to be sold even if they do not profit from it (Rovell). Johnny Manziel punishment was missing the first half of the season opener. Even though Johnny found himself in trouble at the beginning of the 2013 season, Texas A&M managed to make $37 million from Manziel from November of 2012 to January of 2013 (Terbush). That same year, Texas A&M ranked 6th in revenue raking in $120 million, this was done by merchandise and media exposure. Manziel #2 jersey in the book store was sold for $60 but with no name on the and when he won the Heisman that same year he brought $37 million worth of media exposure to the University (Terbush). All this money flowing into the University of Texas A&M, yet Manziel is paid nothing to the point he tries to take advantage of his likeliness and name, just as his school has done and is punished for violating the rules. Johnny Manziel was not the only Heisman winner to receive benefits while in college. Former running-back for University of Southern California, Reggie Bush's family was living rent free for a whole year. In the end, Bush lost his Heisman trophy and the University of Southern California was stripped from their 2004 National Championship title because Bush was ineligible to play (FoxNewsSports). More recently, Jameis Winston, former Heisman winner and quarterback for Florida State University was caught stealing crab legs from Publix. However, Winston claims he had a connection with an employee and did not steal the $32 crab legs (Hobson). Regardless or not if Winston stole, the fact is that he did not want to pay for the crab legs. There is one common theme with all these stories dealing with student athletes and that is money. If the student athletes were paid at least most of these instances wouldn't have occurred. 

The NCAA is a business and college athletes should be paid for contributing to this business. In any other business, the worker gets paid for their labor and the universities and colleges should treat student athletes the same way. These college athletes put in countless hours of hard work into their sport and do not have free time do get a job so the universities and colleges should recognize this problem and develop a solution. The solution could be paying all student athletes at the particular college or university the same amount as if they were to have a job. Regardless of the solution to this problem the NCAA must first recognize that scholarships do not compensate anymore as they originally did. The NCAA must also recognize that their revenue increases yearly and so have scandals about players breaking the rules to get paid. These scandals tarnish the reputation of the NCAA and the universities because it sheds light on the problem that the players don't have money because of their sacrifices dealing with their sport.   

