College sports is the only billion-dollar industry in the world that does not pay their employees, the athletes. Paying college athletes has become a hot-topic to discuss in recent years and is gaining more traction each year. College sports is bringing in millions of dollars to universities that use the success and popularity of amateur athletes to sell merchandise and tickets. However, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) refuses to pay t heir athletes. They claim that these athletes are students first and shouldn’t be paid in order to maintain “competitive-balance” in sports. Also, there is still an issue of constructing a plan that will determine who exactly pays the amateur athletes and how much. College athletes should be paid because they deserve to be rewarded for all of the hard work and time they put in for their sport, which makes millions of dollars for their university. Also, the NCAA’s claims as to why they do not pay their players are false and are only used to protect themselves. Finally, constructing a plan for paying players without hurting the university or the integrity of the sport is possible.

College sports continue to bring in millions of dollars for universities across the nation. Over the past 10 years alone college sports have grown drastically--just look at the most popular college sport in college football. In 2004 the 126 football universities accumulated 28.3 million in total revenue. That number grew to 61.9 million dollars in total revenue for 2013 (Sanderson and Siegfried, 119). The total revenue is only how much the athletic departments of each university produced. Not only are universities making millions of dollars, but the NCAA is as well. In 2014 the NCAA made $989 million in annual revenue. However, they only had $908.6 million in expenses so they ended up with $80.5 million in surplus money. Most of this money comes from the 11-billion-dollar agreement the NCAA made with CBS sports in 2010 which stretches over 14 years (Strachan, para. 2). The NCAA and universities are profiting in millions of dollars, while the athletes which produce the product themselves are making $0, nothing. They are not even allowed to make $50 from signing autographs whereas top NCAA executives earn about $1 million per year (Hartnett, para.8). The people who lay their bodies on the line and risk permanent injury get nothing, while the people who set up and watch the event get paid in millions. These amateur athletes are getting robbed of their money from the NCAA. The amount of money that is being made proves how significant of a problem not paying college athletes is. College athletes are getting robbed from millions of dollars and a change needs to happen to prevent this crime from continuing.

College athletics is generating hundreds of millions of dollars and none of it goes to the players themselves, instead it goes to Universities which use it to build facilities and pay their employees. The NCAA receives money through marketing and sponsorships and they pay the schools back in the form of grants, scholarships, and academic enhancement (Schlabach, para. 9-14). In 2010, the NCAA distributed over $180.5 million to its Division 1 schools that participated in the men’s basketball championship. The Big East conference was paid over $23 million and the ACC was paid more than $18 million (Schlabach para. 9). The Universities also gain money from the merchandise sold with their logo’s as well as the tickets sold at their stadiums. Universities will use this money to build new facilities and stadium upgrades in hopes of encouraging more tickets to be sold. In September 2015, Auburn University decided to build a 11,000 square foot video screen that cost about $14 million dollars (Hobson, para. 2). The problem with the Universities is with the increase in the revenue being made over the past decade, there has also been an increase in spending. In 2014, the power five schools generated about $1.14 billion dollars while they spent about $0.77 billion dollars. (Hobson, Where the Billions Come from and Where They Go). The point is that with all this money being made there is a constant spending on things that are not needed. Schools are trying to gain recruits by buying “shiny toys” and out spending rival universities. Instead of using this money for unneeded facilities and “toys” the money needs to go to the athletes themselves, who are the ones who make it in the first place. 

While college athletes are not allowed to make a cent for their work, their coaches and universities do. Coaches are allowed by the NCAA to pursue endorsement or consultation contracts with athletics shoe, apparel or equipment manufacturers (Oliver, 2015). So coaches are allowed to be rewarded by the university for using their likeness and image but the players themselves are not. What makes it even worse is the coaches are already getting paid in salary on top of this. Take for example, Nick Saban, the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team and John Calipari, the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team. Saban has a contract that is worth $7 million over 8 years ($56 million total) and Calipari has a contract worth $52 million over 7 years. That is ludicrous that these coaches are getting paid that much money. College athletes should be paid because the coaches are already getting paid in millions of dollars and they are not the ones on the risking their body’s.

College athletes deserve to get rewarded for all their hard work and effort they put into their sport. These athletes have to train for their sport for hours each day on top of going to school. Tyson Hartnett, a former college basketball player, considers an athlete to be a full time job. “On a typical day, a player will wake up before classes, get a lift or conditioning session in, go to class until 3 or 4 p.m., go to practice, go to mandatory study hall, and then finish homework or study for a test” (Hartnett, para. 6). College players have busy schedules and have no free time. They must attend practices and workouts but are also responsible for their classes and grades, like every other student. However, the difference is that other students don’t have to worry about waking up at 6 a.m. to attend practice after staying up till 1 a.m. studying for a test. Some athletes have to not only worry about practice, workouts, and class but also a job. Since amateur athletes don’t get paid, some try and get a side job to earn some money so they can go see a movie or go out to eat (Hartnett, para. 6). College athletes are not like regular students. They spend time worrying about class, their sport, and sometimes even a job. Athletes put in hours of time and effort and they should be rewarded for their hard work. 

College athletes are compensated with scholarships, but scholarships are not enough for the athletes to live off of. A full division 1 scholarship is worth about $25,000 a year. This may seem like a lot but that money goes towards tuition, housing, university fees, a meal plan, textbooks etc. Athletes cannot use scholarship money to go out and buy groceries or to go out and eat at a restaurant. Some of these athletes come from low-income households and they are given grants which enable them to buy chicken soup instead of chicken flavored ramen (Hartnett, para. 5). Take Shabazz Napier for example. Napier was a popular athlete who led his Connecticut Huskies to a national championship in 2014. Napier is an example of an athlete that comes from a low-income household and stated that “There are hungry nights that I go to bed and I’m starving” (Karaim, pg. 3 para 1). When a grown man goes to bed hungry and tired from school and practice there is a problem. Unlike other students, Napier does not have the time to go out and get a job. As John Oliver stated it best “Education is the only currency more difficult to spend than bitcoin” (Oliver, 2015). John Oliver’s point is that while an education is certainly valuable, it is not necessarily the best compensation considering the amount of money that is being made from these sports. There is no doubt that a four-year degree is certainly valuable, but what happens with the athletes that decide to leave early after one or two years to continue their career professionally?  Then the athlete loses his scholarship and in return loses money they earned. College athletes deserve to get paid with money, not just scholarships, so they can do things that scholarships can’t provide like buy groceries, go to a movie, or out to dinner.

The NCAA’s claims that they don’t pay their athletes because they are “student-athletes,” and school and class comes first. The NCAA uses the term “student-athlete” to describe the men and women who are athletes at their schools. Amy Perko, an executive director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, claims that the term “student-athlete” is used to emphasize academics and school first (Karaim, pg. 3 para 13). If you pay amateur athletes, it will add more emphasis on the “athlete” part rather than the “student” part of the term “student-athlete.” However, the NCAA only uses the term “student-athlete” to “obscure the legal reality that some of these athletes, in fact, are also employees” (McCormick, pg. 74). According to David Berri, the term “student athlete” was invented by the NCAA in the 1950’s as a response to a claim made by former NCAA football players that demanded worker’s compensation (Berri, 480). By using this term, it allows the NCAA to obtain the benefits that come with an athlete’s talents, time, and energy. The term is only used by the NCAA to avoid legal trouble. The NCAA uses the term “student-athlete” as justification for their decision on not paying their athletes. However, this term was created by the NCAA to camouflage division 1 college sports to look like they are amateur. A more accurate term would be “employee-athlete” but that would put the NCAA in some unwanted legal trouble. College athletes should be paid because the NCAA’s claim that they are “student-athletes” is false and only used to protect the NCAA from legal trouble.

Another false claim the NCAA uses to justify not paying players is to maintain competitive balance. This has been a major goal of the NCAA and it is described as relative equality in the strength of the competitors in each competition (Berri, 482). The argument is that if you begin to pay college players, then universities with the most money will get better players and the game will become unbalanced. However, if you look at the teams that consistently dominate in college sports it is mostly made up of the same schools. In men’s basketball from 1950 to 2006, 50.4% of all final four appearances were made by only 13 different schools. There are more than 300 division 1 basketball schools that are eligible to play in the NCAA tournament. In football from 1950 to 2005 51.6% of the top eight slots in the Associate Press poll were made up by just 12 teams (Berri, 484). In sport after sport there are a collection of schools that have continued to dominate each year. It is not the same schools across each sport, but a different group of schools dominate for each sport. Based on these statistics it is apparent that there is no competitive balance in college sports. If there is no competitive balance in the sports, then why haven’t the NCAA began to pay their players? The NCAA’s claim of not paying college athletes to maintain competitive balance is false because there is no such thing as competitive balance in college sports already.

College athletes should be paid because by law they can be considered employees of the NCAA. According to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), an employee is “a person who performs services for another… and in return for payment.” This also depends on how economically dependent the employee is upon the employer (McCormick, 92). College athletes receive compensation from the NCAA in the form of scholarships. By law, this means that these amateur athletes can be considered employees of the NCAA because they receive compensation from and are financially dependent upon them. College players should be paid because legally they can be considered an employee of the NCAA. 

If you do decide to pay college players, there is still a discussion on who would pay the players and exactly how much. Will the university pay the players or the NCAA? Exactly how much would a player get paid? There is a serious logistics problem with paying college athletes. However, a plan can be created that solves all these problems. Take for example Joe Nocera’s article “A Way to Start Paying College Athletes” in the New York Times. In this article Nocera comes up with a valid plan to pay college players that is similar to the NFL. In this plan each basketball and football team would have a salary cap, like the pros which is the maximum amount they can spend in total money. Basketball would have a cap of $650,00 and football a cap of $3 million for being the most popular. Also in Nocera’s plan there is a minimum salary a player can get paid of $25,000 (Nocera, para.12-13). Exactly how much a player can get paid would depend upon two things, the amount of minutes they played a game and their success they had. This will establish a bare minimum and maximum amount, as well as a system that can be used to determine the amount a player can get paid. There would also be scholarships that would allow students complete a degree in eight years. This would reduce the workload these athletes have, as well as give them an opportunity to continue an education after their playing career. Both the university and the NCAA would pay the players. The NCAA would give the university money based on television revenue and the university would pay the athlete for using their likeness and image for merchandise like jersey’s and autographs. This would create a fair system which allows players to get paid, while still not bankrupting the university and not hurting the integrity of the sport (by changing it from college to professional sports). College athletes should get paid because a plan that allows players to get paid without bankrupting the university or hurting the integrity of the sport can be constructed.

Not paying college athletes is a crime that needs to be fixed. The amount of money that is being made from college sports is in the billions and yet the people who produce the product themselves are not getting paid a cent. College players put in hours upon hours of hard work and effort in their daily lives in order to maintain fit shape, while still being held accountable for grades and classes. These players should be rewarded for all of their hard work that is being put in and all of the money that is being made because of them. While they get nothing the university profits in millions and decides to reward their coaches with million-dollar salary’s. The people that are not out their risking their body’s and even their lives get paid but yet the NCAA refuses to pay their own players. The NCAA instead hides behind false terms like “student-athlete” and “competitive-balance” in order to avoid legal trouble. A plan can be constructed that would allow the players to get paid without hurting the university too badly and keeping the life of college sports. College athletes are getting robbed of their money every day. This billion-dollar industry needs to be checked and changes have to be made. 
