Over recent decades, there has been major controversy concerning paying college athletes. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) brings in billions of dollars and players feel as though it is unfair they do not get compensation for their efforts. To them a scholarship is not enough. However, college sports are part of an amateur league, and the student athletes should not get paid for a sport that is not professional. Paying college athletes would directly lead to a greater loss in revenue, cutting of other programs, and greed. Many sports enthusiasts agree that college athletes deserve pay, even though it will drive other programs into a downward spiral. Although many sources do not believe athletes should be paid for play, some will state how they think it is fair for players to make money off of video games who use their name and number. It also seems eligible for players to show up on commercials or make appearances at certain business to get customers, anything not affiliated with the NCAA. Also it would be fair for players to have endorsements and can promote products that is not affiliated with the university. Players feel like they are being exploited and would like a check for being used. Judy Rose, a former athletic director for the Charlotte 49ers, states, “I don’t think athletes are being exploited. I think there’s a symbiotic relationship there. Without the university platform for them to compete, there is no exposure for them. None. So that experience alone and that opportunity creates the platform for them, for visibility. I just think the money issue has clouded what the real purpose is, regardless of where the money is coming from and how much is coming in. I want the whole story to be told about the value of an education and put dollars to that.” Without college sports, these players would be unable to show their skill against other top athletes. This opportunity to be presented on TV and exposed to all the different managers and agents is what gets the players known. Their performance in college is what proves to professional leagues that they deserved to be paid in a major league. The way college athletes want to be paid is erroneous and it would cause more harm to the NCAA than benefit. 

Paying college athletes could cause harm to the NCAA in many ways. One major reason why the NCAA should not pay college athletes is because of corruption. It is obvious that there is already corruption within the NCAA, but paying college athletes will not solve that problem, only make it worse. Most of the population knows that top recruits with a full athletic scholarship will receive other perks than simply a free education. Aside from free housing and meals, there are benefits such as receiving the best new gear, before bowl game appearances football players receive gift bags containing items such as the newest PlayStation console, and before Conference tournaments basketball players can receive gift bags with a value up to $3,780. These are all legal benefits provided by the university and NCAA. However, players that are not top recruits will get the same benefits as others, and are perfectly content. The players who think they deserve to already be in the pros are the ones causing trouble. They feel like they should already be making money, and not have to settle for what every other player receives. The corruption the NCAA wishes to stop is the underground deals players make with a variety of people and companies. This is against NCAA regulation. A well-known case of an under the table deal is the Terrelle Pryor investigation. The investigation started after the former Ohio State Buckeye quarterback and four of his teammates started receiving discount tattoos from a tattoo parlor and its owner. The players were also caught selling championship rings, jerseys, and awards. The players were then suspended from the first five games of the upcoming season. Pryor also received benefits such as keys to multiple different upscale cars from a local dealership. Not only did this cause an investigation towards Pryor, but the athletic department of Ohio State. This investigation caused former Ohio State head coach, Jim Tressel, to resign and also caused the star quarterback to not return to Ohio State the following year and join the NFL draft one year early. By paying college athletes, this type of illegal selling of merchandise will continue because there will always be people waiting to do business with these student athletes. Giving these athletes a couple hundred or thousand per month will not stop these deals and receiving other benefits; athletes are always wanting to make more money. If they are getting paid, many will be greedy and want more. One could state how there could be an alternative to compensate the athletes, however with the perks they are already compensated with should be more than enough. Whichever way the NCAA decides to compensate the athletes, within a few years they will want more and more. There will always be the breaking of NCAA regulation and paying student athletes will not solve that problem. Once these players start getting paid there will be strikes for more pay, and how some teammates are getting more and better benefits than others. 

Furthermore, there is no fair way to pay these athletes. Which players would get paid? How much would the players be paid? Would the whole team be paid? There are many questions to be asked when it comes to actually paying the athletes. Some players will get paid more than others, and many may not be paid at all. This could easily cause tension in practice and on the field. Unions and strikes could start based on players’ rights and players could stop showing up to practice and workouts unless they get more money. Like the NFL, players will hold out on their contracts and college football will turn into playing for money, and not the love of the game. Also, the majority of Division I athletic departments are spending more money than they are making. There are 128 schools in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the NCAA in the United States. Out of those 128 schools, only 20 of them created profit, in 2013. These athletic departments are in major deficit and cannot afford to pay their athletes. One may ask how these athletic departments can afford to spend millions of dollars on infrastructure that seems unnecessary? These programs have the idea that one must spend money to make money, and many times that theory is quite effective. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said in a statement that he was "very excited about the Board of Trustee's approval for a new state-of-the-art video board for the 2015 season. This will be a great enhancement to Jordan-Hare Stadium and very beneficial for the best fans and best game-day atmosphere in all of college football." Bringing in the nation’s largest jumbotron to Auburn University will help draw a fan base and bring more fans into the stadium. The stadiums newest supplement cost the program a whopping $178 million. The Auburn Director of Athletics stated how the screen’s main purpose is to directly impact the performance of the student athletes on the field of play and those that are most important to our prospective student athletes when it comes to recruiting. With a bigger fan base, a new exciting addition to the stadium, and a team that is ready to win is the key to success for bringing money into the athletic program. However, it is not effortless to drop $178 million, so bringing in more revenue is not an easy task. With only 20 schools being able to afford to buy players, every other top prospect football player will want to go to the schools that will pay them, leaving all the other fantastic programs with no player talent. This will also cause athletic programs to lose even more money if they cannot recruit players.

With slightly over 100 Division I athletic programs already losing money, much more money would be lost to paying players. Other programs universities have to offer are in major deficits on top of the athletic program. Men’s football and basketball are the most lucrative sports and bring in tens to hundreds of thousands in revenue every year. However, the sports such as tennis, wrestling, and swimming do not create much revenue at all. These sports rely on the football and basketball teams to fund their programs. With those two teams paying their players there wouldn’t be enough money to continue funding other sports teams. This will cause the university to have to cut these programs, and cause thousands of students to lose their athletic scholarships. This will cause students to drop out being unable to afford their education, and end up hurting our nation’ economy as a whole. Instead of dropping out of college, the ex-student athletes may have to take out student loans which can damage their future before it has even started. If the university does still not have enough money, there will be cuts in academic programs. Many schools’ academic departments are in a deficit too, and so if the athletic department can no longer fund, for example, the geology department, then that university is losing more than they know. For instance, profit from football and basketball goes towards buildings on campus for new classrooms, and English and Geology programs are going to be cut. For example, the University of Alabama’s football team generated $110 million during the 2011-2012 season. The University reported about $54.5 million went to operational expenses, and there was $37 million of the athletics department’s budget not allocated to any particular sport. It is obvious that the football team receives a big chunk of that money, however if they paid their athletes, that would leave less and less to give to the football program, basketball programs, and academic programs. They would be using the majority of their revenue to buy athletes to make their football program more attractive meanwhile slowly crushing other smaller programs. With universities paying athletes to play for their school, they are going to make their school less academically pleasing. The school will be losing out on potentially new buildings, prospective students, and will be put in more of a deficit. 

Despite being a strong advocate for not paying athletes, there are some reasons why I believe they should be paid. Student athletes sacrifice their time, bodies, and social lives to play the sport of their choosing. College sports – especially Division I – consumes the majority of the student athletes’ time. Top recruits who are dreaming of making it in the professional league spend more time practicing their sport than the average person spends at work. The University of Florida’s head football coach, Jim McElwain, posted a typical daily schedule for what his players do every day: the players wake up at six a.m, he sets aside 3:30 hours for class, then the players lift weights for one hour, fuel and recover for one hour, meetings for one hour, practice for two hours, then fuel and recover for an hour. Athletes wanting pay is understandable because if they are financially unstable, they do not have the time to get a job. Workouts, practice, and class are all difficult to juggle, and it would be nearly impossible to maintain a job. Connor Wilson states in his article, College Athletes Can’t Be In Ads – Hot Pot, “It’s been said before and it will be said again, but any company promoting a product or service, and using a college athlete’s name, photo, or likeness to do so, is risking that players’ NCAA eligibility. This is true even if the player has no idea that their name, photo, or likeness is being used.” The rule promoted by the NCAA prohibits any college athlete from appearing in commercials, and if they do so it could result in them losing their eligibility and be suspended or owe money in fines. These players are accomplished individuals with bright futures in the pros, and deserve to get paid to feature in advertisements. The players face exploitation when their names and numbers appear on video games such as NCAA Football and NCAA Basketball. That in itself is not equitable, but EA, the company who makes these games, compensated the schools but not the players! The universities, video game companies, and the NCAA are individually being greedy, not giving the players what they deserve, and keep the money for themselves. EA gave the University of Wisconsin $143,076, the University of Louisville $85,845, and Clemson University $85,845 in the 2012-13 season. However, the NCAA recently settled the video game dispute, and the NCAA is giving back $20 million total to the student athletes and former student athletes whose names, images and likenesses were used.  

Although athletes deserve compensation for the video game exploitation, young adults are extremely irresponsible with money – especially a lot of it. If athletes are now getting paid by video game companies and the NCAA they will be gaining a handsome salary for a college student. More money equals more problems; adding debt to a student athlete’s life is not something they plan on going through in their early twenties. One may say that kids in college can be financially responsible, however, according to U.S News research, only about 62 percent of students at a four-year school check their bank account balances and only 39 percent of these students use a budget. This is how students obtain thousands in debt when they are constantly spending with no budget and hardly aware of their account balance. Athletes are constantly assuming they will get more and more money, which is why they are so comfortable spending in such high quantities. Gerald Henderson, a former Duke basketball player stated, “It makes sense that they should have money, but the idea of it is a little scary to me. One thing I’ve thought of would be setting it aside for them after they leave college. To me that would make the most sense, after they’re out of their amateur status.” Even professional athletes go broke in a few short years. Many athletes get caught up over their head in money that they do not realize how much they are spending. If many adult athletes cannot keep a budget how are college students supposed to as well? Ex Tennessee Titan quarterback, Vince Young, was guaranteed a handsome $26 million in 2006 and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2014. The young quarterback who was newly exposed so such a large sum of money was spending unnecessary amounts in multiple places. It was reported that Vince Young would casually drop six thousand dollars in T.G.I Friday’s for him and his teammates. During Young’s rookie season, he would go to the Cheesecake Factory and spend up to five thousand dollars every week! This is an overreaction to how much a college student would spend on a meal, but high paid college athletes will expect more money in the NFL and continue to spend and spend until they have to file for bankruptcy too. 

Finally, college athletes are privileged just to be able to play the game they grew up loving. As kids, everyone dreams of playing their sport for their favorite team. The athletes need to recognize the opportunity they have is so rare and is very difficult to achieve. Not many children dream of playing their favorite sport to get paid for it. They want the feeling of what it’s like to score a game winning touchdown or point in front of thousands of people. College sports should be about playing for the love of the game and making it into the professionals. In college sports, there are no athletes complaining about their contracts or unions coming together and striking for players’ rights. These young adults are playing for the love of the game and not the cash. The college level is where players learn true discipline, dedication, and hard work. Once the players appreciate the pride and satisfaction they get after winning a big game and not getting paid for it is when the NCAA will become less corrupt. Players must realize that this is an amateur sport and that college is a time to get an education, grow, and perform to make it into the professional league. 
