College athletes have been around since 1843 when Yale made the first boat club, the first baseball game happened in 1859. College sports have been around for over 150 years and the competition and games are only getting better. Players are committing more time and effort to their sport than ever before which is the reason why competition is becoming so challenging. Now in 2017, revenue is getting to billions upon billions of dollars, while college athletes are not getting paid a dime. Athletics have only become more and more competitive over the last few decades, attracting more fans to view the games. However, athletes are focusing more on sports and much less on actual schoolwork. The NCAA gives out scholarships to players to come to their university to participate in a sport. A scholarship pertains of free tuition, free meals, and equipment for their sport. Although this may seem like a good portion they still are not getting compensated nearly enough for the hours that they put in. College athletes work on average 43.3 hours per week for the sport that they pay, yet they aren’t compensated as a full-time employee. In the United States if you work over 40 hours you are a full-time employee, the NCAA needs to change the guidelines to allow student-athletes to receive compensation for their play.

March Madness is one of the most watched events in the world. It’s when the top 68 teams in Men’s or Woman’s college basketball compete against each other to see who the best team in the country is. The March Madness championship game in 2016 reported 31 million viewers, with millions of viewers commercial prices exceedingly go up. On average the cost of a 30 second commercial for the 2014 Men’s basketball championship was $1.5 million. The National Collegiate Athletic Association profited 1.13 billion dollars during the basketball tournament in the month of March and April. The NCAA is a non-profit organization which oversees operations between institution and players. The NCAA has rules and stipulations which regulates what a university and a player can do. For example, schools are not allowed to benefit these college athletes like give them money to come to their school. The NCAA imposes outrageous rules almost arbitrarily, such as its insistence that the cookies available to athletes had “improper” icing. Student-athletes dedicate their life to these sports while they are in college and to have rules regulating icing is absolutely ridiculous. These players deserve to get paid not because they are famous, but because they work very hard for their school and they deserve to be paid. Jay Bilas, former Duke basketball player and now a college basketball analyst believes that college athletes should be paid because the only people being restricted with their earnings are athletes. Jay Bilas was quoted saying this about why scholarships are meaningless to the school, “Think about what the scholarship is…It’s the school paying itself. It’s like me paying myself for rent for my kids in my house, and then claiming I don’t have any money left because I paid myself rent for them.” Scholarships are absolutely amazing, underprivileged kids are given an opportunity to get discounted tuition to attend a certain school, however it is practically not costing the school anything which allows them to make even more revenue without a high cost. 

College basketball has always been participated on an amateur level. The NCAA pays for student-athletes tuition, food, housing, and clothing in return for play. Out of state tuition on average is about $30,000 per semester while food and housing can bring the total past $40,000. The average salary per year is just north of $40,000, this compensation would be as if it was a normal job in the American work force. Having your college life paid for is an absolute blessing the average debt for a 2016 college graduate is $37,172, while there is a total of 1.3 trillion dollars of debt due to student loans. Majority of students are not fortunate enough to have enough money to pay for college, therefore having to take out loans which can cause students having to pay for their college well into their 30’s. College is a privilege not a right and being able to participate in college sports, while obtaining free education is a fantastic opportunity for your future in life.  Paying student athletes will cause cuts in sports who may not be as profitable as others. In high school sports the most profitable teams always received the nicest equipment for sports, while sports like volleyball, swimming, and cross country get the left over budget plans. College is supposed to be the life of opportunities, however if they were to pay the student-athletes people in smaller programs (i.e. educational programs, or small sports teams) will have their team taken away. The difference between college sports and professional sports is the players get paid as a professional and they do not get paid as a college athlete. Allowing the rule change theoretically turns the NCAA system into a professional system, allowing the student-athletes to be compensated for play. Some people believe that paying athletes would destroy college sports because it would allow students to build unions and fight for the most money possible. Allowing this may cause financial struggles where colleges could struggle to pay some players. Athletes play college sports not for the money, but because they love it, college sports have always been founded on playing for the love of a game.

College sports are constantly talked about as more of the intense sporting events around. Sports fans attend and cheer for their teams for the thrill of the game, the harder the players are playing the more likely the competition gets better. Increasing competition and allowing the players to work harder for a reward could help revolutionize the game. Players have always played hard, however when you reward players with money they are more likely to work even harder. A stipend is a fixed sum of money served as an allowance or salary. Allowing the players to accept a small stipend from the college will not only benefit the athlete, but allow the college to afford the small payment. If a student-athlete were paid $5,000-10,000 per semester it could allow them to have extra spending money in order for them to maintain full health. The point of a stipend is not to get rich off of it but the security of having enough money for urgent needs. One of the top athletes in college basketball in 2014, Shabazz Napier, was quoted saying “We do have hungry nights that we don’t have enough money to get food in.” Athletes who work out constantly can not be hungry when they go to bed, not only is it unhealthy but it can also lead to dangerous activity. According to a Comprehensive report on The price of poverty in Big Time College Sports it reported that 86 percent of college athletes live below the poverty line. The poverty line is the minimum level of income needed to secure the necessities of life, with more than 8 out of ten athletes being under the poverty line how are they supposed to take care of their bodies? Every year players are being arrested for stealing snacks from convenience stores, Rob Bolden a quarterback for Penn State was cited for stealing a Gatorade and 2 bags of chips at an on-campus store. Jamies Winston, Heisman quarterback for Florida State was arrested for stealing $25 worth of crab legs. These student-athletes are being arrested for simple crimes of stealing just because they do not have enough money to buy snacks. Stipends would instantly change this dilemma because student-athletes would not have to resort to stealing if they had enough money to buy snacks. Allowing students to be arrested for stealing snacks from convenience stores because they do not have enough money to pay for it is laughable. Sports are the face of a school, if you repeatedly see players getting into trouble for stealing it can look poorly on the university. Whether or not the student athlete was at fault, it is the universities responsibility for the student athlete to be well fed and healthy daily. South Eastern Conference schools spend nearly $160,000 per athlete; schools want the best out of these players in order to be the best possible program. Allowing student athletes to accept a stipend will help the student-athletes to be less desperate about money and more focused on sports.

College athletes work as many hours as a full-time job in the United States, yet aren’t being compensated because they are labeled by the NCAA as a student rather than an employee. This allows the NCAA to get away with not having to pay the athletes for the work they put in for their university. If the NCAA believes these athletes are students first, then they shouldn’t allow them to miss class in order to play in a sporting event. The NCAA basketball tournament would affect 6 days of school, at the University of South Carolina if you miss more than 5 classes for the semester then you will drop a letter grade. Whether or not the school allows it these students are missing important information in class that if they were a true student first the NCAA should work around the student’s schedule not the sports. College football players put in on average 43.3 hours per week towards their sport. On top of that they are also listed as a full-time student. Majority of full-time student do not participate in athletics, yet still struggle to balance their schedule, how are these students-athletes supposed to work enough hours to have enough money, play a sport, and go to school and complete all of their school work? This causes scandals like in 2002 when Nevin Shapiro gave college football players at Miami money, goods, and prostitutes for playing college football there. Another prime example is the University of North Carolina allowing its student athletes to take “paper classes”, not requiring them to attend classes and only having to turn in one paper to receive a grade. If the NCAA allowed a stipend of a reasonable amount of money it would cut the scandals and make life for both sides much happier. Over 50 schools in the nation have revenue totaling over 100 million dollars while over 150 colleges total over 50 million. The University of Alabama reported $143 million dollars in revenue from sports, that is more than every professional NHL team and 25 out of the 30 NBA teams. These schools and organizations are making millions of dollars off of the people actually doing the work. Competition is what draws the crowd and viewers to watch the game, if players are working for money they will more than likely work harder to be able to provide for themselves. These players are merely deserving a small compensation for what they’ve done for their school. College coaches, administrators, and athletic directors are getting paid millions of dollars to be a part of these universities which is a substantial of the revenue that the school sports make. John Calipari, the coach for Kentucky makes a salary of 8 million dollars per year. He isn’t even the highest paid coach is college basketball, that goes to Dukes coach who earns 9.8 million per year. For an amateur level these coaches are to be getting paid immensely. If a coach is making millions why are the players undeserving of earning some sort of income? In fact, when the NCAA was founded in 1905 there was an agreement that both student-athletes and coaches were not going to be paid. However, the argument isn’t about not paying college coaches, it’s that student-athletes are getting overlooked by the amateurism rule (i.e.  and it’s causing an unjust system).

Student athletes invest countless of hours per week to be on top of their game for their sport. A men’s senior swimmer at SMU named Pablo Lara daily schedule is wake up at 5:30am, go to practice at 6am, have breakfast with team after, then goes to classes for the day, has afternoon practice from 3:30 to 6pm, then dinner with the team, and after that is homework. Once Lara finishes his homework it is most likely past 11pm, nearly time for bed depending on his daily routine. To earn an income at a job Pablo would have to work overnight and not receive any sleep. At no point do college athletes have healthy down time where they have enough time in their day to work at a job a make an income. Student athletes are expected by the NCAA to produce at a high level for their selected sport, while also not caring about how much money a player has to their name. 25 percent of full-time students also work while attending school in order to earn money for their expenses at their university. Stipends would be the new way for athletes to be paid without the athletes breaking the bank and putting colleges in serious financial debt. Allowing players to collect a small sum of money in order to avoid problematic cases of stealing from convenience stores not only benefits the players, but also the school’s reputation. The reason why the NCAA should give stipends to players is not to prevent them from stealing because that is illegal, but to provide the student athletes with money in order for them not to go hungry. Athletes work too hard for their schools to be unfairly compensated for their play, this is not only unjust but a disrespect to the players hard work they put in.
