The National Collegiate Athletic Association, more commonly known as the NCAA was officially established on March 31, 1906. The NCAA was originally constructed to be the governing body for collegiate sports and to draft official rules for each respective sport. Since 1906, the United States has been through two world wars, a great depression, the assassination of a president, as well as major technological advancements such as the invention of satellites, cell phones, and even the internet. With this being said, something that has hardly changed in the vast history of America is the rules and restrictions of NCAA sports. These rules have become wildly outdated and need major updating to keep up with the fast-paced, every changing world of sports we live in today. Specifically, rules banning players from making money have become more of a problem in sports today than they’re worth. These rules create many problems for players, their families, and even in certain cases, their respective universities. Currently, players are compensated for their effort and talent through scholarships, but scholarships do not put money into the pockets of the players and their families. Based on the work college athletes perform for universities and the revenue that they generate, it is only fair that they are compensated for their hard work and deserve the ability to profit to receive fair compensation. 

As one of the most controversial topics in the United States, the debate on whether to pay college athletes or not rages on and will not be stopped until players get what they deserve. On one hand, you have people arguing that scholarships are plenty of compensation for these athletes, while on the other hand you have the argument that these players are bringing in millions of dollars for their schools and the NCAA yet the players do not see any of that money they earn for their university. I am here today to address these counter-arguments, show possible solutions, and prove college athletes deserve fair compensation. As previously stated, one of the main counter-arguments is that scholarships are enough compensation for players and that a free education is more important than college kids having pockets full of money. First and foremost, not every college player is on a scholarship. On average, only about two percent of high school athletes continue on to receive NCAA scholarships. These other ninety-eight percent of athlete’s train as hard and practice as hard as the elite two percent, but have the big name to come along with them. Therefore, these players are committing as much time to their team as the athletes on scholarship and paying their massive tuition bills that go along with attending a university. That means that under this model only two percent of NCAA athletes are fairly compensated of their efforts, but this is not the only problem we’re seeing. These athletes are valuing money over their free education and are turning professional and chasing the big contracts as soon as they are eligible. They see an opportunity to make a ton of money and a support their family. Families risk everything to send their kid to school and they want to give back to them. That means that a lot of athletes are not graduating from college and if they are not successful in their professional careers, they are left without a degree and are struggling to find employment. Paying these athletes would entice them to stay in school, graduate, and better prepare themselves for the real world. 

While these players are at their respective universities, they dedicate just about every second of every day to their sport. Yes, college players can be employed during season, which is another counter-argument, but these players do not have anywhere near the time to hold a job. To further understand the time commitment, let’s look at the average day of a college football player. The alarm clock goes off at about six in the morning. This allows players to get a brief breakfast before morning workouts, which last a couple hours. After workouts, players attend class and get lunch then report to the field for practice. Practice lasts for hours then players shower and head in for dinner and film and video review. After this, some players attend more classes and the rest start their homework for the night. By the time this is completed, it’s around ten or eleven at night. Per week, football players spend on average 43.1 hours completing sport-related activities which is about 3 hours more than a full-time job. None of these players have time to even be employed to a part time position because they are a full-time student and a full-time athlete already (Walch 1). 

Putting the time commitment of being an NCAA athlete aside, the “numbers” of the industry should be more than enough to prove that NCAA athletes deserve compensation. The statistics and interworkings of college athletics is staggering and are borderline corrupt.  We’ll examine the numbers of the industry by taking a closer look at the NCAA, the universities, the coaches, and then the players. First and foremost, it is important to understand the sheer size of the industry before we get into the finer numbers. The NCAA is an eleven-billion-dollar industry, with the management making millions of dollars in salaries, which in comparison is bigger than both the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL), with the top revenue producers making more money than roughly eighty-three percent of professional hockey teams. The NCAA identifies itself as a non-profit organization, which is defined as an organization whose main purpose is something other than making a profit. Since the NCAA brings in huge amounts of revenue and their main purpose is growing college sports, not profit, it is only right that the money is distributed to the soul of the organization: the players. After examining the NCAA as a whole, let’s now move on to universities. For argument’s sake, for the rest of this number analysis section, we will examine The University of South Carolina. The University of South Carolina, informally USC, resides in Columbia, South Carolina and is a member of the largest revenue generating conference in all of college sports: The Southeastern Conference. The SEC has fourteen member universities and thirteen of them rank in the top forty-five revenue generating universities in the United States. It is safe to say that the SEC is the richest sports conference by a long shot. In terms of revenue, The University of South Carolina ranks at a very average ninth in the SEC, but an above average seventeenth in the country, and is one of only twelve athletic departments that is self-sustaining. Last year, the university generated roughly one hundred thirteen million dollars in revenue, while only racking up about one hundred seven million dollars in expenses. This means the university generated just about six million dollars in just profit to put back into the program (Berkowitz 1). Six million dollars is plenty of money for one hundred and five rostered football players to see a small percentage of. To be competitive in such a prestigious conference, The University of South Carolina needs some of the best coaches in all of college football on their staff. Just last year, Will Muschamp was hired as the new head coach of the Gamecocks. He signed a five year, fifteen-million-dollar contract, which is exactly three million dollars per year. These days in the sports industry three million dollars seems like practically nothing to these massive organizations, but paying a coach three million dollars is a bigger deal than it appears to be. Let’s look at The National Hockey League as a reference, since professional hockey is one of the major four professional sports. Coach Muschamp would rank second in terms of highest salary in the NHL and only ranks thirty-fifth in college football. A thirty-fifth ranked college football coach almost makes more money per year than every coach of a professional power four sport. In comparison to the university, Will Muschamp makes the same amount of money per year as half of the total profit of the whole entire athletic department, while majority of his players are paying to go to school and play football at The University of South Carolina. As if all those statistics were not enough, the most important information pertains to players and what they generate for their respective universities. The players are the reason for so many different revenue streams for universities. Players drive ticket sales, merchandise sales, concession sales, and just about anything else you can think of in terms of sales. There is only one reason for this, thus being that at the end of the day, hundreds of dollars of tickets later, fans are not at the stadium or arena to see how pretty it is or because they are bored, they are there to see the player’s play. Fans are invested in the players and will pay tons of money just to have their favorite player’s jersey and get a ticket to see them play. A recent study conducted by The National College Players Association and Drexel University set out to prove just how much an athlete is worth to their university. The study was conducted on the two sports that generate the most revenue of all college sports: men’s football and basketball. The study concluded that the fair market value for an average football player was roughly one hundred thirty thousand dollars and the fair market value for an average basketball player was just about two hundred ninety thousand dollars. One single basketball player is worth nearly three hundred thousand dollars to the NCAA and their university and one single football player is worth just about half that. Currently the average athletic scholarship is valued at twenty-three thousand dollars (Manfred 1). It is important to understand the comparison between the player’s value and their average scholarship. Each player can be awarded one scholarship for his athletic abilities, which previously stated is valued at twenty-three thousand dollars. To match a basketball players fair market value with scholarships, each player would need thirteen scholarships and each football player would need almost seven scholarships. How are scholarships fair compensation when a player’s value is thirteen times and seven times, respectively, more than the scholarship they receive? Plain and simple, they aren’t. Without the players, the coaches are nothing, the universities are nothing, and most importantly, the eleven-billion-dollar NCAA industry is absolutely nothing. After looking in depth at the numbers and statistics of the NCAA, universities, coaches, and players, I believe it is fair to say there is statistical proof for compensation for players beyond scholarships. After comparing these collegiate organizations to their professional counter parts, it is safe to classify these college athletes as unpaid professionals. 

Throughout examining just about every moving part of the collegiate sports world, it is safe to say that a change to NCAA rules and regulations is long overdue and a fair system of compensating players for their time and effort needs to be put in place. I believe that I have formulated a legitimate and fair way to compensate players for playing without hurting the universities, their profits, recruiting, or the NCAA. My system revolves around a nationally standardized base salary per sport, per gender, plus a set percentage of each sports respective revenue for the players to evenly split, almost like a commission for the players. The main reason why this system would work is because, plain and simple, it’s fair. The base salary per sport, per gender makes sure that no matter where you attend school, or what sport you play, you make the same salary as your competitors. An Alabama football player must have the same base salary as a Penn State football player, just as a South Carolina girl’s tennis player must have the same base salary as an Oregon girl’s tennis player. This base salary puts every single player on an even playing field from the start and does not have to be a ton of money. We are discussing paying players so they have spending money, not so they can buy Lamborghinis. This salary would not even make the smallest dent in college’s funds. To prove this, let’s look at The University of South Carolina again. South Carolina has about seven hundred enrolled division one athletes at the university. If each athlete’s base salary was on average two thousand dollars, the total cost to pay all the athlete’s base salaries would be one million four hundred thousand dollars annually. The university generated one hundred thirteen million dollars in revenue last year (Berkowitz 1). The base salaries of the athletes in this scenario would account for exactly one point two percent of South Carolina’s annual revenue, which in the grand scheme of things is practically nothing. The percentage of revenue the players split is where the system could get confusing, but is really quite simple. Once again, let’s look at the highest revenue generating sport at the University of South Carolina: football. For argument’s sake, let’s say that the football team generates fifty million dollars and the NCAA has agreed that football players at every university will be eligible to evenly split one percent of the revenue in addition to their base salary. One percent of fifty million dollars is five hundred thousand dollars and there are one hundred five players on a football roster to split that money. Each player would receive almost five thousand dollars on top of their two-thousand-dollar base salary. This system has a ton of other upsides as well. First, the system promotes competition. If a player’s team wins games, attendance will rise, ticket sales will rise, concession sales will rise, and therefore revenue will rise. The harder a player plays and the more they win, the more money each player is going to make. Second, this system can be beneficial in the recruiting process. High school students that are picking where to attend college can now look at money as a factor in which school they choice. Many teams generate a ton of revenue, but are not necessary national championship contenders. For example, Texas A&M was the number one revenue generating college in the United States last year, but their odds to compete for a national title were over one hundred to one. With money being another deciding factor, some players will choose to attend schools other than the obvious national championship contenders, which will even the playing field of recruiting and give more teams a national championship opportunity. Lastly, this system allows players to have money saved away throughout college. As the demographics of college sports change, many collegiate athletes come from extremely impoverished areas and their families have sacrificed everything they own just to send their kid to college (Neuhauser 3). If this player gets injured, is not good enough, or for any reason cannot make it to the professional level, they will return to the same life they came from. With my system proposal, players would have the opportunity to save enough money that they can stay on their feet after college, while they search for employment. While, yes, I’m sure someone would be able to find a flaw to this system, it is the best proposal to date. Logistically, it makes sense to the fans, is helpful and enticing for the players, and is beyond affordable for the universities. 

In conclusion, it is time that college athletes are compensated for the hard work they perform and the copious amounts of money they generate for their universities. These days, being a college athlete is an equivalent time commitment as to having a full-time job. They are over-worked, behind on their studies, and left with empty pockets. Everyone can agree that nobody wants to see these athletes paid a ton of money in college, but they deserve a small cut of the millions of dollars they generate. When you are dealing with this much money, college athletics are way more focused on business, instead of growing the sport. With athletes producing this amount of money for their school, they have turned into unpaid professionals. It is time that the regulations of college sports get a face lift and organizations treat the heart and soul of their operation the way they deserve to be treated. Spectators come to events to see the players, not to stuff presidents and CEO’s pockets. In the long run, whether it is clear or not, scholarships are detrimental to college athletes. Although the student athletes are getting an education, they are headed to the professionals as soon as they can. Now, that is a choice the players make, but anyone would leave school early and sign the million-dollar contract, especially when players see a way to give back and support their families. If a new compensation system is implemented, I am confident that it would keep players in school, make the game more competitive, and strengthen ties between players and their universities, as well as with the NCAA. The world of collegiate sports needs to finally give in and adopt a payment system that players and fans have been begging for throughout the last couple years. 
