For the last century, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has been around to publicize and exemplify the best of college athletics. The rise of college sports has grown immensely from when the NCAA was created in 1910 and is now more popular than professional sports in some parts of the United States. With this rise in popularity leads to the rise in fame for high profile NCAA athletes. In 2014, the NCAA generated close to a billion dollars in revenue yet the athletes responsible for this surge of money received zero dollars. (Reed 1) How is this fair? The only solution to this problem is that NCAA athletes be able to receive endorsements or signing deals with or from outside organizations. 

There is a strong argument for paying college athletes but how to pay them is the trouble. The universities nor NCAA should be responsible for paying their athletes because it is impossible to equalize pay for athletes of different sports and different calibers. Universities are known for different sports and lawsuits will be filed left and right if one player is payed more than another because their sports bring in the more revenue. These athletes would then be officially employees of the university. But high-profile college athletes such as division one football players and division one basketball players are not treated as amateurs but more as employees due to the demand their sport and coach requires. In order for athletes to stay amateurs but also receive the monetary compensations they deserve they would be allowed to commercialize themselves and market themselves to receive endorsements (Smith&Bayless).

Around 30 years ago the international Olympic community decided that Olympic athletes will be allowed to receive signing deals, ads, and endorsements from companies disaffiliated from the Olympics (Sharp 4). They changed the Olympic bylaws so athletes who were training their whole life for a shot in the Olympics did not have to take a vow of poverty (Jennings 3). Prior to this rule change there was a scandal with an athlete named Jim Thorpe. He had won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon during the 1912 Olympic games (Sharp 5). He then got his medals taken away because the Olympics found out that he had played two seasons with a semi-professional baseball team prior to his debut in the Olympics (Sharp 5). This act shined such a negative light on the Olympics and the world for punishing someone for trying to earn extra cash in order to prepare for the biggest moment of their lives. Though the Olympics gave his medals back almost 70 years later the reason behind them being taken away is not fair (Sharp 5). Since the Olympics have changed their rules on this stance there has been no negative feedback. In fact, it has helped the Olympics in popularity and revenue because the world sees the competitors on their televisions in commercials or in ads. The Olympics have not lost a single penny from this rule change nor are the athletes looked at differently. A similar situation took place around 13 with University of Southern California’s star running back Reggie Bush. He was awarded the Heisman trophy in 2005 for his incredible stats and ability to put his football program on the map. Five years after his award it was asked back by the NCAA due to violations of him and his family receiving “lavish gifts” such as limousine rides (Sharp 5). The University of Southern California had to complete disaffiliate from Bush and remove all of his accomplishments at the university. The university also got sanctions taken against them such as wins taken back and inability to recruit new players for multiple seasons. The amount of resources, time, and effort used in this situation is hard to believe. Bush was more than advantageous to his university by making them more popular and improving their sports programs which would in turn create for revenue so to treat him how they did was not fair. The NCAA is stuck on the idea that college athletes are “amateurs” yet they are looked at on campus as celebrities, their faces are posted to promote athletics and they are the reason for athletic revenue. These are not qualities that true amateurs should have.

The definition of an amateur is “a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than financial benefit or professional reason” (Merriam-Webster). High-profile college athletes do not fit this definition. There are a lot of college athletes that are playing sports for the pleasure of it and love for the sport. Yet the ones talked about in the news and publicized on television for bringing success to their university and team are playing for another reason; they are playing because they have to in order to get to where they want to be. 

The March Madness men’s basketball tournament is one of the most anticipated and popular events in the athletic world. It is a month long event of college basketball teams facing off to see who will become the national championship. People around the world make brackets on their predictions of who will win and they bet on them. These athletes are put in the spotlight and watched carefully throughout this tournament. The issues arises of how these atheltes are portrayed, as amateurs or professionals. In all aspects, except one, they are seen as professionals. The tickets to see these games begin at $200 in the earlier rounds but as the games progress the ticket prices increase to thousands of dollars for the final four games and national championship game. The NCAA is makes millions of dollars off of this tournament each year and the popularity is only growing. In 2016, there were 16 million brackets submitted to the ESPN tournament challenge which shows the high interest in the event (Smith&Bayless).  High school basketball games are free for admission but college basketball games are on average over one hundred dollars during the regular season and are multiple times that price during March Madness. There is a clear divide between amateurism in high school and amateurism in college but in respects to money compensation these athletes are treated the same.  By allowing college athletes to market themselves to receive ads or endorsments from companies like Nike, Adidas, or McDonalds will have no effect on the way of the college athletic world. This would also not affect the amount of money the universities make or how much money the NCAA receives (Parrish, 2016). The only change would be that high-profile athletes are able to receive money for their time in college.

The NBA requires prospective athletes to be 19 years old to participate in the draft which means they can sit out a year after graduating high school or go to college (Remaining eligible: professional draft inquiries). This bylaw was put into place to force high school athletes to attend college even though many of them are capable of playing professionally. The upside to this is that athletes have at least one year of college under their belt in case one day their athletic careers end and they have to make a living in a realm other than sports (Sharp 2). A downside is that these athletes are putting themselves in a position to get injured and ruin their careers before they can receive any money (Sharp 3). As for the NFL, they require graduation from a “recognized college or university” or sit out the four NFL seasons after they graduate high school to be eligible to be in the NFL (NFL regional combine). No athletes are willing to sit out four years so 99% of high school football players with dreams of going into the NFL attend college for four years which is four years of putting their bodies through a beating for no monetary reward. 

But what about their education? Doesn’t that count for something? Val Ackerman and Larry Scott believe that athletes go to college to grow up, learn, and receive a degree. Athletes receive thousands of dollars worth of school apparel because they are told to be representing their school with at least one piece of clothing every day (Ackerman&Scott). Many large SEC or ACC schools have alternate gyms and areas of the school just for athletes (Ackerman&Scott).  Athletes also receive more academic help than the rest of the students on campus because of their tutors who work around their practice or game schedules. For the athletes that receive full tuition scholarships the monetary comparison is close to $250,000 over the course of four years (Parrish 1). Yes, that sounds like a lot of money but if these players were able to be drafted they would be receiving at least quadruple the amount of money. Educations are important but to fool oneself and say that high-profile athletes are going to college to receive an education is not accurate. For example, high school basketball players who are being recruited by top universities such as Duke, Kentucky or Kansas are not looking at the academics part of each school because many of them do not have the grades to get into these schools as non-athletes (Parrish 3). They are strictly going for the sports program or what the coach promises them. If the athletes are not going to school based on the academics their educations are being put second before they even arrive. To argue that they are being compensated by receiving a free education does not make sense because they are not there for that.  

In a Business Insider article about lawsuits filed against the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill two football athletes felt that they were getting exploited by their university and team (Jacobs 2). According to NCAA bylaws athletes are not allowed to spend more than twenty hours a week on their sport while in season (Mueller 72). These two UNC athletes claimed to have been spending more than forty hours a week on practices and workouts. According to a 2011 NCAA survey conducted, baseball players spent an average of 42.1 hours a week on their sport, men’s basketball spent 39.2 hours a week, men’s football spent 43.3 hours a week, and women’s basketball spent 27.6 hours a week (Jacobs 3). How was the NCAA and university getting away with this blatant disregard for the bylaw? The investigation determined that any “voluntary” workouts or activities do not count towards the twenty hours a week rule. Yet, athletes who skip these voluntary workouts are punished by threats to playing time or looked at as disrespectful by their coach (Jacobs 2). The NCAA also determined that visits with a trainer, film study, weight-lifting, conditioning, and meetings with the team are also not counted towards the twenty hours (Jacobs 2). Athletes were also only accredited three hours for game days where in reality, game days are closer to 24 hours rather than three due to travel, preparation and post-game activities. These athletes are workers, they give whatever time they are asked of by their team or coach to their sport and everything else comes second.

The only way to compensate for this is to allow college athletes to receive endorsements from alternate parties and organizations. If college athletes were allowed to receive endorsements their chances to last longer in college and want to be there would increase tremendously. The problem the NCAA and NBA is facing right now is the “one-and-done” which is when an athlete only stays in college for one season (Barra, 2012). These athletes do not want to be attending college but are being forced to without seeing their reward. There have been multiple cases in the last few years of college athletes secretly receiving endorsements such as Johnny Manziel who was suspended half of a game while in college for signing autographs (Berkes, 2013). It was determined that Manziel did not receive money from signing these autographs but nonetheless was still forced to sit out half of a game. At this point in time Manziel had put his university of Texas A&M on the map and was causing a surge in tickets being sold though he was punished for signing autographs (Berkes, 2013).  This doesn’t appear fair. 

The National College Players Association released a report in 2013 showing that 86% of college athletes live below the poverty line (Hayes 1). Due to extensive practice and workout schedules it is close to impossible for Division I athletes to be able to maintain a job. In Andrew Zimbalist’s article, the average Division IA school earned around $459,000 in sponsorship and signage income in 1995, $96,000 in team and program advertising and sales, and $833,000 in miscellaneous from the NCAA. These numbers are based on all the schools in the country but the larger and more advanced college programs received much more. The amount of money circulating in the college athletic world is much higher now because of the increase in popularity though the athletes are still not allowed to receive money off of themselves whereas these universities are making millions. 

Universities tend to do well by their athletes by giving them huge scholarships that make their education free. This does not make their time at college free though. They do not receive spending money which leads athletes to look for money in alternate places that tend to be against the rules. They are being forced to attend college so they will one day become professionals and make money but until then letting them commercialize themselves would decrease the problems with athletes receiving illegal money. 

College is an important step in becoming a professional athlete and it is important for athletes to attend college so they have a backup in case they have a career ending injury. Professional soccer athletes or tennis stars rarely go through college to get to the pros but if at some point their career has to end they are going to struggle so they should have to attend college for some amount of time but at the same time still be allowed to have signing deals with companies. The importance of college is not what is in question.  The disadvantages Division I athletes face while in college is the problem. 
