The NCAA is a college athletics organization that is very popular, especially NCAA football and NCAA basketball. The acronym stands for the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and it is comprised of amateur athletes across 3 divisions of play (Division 1 is the best, then Division 2, then Division 3).The NCAA brings in almost $1 billion in revenue every year, and almost everyone involved in major NCAA programs (especially coaches and athletic directors) make a good living from their participation in the NCAA. However, athletes, who are without doubt the most important part of the NCAA, receive zero money for their work. Not only are they not paid, but because of the NCAA’s rules, they are also not allowed to make any money off of, or receive benefits for their status as student athletes (and celebrities for some student athletes). This means that they cannot sell autographs, memorabilia, or receive free gifts, and if they did, they would be punished by the NCAA. Also, they do not make any money off of their likeness, which includes jerseys that have their number and or name on it, advertisements with them on it, and their likeness in video games (which are no longer made). This happens even though jerseys are sold by order of how popular the player who wears a certain jersey number is. For example, when Jameis Winston, a former Florida State quarterback was in college, he was very well known and won the Heisman Trophy, which is given to the best college football player. After this, if you went to Nike’s (or any other athletic store’s) website, the top jersey for Florida State was number 5, which is the number Winston wore. These rules are controversial, as a growing amount of people think that student athletes should receive a salary for playing their sport, and numerous others believe that they should be able to receive benefits or sell their own memorabilia to make money. People who believe athletes deserve more compensation see all the money that athletes bring in for their schools and the NCAA and think that they should be able to get some of that money, as they are the ones who have to go out on the field and risk injury for their school. NCAA athletes should be allowed to sell their memorabilia and make money off of their likeness, because they do not have guaranteed scholarships, they bring in millions of dollars for their schools and the NCAA, and their coaches make millions of dollars.

Many NCAA athletes receive scholarships, with most of the best athletes getting full scholarships, so they don’t have to pay for their education. However, schools can choose to not renew them every year, and this can happen if the athlete suffers a major injury. Injuries happen extremely often in sports, and especially in football, career ending injuries occur frequently. If a player suffers an injury that will keep them out of competition for a long time, they can revoke the scholarship without giving the athlete anything in compensation for their contributions to the team. This leaves the player with nothing in terms of financial support for the rest of their college life, which could lead to them dropping out if they come from a poor family that cannot afford college tuition. In an article by Matthew Bejar and Ted Burtyn, a study is done that looks at how the class of a player’s family impacts their injury. The study shows that players from lower class families suffer more traumatic stress after an injury than middle or upper class athletes. This is due to the player feeling like they need to make money, and them not being able to while in the NCAA. While the NCAA does offer insurance to players in case they are seriously injured, the requirements for the insurance make it hard for many athletes to qualify. The insurance is only for players who are “catastrophically injured”, which excludes many injured athletes. As stated by David Cassilo of The Daily Caller, “‘If you don’t lose a limb, or motion in one of your limb, you wouldn’t be considered catastrophically injured,’ said Ramogi Huma, head of the National Collegiate Players Association. ‘Then it’s completely up to the school, or yourself’” (Cassilo). Many career threatening injuries are knee injuries, such as torn ACLs, which is an injury that has ended many careers. However, under the NCAA insurance policy, a player would not qualify for the insurance for this type of injury, because this of course is not a lost limb or losing movement in a limb, even though it seriously affects the athlete’s ability to play their sport. 

In addition to injuries leading to lost scholarships, schools can take athletic scholarships away from their athletes if the player is not performing up to the expectations of the team. The school can choose not to renew the scholarship after any year throughout the player’s career, regardless of how the player is doing academically. This is unfair to the player, because they made a commitment to the school (over many other schools in most cases), and yet the school can choose to not renew their scholarship and leave the athlete with few options. Players are allowed to transfer to other schools whenever they want to, but if they are a division 1 athlete, they have to sit out a full year of play before being on their new school’s team, unless they transfer to a junior college or a lower division school, which could hurt their future because non-division 1 programs do not get much exposure from professional teams. When the scholarship is not renewed, the athlete could be forced to drop out of school if tuition is too high, and if no other schools will give the athlete a full scholarship. This has an even bigger impact on international student athletes. Student athletes from other countries have a hard time adjusting to college life and life in America, and they still have to maintain an acceptable GPA and be part of their team. As Evelyn Jara points out in her article, most international student athletes are coming from club teams, which means that they did not go to high school. This makes it difficult for these athletes to attain college eligibility, because there are grade requirements you must meet to be in the NCAA. Also, this makes the transition of becoming a college athlete more difficult, because these students are not used to having classes every day. For many of these athletes, it has been multiple years since they took classes. With all of this going on, the possibility of losing a scholarship and not being able to pay for their education is unnecessary. This is one possible way that NCAA athletes can end up in a tough situation that could be made easier if they were paid or at least were able to make money off of their status as a student athlete.

While there are people who believe NCAA athletes deserve to be paid for their work, or at least have more freedom in terms of making money off of their status as semi-celebrities, there is also a large number of people who think that because they are amateurs, they cannot be paid. As Audrey Sheetz points out, athletes being amateurs means that they are not paid, and that they cannot receive any types of payments as a result of them being athletes. She goes on to say that amateurism is fading out of sports, with all of the semiprofessional leagues there are. The NCAA is one of the last major amateur organizations, and she believes it should stay at that. Amateur sports are loved by people because unlike other leagues, it is about the love of the game, and not money. While these people appreciate amateurism, they would realize that athletes making money off of their own memorabilia or off of sales of their jerseys does not make it a professional sport, and it would only benefit everyone. It would of course help the athletes and their families, as they would have more money, and would not have to rely so much on scholarships. It would also help schools, because they would not need to give so many players full scholarships, as the big name players would be able to make money on their own due to their fame. Fans would like it as well, because players would stay in school longer, as the main reason most athletes leave college early is to make money in their professional league. However, if they were making money in college, they would be able to stay and still make some money. Finally, it would help society as a whole, because more athletes would stay in school and get their degree. This would lead to more people being college educated, and a more intelligent country. 

In addition to being amateurs, another reason people think NCAA athletes should not be paid is that they receive scholarships that make college cheaper for them or even free for the athletes. This is viewed as the athletes’ compensation for their work and their contributions for their team. The scholarships that athletes receive can end up having a value of around $240,000, depending on the cost of the college. When looking at this amount of money they receive in scholarship money, it is hard to argue the fact that it is a fair compensation for many student athletes. Many people also see the value in receiving a free education, which many NCAA athletes receive. Getting a free college education is a huge gift to the athletes, and it is something that if they take full advantage of, can take them further in life than their athletics will. However, what these people do not realize is that many student athletes, basketball players in particular, are forced to leave college early if they are good enough to make it into their professional league, because they need to support their family financially. While the free education helps these players, they cannot take full advantage of it, because of their family’s financial situation. If the players were given some type of compensation for their play, whether a salary or the right to make money off of their status, they could stay in college and earn a degree, instead of leaving school early to make money.

In addition to their scholarships not being guaranteed throughout their years at college, student athletes deserve more compensation because of the massive amount of money they bring in. This money goes to the NCAA, the schools in the NCAA, and the conferences that the schools are in. According to an article in USA Today, the NCAA collected $989,000,000 in total revenue in 2014, and had a surplus of $80.5 million. Of the $989 million the NCAA collected, it gave its schools $547.1 million. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is one of the biggest tournaments in America, and millions of people watch it. This tournament’s impact on the NCAA’s revenue is shown in the article, “The NCAA gets most of its annual revenue from its long-term multimedia and marketing rights agreements with CBS and Turner Broadcasting that are primarily tied to the Division I men's basketball tournament -- $700 million in fiscal 2014 and growing at rate of about 3% per year” (Berkowitz). The NCAA men’s basketball tournament features 64 NCAA teams, and is one of the most anticipated events in the sports year. The television deal for the tournament plays a huge role in the $700 million the NCAA makes from the deal with CBS and Turner broadcasting. Coaches of top basketball programs can be paid nearly $5 million every year, while their players get nothing. The coaches have a big impact on the game, but without the players there is no game. The players deserve to get some type of payment for the money that they bring the NCAA through television deals, which are centered around people watching the athletes play. In a debate with Christine Brennan on CNN, Kareem Abdul Jabbar made a similar point to this. He brought up how much money athletes make for the NCAA and its schools, and how if there were no athletes, none of that money would be made. While coaches make the quality of the game better, athletes make the game happen, which is why they are more valuable, and deserve more money. However, the NCAA still does not pay their athletes, and even says they cannot afford to. 

One alternative to allowing athletes to sell their memorabilia is for the NCAA to pay its student athletes. One reason the NCAA gave for why they do not pay their student athletes is that they could not afford to pay them. They backed this up by pointing out that most schools end up barely breaking even in their athletics budget. However, as Maxwell Strachan points out, the NCAA has plenty of money to pay student athletes, even though schools do not make much profit from their athletics. The reason why schools do not end up with big profits is that they overpay other athletic personnel. This includes head coaches, assistant coaches, and athletic directors. When asked about how schools don’t have much left over money in their budget, an expert responded, “‘That’s a silly argument,’ Berri said. ‘They’re nonprofits, and their incentive is to spend every cent that comes in’” (Strachan). The way the NCAA works, schools are motivated to spend all the money they can. Schools spend remaining money on their budget to unnecessary services or by giving bonuses to staff members because of this. This leads to schools ending up with fewer profits than they potentially could. If schools spent less money on personnel and equipment that is not necessary, they could reward their players with salaries, which they deserve. Athletes deserve to the extra money that is given as bonuses more than coaches do, and even if they are not given big salaries, that is better than what they are getting now, which is nothing. This alternative is one that makes sense, but is not as effective as the solution of players being able to sell memorabilia and make money off of their likeness. 

NCAA athletes are among the most popular athletes in America, and many top college football and basketball players are more famous than some professional players. With the popularity of college sports increasing, college athletes are becoming even more well known. Also, the more popular NCAA sports gets, the bigger the conversation about college athletes being paid gets. College athletes who are well known will occasionally share their thoughts about the issue, and almost always say that they deserve to be paid, which is to be expected. However, people in the media will make it into a big issue, and make the conversation even bigger. It seems that most people agree with the athletes, and it is only a matter of time before the NCAA will finally have to give in and give the athletes some type of payment. Athletes are the most important part of the major corporation that is the NCAA, and they deserve to be paid like it.
