As of 2006, the NCAA has made an average of about $1 billion every year on college athletics. College athletics brings in around $12 billion annually, with 10% coming from marketing and TV deals, and the rest coming from merchandise sales and student fees. 96% of the money is used to distribute to schools or spent on championship weekends

(moneynation.com). Jim Harbaugh, head football coach of the Michigan Wolverines, makes an astonishing $9 million dollars a year as a base salary. This does not account for any of the other pay not reported, and also fails to mention any bonuses he receives. The highest paid player on Michigan’s football team makes zero dollars. The athletes on each and every one of these teams makes a whopping zero dollars. The majority of people see this as a problem, but the opinion of whether there should be reform is where the debate is. There are three most popular sides of the debate. The first of which is even though college athletes are given no salary like professional athletes, they are compensated in other ways like scholarships, free clothing and travel, and the experience and lessons they learn by playing their sports at a high amateur level. No reform needs to be taken, and the system within college sports and the NCAA needs to stay the same. Secondly, the NCAA has changed that now college athletes, especially for men’s college basketball and football, are no longer amateur athletes. The way they are marketed, sold, and commercialized by the NCAA and fans have changed the way they are perceived and treated, and should be given salaries like professional players to compensate them for the money that is earned. They are the ones being marketed, and it is only fair that they are given compensation. Lastly, college athletics has changed greatly, and some reform must be taken. However, a salary of spending is not the answer for how these athletes should be treated. They are not professional athletes so they should not be given large million dollar contracts like professional players, but scholarships can be raised to cover all academic fees, and players can be given some sort of stipend to compensate them but also to keep the amateur aspect of the sport alive. However, due to the large commercial growth of college athletics, and labor laws that are present from pervious court cases, the NCAA potentially could be violating some laws. Lawfully college athletes should be compensated because NCAA sports have turned into a commercial business, and the reform that should be taken is that all athletes are given a weekly stipend with a set amount, and stars of their sports could be given larger compensation once they leave school to keep the amateur aspect of college sports alive. This action compensates athletes fairly, but it also feasible unlike the salary payment of athletes. Reform needs to be taken, and to disagree and say that nothing needs to be done is a very bold statement to make. 

These are some viewpoints that must be observed when looking towards reform. In 2015, U.S. Colleges rewarded athletes 3.3 billion dollars in scholarships. Players are given copious amounts of clothing, supplements, and travel, all for free. Seth Davis, from Sports Illustrated, argues that college athletes are already paid. He explains that, “Student-athletes earn free tuition, which over the course of four years can exceed $200,000. They are also provided with housing, textbooks, food and academic tutoring. When they travel to road games, they are given per diems for meals” (si.com). He, like many others who are anti-reform in college athletics, believes that the privileges athletes earn already is equivalent to being paid. They receive much more money than the average student does, even when some students can be argued to receive the same pay because of academic achievements. Besides being already earning scholarships, there is fear paying athletes would undermine academics.  Paul Daugherty, former professor at the University of Cincinnati, argues that many of his students that he was teaching while he was a professor would fall asleep in class because they were working night jobs just to try to afford textbooks, not even mentioning the debt they also have. He argued that college is a privilege and not a right, and to pay athletes would be undermining the academic value of academics. 

The next viewpoint is that college athletics has evolved so greatly in the past decade, especially college football and men’s basketball, that college athletes in these respective sports need to be paid like professional athletes. Meaning they sign contracts instead of scholarship agreements, and have money they can spend however they so choose. Jay Bilas, a former men’s basketball player at the University of Duke and ESPN analysist, is in favor of this style of reform within the NCAA. In an interview with Complex Magazine, “In any facet of college life, only one class of people have any financial restriction on them at all and that’s athletes. So, the idea that it's based on education is a lie. No other student is told what they can and cannot make, and if it affects their education, or scholarship, or anything” (Complex Magazine).  Bilas is saying that no other person is allowed to be told on campus where they can get money from, or if some money must be turned down for a product they produce. Athletes are extremely restricted financially because of NCAA rules that prohibit them from accepting any form of compensation.  He argues that because athletes are the one’s making the money for their schools, they should be able to use the money earned however they choose. They are adults in the eyes of the law, and should be treated as such. He wants them to be paid for the work that they put in. 

The next viewpoint is the most feasible, logical, and sound of all the viewpoints. This side argues that there is obvious reform that is needed within the NCAA and college athletics. These student athletes are no longer regular students, and can no longer be treated as such. The universities, students, teachers, fans, and NCAA all treat them differently than normal students. Therefore, their cases must be looked at differently. College athletes deserve to be compensated for the way they are marketed and sold, but to appease those who wish to keep the amateur aspect alive and not have an unfair advantage to schools with more money, should be given a stipend rather than a salary. Huge stars like the Cam Newtons and Johnny Manziels can receive a larger compensation once they graduate and are no longer an athlete at their universities through the NCAA. This stance is the stance that is the most achievable as it is not too extreme for one side to completely oppose. 

The first viewpoint that is presented is the viewpoint of athletes are already paid with numerous scholarships, travel, and other amenities that other students cannot receive. It is argued that these free privileges are enough to cover the cost that college athletes are desiring. However, the truth is these scholarships do not cover all academic costs that are necessary to becoming a successful student. In Forward Progress- An Analysis of Whether Student-Athletes Should be Paid, the author Christopher Parent explains why the scholarships need to be raised to pay for personal expenses. He explains that athletic scholarships are about 3000 dollars short of paying for school expenses, and college athletes do not have time to work during their seasons. He provides an NCAA study that states that 58 percent of college athletes live below the poverty line. Schools are not allowed to give athletes extra money for personal expenses, as it is in violation of NCAA rules. If the NCAA argues that academics are the main reason as to why athletes should be going to college, they need to give them a stipend to cover the cost of textbooks, and other school supplies necessary to be the most successful student they can be. The sports season takes up so much time with all the free traveling that takes place, that many of these athletes do not have time to work a job. Their seasons are hindering them from having the money to be able to buy textbooks, and it is the NCAA’s fault. Many are poor young adults who used athletics to get themselves out of poor economic situations, and do not have money to spend on the extra costs of academics. A stipend that is directly put to use for academics is a way to solve this issue, and would reinforce the statement that academics is the most important reason for why athletes are going to college. 

The next major issue as to why college athletes need to be paid is that college athletics have shifted to a billion-dollar business, and these athlete’s performance is sold and profited off of. Unpaid Professionals by Andrew Zimbalist discusses how universities have shifted from colleges with sports teams, to athletic programs with schools affiliated with them. College athletics is no longer academic institutions with sports teams, people now know only about certain schools because of their sports teams.  He gives a timeline from the 1950s to the 1990s of why college sports have become part of commercialism, explaining how TV deals changed the popularity of the sport. He uses his sons as an example to prove that this shift has happened. Zimbalist discusses how his sons, “announced they wanted to go to the University of Michigan”, but they knew, “nothing of Michigan’s fine academic reputation” (Zimbalist X). They only wanted to go because, “Michigan had appeared in the NCAA basketball finals” (Zimbalist X). His sons did not care about the academics at Michigan, but had seen them on television. They saw the commercials for the team, the players wearing the jerseys, and watched them on television. Like most children, they probably asked for a Michigan Jersey with their favorite player’s name on the back. That is a key fact. Merchandise is sold with player’s names on the back, but the players themselves receive no compensation. They are filmed for commercials, forced to speak in interviews, and are all over sports channels. Yet they receive no money for their product. They are athletes and their name and performance is their product. 

A famous court case occurred in 2014 called the O’Bannon Case, in which Edward O’Bannon took the NCAA to court for potential violations in anti-trust laws. O’Bannon was a former NCAA Division I’s Men’s Basketball Player at the University of California, Los Angeles, who started on the 1995 Championship team. He filed a lawsuit in 2009 against the NCAA stating that they violated antitrust laws by selling video games with players in the game with likeness to the actual players without his permission. The game featured a UCLA player who played the same position as O’Bannon, who matched his height, hair, weight, jersey number, and had the same left-handed shot as O’Bannon. In early 2011, Oscar Robertson joined the case, along with David Robinson as another famous name involved with the suit. On August 8, 2014, it was ruled that the NCAA had violated anti-trust laws by failing to compensation these athletes by using their likeness in video game characters without their permission. The judge ordered that schools be able to offer scholarships that cover the full cost of attendance, and ones that covered cost of living expenses, which was not previously offered. The judge “also ruled that colleges be permitted to place as much as $5,000 into a trust for each athlete per year of eligibility”. Electronic Arts, settled for a $40 million-dollar settlement, and no longer made NCAA Football games because of this case. However, no real reform was made within the NCAA. They are in violation of trust laws, but the NCAA refuses to make change. The game development has been stopped, but that does not solve the larger issue of the NCAA taking advantage of these young athletes. More large scale reform needs to be taken within the organization to bring about the necessary change. Any employee whose product was being sold without their permission would not settle for little pay, let alone no pay. College athletes still are not able to be compensated for being sold by the NCAA, and many still struggle to pay for things like food. In 2014, Shabazz Napier, starting point guard of the 2014 National Champions University of Connecticut Men’s Basketball Team, told reporters, “I don't feel student-athletes should get hundreds of thousands of dollars, but like I said, there are hungry nights that I go to bed and I'm starving” (www.cnn.com). This is an obvious problem within the NCAA. They are exploiting 18-22 year old young adults for millions of dollars, yet they refuse to give them a small weekly stipend so that these athletes, who burn massive amounts of calories to represent their school, can sleep without their stomach growling. 

The second viewpoint of reform mentioned earlier wants to see college athletes be given large salaries like professional players, and for the athletes to be able to use their money for however they choose. There are a few flaws for this type of reform, and it would cause obvious unfairness between the schools within competition. Schools with the most money would have an unfairness when it comes to bidding for recruits. Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC football programs have much more money to spend on recruits, compared to schools like Western Kentucky, Eastern Carolina, and other smaller Division I Universities. Schools with the most money would be the most successful, and this would eliminate some of the competitiveness of college athletics that fans love. Boosters would begin to pour more and more money into their school’s athletics program to use to pay recruits. How would the NCAA keep fairness within the sport? Could only schools pay the players? Or could they become sponsored like professional players with many endorsements? Could these endorsements sway athletes to only go to certain schools? These are some important questions that would need to answered. If large salaries were implemented, it would put an end to fairness and fair competition outside of the few schools who can afford to pay their athletes like the NFL and NBA do. 

The next issue with this approach to reform is that if colleges are forced to pay large amounts to these athletes, there will be cuts elsewhere within the schools. The first thing that might be cut are other sports teams. Sports like wrestling, volleyball, and other sports that bring in less money to university will be cut because the school will have no money to fund them after giving their new football or basketball recruit a multi-million contract. The evidence for this is already in high schools, as any high school athlete of a less popular sport can testify that football and basketball teams were the ones to get the best uniforms, best supplements, and most recognition. The next thing to be cut within the school is some of the educational programs. Now, because some of the other college athletes want to be treated like professionals, other student’s educational experience would suffer. Some schools might be forced to cut whole programs all together. This is an unacceptable approach, as other student’s success and learning experience would be affected. These are some main points and reasons as to why the professional athlete approach would not work, and why a set stipend from all schools to their athletes for payment is the solution. 

To conclude, the most feasible, logical, and fair method of reform would be to raise scholarships to cover all academic costs, including textbooks and other materials that would aid in academic success for athletes, and to give them a set stipend to aid in other costs of living expenses. College athletics has become so commercial nowadays as visible by Zimbalist’s children’s fascination with the University of Michigan and the Ed O’Bannon Court Case that it would be unfair to not give them some type of money. Raise the scholarships to cover all academic costs to help promote the importance of academics, and also give them a set stipend for extra payment for how much money the schools are making off of these athletes. This set stipend would eliminate the unfair advantage million dollar salaries would give to larger programs, and it would also keep the other students education experience safe and secure. Reform must take place within the NCAA so that the athletes are no longer taken advantage of, but it must be done in this way so it does not blur the line between professional or student athlete, and so that the other students of the University also have enjoyable college experiences.
