Could you imagine a company where most employees were severely underpaid or not paid at all? That company, does in fact, exist and has been exploiting its employees since 1910.  The worst part is that over 100 million viewers tune in to watch these employees each year.  That company is the National Collegiate Athletics Association, or NCAA, and collegiate football players have been used for their talents ever since the creation of the NCAA.  However, over the past decade the rules set up by the NCAA regulating benefits have sparked heated debates, with many people believing that student athletes should be paid.  I personally believe that the NCAA is wrong and that there needs to be a change made.  The NCAA should pay Division I college football players because they generate money for their respective universities.  Also, the student athletes’ act as employees; working 40 hour work weeks.  Another reason why they should be paid is because the scholarships that they receive do not cover how much the athletes are worth.  

Millions of fans watch tune in to watch the sport every week, including myself, I have been a fan of college football ever since I was 6 years old and watch it religiously every Saturday in the fall.  Therefore, from watching countless college football games I am very familiar with the NCAA.  And also familiar with the sporting events that are governed by the association.  The National Collegiate Athletics Association, or NCAA, was founded in 1910 as a non-profit organization.  It was originally named the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, or IAAUS. The NCAA was formed to make a set of uniform rules that college football had to be played under.  However, as time went on the NCAA evolved into a larger company, governing more than 1,000 colleges in the United States and Canada.  The NCAA now regulates over 450,000 athletes.  The universities are broken up into three divisions: I, II, III.  These divisions are determined on the number of athletes at the school as well as number of men’s and women’s sports.  As the NCAA grew over time, so did their scope of practice, now determining most aspects of sports and their athletes lives as well as the rules of the game.  They control what student athletes can and cannot do.  Also, regulating how schools are allowed to recruit perspective students and what benefits the student athletes are allowed to receive.  As of right now the NCAA is firm on their original rule that their student athletes are to remain amateurs while in college.  The student athletes cannot be paid beyond their scholarships, have agents or form a union. 

Division I college football is the most lucrative sport that the NCAA regulates, with 353 football teams at universities all over the United States.  These three hundred and fifty-three college football teams account for over 27,000 student athletes, who all fall under the supervision of the NCAA.  These Division I football teams generate millions of dollars for their respective universities, with larger programs making over $75 million dollars a year off of their football team alone.  However, the student athletes that worked countless hour in the weight room, film room and practice facility do not make a cent off of their hard work.  That is unfair and is an exploitation of these “employees” train hours on end and put their health on the line to make their football program millions of dollars and then receive only a scholarship.  In a study performed in 2014, it showed that college athlete’s scholarships averaged out to $23,000 a player.  However, that study also showed that the average Division I college football player was worth over $120,000 a year to their university (CNN, 1:31).  Does that seem fair to these athletes? I’ll let you decide that.  But I believe that if these student athletes work for 43.3 hours a week (Jacobs 1) then they should be technically labelled as employees of the university and receive payment for their work.  It is unfair that college football players generate millions of dollars for their colleges and then are given way less than that to perform at high levels and risk their health.

Also, each student-athlete needs to be academically cleared in order to participate, which means they must maintain a 2.3 GPA at their respective universities.  On average a male student athlete has a GPA of 2.9, for reference a male non-athlete averages a 3.02 GPA (Rampell 1).  Not only do these student athletes have to maintain a certain GPA and minimum course load, but they also have to retain their amateur status.  Which means that they are not allowed to accept any benefits that the NCAA has listed as improper, meaning that student-athletes are not allowed to use their fame in order to receive gifts such as tattoos, cars, food, etc.  This has been a huge problem in Division I athletics, with seemingly multiple scandals popping up every year.  In a 2016 article by Reed Karaim he says, ‘ College athletics programs also continue to be troubled by scandals involving academic fraud and player behavior, along with charges that unpaid players are exploited financially in what has become a multibillion-dollar business.’ (Karaim 1) That quote by Karaim shows how college athletics programs are facing more scandals nowadays than they previously had before.  Whether it is due to academics, criminal charges or improper benefits, college football programs are dealing with these problems frequently.  

With one change in policy the NCAA can fix at least one of these problems.  If the NCAA were to allow student athletes to receive payment, essentially making them professional athletes, then the improper benefit scandals would disappear.  There would be no news about athletes signing autographs for money or selling jerseys in exchange for tattoos, or even receiving cars because of their status.  These athletes would forfeit their amateur status by accepting these salaries from the university.  However, it would help out both the players and the universities public image, reducing the negative publicity that surrounds a school when there is a scandal happening.  In a poll that was conducted in 2001, college students believed that student athletes should be paid for the amount of time and effort that they have put into their respective sport. (Schneider 2).  And nowadays, it is believed that even more students believe that their athlete counterparts deserve payment.  Therefore, paying these athletes to play football at a Division I level is something that need to happen, the universities and players would benefit from it, without much backlash from their communities.  

However, not everyone is on board for paying these student athletes and retracting their amateur status.  There are people who believe that paying these athletes is not right, that these students are given enough benefits already.  However, those benefits come in the form of a college education, apparel from their sport, meals and their scholarships (Scott 1).  These student athletes are fortunate enough to receive a college education that non-athletes pay tens of thousands of dollars to obtain.  With the scholarships that most athletes receive from the institution, these football players go to school practically free.  That is why the opposition believes that these student-athletes are already being paid enough to attend the school and play on their sports teams.  Also, the opposition believe that paying the athletes would take away from the integrity of these tremendous institutions.  They believe that because when it comes to recruiting athletes, they believe that student-athletes will choose their college based on how much a university is willing to pay them.  For example, if The University of South Carolina was to offer a quarterback more money than any other school, the recruit would chooses the Gamecocks because of the salary that he was offered.  Therefore, taking away all of the integrity that universities have spent decades building up along with their reputation.  

Regardless of what these naysayers believe, I still think that student athletes are employees of the school that are not being paid nearly as much as they are worth to their respective universities.  Although there is no true system or idea in place to pay these athletes, I believe that NCAA would address all of the cons to paying these football players salaries.  The opposition makes a great point when they say that some colleges would be more likely than others to land top recruits because of the budget of their football programs.  But, if the NCAA does decide that college football players should be paid, then they would have to come up with a system that determines how much each football player receives.  Most people argue that if the NCAA is to pay athletes that they would have to pay them equal amounts and pay every student athletes for their hard work. 

 But, Michael Wilbon of ESPN, a globally known sports network, has a different idea to this dilemma.  In his article he explains, ‘Let me declare up front that I wouldn’t be the slightest bit interested in distributing the funds equitably or even paying every college athlete.  I’m interested in seeing the people who produce the revenue share a teeny, tiny slice of it.  That’s right football and men’s basketball players get paid… you know what that’s called? Capitalism.  Not everything is equal, not everything is fair.  The most distinguished professor at the University of Alabama won’t make $5.9 million in his entire tenure in Tuscaloosa (Alabama); Nick Saban will make that in a year.  So I don’t want to hear that it is “unfair” to pay the quarterback of Alabama more than all of the sociology students in the undergraduate college.’ (Wilbon 1).  That passage from Wilbon shows what an expert in the collegiate athletics field believes when it comes to the possible payment of student-athletes.  Wilbon also started out believing that these athletes should not be paid, but had a change of heart and therefore brings both sides of the argument to the table.  I respect his opinion due to the knowledge that he has into the sports world due to him working at ESPN and I believe that his outtake on this debate is a good one.  Not all student athletes generate the same amount of money for their university, in some cases individual athletes create no revenue for the college.  Therefore, why should the NCAA make every student-athlete receive the same amount of money when they did not generate money for the school?  I agree with Wilbon in the fact that collegiate sports is a business and businesses are not fair, not everyone makes the same amount of money and that is fine, because we live in a capitalist country.  Although this does not help with the debate on how the athletes will be paid, how much payment they will receive or who will give the payments;  It does start the conversation as to who should be getting money for the sport that they play and who does not create any revenue for their university.

Another way that people have cited the exploitation of these collegiate athletes is through their names, numbers and likenesses being used on items for sale.  For example, from the years 1998 through 2014 the company EA Sports video games had been making a game called “NCAA Football” with real teams, real numbers and real likenesses of players.  However, these games were put to a stop in 2014 because hundreds of former college football players took EA Sports to court for using their own likeness and not being able to receive payment for it (Tracy, Strauss 1).  That court case decided that EA Sports was not allowed to create those game as it was an exploitation of the college football players.  However, if these student athletes did not have to maintain amateur status in order to compete in collegiate sports then video games would be allowed as long as the players in it received compensation.  More examples of the exploitation of these athletes comes through jersey sales.  Officially licensed college jerseys are not allowed to use the names of players on the back or it would be illegal.  But, they can still use the player’s number and sell it online or in their bookstore without any reciprocations, which uses the player’s fame in order to sell jerseys but does not allow the athlete to reap the benefits.  In 1993 at the University of Michigan, their top basketball player, Chris Webber, left to play professional because of the college exploiting him.  ‘Webber … claimed that he was frustrated because he couldn’t afford to buy a Big Mac at McDonald’s while local vendors sold his jersey for $50.’ (Whitlock 1). Although Webber was not a college football players go through the same ordeal.  Their football jerseys are sold every day at the school bookstore for $80 and these athletes do not see a single dollar from those proceeds.  This is also problematic for those college football athletes who do not come from wealthy families and cannot afford many luxuries.  Many college football athletes come from the projects and their families would not be able to afford their college without scholarship, meaning that paying these athletes would help them out tremendously.  It wasn’t until 2014 that Division I athletes got unlimited meals paid for by their university.  Before then many athletes complained of going hungry because of there not being enough food to fuel up on after their workouts or practices.  That rule change was a big step away from what the NCAA previously believed, however, paying their football players would help tremendously more.  Players that get paid a salary will be able to afford everyday necessities that they previously could not buy, meaning they will not go hungry or go without supplies for their apartment or school.  College football athletes re crucial in bringing in money for companies; whether through apparel sales, video games or through tickets.  However, these student athletes are being exploited for their talents because of the multibillion dollar industry, they do not make any money.

Overall, college football players are not treated fairly; these student athletes deserved to be paid by either the NCAA or their athletic department.  I believe college football players should be paid because they are the sport that generates the most revenue for a universities athletic department.  Some college football teams make over $75 million dollars a year, yet give about $28,000 to students in the form of a free education (CNN 1:31).  Although other college athletic teams put in just as much hard work and dedication, college football players deserve it the most because they are worth the most.  This is a capitalist country so not everyone needs to be paid equally, the NCAA is a business and businesses aren’t always fair, that is why not every student-athlete deserves payment.  Also, these football players should be paid because it will help the image of the NCAA as well as the university and players.  There will not be as many scandals looming over colleges due to improper benefits and the amount of negative publicity will drastically decrease.  Although there is no set idea as to how to begin paying these athletes and I do not have an idea that could be implemented perfectly, I believe that the NCAA should start research into how to give football players salaries.  This process will not be a short one, there will have to be years of research done on how to implement this system and how much to pay players as well as where the money will be coming from.  However, I believe that this can work, that paying Division I college football players can be done effectively without ruining the game.  There will be an opposition to this matter, saying that the education is enough payment or that paying players will result in the loss of integrity for institutions.  But, I believe that the NCAA will find a way to take those concerns into account while also giving payment to the student-athletes that deserve it.  Division I college football athletes deserve to be paying for their play because they are essentially employees of the university, generate millions in revenue for their colleges and are being exploited, which is not fair or justified.
