The college sports industry is currently generating $11.2 billion dollars annually, making it one of the biggest industries in the United States. This industry is comprised of student athletes that are putting in over forty hours a week in major division I sports like football and basketball. However, these student athletes are being paid through academic scholarships, which are valued at $25,000. Could a percentage of the revenue that Universities make off student-athletes be used to reward those athletes since they are responsible for creating the revenue stream? For anyone who attends a school in the Southeastern Conference, those people get to see athletes who play at the most competitive level, and are seeking to play beyond college. Although, a very small percentage of division I college athletes are able to make it to the professional level. That should never be the case for a college student, because the reason they are at school is to get a degree and learn. When someone does work for an organization, and helps bring in revenue they should be rewarded. Student-athletes deserve to be rewarded financially for their contributions in another form of payment besides a scholarship. The current relationship between colleges and the NCAA puts the student athletes in a very vulnerable position since they can lose their scholarship at any time. The best possible solution to pay college athletes would be to install a minimum salary that all major division I athletes would receive, schools would also initialize an incentive program that could allow for athletes to be rewarded based off of exemplary performance. By instituting a minimum salary it will allow for the student athletes to be rewarded, even if it is a small amount, for the immense commitment of time they put into their respective sports.  

After examining an article by Forbes that focused on the revenue generated by major football programs “The University of Alabama made almost 100 million dollars from football in 2015. Alabama’s football program made a profit of nearly $46,491,330 during the Tides 2015 championship season” (Forbes). This was the best college football team in the country at the time, with the most players who could potentially go to the NFL. How is there nearly 50 million dollars made solely off football but a percentage can’t be given to the players who are making that program earn all that money? Even though a lot of the money made goes back into the recruitment of future prospects, paying of salaries, and game expenses there is a percentage that also goes to advancing already advanced stadiums and practice fields. Moreover, the head coach of Alabama, Nick Saban, is being paid $6.9 million dollars to coach student athletes who are only being given $25,000 scholarships. The subtraction of the percentage of money would be unnoticeable when being compared to the overall profit the school makes off sports.  Based off of the extensive revenue generated by major athletic programs like the University of Alabama, the players who are responsible for generating it should be rewarded a minimum salary on top of their academic scholarship. 

People would say that free tuition is all student-athletes should receive, because having that burden off your shoulders is an award on its own. “Pay college-athletes? They already get paid up to 125,000 dollars per year.” (Forbes) Although schools give free tuition, some athletes are still responsible for having to pay for outside training programs and workout routines that their schools do not cover. Student athletes need to perform at a high level since they are under constant scrutiny by their schools to perform at a high level, which leads to outside workout routines being viewed as a must-have for these athletes. All that training that they have to put in just in order to have a chance to play on the field is work that is expected. If an athletic department wants people to be attracted to their program the benefits have to be convincing enough so that they have reason to stay. Colleges must further compensate students athletes in the form of a salary, to allow them to perform at a high level, in addition to the $25,000 scholarships they receive.

One of the most crucial aspects in the college industry is how a player’s performance can benefit the school that he plays for. After analyzing the article “A Solution for the Pay of College Athletes” by David Zirin, a well-known economist. Zirin goes on to write “The year that Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s outstanding college football player, Boston College’s undergraduate admissions increased by 25 points and its average SAT score of admitted freshmen skyrocketed by 110 points” (Zirin 15). The acknowledgement of certain awards will draw attention to a school, and cause them to bring in more revenue, which is from athletics. Flutie’s performance on the football field helped generate his school a large amount of recognition on top of the revenue that was generated from a new class of students intrigued by Flutie’s performance. The athletes are the ones wining the medals or trophies or awards and are bringing larger freshman classes and more applications. These two things help back the argument as to how important college sports are, and how important college athletes are. They can change the entire atmosphere of a university if they win an award of great praise or a national championship. Awards like this can drive players and students to an area, which is less desirable. For example Gonzaga University, which is located in the middle of Spokane, Washington, was generally unheard of nationally. This year, however, they are going to the NCAA national championship division I basketball finals, which will generate massive amounts of revenue and publicity. Zirin goes on to write “The current value to what a player is worth to their school is not just measured in what their scholarship is valued at” (Zirin 24). College student athletes are currently paid in the form of scholarships but they also can bring in additional revenue to their school based off of their performance. For example, if an athlete is responsible for leading his team to the NCAA National Championship in basketball, like Gonzaga, it can result in nationwide publicity in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue; the athletes are paid none of this revenue. If the athletes don’t perform up to par then the revenue will go down because people will be less interested in the program and will look to more familiar schools.

After looking at the article “Point/Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes” by Andrew Johnson I was given an in depth look into how the NCAA has unfair power of the college athletes who play for schools. Currently, the NCAA restricts student athletes from being able to work jobs during their school year since they are supposed to be focusing on their sports. This restriction basically does not allow for the athletes to have any incoming source of revenue. Moreover, the NCAA forces student athletes to stay at the college level for a set amount of years where they can drastically hurt their chances of making it into the next professional level due to injury. In addition, some players goes as far as to commit crimes to get money to pay for things that the average college student might need since the NCAA is restricting them from any source of money. These players have been trapped by the rules of the NFL. The rules of the NFL state that to be eligible for the draft you must have three years of eligibility. Players who have shown they can dominate in their first two years are then forced to play an extra year in order to become eligible. “Often, in a player’s final year of eligibility they get hurt, which leads to the athlete being at risk to advance to the professional level” (Johnson 11). Currently, Leonard Fournette is one of the most dominant running backs in college football. Leonard Fournette proved in his sophomore season he was ready for NFL defenses but couldn’t make the jump because of the restrictions that the NCAA has on forcing players to remain in the collegiate level for a specific amount of years. In his junior year he was dominating defenses still averaging close to 200 yards a game and then he got hurt. This injury put other running backs into the spotlight that will most likely be drafted before him because Leonard wasn’t playing like himself. Had the NCAA not restricted Leonard from advancing to the NFL he would have been able to generate far more money than before he was injured. By following Zirin’s suggestion of inputting a salary for college athletes it would allow for players like Fournette to still have a form of income to help paying for injury treatment. This payment should be a small percentage of the total revenue that the school makes and should be distributed to every student athlete. He helped bring in so much revenue by making LSU a powerhouse and wasn’t rewarded. When working for a big organization and being a big part of why that organization is successful should lead to that person being compensated for their hard work and dedication. 

Some would argue that students aren’t employees, however, if you were to monitor a student’s schedule I think you would be persuaded otherwise. If they’re students why does their “job” come first to the point where it would force kids to miss class? I analyzed the article “Why College Athletes Should be Paid” by Zachary Roth which also took a look at the relationship that student athletes have academically. He goes on to write “The road to the NCAA men’s basketball championship may require students-athletes to miss up to a quarter of all class days during the spring semester.”  (Roth 33). Schools insist that a student athlete’s first priority is to their schools, yet as Roth points out they are putting in far more time into their sports. That’s an argument for why sports aren’t just sports at college although; it is a job. A job that comes with perks and a job that will leave you exhausted during the day, because you have done a full day’s work and the work is only getting started. These student athletes can be exhausted before they even open a book. This is not what we need in our system because somewhere in that tight schedule a student who is suffering financially has to fit in a job. Roth goes on to point out that “student athletes are putting in over 40 hours a week into their sports” (Roth 52). The average full time job is considered to be around 40 hours, this allows for college athletes to be putting in the effort of a full time job, yet their only being rewarded in a $25,000 scholarship.  Although their getting paid essentially with free tuition its still possible that the players are struggling financially because they don’t have time to get a job and have to rely on their own back bone to make it through things. With the amount that these players are struggling it would only make sense that they get a bit of the revenue that the program makes. Even if it is the equivalent to a minimum wage they will still be benefitting from it and will be able to have some spending money. 

After reviewing the article ““A Solution for the Pay for Play Dilemma of College Athletes” by Roger Groves, I was given insight into how the NCAA unfairly treats these students. The NCAA is responsible for governing student athletics but they currently place many unfair restrictions on the lives of students. Groves points out that the NCAA currently identifies as a nonprofit organization, which basically means that any profit they generate should be reinvested into the organization. However, the NCAA currently pays their employees ridiculous salaries, which shows how they are taking advantage of student athletes. Groves states “The head of the NCAA has a salary of close to $1.9 million dollars, yet they identify as a nonprofit” (Groves 15). By taking advantage of the free labor that the student athletes provide the NCAA is able to reward themselves in whatever way they seem fit. Groves also writes about the daily routine of football players at major Division I schools like the University of Tennessee “Arian Foster admitted to taking money in college while at the University of Tennessee. I really didn’t have any money. I had to either pay the rent or buy some food. I remember the feeling of like, ‘Man, be careful. But there’s nothing wrong with it. And you’re not going to convince me that there is something wrong with it” (Groves 41). School’s understand that not everyone that get a full scholarship is set for the school year and isn’t going to struggle financially. Players who come from tough areas where there’s a high percentage of poverty are bound to have a tough time financially with all the expenses that the average college student has to deal with during college. Moreover, the NCAA restricts these players from being able to work a job, which allows for them to gain a source of income to combat the high expenses a student athlete has to endure. The average student will spend money on a range of different expenses, yet student athletes also have to deal with things like injuries and they are still unable to work a job to pay for this. The price of all of these things adds up and can damage student’s greatly if they’re not financially stable. The schools have understood that in order to persuade certain students to favor their school, they have to do some shady business in giving student-athlete’s money under the table. This adds a risk factor for both sides that can be easily avoidable. On the athletic departments side they can be suspended and have scholarships taken away from them and on the student’s side they can get suspended or ineligible to participate at that program and then forced to transfer. If schools are willing to go to this length in order to get a player at their program it means they are worth it. The player is worth the tuition plus a little extra and that’s why the coaches and athletic programs are willing to risk it all. These actions by the program shouldn’t be illegal because student-athletes should be getting paid. 

After looking at “Crossfire: Should College Athletes be Paid” by Christine Brennan, it focused on the daily routine of a college player, in particular Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar was one of the most prominent college athletes in the 1980’s who were responsible for generating a massive amount of revenue for his college based off of the NCAA tournament. However, Jabbar goes into depth about the struggles of generating revenue for your school but seeing none of it “football and basketball are watched every day on national television, it is incredible how much money is being made, yet the people who are performing to generate this cash, are unable to receive any of it” (Kareem 2:30-3:14). By looking at Kareem’s account of being a student athlete it shows how they feel they are being taken advantage of by the current system in place. Moreover, Kareem talks about the constant anxiety that student athletes face when it comes to dealing with injuries since they can be responsible for ultimately crippling someone’s chances at the professional level. By taking a look at the daily routine of student athletes it shows how unfair the NCAA level is to student athletes.

After analyzing the article “Should College Athletes be Paid” by Tiffany Patterson it was evident how the NCAA and the universities that the college students were playing for were wasting money in areas where it could be spent on student athletes. For example, Patterson writes about how “Colleges are paying the head coaches of major football program upwards of millions of dollars” (Patterson 14). She goes on to talk about how head coaches like Jim Harbaugh are making close to $9 million dollars to coach student athletes. Yet the schools are only paying these athletes only $25,000 in the form of a scholarship. Patterson also references a study that puts the value of student athletes at almost $83,000. Moreover, schools are putting huge amounts of value on the people they trust to coach these student athletes since the programs are worth such a high portion of revenue. Patterson argues that by reducing the salaries of the head coaches of these programs it would generate further capital that could be used to pay the players they are coaching and in turn reward them for their efforts.

If you were to put the mistreatment into a real worldview here’s an example of what it would be like. A teacher’s job is to teach students and get students to learn the information and overall make the school system look better. A student-athletes job is to practice yearly and help the sport in which they’re playing and hopefully get a championship in that sport. The championship in the sport is the equivalent to the teacher succeeding in her job. The teacher and the student-athletes works the same amount each week so why is one getting paid and the other are not? It’s only fair that these athletes get paid for working the equivalent to a full time job. When you do a job and help an organization you should be rewarded because you’ve made an organization do better and have helped that program look better in the eyes of other people. 

The final question that comes to mind is how are you going to actually pay the players without starting a whole bunch of commotion. “College athletes deserve to be paid.” (ESPN), Michael Wilbon, one of the most well known sports analyst on ESPN had something to say about whether or not athletes deserve to be paid. His claim is that the athletes deserve to be paid the tiniest amount as a form of reward for their contributions. He also states that it shouldn’t be the same amount for every sport but rather than that a certain percentage for every sport based off the total revenue that is accumulated overtime. If a programs profit for a year of that specific sport were 50 million like it was for Alabama you would then take a small percentage of that money depending on what the NCAA would set as the standard. You would then divide the total number of funds to be divided and then divide it by the total number of players on the team. That way no ones feel there is any mistreatment. A way they can make it so players who do perform better get rewarded fairly is to make it so certain achievements lead to an increase in money received. That way there’s is a base salary in a sense and then there are chances for extra credit if you put it into school terms. With the breakdown of the money this way it would lead to a fair system that no one would have problems with because it is fair and making sports better.

In conclusion, based off of the many hours that student athletes put into their sports they need to be fairly compensated through a minimum salary and incentive based program. Moreover, since the NCAA restricts college athletes from being able to work a job they have no other source of income and a performance based incentive system would not only increase competition, but it would also result in a fair way of paying college athletes. The college sports industry is responsible for generating $11.2 billion dollars annually, while the NCAA makes almost $1.1 billion dollars annually. Yet since the student athletes are responsible for generating this massive source of income they are only paid in $25,000 in scholarships. In addition, the head coaches of major programs like Nick Saban at the University of Alabama are being paid $6.9 million dollars to coach football players who the school values at only $25,000. If Zirin’s payment method would to be implemented it would allow for student athletes to have a much more risk-free and it could serve as a fair way for paying the college athletes for the work they put into their industry.
