Sports have become ubiquitous in American culture. Just ask anyone and they will probably be able to tell you a major U.S. sports team. But do people know what happens in an athlete’s life prior to reaching the upper echelon of their respective sport? While not all athletes going to play a sport in college come from poverty but a lot do. This trend continues in college with as many as 86 percent (Hayes, 19) of student athletes in poverty. This is absurd considering the NCAA or, National Collegiate Athletic Association earns almost one billion dollars a year that is made from college sports (NCAA, 15). The NCAA, which runs collegiate sports, claims that it is a non-profit organization and spends its revenue on its members and institutions. While this seems fair and just, you must remember that the athletes who generate this massive income will not see a penny returned to them. In fact, they will get in serious trouble with the NCAA for receiving money or even meals from outside sources such as alumni or friends. To me, this presents a serious problem. Other professions such as being a waiter or a bartender work for free and rely solely on tips to survive. Yet for college athletes, receiving a tip could mean serious trouble and complete derailment of a career. These athletes are the engine for a one-billion-dollar machine, so why is nothing being done to change this? The answer is a resounding “nothing”. I believe there is a way to fix this conundrum. As an advocate for fair treatment of everyone and current college student who has participated in sports my entire life up until the collegiate level, I have some knowledge of what goes on in sports and while my athletic skills have let up, my passion for sports has only increased. Now, hold on because this stuff will make your head spin. 

    Boy was that a long way to start off, but when discussing the payment of college athletes there is no short answer. If you’re still reading that means you’re a dedicated sports fan, a college athlete, prospective student athletes, or my English teacher then good. You’re exactly who needs to hear this. I believe that college athletes should be paid or compensated for playing a sport at their respective university. Most athletes are reported to practice around forty hours a week (Jacobs, 21), on top of their pre-existing schoolwork. This is absurd because eleven billion dollars is generated from college sports (Edelman, 12). However, accomplishing this will not be easy and not all athletes will make the same amount of money. After reading this you’re probably thinking back to what I said earlier about fair treatment of people and thinking, “he just said he wants everyone treated fairly!” and you’re right I did. Do all jobs make the same amount of money? No cause that would be communism and some jobs are more deserving of higher pay. This doesn’t mean, however, that some athletes won’t get paid. Just the big-time money makers will receive more which seems fair right? Paying college athletes isn’t a novel idea, it goes as far back as 1929 was proposed by Howard Savage (Johnson and Acquaviva, 17). Soon after the rise of college sports took place so did the rise of pro sports. Today there are four major leagues that are the most popular. These will appear in the article and are not crucial details but help with the overall coherence and fluidity of the article if you, the reader, understands them. The leagues are the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and finally the National Hockey League (NHL). They are not listed in any order. Another acronym to know is the NCPA or National College Players Association. This organization is the leader in attempting to unionize collegiate athletes. 

    To prove that college athletes deserve some sort of pay or compensation I will present several arguments in favor of this. They will be, in order, fixing the relationship that players have with the NCAA, that players should band together to achieve payment using organizations like the NCPA and the public, attempt to discontinue the trend of mistreatment of the NCAA and players, prove that the student athletes are not amateurs, and attempt to come up with a solid plan for getting payment. The counter arguments I will face are that players voluntarily play sports, so they aren’t entitled to anything and that paying athletes would be a logistical nightmare. I’ll refute these counter arguments and by the end of the paper, I will hopefully have convinced you to side with the players in their fight for payment. 

    In 1995, a University of California Los Angeles(UCLA) student by the name of Donnie Edwards was suspended for “accepting one hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of food, which reportedly came from a sports agent (Fulton, 20).” But at the same time, the NCAA was selling a jersey with Edwards number on it. Obviously, this raises some immediate red flags and produces more gasps than a horror movie. How could an organization that is supposedly non-profit fine a player for getting groceries after admitting he had no food to his name, then go and sell a jersey with his number? If you can answer this question then maybe you should be writing this argument instead of me. All joking aside, the list continues with recent college graduate Jake McDonough telling his experience saying, “With a scholarship check of $600/month, the cost of living on the rise, food, gas, and anything else that was needed, I had to reevaluate my stance on getting a job.” (McDonough, 11) Despite this minor stipend that comes with a scholarship it is easy how despite having the free tuition can still result in problems. McDonough goes on saying “With the amount of time spent trying to be a successful athlete, some guys would choose an easier major or a major that they couldn't do anything with after college to stay eligible.” (McDonough, 11) This is a problem. Athletes are willing to sacrifice their education, which is the main argument used to keep the NCAA from paying players, to make time for their athletic careers. Some students even go as far as changing their major from their desired major to one that is easier. Most sports careers, if the player is lucky enough to have one at all, don’t typically last long with the longest average career span being 5.6 for Major League Baseball or MLB and the shortest average career being 3.6 for the National Football League or NFL (Sandler, 16). With these career averages being coupled with the already low chance of even making it to the pro level it makes for a disaster. A player could be out of the pro level and have no job choices because they were a history major and didn’t pay attention or care because they thought it was all going to pan out. These athletes are working nearly as many hours as people with nine to five jobs. This total of hours spent on sports is separate from the amount of time spent studying and while not all the athletes are destined to go pro, they still deserve compensation for the hard work they put in. The NCAA claims it is in place to help the students who play for them strive and have successful lives but seem to be ignoring details like this. Helping a player study or reducing his or her hours would greatly increase his or her chances of completing their necessary school work and get the degree they want. If the proper help is put into place by the NCAA with help from the athlete’s respective schools then the relationship between the NCAA and the players can be reformed. I say reformed because the relationship has soured over the years with copious amounts of former athletes coming forward to criticize the NCAA and their policies. But this relationship will not change overnight and will take some real leeway from the NCAA to relinquish its stranglehold on college sports. 

    The only way to truly make an impact against the NCAA is for the athletes to come together with a common goal in mind. There is one organization hoping to help future college athletes succeed and that is the NCPA. The NCPA was founded by former University of California Los Angeles or UCLA linebacker Ramogi Huma (NCPA, 22). If you been entertained so far then wait for this: Ramogi Huma was Donnie Edwards roommate. Remember his story about the groceries? Of course, you do this paper is downright enthralling. So, Huma being appalled by his roommate’s suspension began the idea for the NCPA not soon after. Former and current division one athletes can join for free and I can’t think of a reason to not join. The NCPA also has eleven main goals that it is striving to achieve which range from increasing player safety to raising the scholarship amounts. I couldn’t have written the perfect organization up if I tried. Imagine if all division one athletes got behind the NCPA. Major changes could be seen if this were to happen. Along with the help of the NCPA, the public is the next best resource. Who is paying to see said players? Fans. Who’s buying the school’s merchandise? Fans. The rhetorical questions are endless. The fans are the ones forking over hundreds of dollars to watch their favorite collegiate team of alma mater tries to win. If enough fans decide they have had enough with the mistreatment of players then, along with organizations like the NCPA, a new era of college athletics could begin. 

    While there are more issues at hand in college sports other than paying college athletes I believe this is where the root of the problem is. By paying athletes we begin to recognize them for who they are: employees. If college sports weren’t as popular then this topic would never come up. However, this is not the case and if I played the what-if game I’d be stuck in a never-ending loop of hypotheticals. Being a college athlete sounds glamorous. You get to miss school, be popular amongst thousands of people, and compete for glory. So why do they need anything else? Behind the scenes tells a completely different story than what being a student-athletes looks like on the surface. Many athletes put in countless late night workouts, film sessions, and recovery sessions to try and mitigate some the damage done to their bodies due to sports. But what happens when the athlete can’t play or their scholarship get revoked for whatever reason. Well, this is the dark side of college sports that no one wants to talk about. These athletes are mandated to attend a university and put more wear and tear on their bodies when they could be in their respective pro leagues making millions. An easy example comes to mind with the tragic injury of Marcus Lattimore, a University of South Carolina legend. Lattimore got lucky because his injury was very high profile and South Carolina still wanted him, so they paid it off. But all too often players fall by the wayside and can be left with hefty medical bills or drop out of school because it is too expensive. The NCAA manual has over 400 pages of mandates for its members yet only half a page regarding healthcare for athletes (Walsh, 13). Cases were athletes are left to fend for themselves and put their trust into the flimsy promise of a recruiter whose only goal is to get them on the field are less of a novelty than you think. There was even a case right here at the university back in the late 2000’s. His name is Stanley Doughty and he’d come to the University of South Carolina on scholarship to play football. This was a once in a lifetime chance given his background of poverty. With the chance, many of his fellow high school students weren’t given he attend the university but struggled. When draft day rolled around Doughty got a late call giving the chance he dreamed for. Being only twelve credits away from a degree became an afterthought until it was revealed he had a spinal injury and couldn’t play. To help negate some of the side effects, surgery was required but would cost twenty grand. Doughty turned to the NCAA for help but no one was there. Walsh says in the article “Doughty says his old coaches initially said they might be able to help him with the surgery and getting him back into school. But then, he says, they stopped returning his phone calls and denied his re-entrance. Stymied, Doughty went home, where he moved back in with his parents. He says that he often feels tingling and burning along the right side of his body and struggles to reach for things above his head without sharp, shooting pains.” (Walsh, 13) If the NCAA and South Carolina won’t pay Doughty or any players for that matter the least they can do is help him recover and give him the opportunity to finish his degree. The worst part is the problem is in my own backyard and I hadn’t even heard of Doughty or his story till now, ten years later. 

    The case for amateurism is essentially saying that giving athletes payment would dilute the integrity of the game and lead to a lack of competition. The NCAA gives this explanation on their website “Amateur competition is a bedrock principle of college athletics and the NCAA. Maintaining amateurism is crucial to preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority. In the collegiate model of sports, the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second.” (NCAA, 15) Sounds reasonable, right? Not quite. These athletes are not being treated as students first as evidence of their forty hours a week spent on athletics alone (Jacobs, 21). Under this veil of amateurism, the NCAA avoids shelling out extra money. It appears colleges and the NCAA don’t have much money to spare. If you agree then I’d advise you to look at figure 1(Fisher-Baum, 10). There is more than enough money to go around even if athletes get a small amount of it. Many coaches and NCAA executives make six figures with Alabama coach Nick Saban and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh getting seven million each, per year (Edelman, 12). Also, the NCAA just signed a 10.8-billion-dollar deal with CBS for the television rights to broadcast games (Harnett, 6). After seeing these numbers, it should be increasingly obvious that the lack of money isn’t the problem. The problem is simply greed. 

     


Now, for all this talk of paying or compensating athletes, there is also the problem with how to go about it. Some people propose a salary and salary cap like the NFL. Others like Skip Bayless (yes, that is his real name) propose that some universities boosters should be able to entice players with cash or cars. For Bayless, it wouldn’t be an all-out bidding with the richest boosters taking home the best prospects. “There would be a limit to the money they offered -- and many marginal recruits would wind up being offered no more than a scholarship. (Bayless, 4).” In Bayless’s system, all athletes would seemingly have their education paid for via the money from boosters so it would still be fair. Another proposal for paying athletes would be an average salary. For example, “One university might want to offer a star halfback $40,000, while another might offer him $60,000. (Nocera, 5) Both ideas address the idea that it could harm the game’s integrity. Nocera points out that “…universities build lavish facilities and spend absurd sums on their ‘programs’ to lure good players. (Nocera, 5)” These ideas are both starts but I also think they would be near impossible to employ. I side with the NCPA’s eleven goals I touched on earlier. The eleven goals aren’t ground-breaking ideas that would shake up college sports. They are reasonable and directly relate to player safety and their education. The goals are to minimize college athletes’ brain trauma risks, raise the scholarship amount, prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses, increase graduation rates, protect educational opportunities for college athletes in good standing, prohibit universities from using a permanent injury as a reason to reduce/eliminate a scholarship, establish and enforce uniform safety guidelines in all sports to help prevent serious injuries and avoidable deaths, eliminate restrictions on legitimate employment and players ability to directly benefit from commercial opportunities, prohibit the punishment of college athletes that have not committed a violation, guarantee that college athletes are granted an athletic release from their university if they wish to transfer schools, and allow college athletes of all sports the ability to transfer schools one time without punishment ( Huma, 22). That was as labor some to type as it was for you to read but I wanted to make sure the goals were known. The goals are all reasonable. To me, the goals sound like they should be a staple of the NCAA anyway. The NCPA isn’t asking for gratuitous amounts of money or anything outside of basic rights. To me, this proposal is a no-brainer and would get the athletes the fair treatment they deserve without going overboard. 

    For as many pundits arguing that college athletes should get paid, there are as many pundits arguing the exact opposite. The opposing arguments obviously hold some truth to them or else they wouldn’t exist. One big counterpoint to paying college athletes is that athletes play their respective sport on their own accord, therefore acknowledging the risks that take place. As with anything, no one can truly force you to do something. Unless they’re a police officer. With no one forcing the athletes into a life of sports, there is no need to compensate the athletes. This makes a degree of sense. Perhaps athletes receiving a free education is more than enough. Most people would give anything to have a chance to attend college let alone get their college paid for. Paul Daugherty puts it best saying “For every athlete demanding a paycheck, there are 10 deserving non-athletes who can't afford to walk in the door. To whom a college degree would mean more than a direct deposit every couple of weeks.” This speaks volumes and I do agree with Daugherty’s statement. Average scholarships given to athletes could be from 65,000 dollars to 13,000 dollars (Thelin, 8). The scholarship amounts given depends on whether the athlete is in-state or out of state and the quality of the university. Take those amounts over three or four years and you’re approaching six figures. This is not something to take lightly. While it may seem unfair that athletes are getting these incredible amounts of money and the opportunity to learn at a higher level for next to no cost the athletes are making the universities a considerable amount of money. If you don’t believe look at this excerpt from an article from US News stating that “The college sports industry generates $11 billion in annual revenues. Fifty colleges report annual revenues that exceed $50 million. Meanwhile, five colleges report annual revenues that exceed $100 million” (Edelman,12) Make you sure you read those right. The first number starts with a b as in billion. That is an absurd amount of money that is being made and none returned to the players. So yes, athletes do choose to play sports and receive a free education. But just look at what they provide for the university. The least that could happen is they see some of that money returned even if it is a small amount. 

    Another component in stopping the payment of players is that paying every single college athlete would be a logistical nightmare with many problems arising from it. How would you assign a value to each athlete? Football and basketball(men’s) would command the most money as they make the most money out all the sports. With these two sports making most of all the profit of athletic departments, Alabama makes $123 million dollars a year (ESPN, 23) to give an idea of the amount of money were talking about, it would create a significant gap between football players and swimmers. Once the official payment of players begins, they will be treated as workers. With jobs comes taxes. Thelin provides an example comparing a $100,000-dollar salary versus a $65,000-dollar scholarship. “So, a student-athlete paid a salary would owe $23,800 in federal income tax and $6,700 in state taxes, a total of $30,500. In cities that levy an employee payroll tax, the salaried student’s taxes go up about $2,400 per year. Income taxes then are $32,900. And, as an employee, the player would have to pay at least $2,000 in other taxes, such as Social Security, for a total of $34,900. This leaves the college player with $65,100. Since college bills come to $65,000, the player has $100 left. (Thelin, 8)” This makes my head spin and probably everyone else’s unless you work for the IRS. Sifting through all these details and taxes would be abysmal. Each state has different tax laws making it a nightmare. Some states don’t have an income tax like Florida so theoretically more recruits would go to the sunshine state to pursue a collegiate career.  As I stated earlier, I am a big proponent of the NCPA’s goals. Student athletes being paid a salary would be impossible but I would lean more toward small stipends that are included under the scholarship that would cover extra expenses. Athletes would not get a lot of money but it would bring them out of poverty and leave the logistical headaches behind. 

    Paying college athletes is the right thing to do. The payment won’t be a typical salary but extra stipends to help cover extra expenses not covered by scholarships. To achieve the goal of getting this payment players must reestablish trust with the NCAA, band together with help of organizations like the NCPA and outside of the fans, try and stop the trend now before it gets worse for the athletes, prove that athletes are not amateurs due to the amount of time put forth, and come up with a solid plan to get payment. The idea of paying athletes is not without its critics either citing that athletes are playing sports in college voluntarily so anything that happens is due to the player wanting to play and therefore understanding the inherent risks involved and that paying athletes would be a logistical nightmare. While the players are playing voluntarily they do make a significant amount of money for the universities they play for and should be allowed to continue school even if they are unable to continue a career in sports. If players received extra scholarship money to cover extra expenses then there would be no need for some extravagant salary system or bidding war from boosters. Imagine if you were the source of a billion-dollar industry yet you could get suspended for eating a meal from a friend. Oh, and on top of that, you aren’t paid either. That doesn’t sound ethical at all. The athletes put themselves on the line for nothing in return and potentially ruining their lives via injury. The lack of respect and rights for players has gone on too long and needs to stop. So, next time I’m writing about this topic hopefully it will be to celebrate college athletes receiving their rightfully deserved benefits.  
