Should College Athletes Be Paid?
It has been many years since President Roosevelt has established the NCAA or National Collegiate Athletic Association. Over these years, the popularity of college sports has risen tremendously. The NCAA makes billions of dollars in profits every year, and the people that make it happen don't even get paid; the student-athletes. The student-athletes should be paid because playing a college sport is basically having a full-time job, there are many extra expenses outside of tuition, and the NCAA makes eleven billion dollars yearly. On the other hand, these athletes should not be paid because of athletic scholarships, the payment would steer them away from academics, and dividing up the checks would be very complex.
Working a full job without pay is what athletes across America face. Those against paying athletes consider athletics to be an extracurricular activity, not unlike being a member of yearbook, but the position is much different. “The NLRB's Chicago office found that the Northwestern players are, in fact, employees of the university and have the right to be represented by a union…..the NLRB decision spells out the shocking demand on the time of players, who put in longer hours than paid workers in most other fields….. the hours detailed in the NLRB report total 1,750 hours a year — an average of 36 hours a week for what is considered extracurricular.” (money.cnn.com)
Because they are not solely athletes, but students, players essentially have two full-time jobs to commit to during the week. A full-time student can devote up to another 40 hours each week between attending classes, homework completion, supplementary activities, and studying for exams. Universities say that athletes don’t function like employees because they are not expected by the university to put their all to the sport since they are students first, but that is simply not true. Colleges treat football players like money makers rather than students, and it might be argued that they do not care about the athlete as a student when it interferes the athlete’s ability to perform and generate funds.
There are many expenses outside of tuition that contribute to a successful college experience. Most students either have family financial support or get part-time jobs to accommodate these extra costs, but many football athletes do not come from privileged backgrounds and are only able to attend higher institutions by way of scholarship. They do not have the time to get a part-time job. They already have a full time one on top of education.
There are many costs that tuition doesn't cover for athletes. Some athletes will go hungry after the dining facilities close. These scholarships that they receive do not provide any additional food options, so they will have to pay with their own money that is very thin. These same athletes also have to attend mandatory banquets, which they have to buy or rent suits for; that can also be very expensive. (listland.com)
There is a story of how a football player had to walk to Mcdonalds to eat food just after winning Rose Bowl MVP. So in front of millions, he hoisted up this trophy when in reality he doesn't even have enough money to eat right. College athletes are generating millions while the students that make it happen often don’t even have money to properly eat.
The NCAA makes over eleven billions dollars yearly, and a lot of that money is just floating around being unvouched for. “They are upset when a student-athlete says they need a little cash. Well, I can tell you from experience, I had negative-40 bucks in my account. Usually, my account was in the negative more time than it was in the positive. You've got to make decisions on whether you get gas for your car or whether you get a meal for the day. You've got one of the two choices. People think, 'Oh, you're on scholarship.' They pay for your room and board, they pay for your education, but to their knowledge, you're there to play football. You're not on scholarship for school and it sounds crazy when a student-athlete says that, but that's those are the things coaches tell them every day: 'You're not on scholarship for school.'"
(deadspin.com)
Athletes don’t have enough time to put all their efforts into their academics because of how they are used and abused by colleges and graduate with useless degrees and poor GPAs. Often times advised to change out of lucrative majors and classes so that it doesn’t interfere with football.
There is also a lot of cases where grades have been changed without authorization and it is not just a coincidence that most of the cases just happen to be athletes. They aren't giving these athletes an education. At Northwestern there was a case where a football player (Colter) was told not to take a chemistry class that was needed to complete pre-med because it would intervene with his football life and schedule. He even acknowledged this during a hearing in February. (generaleducationguide.net) By undermining athlete education and taking shortcuts, schools show that they view athletes as cash generating employees rather than students. (post-gazette.com)
The average graduating college student accumulated an average of 29,400 of student debt in 2014. Student loan debt accounts for 1.3 trillion dollars of American, and as state funding for higher education continues to decrease each year, the issue is expected to only worsen. (huffingtonpost.com)
This is a crippling situation for many students, but it is an issue collegiate athletics will never be burdened by. That is compensation enough. With this free money, which can be as high as 60k at private division one institutions, come other privileges other students aren’t privy to. This includes frequent banquets, trips cross-country where athletes many times are given time to explore new states and territories post-performance, luxurious facilities, and higher quality meals. “Heritage Hall is also home to some of the infrastructure and amenities directed at the athletes: offices and meeting rooms, a two-story lobby and museum space known as the Hall of Champions, a spa-like female athlete lounge featuring a kitchenette (to borrow language from the DLR Group, the firm that oversaw a recent renovation), a $3 million sports-themed dining hall, a golf simulation lab, a workout room for the rowing team, a commercial laundry, a fully equipped television studio and editing suite, and other facilities.” (newrepublic.com) These are just some of the luxuries that these athletes receive.
If universities begin to treat athletes like employees, they will, in turn, begin to view themselves as such and regard academia as irrelevant. Academic fraud in athletics is rampant as is, and payment would only cause them to focus more on professional playing rather than the degree when the reality is most athletes will not end up playing professionally.
“As a graduate student at UNC-Greensboro, Willingham researched the reading levels of 183 UNC-Chapel Hill athletes who played football or basketball from 2004 to 2012. She found that 60% read between fourth and eighth-grade levels. Between 8% and 10% read below a third-grade level. "So what are the classes they are going to take to get a degree here? You cannot come here with a third-, fourth or fifth-grade education and get a degree here,” she told CNN.” (www.cnn.com) She was shocked that some of these athletes couldn't read.
So a great number of college football players have horrific reading abilities, not nearly good enough to earn a degree at a top-tier academic institution, but the statistics show that they do anyhow. In fact, their likelihood for graduation is greater than their peers. Directing students further away from perceiving themselves as students by paying them will only worsen this division.
“Approximately 80 percent of NCAA Division I athletes graduate from college, according to the NCAA. Despite the media focus on college athletes leaving school early for professional sports, the vast majority of athletes stay in school and ultimately complete degrees. By comparison, the NCAA's data shows that non-athletes have a graduation rate of only 63 percent.” (everydaylife.globalpost.com)
Paying athletes would force unfair decisions to be made—like which sports are more valuable. Who would have the authority to put a value to the hours labored by each athlete and determine that a Saturday spent in the sun by a football player is worth double the time of a woman soccer player? Creating avenues for college athletes to partake in the generated wealth can only lead to inherently discriminatory models. Some will complain that a sport generating millions should bestow greater payment to their athletes than sports departments netting at 0.
(espn.go.com)
You might also talk about players applying for stipends. The dancers and cheerleaders at my school receive about 2,000 a semester for their hours and service. Each player received an amount like this would not spoil them or be serious payment. Rather, it would ensure that they would always have something to eat post dining hours, that they could fun like the average college student, that they can buy clothing, etc. It would also function as a general acknowledgment of their hours spent at practice instead of working like other students.
The NCCA is basically a business with free employees. This “non-profit” organization gets to use the amateurism card in every case. Colleges use these athletes as a business platform and we need to see that. A lot of students will even attend a college just because they have great sports teams that do very well. The student-athletes should be paid because playing a college sport is basically having a full-time job, there are many extra expenses outside of tuition, and the NCAA makes eleven billion dollars yearly.