Why Colleges Should Start Paying Athletes Essay Example

physical health so as to be in the game they love. The intention of every student is to make the game they participate in while ate college a profession.

Secondly, it is necessary to pay athletes in college since most of the college sports generate millions of money for funding the athletic programs in colleges. Most people tend to believe that the college is just using the college athletes for their own benefits (Smith & Ronald 131). If on average a scholarship is worth 20000 dollars per year and a university gets 90000 dollars as revenues per student who is on scholarship then the college will make a profit of 70000dollars per academic year (Ross, Stephen & Matt 131). The figure is approximately around 250000 to 280000 dollars for four years per a scholarship student.

It is, however, difficult to put a numerical value on how much exactly an athlete is worth to the college he represents. College athletes help to bring merchandise sales to their colleges. The NCCA organization can never allow any university to sell the jersey of a college football with the name of a player on it. The University only sells the jersey with the number of the player only. The number is easily noticeable in the national market and the locals. After these sales, the major universities earn enormous amounts of money on the merchandise they sell alone. The athlete whose number is on the jersey does not receive even a single cent of the profits. In this kind of situation, we will say that the student athlete is under exploitation by the college.

College athletic programs also rake to significant sums of

money from advertising of contracts and televisions. Advertisements of these programs also bring back millions of money from donations by the sports boosters (Ross, Stephen & Matt 244). The coaches and directors need to receive salaries together with other costs incurred for transport and other student activities during a match. Major basketball and football programs help to fund some of the non-revenue programs of the athletes highly. In return for all the benefits that students bring to the college only little amount goes to them as scholarship.

In another case, paying of college athletes would highly boost the creation of a sense of financial awareness in universities and the world. Most athletes are always irresponsible in handling their finances. In a recent documentary from the ESPN, an economic woe is broken to give an overview about how most athletes spend money in their profession life of being an athlete. The documentary noted that most of the NBA players that are around 70 percent of them get broke just a few years after retiring from their athletic career (Selingo & Jeffrey 42). All these troubles come up as a result of lavish habits of spending, lack of proper investment while one is still a player, and having poor financial advisors who are not trustworthy. Most of these athletes have troubles while handling their money. If colleges would begin to play their athletes, they would probably help the students to start reasoning correctly on how to use their money and build a firm financial literacy. Schools would be of great importance in the career of an athlete since it would allow students to be financial investors who have

real interests in their minds. It is, therefore, true to say that even if college athletes went on to play professional games, then they would experience some financial literacy which they would carry to their future careers of their choices. The idea would help them to have a better and hopeful economic future.

On the other hand, some people say that the students' athletes should not be paid since they are already receiving other benefits and scholarships. Most of the students who play national championship games for schools are on scholarship (Ross, Stephen & Matt 234). However, not all the students are on scholarship. In addition to tuition money paid for the students, they also receive free rooms and boards. College athletes also often receive some amounts of money to cater for their human needs and books. All this money is not to be paid back to the college. The other students, however, do not receive these kinds of benefits. The students, therefore, come out of school having huge loans and debts from student loan boards. Comparing the students athletes who are on scholarship and those not on scholarship, then we find it easy for the student on scholarship financially.

On another note, paying college athletes is somehow confusing due to some mentionable reasons. First, according to research done by Jeffrey Dorman, only a few college sports bring in money to the college. The main money makers are the college football and the basketball for both women and men athletes (Edleman & Marc 343). The other programs are only scrappers of the college money. The issue of paying athletes, therefore, becomes a hard task because the basketball

and football athletes can never be paid alone since this would be unfair for other athletes playing other games. It is, however, hard to determine how a college athlete should be given. The other tussle that exists is, who is responsible for paying the athletes? The college or the NCAA? All these issues, therefore, make it tough to determine whether an athlete should be given or not. It is hard to change some of the robust systems in college so as to compensate the athletes for the universities and colleges.

Finally, paying of college athletes would probably lead to the instruction of the harmony of the game. Many college fans believe that the sporting at this level has the players playing with more passion for winning than the players at the national and professional level. Some people think that the players at the professional level do not play hard since they have already made it to the highest playing level in their life (Smith & Ronald 123). On the other hand, the professional athletes do not want to risk their lives to injuries especially if a game is not for a national cup championship. Making payments to the college athletes could, therefore, lead to passion distraction making them less motivated especially when they get to the next game level.

From my perspective, college athletes should be paid. Athletes earn their colleges some massive amounts of money regarding dollars. The athletes also increase the enrollment of colleges especially if they do well in sports. The athletes also provide some pieces of recruitment for the future generation. The top most executives in the NCAA are getting huge sums of

money per year while the athletes can never earn even more than 60 dollars from just signing a few autographs for their fans. We should all open our eyes and concentrate on what is going on. The NCAA should be at the forefront to ensure that they do not allow the likeness of students' athletes is just used for promotion. The NCAA earns high amounts of money from the college athletes. Therefore, there is the need to consider the payment of college athletes without taking into account the scholarships offered for their education.

Work Cited

1. Edleman, Marc. "Short Treatise on Amateurism and Antitrust Law: Why the NCAA's No-Pay Rules Violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act, A." Case W. Res. L. Rev. 64 (2013): 61.
2. Powell, Kemper C. "Facade of Amateurism: An Examination of the NCAA Grant-in-Aid System under the Sherman Act, A." Sports Law. J. 20 (2013): 241.
3. Ross, Stephen F., and Matt Mitten. "A Regulatory Solution to Better Promote the Educational Values and Economic Sustainability of Intercollegiate Athletics." Oregon Law Review 92.4 (2014): 14-21.
4. Selingo, Jeffrey J. College (un) bound: The future of higher education and what it means for students. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.
5. Smith, Ronald A. Sports and freedom: The rise of big-time college athletics. Oxford University Press, 2015.