Arguments On Whether College Athletes Should Be Paid

There have been some big arguments on whether or not college athletes should be paid. A lot of people believe that scholarships and perks are enough for young athletes to play in college. But after all, a scholarship can be roughly worth $10,000 - $30,000 per year, plus a career after college that can be worth a million dollars in the Pros over a lifetime. But additionally, student-athletes also receive all kinds of special benefits while they are in college, like staying at high-end hotels, being seen on national television on prime time and all of the other premium benefits goes with being a star athlete. It’s difficult to put an evaluation on all of that.

Nevertheless, considering the fact that certain college sports generate millions of revenue for college athletic programs and plenty people believe the athletes are being manipulated. Assuming that the typical football scholarship is worth $30,000 per year and yet the university and college gains $100,000 per year in proceeds per scholarship player (this number is just a projection and the actual number can be higher), the university or college will profit $70,000 per year, per scholarship. The NCAA has an annual revenue of nearly $1 billion. 81% of this revenue comes from media rights. Just think, if there weren’t any student-athletes to compete, none of this money would be made. But the athletes don’t make any money for their appearance and play. The NCAA signed a contract with CBS worth $10.8 billion in 2010.

It is very hard to put a number on exactly how much an athlete is worth to a college. The major colleges earn enormous money on sports merchandise alone, yet the student-athlete whose number is being used to sell merchandise will not see a penny of the profits. To say that the student-athlete isn't being taken advantage of in this situation is an understatement. College athletic programs make millions from television and advertising contracts. They also pick up millions of dollars of donations and charities from sports supporters and the profits that the NCAA earns from college basketball programs even more astonishing.

Here's where it gets really interesting. An athlete can be "disciplined" for selling their tickets to a fan on game day, yet how much money do the directors of the NCAA earn as a result of the efforts of the student-athletes? The reality is that the college athletes quite literally pay for a large portion of the salaries of every person employed by the NCAA. One of the reasons for the salary is the time that the athletes spend for their sport. On average, they work 40-60 hours a week. This means that it would be extremely difficult to have another job. In fact, the NCAA prohibits students on an athletic scholarship to have a job.

But that only applies to students who are on an athletic scholarship, which is only about 33% of the athletes. The other 67% has it even harder. They spend the same 40-60 hours a week that the athletes on scholarship do, but they also have to pay for everything else. Those on scholarship are provided with tuition and fees, room, board, and books, but those not under scholarship have to pay for all of these things. How can we expect these students to provide enough money for that when they don’t even have time for a real, paying job? No wonder we have $1.2 trillion in student debt and 71% of graduating students in 2012 had student debt.

Another point is the athletes’ Fair Market Value. According to Businessinsider.com, the players on the Louisville men’s basketball team were worth $1.5 million. This study used the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement in which players received at least 49% of the revenue, it is then split up evenly by the 13 scholarship players on the Louisville basketball team. Another study done by Texas A&M University showed that Johnny Manziel produced $37 million in media exposure for the school during the 2012 football season. Can you guess how much Manziel made of this $37 million? Zero, he made absolutely nothing of the money that he produced for his school.

Less than 2% of college athletes end up playing their sport professionally. So that brings up the question, is it worth it to play sports in college? The risk of injury is a very real threat, especially in contact sports such as football, ice hockey, and lacrosse. Actually, cheerleading, if you consider that a sport, has more catastrophic injuries (73% of them) than any other sport in colleges. Another risk, as shown earlier, is the risk of more student debt because of the inability to get a full-time job. For the few athletes that make it big in professional sports, playing sports in college was worth the risk, but for many, it doesn’t pay off so well.

According to the NCAA, 96% of the revenue from this contract will be used to benefit student-athletes. But how does this money benefit student-athletes? Where does all of the money go? Michael Wilbon said, “The BCS' new deal with ESPN was based, in part, on paying more money to schools/conferences with regard to what has been called "population centers." Of the $174 million distributed from five bowl games, 83.4 percent went to six conferences in 2011.” These population centers are places where there will be the most people which in turn makes the most possible money for the NCAA. Why does the National College Athletic Association do this? Because the NCAA is a greedy corporation that is not for the students, but for the money.

The issue of paying players in every sport, including the ones that lose money, is used as an argument for those against paying the players in college sports. It is true that every sport doesn’t make money. In fact, most sports actually lose money for their schools. If every athlete in the NCAA was paid minimum wage it would be about $5.6 billion dollars per year. There are only $2.7 billion in scholarships every year, so that plan would not work.

Another plan is only paying the athletes who make money for the school. It is best put in an ESPN article by Michael Wilbon, “I'm interested in seeing the people who produce the revenue share a teeny, tiny slice of it.” If all the players on the football and men’s basketball team were paid minimum wage, the school would spend no more than $120,000, which is barely anything compared to the school’s athletic budgets.

Some people argue that if college athletes were paid, that they would no longer be considered an amateur. But why would that be a problem? Wouldn’t it be a good thing to be considered a professional? In 1986, the International Federation changed their stance on amateurism and allowed professional athletes to compete in the Olympic Games. The Olympics are still going strong after the change, so why doesn’t the NCAA change too. If the athletes in the NCAA were no longer considered amateurs, they would lose their tax-exempt status.

Most professional sports associations are for profit, but there are some exceptions, such as the NFL, which is tax-exempt. The NCAA could probably regain its lost tax-exempt status if it followed the NFL’s model of being a trade organization. So why don’t they? Because they don’t want to work for anything when they’re already handed everything on a silver platter. College athletes should be paid. Those who make money get money, and those who don’t, well they don’t. It’s a fairly easy concept, but the NCAA is very powerful and very stubborn. It will probably not happen any time in the near future, but maybe someday the athletes that deserve the money will get it.