Paying College Athletes

Paying College Athletes Year after year, they put the madness in March. They bring traditions unlike any others to the network every Saturday of fall. They make millions upon millions of dollars for their respective universities. Yet, today’s college athletes see absolutely none of that money. Rod Gilmore, a football analyst for ESPN, in the article, “College Football Players Deserve Pay for Play,” claims that athletes should have a share in money in this multibillion-dollar entertainment industry. In fact, if they are given some sort of payment or gift, they risk suspension, expulsion, or even punishment towards their university.

If the NCAA would revise rules that were set decades ago so that they would apply to the collegiate athlete of today, many problems that exist would be solved. There are many that are against the idea of paying college athletes. The most important of which is the NCAA. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), created in 1906, is the governing body of college athletics in the United States and parts of Canada.

Currently, the NCAA has rules in place that prohibit any sort of compensation to student athletes whether it be actual money or something such as a vehicle or a house that the player can live at without paying for it (Rush).

There are reasons to get rid of these rules besides to just make it easier on the NCAA. Many that are against paying the student athletes argue that if a player needs extra money, he/she could get a part time job like every other normal college student.

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But with all of the offseason training that today’s programs put their players through and then on top of that, doing school work, there is no free time for a student athlete to also have a job (Lewis).

So if a player needs some spending money under the current rule structure they are out of luck because they would have to sacrifice something else to get that money. Even if the universities would be permitted to sit aside a hundred bucks a week or so per player, this would be enough to give players some spending money that they would otherwise be unable to have. Maybe the biggest reason to pay college athletes is because of how much money they bring into their universities (“Business”). For example, just for getting to a football post season bowl game, a university receives millions f dollars. They don’t even have to win. And for some reason, it is prohibited to compensate the athletes, who are the reason the team is there in the first place. The money that universities acquire from ticket sales exceeds that of all professional sports leagues in the United States. And for some reason, it is prohibited to split a small portion of that money with the athletes, who are the reason people by the tickets in the first place. There are also several universities that have multi-million dollar contracts with television networks to televise their games.

And almost every team has games that are broadcasted locally. This is millions of dollars that could be split with players that are the ones being shown on television. In today’s society, college athletics is very much a money making business. Billions of dollars are made every single year by universities through their sports teams. In yet, none of this money can rightfully be allotted to the student athletes that are the biggest reason that the money is made. Rules laid down by the NCAA that are currently in place prohibit student athletes from receiving any sort of compensation.

I’m not saying that these athletes need to be paid as professional athletes are, but for them to not be given any sort of payment for the sports they play, is wrong.