Analysis: Why Division I Athletes Should Be Paid

After graduating from High School one may choose to further his or her education through college. People do this for many reasons. Some people do it for professional benefits, while others do it for sports athletics. This paper will be focusing on those who do go to college for athletic benefits. Specifically, this is focusing on how these college athletes do not get paid and why they should be paid. College athletes take many risks and make personal sacrifices in order to bring in revenue for their school, for this reason, they should be paid employees.

Imagine doing hard labor every day without getting paid. Imagine not being able to recover fully from a traumatic injury and being overcome with medical bills. This happened to many athletes, but one that stands out is Inky Johnson. Inky Johnson was a star football player for Tennessee. He was guaranteed to be in the top thirty of the NFL draft pick in 2006. He only had ten football games left, until his dreams came true. But, Inky’s whole life changed in a different way when playing against the Air Force. Inky tackled a player and tore all the nerves in his brachial plexus, causing surgeries and his right arm to be paralyzed. He could never play football again and instead had to live a more challenging life. This is just one example of how players put their lives at risk for the games they love so much. College athletes deserve to be paid for their dedication to sports. There has been huge controversy over this and it is considered to be one of the most debatable topics in sports. Inequality in sports has been shown in many ways. This includes women inequity, racial inequality, and coaches being paid more depending on what sport they coach. College athletes should be compensated for their work and be given rights.

College Varsity Athletes Should be Paid In this paper, I argue that college varsity athletes should be paid for playing sports that bring in revenue. In particular, College football and basketball because they bring in the majority of the revenue for the schools. The revenue accomplished by college sports programs continues to increase, due to the growth in interest of the NCAA basketball tournament and the college football playoffs (Berry III, Page 270). Throughout the past few years, one of the main topics debated in college sports is whether or not the athletes should be paid.

Why do colleges think that they can get millions of dollars off of college athletes and not give money back to them for earning it all? Michael Rosenberg, Laura Pappano, and Joe Posnanski were three out of the four authors that I read about that shared their views on college athletes getting paid or not in their articles. Between all of these three writers i noticed they all mentioned how much money colleges receive from just ticket sales. Joe Posnanski and Michael Rosenberg both agree that college athletes should get paid, Laura Pappano on the other hand was more focused on the money that the colleges are receiving from just ticket sales, booster donations, and cable deals. She also expresses her concern on how every time the basketball and football team win three games in a row , the GPA of the players goes down by 0.3. Meaning that

Paying college athletes has been a trending topic around the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Universities should not allow players to receive compensation for their performances. When money is involved many problems can arise. There are many different kinds of sports within a university; thus causing, many questions to develop. For example, will all sport athletes get paid and will some athletes get paid more than other?

On average division one athletic programs lose an average of 11 million dollars every year.(NCAA.org) With the 460,000 college athletes(NCAA.org) to monetarily compensate for their time athletic programs.College athletes should not get paid. College athletes should focus on getting a degree, forming unions, and negotiate benefits.

"Fair play: should college athletes get paid?" Junior Scholastic/Current Events, 9 Dec. 2013, p. 15 +. Student Edition, Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. Isidore, Chris, and Tami Luhby. "

Are they students or employees? They spend more time with the sport than in school. Student athletes should be acknowledged for their performances. College athletes should be paid to play because they bring money into the school, advertisement, and they perform the same tasks of pros.

A growing debate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association is whether or not student athletes should be paid. The controversy began in 2011 after three hundred coaches and athletes signed a petition to pay college-level athletes, and since then other athletes have made several more arguments. The NCAA has rightfully denied all of the requests, saying they include too much. To pay student athletes could be hugely expensive for colleges, especially because they would not only pay for each athlete’s degree and equipment, but also provide a salary and give bonuses revenue for tournaments. Moreover, college athletes should not be paid because there is not enough money, it takes away a student’s focus from schoolwork, and not every athlete is guaranteed a professional career after graduating; however it is argued that it they are already paid in a way.

The argument made by these two professors state that Division 1 players qualify as employees under Federal Labor Laws. Since players are under this law, the McCormick’s feel players should get financially compensated due to the physical rigors and balance education simultaneously (Cooper, 2011). It’s unbelievable how this couple thinks Division 1 athletes should get paid. The privilege to attend a university that is costly on full scholarship should be more than enough. Furthermore, student-athletes received stipends as an allowance assist with their livelihood.

Between Tv deals, ticket sales, and jersey sales there is plenty of money to go around in college athletics, and it is time that the NCAA steps up and compensates athletes. College athletes are stuck in a brief conflict where they think they deserve to be paid just like the pros do. They consider their sport as a job and think they deserve to be paid just like the coaches do. Colleges make a lot of their money through the sports department. Ticket sales are a big way colleges bring in big money.

Unpaid Labor: Paying College Athletes College athletics is profitable. millions of dollars of revenue are generated by the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), a non-profit organization that control’s college athletics. Where does this money go? Certainly not the workers. “The irony is that, while sports events generate millions for each school, the workers are not paid” (Eitzen).

College athletes put in a lot of time, effort, and work into the sport they’ve played since they were young, but they aren’t getting paid for it. These student athletes deserve to be paid because they put in countless hours of hard work and balance sports with school work. The first reason athletes in college do deserve to be compensated is because they don 't have time to fit in work with a school and athletic schedule. College athletes don’t have time to get a real job. Student athletes have a very busy schedule, they don’t have time to fit in a job.

Picture this, you are at your college’s sports game, and it’s the championship game. Your team isn’t doing so hot and they are expected to lose the game. However the star athlete of the team does the unexpected and ties up the game. Everyone is going berserk and the fans’ hopes are up. Then, within the next couple plays the same star player scores again destroying the entire other team to win his college the game and the trophy.

College Athletes Compensation How would you feel if you were to perform and work as hard as you could but have all of the money that results from your hard work go to someone else, and you get none of it? Division I college athletes not being compensated for their efforts is a major problem. Universities and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) profit around $6 billion annually off of college athletes; meanwhile these athletes do not see any of this money and may even go to bed hungry. These student athletes put their bodies and health on the line when they step out for their sports and often have to pay a lifetime of medical bills, and do not get any help with this. When trying to provide for themselves, students are