Why Many Believe NCAA Student-Athletes Should Be Paid

admin    Sports    

The issue of whether or not college athletes should be paid is more complex than it seems. On the surface, it looks like a no-brainer: everyone and their mother, and usually all the way down to second cousin Willie, is making tons of money out of college sports (more than $500 million dollars in 2004, according to USA Today—and that wasn’t even including the revenue generated from all the Bowl games). It just stands to reason that the athletes—the ones responsible for all the hullabaloo in the first place—should be eligible to receive a share of the fruit of their labor.

Right now, all of the proceeds from college games, whether it’s television rights, ticket sales, or luxury box income goes back into two main streams: coach’s salaries and facility upgrades. The NCAA can’t renovate stadiums fast enough. Oklahoma State, Michigan, Texas…what do these colleges have in common? That’s right, they’ve each spent more than $100 million in the last few years on fancy new carpets, among other things. And coaches! Some of the NCAA coaches made more than NFL coaches last year. Take University of Alabama’s $4 million a year salary for Nick Saban; Iowa’s $4.6 million in a single year for Kirk Ferentz; or Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops at $3 million a year—all of them more than the bottom third of NFL coaches for 2010.

Yet, in a USA Today poll from the same year, fully two-thirds of athletes polled said, "No, players should not be paid to play for colleges." Why? Perhaps the answer lies in their response to what more they would want if they could get it: expanded scholarships, including covering the cost of trips home and back. You have to admire their innocence. Most of these kids are fresh out of high school, excited just to be playing on the same field as their childhood heroes, and surprised that someone else wants to pay for all for it. Never mind all the faded glitz and glamour of the NCAA to those who know what’s really going on; they don’t see that.

Yet those of us on the outside, older, wiser, have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to ensure that our young people are not taken advantage of, enslaved, and exploited for their athletic ability. Sure they get scholarships, free food, insurance, free room and board, and lots of free travel. And the slaves coming to America got to travel to an exotic destination with the excitement of being able to work with their own hands when they got there. Right.

The claim that NCAA athletes are "amateurs" who engage in sports during their free time between classes hasn’t held true since 1957. That was the year the NCAA voted to approve four-year scholarships for student athletes—which would become strikingly similar to player contracts by the 1980′s. It’s the only conscionable decision: to pay the athletes ultimately responsible for the money-making machine that NCAA sports has become. The only question is whether anyone will have the guts to stand up for them and refuse to back down.

David Turner writes on many subjects including, how to find the best sports management programs.

A Fun Fact...

This day in history...