The Question Whether College Athletes Should Be Paid

What do you think, should college athletes be paid? Well you came to the right place where we will go over all of the factual evidence we have pulled from very creditable sources and professionals. The thing about this subject is that it is a very important subject in today’s world and is constantly being talked about. One of the things that was found right off the bat is that this conflict hasn’t just came out the blue, it was actually first addressed in a book that was published in 1989. So this shows that this should be given the respect and attention it deserves to figure it out for once and for all. In the book found, it says “NCAA basketball tournament generated over 70 million in gross receipt. Final Four participants received direct payments of over 1.3 million.”(Goldman, pg. 206) Now that was is just crazy how back then they still pulled in so much money, but they did have some crazy good players playing at that time. A fun fact is that, that in the 2017 March Madness and the NIT tourney had a revenue of $1.045 billion and that was in total revenue (Kirshner). Now make sure you understand that it is not just the March Madness tournament but still that was a dramatic jump from 1989 to 2017.

The even crazier part of the article was that around $560 million was distributed to the Division 1 programs for them playing in the games (Johnson). Now think about that, they are giving out pretty much half of their revenue back to the schools even if they didn’t do anything, it was all the players. Now for the part about why the players should be paid. Now this is not just saying basketball players being paid because, all athletes deserve to be rewarded but here are a few reasons why.

First off being a student athlete is a full time job. Let’s say its basketball season and you are at a division one university. Usually on average the student athlete will put in approximately 40 hours a week or the same as a full time job (Johnson). Now those 40 hours, that they are using is just for their personal athletic time spent practicing, watching film or even lifting. Now for the true reason they are attending that school is the academic reason, but after a 40-hour week just practicing, where do you find room to study and meet your schools required GPA eligibility. Now the NCAA has tried to make the students not to spend so much time practicing by lowering the number of hours a week down to 20 hours (Johnson). Most coaches do not respect that rule, and every winning university knows that you need to spend much more time than 20 hours a week practicing and going over stuff with your team.

When looking over the article there was a part about the former basketball National Champions. In the article it read that “UConn’s men’s basketball program was found to graduate 31 percent of their athletes” (Paul). Now that is crazy, some argument would be that the players leave early for the draft, but that is not true, they are not even put into the talk and are actually thrown out of the mix. The crazy thing is that they are not the only school having this problem, the same article reads “Arizona, a fellow Elite 8 team this year, boasts a graduation rate of a whopping 20 percent” (Paul). Now the biggest thing when choosing a place to play is where is the best place to further my education and help myself for the future. Also for any other parents’ students that may have a say about their future decision, they hope to see them succeed not only academically but athletically. So not only does the NCAA need to find a way to pay our players but also help them begin working for their future.

Another important part of why the student athletes should be paid, starts with the money that they bring in for the school they are representing. In another article, it states “…the University of Louisville has the most valuable players at $1.7 million per year based on the programs $45.8 million in annual revenue” (Gaines). If you look at this, you see that the player is technically worth $1.7 million but what do they get? Oh wait, your right nothing. The players get nothing from all of their hard work and countless hours they have put into not only the university but team as well.

Now that we know the highest valued group of players, we cannot just go off of the highest numbers seen. So in the same article it states, “Overall, the average Division 1 player is worth $296,723 per year with the average basketball program taking in $8 million per year” (Gaines). That is on average, so they are still consistently bringing in a pretty penny for the university. It seems as if no matter at a well-known university, or a smaller university the athletes are still generating a dramatic amount of money and still not getting any of it.

Some may argue that getting their college paid for should be enough, but that still does not even come close to what they deserve. As many people know that have gone through college, that money is tight during that time and you learn to either fend for yourself or hope mom and dad can help out. Many students that are not athlete’s get jobs while they are in school to help pay bills or to even just have a little extra spending money. As stated earlier the athletes, are already working a full time job with their practices and other team activities so where is there time to get a job. Well to be blunt about it, there is not. Not to mention not all players that are not lucky enough to get a full scholarship so they still have expenses after college that they cannot afford since they were not able to get a job during the school year. So this is another great reason they deserve a little token of appreciation for all the hard work.

Next thing to prove why the athletes deserve to be paid is marketing and use of their personal info. Now if you have been around basketball, you have probably heard of the kid or man we all know as Zion Williamson. Now many people have followed Zion for the past couple of years in his high school career and have waited to see what he would do in college, after Zion signed with the University of Duke, the merchandise and amount of coverage for the Duke games skyrocketed.

Also think about the number of times they have signed an autograph for a fan or something. Well again, the NCAA still does not allow the players to make money off their own name. There have been a few occasions when a player has been punished for signing and trying to sell their name. One example is Johnny Manziel, Manziel suffered only a half game suspension (King). Now the University of Kansas has tried to prevent the players getting in trouble by only allowing them to sign one item per person to not go against NCAA regulations (King). Also in the same article, they state that the basketball team signs around 1500 balls per year for the administration to sell throughout the year. Again think about this, they are literally using their player’s names to make money, and the players still DO NOT get anything (King). Also it states that the balls sell for an average of $275 per ball on average (King). Now if you do the math right that is if every ball sells for that price a grand total of $412,500 just in sell basketballs with the players’ name on it. This is also another big subject the NCAA needs to look into and get fixed quickly.

Before the game start, the chance of finding a cheap ticket was hard to find, Forbes Magazine said “the lowest price ticket for the Duke vs UNC game came at the price of $2,137.50”. (Ching) “… it would have cost to get into this years Super Bowl.” (Ching) Just think the biggest game in the NFL season cost just the same amount of a regular season Duke basketball game. Professional Zorn said, “As far as Duke this year, I haven’t seen anything like this.”(Ching) Zorn also states, “the only other athlete to impact ticket prices is NBA superstar LeBron James.”(Ching)

Another big topic that could be used to show why athletes should be paid is because of their future. A perfect example has just happened in the basketball world recently, with Zion have a shoe blow out in the middle of the game. It all happened within the first few minutes of the game. When the injury happened everyone thought the worst from ACL to major knee surgery. Now as the athlete, in their mind they are thinking the worst but hoping for the best. Just praying and hoping that it doesn’t cause them to miss much more of the season or even completing put their days of playing the game to a complete stop.

Coach Krzyzewski states “Williamson suffered a mild knee sprain but the knee was stable.” (Ching) Now after the crazy shoe blowout, the well-known sports company NIKE suffered tremendous amount of backlash for “Low quality” and many more other comments (Ching). So right there it just shows you how much that athlete has an impact on not just the game but the people that watch the game. But do not forget, for all this publicity and marketing that the players do by just stepping out on the court they still do not get a single penny of the profit, that is just not right and things need to change!

Another thing about the players’ futures, is that if they do end up having a career ending accident they have chance of losing millions of dollars if they were to end up joining the NBA. So they put their futures on the line every single day they step out onto the floor and play for the team. Now do not take this wrong, this paper is not saying that they should be on a full salary or anything like that, just help them get by as if they would have a job like the other students at the university.

So now that the paper has talked and touched base on some of the many rules the NCAA has set in place for not only the basketball athletes but all athletes in general. The NCAA needs to take this very important subject and finish it off for once and all. Pay the student athletes and help them out on how to help the student athletes not just for them during school but also for their important future as fathers and mothers but also men and women that will soon be leading our country.