Derek Layton
Professor Bird
EN 300
11/18/14
Are College Athletes Going to be Paid? The NCAA is one of the top organizations in the world that brings in billions of dollars in revenue on college athletics alone most notably with college football and college basketball. Yes some of these athletes do get compensated with some sort of scholarship which does help out with their expenses but the chances of an athlete receiving an athletic scholarship that is worth anything meaningful is less than 2%. A full ride scholarship might as well be compared to as finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In cases that an athlete does receive a scholarship this does not come close to covering the expenses of tuition yet alone all of the other expense such has room and board, food and everything else a human being needs to survive.
Playing a colligate sport is just as demanding as a full time job and according to a survey done by “[1] The NCAA in 2011 playing football required 43.3 hours per week; college baseball, 42.1 hours; men's basketball, 39.2 hours; and women's basketball, 37.6 hours.” So these athletes have no time with school and their respective sport to find a job to help them with other expenses so they have to rely on student loans, grants or their parents to help them get through school. This also makes it much more difficult for a student athlete to pursue a more rigorous degree such as sciences and engineering. One problem that I have with the NCAA is all the restrictions that they put on recruiting and even after recruiting is over the athletes have to sign away their image, rights to their name, and their likeness just play in college. There was specific problem with a famous college athlete of Jonny Manziel or commonly referred to as “Jonny Football.” During Manziel’s final year of playing college football he was attending “[2] Walter Camp Football Foundation event, and at this event he was allegedly paid $7,500 for signing autographs and this went against NCAA Bylaw 12.5.2.1 -- accepting money for promoting or advertising the commercial sale of a product or service.” Which if he was found guilty he could have been ruled ineligible, Manziel was never found guilty of doing this but his school still suspended him for a part of a game because the NCAA put so much pressure on Texas A&M to do something about the situation.
A big issue with the NCAA is that it’s trying to suck every bit of money out of these athletes that they can. Manziel was selling his name which nothing is wrong with that because he has the god given right to sell his name if it is valuable enough to be bought. Since the NCAA is so money hungry they put all sorts of sanctions on these athletes to make it where the NCAA or the athletes respective school is the one entitled to that athletes name, jersey or whatever it may be, any other organization or business in this world it would be the opposite the athlete would be entitled to some sort of compensation made off of the player’s name or likeness. It is just hard to believe that the NCAA is trying to take the athletes name away from them when they have money making behemoths such as “March Madness” which “[3] exceeded one billion in T.V. and ad revenue alone in the year of 2012. That is more than the NFL postseason made $976 million, the NBA playoffs made $536 million, the MLB playoffs made $354 million and the NHL playoffs earned $101 million.” Yes a lot of this money does end up going back to the respective school or that schools conference, for each round a team advances the bigger the paycheck that school is going to get. This school also gets to choose how it spends this money which some does go back to the team whether it be to pay for a coaches salary, travel expenses, etc.
I can’t fathom how an organization that makes billions of dollars a year can get away with not paying or at least taking care of its most prized possession and that is the student athlete. Because without these kids the NCAA would not be able to swim around in their pile of cash that they are making off these kids, and I say kids because most them are not even to the age being able to go out and buy a beer. One of the arguments that the NCAA puts up against not having to pay the players is that they claim that most of the money if not all of it goes into helping the schools provided for other sports that are not self-sustaining, sports such as wrestling, swimming, and many other school related activities. Which most of these sports yes can’t sustain by themselves but there are a lot of boosters and fundraising events that go on to help with a huge chunk of that’s sports expenses. So that is why I find it hard to believe that all of the extra cash flow is eaten up by sports that are not able to support themselves. Now don’t get me wrong I still do believe that there is a strong value in education that these kids are able to receive, these kids should also feel blessed to be able to get the chance to play a colligate sport and at the same time get an education that is second to none. But I also do believe that there are way too many restrictions put on these athletes for example if a family friend goes out and buys this kid dinner or a pair of shoes that kid can be suspended by NCAA for taking in what the NCAA considers “unnecessary items.” That to me is just ridiculous how you can punish anyone for going out to dinner and someone else picking up the tab, there is a huge difference between that and a booster going out and buying an athlete a brand new car. One thing that I think that the boosters and the schools could do that would be a huge help to not only the athlete but as well as the athletes family is to send the family up to watch their son or daughter play a game or two. With athletes traveling all across the country now to play for a certain school it has become very difficult for their families not only financially but also physically to see their son or daughter play. A huge first step was taken on the NCAA to provide more for its student athletes, when just after UCONN won the 2013 men’s basketball championship their star point guard Shabazz Napier who is now a point guard for the Miami heat said that he “sometimes went to bed starving because he could not afford food” Shortly after this the NCAA council approved a new meal plan [4] that went from having a 3 meals a day or a food stipend, to being able to have an unlimited meal and snack plan in conjunction with their athletics participation.
Another huge step was when the football players at [5] Northwestern University filed to become a union, shortly after they filed for the right to unionize the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had granted them this right and recognizing the school’s football players as Employees. The NLRB review provides the opportunity to expand the impact of the case beyond Northwestern, to all private schools that play Division I football. When Northwestern did this it was an historic event and this was the first major step to let players have a voice for themselves. But as of now it has not done anything but scare the NCAA into giving the players a little more leeway and more of a voice when it comes to college athletics.
I truly do believe that eventually the student athletes and the NCAA will eventually find a happy medium between all of this. You can also start to tell that the NCAA is realizing that it does need to lighten up on some of their ridiculous restrictions they have against these athletes. If they do not do this they see that the student athletes will eventually get tired of it and form a union as the case with Northwestern. One thing that I hope does not happen is that the NCAA eventually gives in and starts paying the athletes like they are professionals. Because what these student athletes have to realize is that they are students first and athletes second, and they must realize that. Like I said before the education they are receiving is truly second to none and you can’t put a price on that.