Should College Athletes Be Paid for Playing Sports that Bring in Revenue?

Should College Athletes Be Paid for Playing Sports that Bring in Revenue?

Dabo Sweney, the Clemson University football coach, earns $ 9.3 million annually, making him the highest-paid college coach in the country (Hoffer & Pincin 1). Evidently, coaches and managers of various college teams earn a huge amount of money. However, college athletes end up not benefiting moneywise from their talents and hard work. Whether or not college athletes should be paid has been on ongoing debate for a while now. There is a group of people that believes that these athletes should be paid for their efforts and talents. On the other hand, some people believe that college athletes benefit from exposure and scholarships. This paper argues that paying college athletes will benefit the players, the National Collegiate Athlete Association (NCAA), and the fans.

To begin with, college sports is a multimillion industry. On this note, the National Collegiate Athlete Association (NCAA) makes approximately $ 891 million from basketball tournaments alone (Ewers). When other sports are put into consideration, it is clear than NCAA makes billions in annual revenues. As a result, Ewers argues, “College athletics is a billion-dollar industry” (1). College athletics makes money through various ways. One of these ways involves playing in bowl games. According to Ewers, winning six games makes a team eligible for playing bowl tournaments. These games allow a college team to market itself to a wider fan base. As a result, fans travel many miles just to watch a bowl game, which means they end up paying a huge entrance fee. Apart from tickets, the bowl games bring huge amounts of money for the team since “Corporations put their name in front of the bowl for prestige and to sell their product” (Ewers 1). This money is redistributed to teams who have participated in the respective games. However, college students who participate in these games are not paid anything. At the same time, the money is used to pay the coaches and sustain the NCAA since there are teams that do not bring in much revenue.

The other way college games make money is through fans buying tickets. On this note, Hoffer and Pincin argue that by the time of writing their article, “The cheapest available ticket on Stubhub.com is $ 269” (1). The ticket money acts as a crucial source of revenue for the NCAA. Apart from tickets, college sports make money through advertisements and endorsements. Thus, it is only fair that students who help make all the money the college teams college get financial rewards for their efforts. College athletes work very hard to make their teams shine. For example, Jonathan Taylor, who played for the Wisconsin Badger, was paid nothing despite him being in the running for the Heisman trophy (Schneider). This example demonstrates the extent to which the efforts and talents of college athletes go unrecognized. However, not all sectors of NCAA make money. Roberts, who is the dean emeritus of Indian University, argued that the “Division 1 college sports is essentially a wealth transfer system in which a small group of people generate a lot of revenue for others” (Reschke 1). This means that division 1 college sports are used to sustain the entire NCAA in terms of revenues. Besides, many college teams construe scholarship as an employment contract for student athletes (Sack).  However, this does not justify the payment of college coaches millions of dollars and not recognizing and compensating the student players who contributed immensely in the making of the money collected by the NCAA.

Besides, college coaches make huge amounts of money. As already established, Dabo Sweney, the Clemson University football coach makes $ 9.3 million annually (Hoffer & Pincin 1). The other college coach who is highly paid is Mike Krzyzewski. On this note, Sports Illustrated newspaper argues that Mike Krzyzewski, who is the Duke University coach, makes $ 8.9 million a year (Schneider). It will be hypocritical for college teams to pay their players nothing while knowing too well that their coaches receive millions of dollars each year. While college coaches make millions of dollars, student players only get paid in free scholarship (Ewers). College education is a very expensive undertaking. As such, it is a noble thing for talented students to get free higher education while playing for their colleges.

At the same time, college athletes should be allowed to make some money from the endorsements. According to Schneider, California was the first state to enact a piece of legislation that would allow athletes for various college teams to earn some money from endorsements, although this law would start being applied in 2023. The move is aimed at ensuring that college athletes get some financial compensation for their efforts and hard work. California passed The Fair Pay to Play Act last year, and this piece of legislation would allow athletes to profit from their talents and hard work (Ewers). The law will also enable college athletes to accept money from endorsements and hire agents.

In addition to financial compensation for the players, paying college athletes will make the NCAA more competitive. Hoffer and Pincin argues, “NCAA football is already the least competitive major U.S. sport” (1). At the moment, college teams are not highly competitive. If college athletes are paid, they will work very hard in order to impress the best coaches who will sign them into their teams. History has already shown that NCAA providing monetary compensation for players act as a motivator. For example, the NCAA voted to allow college athletes to receive scholarships as a way of subsidizing their education in 1957 (Sack 1). This decision was followed by the commercialization of college sports. As such, offering monetary compensation for the student athletes is likely to make college sports even more competitive and professional, which is likely to result in more revenues for the NCAA.

At the same time, paying college athletes will increase the revenues the NCAA receives. For instance, Schneider argues that paying college athletes will pave the way for the return of the NCAA football” and NCAA basketball games. These games were stopped after players complained that they wanted to receive financial compensation for their likeliness and names to be used in these franchises. According to Schneider, 2013 is the year in which “NCAA football” was last released (Schneider). Since this year, NCAA has lost huge amounts of money in revenues just because it is hesitant towards paying its players.

The fans will benefit too if college athletes are paid. As already established, paying students who play for various college teams will motivate these individuals to dedicate more of their time to nurturing their crafts. However, fans may suffer some detriments if college athletes are to be paid. On this note, NCAA will be forced to increase the prices of tickets for various games in order to collect the revenue it needs to pay its players (Schneider). However, the fans will benefit if they can have their experience enhanced by the higher level of competition among various college teams.

In conclusion, this paper has demonstrated that there are many reasons for paying students who play for various college teams. This is the right course of action since college sports make huge amounts of money on tickets and other sources each year. Besides, coaches for various college teams make millions of dollars each year while their players get nothing for all their hard work and talents. More importantly, this paper has demonstrated that paying college athletes will benefit all parties involved, such as the NCAA and players. Moving forward, more states should follow the direction taken by California, which has already enacted the necessary law that will allow the paying of college athletes.