Author: Teri Cantrell

There has been a long debate about whether or not college athletes should be paid. Some people think that a scholarship should be enough as payment. A scholarship can be worth $15,000 – $25,000 or more per year, plus a career after college that can be worth a million dollars. Of course, with such money, they can almost afford anything without worrying about paying the annual mortgage or even thinking wedding loan tricks in the future. Additionally, student-athletes receive all kinds of facilities while in college, such as staying at luxurious hotels, broadcasted on national tv, and all of the reputations that go with being a star athlete. Therefore, many youngsters pursue their dream as a professional athlete.

Is Students-Athlete Being Exploited?

On the other hand, reflecting that particular college sports make millions of dollars for college athletic programs, many people consider that the student-athlete is actually being used. If the average football student is worth $20,000 a year, but the faculty earns $70,000 a year per student (this an estimation), the faculty might receive $50,000 a year per student or $200,000 over four years.

It is quite challenging to give a numerical value of what an athlete is worth in a university. The NCCA does not permit colleges to sell a college football jersey with a player’s name on it, but they will sell the jersey with the player’s number on it, which will sometimes be recognizable for local and national markets. Major colleges earn considerable sums of money from this type of commodities. It is evident that in this scenario, the student-athlete is not exploited, which is an understatement.

College athletic businesses earn millions from television and advertisement contracts. Naturally, salaries need to be paid to athletic directors and coaches. However, the fact of the matter is that, compared to the amount of revenue that student-athletes generate for their colleges, what they receive in return is very inadequate.

Hidden Points

This is where it gets interesting. An athlete can be “disciplined” by marketing his tickets to an enthusiast on an online afternoon, but how much money do NCAA managers make from the efforts of student-athletes? The simple truth is that college athletes pay a portion of each individual to be hired by the NCAA through their salary.

The point is that if the NCAA, coaches, and athletic directors can earn tremendous sums of money from the student-athletes, it would be nice if their scholarships would pay them an extra to go out for pizza or buy some nice outfits as a way of saying “gratitude” for their endeavors. Additionally, if you were to pay more to the star quarterback than you do for an “ok” receiver, you will run into a lot of different issues. In other words, the first thing you want to avoid paying college athletes is student-athletes arguing how much money they earn or earn, which frequently happens in the NFL.

The next thing to avoid is the uneven playing field. If a student-athlete knows he can earn more at USC than he plays for his state university, then the playing field becomes unequal than it already is. Technically, colleges with the most tradition, best coaches, and the best records are usually the colleges with the most money but, if one college could afford to pay more to athletes than other colleges, the playing field would be even more uneven.

Solutions

The first solution, the colleges will give salaries to student-athletes with the same value for each player, which could be determined in advance by the NCAA. The second alternative, the NCAA provides the extra money for the few colleges that couldn’t afford to pay their athletes. Third, cut the salaries of every executive of the NCAA by 25% and give a different margin to the athletes.…