Reasons Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

Imagine dedicating 20 hours a week to playing a sport in college while having to balance your schedule with school work with no financial gain. In high school, I played three sports and often found myself struggling to excel in both academics as well as sports. I couldn’t imagine the stress of having to balance the rigorous demand of collegiate academics and athletics simultaneously. With these preconceived thoughts, I have questioned the ethical aspect of the NCAA’s decision of not paying student athletes and the negative effects the decision. There have been extensive debates over whether or not collegiate athletes should be paid, especially Division I athletes. Although they receive free tuition, housing, meal plans, and travel expenses, people fail to consider the millions of dollars colleges make off of the publicity of the athletes. Without proper compensation, athletes are faced with exploitation and economic hardship in the long run. 

Many people, including Dalton Thacker, argue in favor of paying athletes due to their intense workload. Despite training and practicing for 20 hours or more per week, the NCAA categorizes them into a group under the label “amateurism,” which prevents them from having the ability to get paid. Compensation was foreign to amateur athletics at first when the concept of amateurism was first created in 1906. That was appropriate because, among other reasons, athletics consumed little of the athletes’ time, unlike today when college athletes must train year-round. Now, however, that billions of dollars are flowing to amateur athletics, a more basic American tradition is appropriate to consider: one who creates value should share proportionally in that value. Some athletes in some sports produce a great deal of revenue for their college or university, and it is appropriate to examine potential models that would allow those athletes to reap the benefits of the substantial value they create.

The NCAA mandated that athletes are not allowed to get compensated for the revenue that they bring in to the industry. They do this not only because they are afraid of how much money they might potentially have to pay the players, but also because they worry that monetary compensation will have negative effects on the NCAA and its players. This is an issue that must be addressed immediately, as it is only fair to reward these athletes for their strenuous efforts by providing them with some of the money they are earning through their hard work and dedication.

One concern that people have is the According to Dalton Thacker, the NCAA’s current compensation structure is vastly inadequate and leads to the exploitation of more than 460,000 athletes participating in college sports. The NCAA produces a massive industry that has been formed off the backs of hardworking young athletes. Many people argue that these athletes are only worth what they are given in scholarships. Opposers of compensation believe that these athletes don’t need to be compensated because they are already taken care of through other measures. In fact, many people tend to believe that a full-ride athletic scholarship to a Division I university means that these kids are going to school for free and that paying them would basically be providing them with discretionary income. In Dennis Johnson’s article “Point/Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes”, he explains that the current “full-ride scholarship can only include tuition, fees, room, board, and books… that still does not cover the full cost of attending college”. This means that kids are still required to pay for their own necessities along with other costs incurred as a regular college student. What the NCAA fails to take account of is the household incomes of the athletes. Players who come from low-income households cannot afford to pay for other necessities such as clothes and food. 

The NCAA’s exploitation of college athletes and the rampant financial hardships that athletes across the nation face demands change. Change often takes time. However, the two-prong solution can be implemented without the need for drastic reform. Ultimately, college athletes and we as citizens need to unify to lobby Congress to amend the NCAA’s amateurism regulation so that college athletes can begin to earn royalties for the use of their NIL and so that they can qualify for FWS. Congress must be enlightened to the issues that college athletes across the nation face, and this can only begin when more citizens join the cause to advance the rights of those young, hardworking athletes who are currently being silenced by the power of the NCAA. Allowing compensation will enable student-athletes at all levels who struggle financially to be rewarded for their hard work and dedication, but when these rules will be implemented is still up for discussion.