Analysis: Should College Athletes Be Paid
Should College Athletes Be Paid?
Richard Sherman, a premier athlete in the NFL, is what one would want to see in a student athlete. In high school, he was the salutatorian(second in his class) and graduated with a 4.2 GPA, while putting in the demanding hours required to be an elite athlete. He attended Stanford and continued his academic excellence, while maintaining that NFL prospect status. In an interview, Sherman was asked his stance on college athlete treatment: “While student athletes are being offered a free education, they do not have the time or enough opportunities to take advantage of that education. These athletes are being cut short and not getting what they deserve.” They are given a scholarship for school, yet they are expected …show more content…
to put all their time into a certain sport. They are not able to get a job, have little time for extra studying, and people who are not intellectually gifted have an extremely hard time. Richard Sherman was out of Compton, California and everyone knows about the status of that area, no money and high crime rates. A decent amount of families are not able to send some cash to their kid on campus. Sherman had to endure countless meal less nights and had to decide between transportation or food. Although colleges pay the way for many student athletes, little is known about their daily college struggle and these athletes deserve to be paid additional funds. While college athletes are getting a scholarship to come perform an athletic at their university, it is basically a full time job and athletes are not really offered a chance to take full opportunity of their education. At Northwestern University, there was a report done covering their football roster. The NCAA has an official rule that only allows 20 hours of organized practices a week, so Northwestern had 20 hours of organized practice with direction from their coaching staff. That is roughly 4 hours of organized practice a day because there are scrimmages or games Saturdays and Sundays are usually an off day for most programs. People see this 20 hour rule and believe that this is fair, and yes 20 hours is not vigorous or an unreasonable amount of time, although there is a hidden dark side of college athletics. Northwestern’s football program involves 30 hours of off-field practice every week. That is 50 hours a week of football work and there were responses collected from the group of players. All of them loved their sport, but they were so far behind in class that they had sleepless nights trying to meet deadlines because professors do not care at all about one’s schedule if they are not in class. A full time job in America is considered to be 40 hours a week or more, Northwestern is doing 50 and I am sure of it that if there was a report done on the Alabama football team the unreported hours spent on the football field or in the weight room would be mind blowing. Northwestern is at best, a middle of the pack football team and these players are struggling to make ends meet. These college athletes are working hypothetically full-time job yet they are still struggling to make ends meet. When these athletes are not on a meal plan they suffer, like Richard Sherman they can be doing everything right and still have a tough time. These athletes sometimes have meal less nights if they are coming out of less fortunate families and people do not recognize this nonsense. Just a small payment for living expenses can make a huge difference and possibly give students more drive to perform well in school. Students athletes are given money for school, yet they are to an extent denied the opportunity to take advantage of a scholarship for education that they have worked for their whole life.
College programs are offering their athletes tons of money in scholarships in order for them to attend their college, but the amount of money these athletes bring in is so tremendous that them not getting paid should not go unnoticed. Last fiscal year, NCAA football brought in over 1 billion dollars in surplus and there are multiple colleges over the 100 million mark in straight profit that goes back into the program. Texas football, the number 1 program business wise brought in over 137 million dollars in surplus in the 2016-2017 season. That amount of money is ridiculous and this cash is vented back through the colleges athletics, this money pays for a lot of things like coach salaries. While coaches have an extremely demanding job and do a ton of things behind the scenes like recruiting, I think it is hard to tell someone that some of them deserve $9 million or more in yearly salaries. If college athletes were thriving and weren’t struggling I would have no problem with these huge salaries. For example Nick Saban is making roughly $9.3 million a year and is the highest paid college coach. Sure; he recruits, he travels the nation, and he spends a ton of time away from his family, although his players are doing the exact same thing and they are making no money. College sport programs are the main income for their given colleges, yet these people who are generating the money are struggling. Students at a university have a very demanding schedule, but they have the extra free time to attempt to get a job and make some cash. Student athletes have no time to get a job and all this money they are generating are going to certain things that matter, but they aren’t earning that money. An even spread of cash to all student athletes would easily fix the current problem many of them face and colleges would be just fine by sacrificing only a couple million dollars.
The NCAA in reality is just a corrupt mess and recently there have been tons of cases involving college athletes getting paid.
For example, the University of Arizona just went through a big time scandal involving paying college athletes. One recruiting tactic used by tons of colleges is paying or bribing athletes to come to their school with cash or tangible items. These colleges get in tons of trouble and the players do as well. They usually use these tactics on poor recruits and these athletes receive pressure from their families to accept the offering. To help their family financially they accept the offer from a college and most of the time it goes unnoticed, but when these athletes get caught the consequences are tremendous. The athlete at Arizona had his reputation tarnished and his NBA dreams were crushed as well; all because he was trying to help out his family and did not want to struggle financially. So obviously under the table there are transactions happening and I feel that if the NCAA made paying college athletes legal less programs would get in trouble and the NCAA would no longer be corrupt. This would also make the NCAA more balanced because the bigger programs with more excess money would not be able to sway athletes with all this extra money. There are a ton of solutions to this problem, they could just make this bribing legal, they could make a salary system, or some kind of reward system for players. If a college were to make a salary based system for their college athletes it should be a single base salary only because every program spends roughly the same amount of time putting in tons of work even if they do not bring in as much money. If the NCAA were to make a stipend system along with commissions I feel that would be the best option. These players could receive commissions for jersey sales and possibly have some type of reward system that goes along with some kind of base salary so that athletes that do not play a lot are still able to
make some cash. College athletes are some of the hardest working people and are extremely blessed to have the opportunity to play a college sport and get some sort of discount on an education, although the system they play in is corrupt. They are basically working a full time job and if one would like to argue that is what their scholarship is for, tuition is around $20,000 a year and all full time jobs bring in more cash than that with less work in some cases. They bring in so much money to their given programs and are not currently being rewarded for basically being the sole reason colleges are so successful today. If some kind of payment system was created for student athletes it would fix this problem and these hard working people would stop having to experience meal less nights and the daily struggles of a college athlete.
Richard Sherman, a premier athlete in the NFL, is what one would want to see in a student athlete. In high school, he was the salutatorian(second in his class) and graduated with a 4.2 GPA, while putting in the demanding hours required to be an elite athlete. He attended Stanford and continued his academic excellence, while maintaining that NFL prospect status. In an interview, Sherman was asked his stance on college athlete treatment: “While student athletes are being offered a free education, they do not have the time or enough opportunities to take advantage of that education. These athletes are being cut short and not getting what they deserve.” They are given a scholarship for school, yet they are expected …show more content…
to put all their time into a certain sport. They are not able to get a job, have little time for extra studying, and people who are not intellectually gifted have an extremely hard time. Richard Sherman was out of Compton, California and everyone knows about the status of that area, no money and high crime rates. A decent amount of families are not able to send some cash to their kid on campus. Sherman had to endure countless meal less nights and had to decide between transportation or food. Although colleges pay the way for many student athletes, little is known about their daily college struggle and these athletes deserve to be paid additional funds. While college athletes are getting a scholarship to come perform an athletic at their university, it is basically a full time job and athletes are not really offered a chance to take full opportunity of their education. At Northwestern University, there was a report done covering their football roster. The NCAA has an official rule that only allows 20 hours of organized practices a week, so Northwestern had 20 hours of organized practice with direction from their coaching staff. That is roughly 4 hours of organized practice a day because there are scrimmages or games Saturdays and Sundays are usually an off day for most programs. People see this 20 hour rule and believe that this is fair, and yes 20 hours is not vigorous or an unreasonable amount of time, although there is a hidden dark side of college athletics. Northwestern’s football program involves 30 hours of off-field practice every week. That is 50 hours a week of football work and there were responses collected from the group of players. All of them loved their sport, but they were so far behind in class that they had sleepless nights trying to meet deadlines because professors do not care at all about one’s schedule if they are not in class. A full time job in America is considered to be 40 hours a week or more, Northwestern is doing 50 and I am sure of it that if there was a report done on the Alabama football team the unreported hours spent on the football field or in the weight room would be mind blowing. Northwestern is at best, a middle of the pack football team and these players are struggling to make ends meet. These college athletes are working hypothetically full-time job yet they are still struggling to make ends meet. When these athletes are not on a meal plan they suffer, like Richard Sherman they can be doing everything right and still have a tough time. These athletes sometimes have meal less nights if they are coming out of less fortunate families and people do not recognize this nonsense. Just a small payment for living expenses can make a huge difference and possibly give students more drive to perform well in school. Students athletes are given money for school, yet they are to an extent denied the opportunity to take advantage of a scholarship for education that they have worked for their whole life.
College programs are offering their athletes tons of money in scholarships in order for them to attend their college, but the amount of money these athletes bring in is so tremendous that them not getting paid should not go unnoticed. Last fiscal year, NCAA football brought in over 1 billion dollars in surplus and there are multiple colleges over the 100 million mark in straight profit that goes back into the program. Texas football, the number 1 program business wise brought in over 137 million dollars in surplus in the 2016-2017 season. That amount of money is ridiculous and this cash is vented back through the colleges athletics, this money pays for a lot of things like coach salaries. While coaches have an extremely demanding job and do a ton of things behind the scenes like recruiting, I think it is hard to tell someone that some of them deserve $9 million or more in yearly salaries. If college athletes were thriving and weren’t struggling I would have no problem with these huge salaries. For example Nick Saban is making roughly $9.3 million a year and is the highest paid college coach. Sure; he recruits, he travels the nation, and he spends a ton of time away from his family, although his players are doing the exact same thing and they are making no money. College sport programs are the main income for their given colleges, yet these people who are generating the money are struggling. Students at a university have a very demanding schedule, but they have the extra free time to attempt to get a job and make some cash. Student athletes have no time to get a job and all this money they are generating are going to certain things that matter, but they aren’t earning that money. An even spread of cash to all student athletes would easily fix the current problem many of them face and colleges would be just fine by sacrificing only a couple million dollars.
The NCAA in reality is just a corrupt mess and recently there have been tons of cases involving college athletes getting paid.
For example, the University of Arizona just went through a big time scandal involving paying college athletes. One recruiting tactic used by tons of colleges is paying or bribing athletes to come to their school with cash or tangible items. These colleges get in tons of trouble and the players do as well. They usually use these tactics on poor recruits and these athletes receive pressure from their families to accept the offering. To help their family financially they accept the offer from a college and most of the time it goes unnoticed, but when these athletes get caught the consequences are tremendous. The athlete at Arizona had his reputation tarnished and his NBA dreams were crushed as well; all because he was trying to help out his family and did not want to struggle financially. So obviously under the table there are transactions happening and I feel that if the NCAA made paying college athletes legal less programs would get in trouble and the NCAA would no longer be corrupt. This would also make the NCAA more balanced because the bigger programs with more excess money would not be able to sway athletes with all this extra money. There are a ton of solutions to this problem, they could just make this bribing legal, they could make a salary system, or some kind of reward system for players. If a college were to make a salary based system for their college athletes it should be a single base salary only because every program spends roughly the same amount of time putting in tons of work even if they do not bring in as much money. If the NCAA were to make a stipend system along with commissions I feel that would be the best option. These players could receive commissions for jersey sales and possibly have some type of reward system that goes along with some kind of base salary so that athletes that do not play a lot are still able to
make some cash. College athletes are some of the hardest working people and are extremely blessed to have the opportunity to play a college sport and get some sort of discount on an education, although the system they play in is corrupt. They are basically working a full time job and if one would like to argue that is what their scholarship is for, tuition is around $20,000 a year and all full time jobs bring in more cash than that with less work in some cases. They bring in so much money to their given programs and are not currently being rewarded for basically being the sole reason colleges are so successful today. If some kind of payment system was created for student athletes it would fix this problem and these hard working people would stop having to experience meal less nights and the daily struggles of a college athlete.