College Sports Should Be Banned

College athletics are a big hit in the community and for the students that attend that college. It makes them feel as though they are back in high school again, cheering on their hometown team. But for colleges it is also a big way to produce money in a major way. College athletics are a big way to produce money from memorabilia, to video games, to ticket sales colleges can make towards $7,020,00 in athletic sales. Take memorabilia for instance, colleges have registered fan shops that sells all sorts of apparel, jerseys, hats, posters or anything that represents the university. For example, Duke university’s official memorabilia seller is selling jerseys with the number zero of the front for one hundred and twenty dollars (goduke.com). However
the jersey does not have that player’s name on the back, that player would be Jayson Tatum. Jayson was the star player for Duke this past season and everyone would associate that number with Jayson. So even with there being no proof that it is a jersey of Jayson, they are still using his likeness without compensation. Another way that colleges make money on athletics is through sponsorships. Around the United States there are at least fourteen universities that have contracts worth more than three million dollars annually (Solomon).
These contracts pay the university for wearing the shoes, while also providing shoes and jerseys for the athletes to wear. These contracts also provide advertisement for the companies, which is why most top colleges have top company sponsorships and smaller schools don’t have many sponsors. Another big way to gain money was through video games. The reason it was a big way is because it is now banned from producing video games featuring colleges because of the Ed O’Bannon trial. Ed was a major basketball player for UCLA in the 1990’s and even helped UCLA win the 1995 NCAA championship. However, years after his playing career he went to his neighbor’s house and saw his son playing a video game. He then realized that the player on the screen was him with no name but it was the same shooting motion, face, and number he had played with at UCLA. He then filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and won, and the NCAA made a rule saying that no video games can be made with the likeness of athletes in college. But prior to the Ed O’Bannon trial top schools featured in the games would receive up to seventy five thousand
dollars. Finally, colleges sell tickets to produce another form of revenue. Fans want to see their teams play so colleges set prices for tickets that will produce profit for them. Some of the top teams in college basketball have reasonable prices, such as Villanova whose average prices are around ninety one dollars, and Kentucky, whose average is seventy eight dollars. While some colleges are very expensive t even go to one game, Duke is one of those colleges their average price is two hundred ninety dollars (Ticketcity). If colleges are making people pay this much to see their top athletes, shouldn’t the athletes be compensated to some degree?