Essay On Should College Athletes Get Paid

Many people believe that college athletes deserve to get paid while many other believe that they should not. While there are many common arguments why college athletes should not get paid such as they are on scholarship, they are amateurs, and paying college athletes would ruin college sports. College athletes should get paid and there are various reasons why they deserve some form of monetary compensation. The typical American work week is said to be 40 hours, “while the typical division 1 college football player devotes 43.4 hours per week to his sport” (Walch 1). That is 3.3 more hours than the typical American works in a week, who by the way is being paid no less than $7.25 per hour. If a student has 10 hours of class each week and puts
in the recommended four hours of study for each class, then athletes spend 50 hours each week studying and attending mandatory classes and study halls. This means that college athletes have to work 90 hours per week just to remain in school on their scholarship, “this is the equivalent to working two full-time jobs with a side job on the weekends just to pay their bills” (Anderson 1). The NCAA claims that the athletes are just students, even when the coaches repeatedly remind the athletes that they are there to play their specific sport. College basketball players are just students, “even though division I men's college basketball players are forced to miss classes for nationally televised games that bring in a lot of revenue” (Edelman 1). Depending on how far each team may go into the playoff bracket of March Madness, it may require students to miss up to a quarter of all class days during their spring semester ( Edelman 1). So athletics clearly come before academics at the division I level, therefore athletes should receive money for their long hours put into the sport on a weekly basis. Again the NCAA and universities are able to produce more money each year than the NBA and NHL, who are able to pay their athletes massive amount of money. Also, this year the University of Alabama reported around $143 million dollars in athletic revenue, which was more money than all 30 NHL teams and 25 of 30 NBA teams (Edelman 1). The NBA and NHL are able to give their employees a more than satisfactory salary, so the NCAA should be able to reward their “employees” with a salary of around $25,000 dollars. While college football players are putting in just as much work and effort week in and week out as the coaches they are earning nothing while coaches earnings are in the millions. The average salary for a BCS eligible football coach was $2.05 million (Edelman 1). The coaches salaries should be lowered and the money cut from the salaries should directly go to the players. Coaches such as Nick Saban from Alabama is hauling in a massive salary of over $7 million dollars (Edelman 1). Alabama should lower the salary that they pay the iconic football coaches and give it to the people who make it possible to pay a football coach that much money which are the players. The same applies to college basketball where the average salary for a premier NCAA division I men’s basketball coach also exceeded $1 million dollars (Edelman 1). College football players and basketball who are stars bring great awareness to the universities that they belong to. The year that Doug Flutie won the prestigious Heisman trophy, the school he attended, Boston College, “raised their average SAT score by 110 points and their undergraduate admissions increased by 25 percent” (Edelman 1). Just because a college football player was one of the best players in the country, he helped bring in a lot of revenue for his specific school and also made his college more selective since he helped significantly increase the amount of people applying. This situation is similar to Patrick Ewing's basketball performance during the 1982-83 NCAA season helped generate a 47% increase in undergraduate applications and a 40 point increase in freshman SAT scores during the following admissions cycle at Georgetown University (Edelman 1). Many college athletes come from underprivileged families, they used their athletic talents to escape poverty, or violence with drugs or gangs. Therefore, many college athletes are forced to pay out of pocket for certain items not covered on scholarship, such as clothes, food, and gas. This is hard for many college athletes since themselves or their parents do not have the money for the extra items. A selected few athletes will get a chance to bring their family out of poverty and make a great living in either the NBA or the NFL. But for the not so lucky ones that end their careers at the collegiate level they should receive some money in order to pay for the expenses that any college student would need to since they do not simply have the time to get a part time job while enrolled in college and participating in their specific sport. The benefits that the players can receive from receiving a salary are endless. Giving money to division I college football and basketball players could help them create a sense of financial awareness and it could teach them how to manage their own money. It is estimated that “60 percent of NBA players go bankrupt or are under financial stress in just two to five years after their retirement,” this is simply because athletes are unaware of how to manage their own money (Patterson 1). But if they were taught how to budget and handle their money in college with a class as well as the real experience, this rate of 60 percent would decrease dramatically. College students are able to find jobs throughout the college such as a work-study program and they are able to receive a salary. College musicians or journalism students are making money by “promoting their own work, selling their own work, and finding endorsements” (Wilbon 1). While College athletes are not able to receive any compensation for the many hours spent each week in their sport and they are also not allowed to receive any endorsements or promote themselves. There is nothing that differs between a college football or basketball player and a college student pursuing a career in journalism or music. Lastly paying college football and basketball players would “force them to stay in school longer and finish their degrees” (Walch 1). Even the top prospected football and basketball players are not guaranteed a career in their specific sport.
They could have a career ending injury, find a drug problem that drives them away from their sport, or actually get worse and not be able to produce at the professional level. In this case they need a backup plan and with many of these players skipping over graduation to pursue their pro dreams and make millions of dollars they are now only left with the memories and an unfinished college education. If college athletes were paid it would make them stay in college since they would not be thinking about one of the top reasons why so many athletes leave college early which is money. When a player's aspirations do not work out of having a career in the pros a backup plan will be in place which includes a college degree and an increase chance of success. Professional athletes also are not playing their sports until they are 65 years old and ready to retire, the careers are short and are cut short at around the age of 40 or in some cases well before. With the college degree, you would then have the opportunity to pursue your career interest that you were studying in college and even further your financial stability. But if you were one of those NBA players who went bankrupt after retirement this is yet another situation where your college degree would be useful and help you dig out of the hole that you put yourself
in. But with a college degree the chance of NBA players going bankrupt would also decrease since they would be more educated and less likely to make poor decisions. Division I men's football and basketball players deserve to receive monetary compensation for their hard work and dedication that they express to their sports since it would benefit them in a variety of different positive ways.