Essay Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

College athlete salary has been a controversial issue for many years. Many debate that they do not need a salary and that all they need is the scholarship that they were given to get into the school. At the same time people argue that they need compensation for putting their bodies and careers on the line, they bring in lots of profit for the school, and need money moving forward in their professional career and in life after college. Kevin Ware, guard for the 2013 NCAA men’s basketball national champion Louisville Cardinals, is a prime example of athletes putting their bodies and potentially their careers on the line for their school. In the elite eight round of the NCAA tournament against the No. 2 ranked Duke, with Louisville up by one point with Duke in possession of the ball, one of the Duke players attempts a three point shot and Ware jumps to block it and lands awkwardly. This resulted in one of the most horrific stomach wrenching injuries in NCAA and professional sports, when Ware landed a bone in his leg
ruptured through the skin and sent Ware to ground and to the ER. Ware was easily going to go into the NBA draft soon and had a bright career to look forward to, but this injury set him back for years, he has just now started his professional career in the NBL 4 years later. Marcus Dupree is another example, often referred as “the best that never was”, Dupree had an outstanding career in high school that attracted him lots of national attention. Among the dozens division one schools that offered scholarships to Dupree, The University of Oklahoma was one of them whom he eventually chose. Barry Switzer said that Dupree was “the best player on the field”, and that no one could come close to being as talented as him. In his freshman year alone he had 1,393 yards and 12 touchdowns, but in his much anticipated sophomore year he was hampered by injuries and did not play the full season, resulting in him not playing his remaining two years of college. The second reason why college athletes should be paid is because they pull in a large amount of money for their colleges. The University of Alabama made $123,769,841 in 2008 from athletics alone, to the overall $2,132,141,353 that the university made that year. The NCAA makes over 12,000,000,000 a year off of college basketball alone, and all of the athletes make nothing. Given that a large bulk of that is made off of marketing, the schools are still marketing their student athletes. Possibly the worst Division One football team in the nation still makes over 80 million dollars a year and the best still makes over 100 million and their players aren’t paid a dime, even with all of the endorsements they get. The third reason that college athletes need to have some type of compensation is because it is gonna take a lot of financial backing to go into professional sports that they may not have.
Some may make the argument that some athletes should have jobs while they are in school, but it takes a lot to balance work, whatever sport they play, and their classes. An example is that college golfers have to pay at least 75,000 per year if they go pro and college bass fisherman (if you count them as athletes) have to pay at least $10,000 for a single tournament, and they haven’t even made a cent yet. The athletes also need this money because of any injuries they have in their college career. In college if a player is injured, then the athlete and his family have to pay for recovery of any and all injuries. That can put a large hole in what little money they have while they are in college and may ruin their future careers just like Kevin
Ware. People may argue that college athletes may not need salaries to be successful like many of the star professional players that we have today, but there may be the best and brightest stars out there that never got the chance to play because of injuries they couldn't afford or their sport was too expensive. It's just simply not fair to them and their families.