Ethical Issues In College Sports

The Governance organization of the NCAA consists of legislative bodies, made up fully of volunteers for the member schools and this creates more than 125 committees. These legislative bodies govern each division, as well as a group of committees that set association wide policies. Each committee manages topics affecting sports rules, championships, health and safety, and matters impacting women in athletics. The Governance is broken down into three separate groups; they are Division I, Division II, and Division III. The NCAA Board of Governors is the highest governing body; it brings together all the presidents and chancellors from each division to discuss issues that are important to the entire NCAA membership. This just means that governing
We hear of recruiting violations, players receiving improper benefits, the scandal going on at Louisville with call girls, the tragedy at Penn State, and the integrity of all college athletics. There are some key questions that should be asked regarding ethics in college sports, they include are college sports compatible with the goals of higher education, does the system exploit college athletes if they are not paid, are they collegiate programs doing enough to protect the health and safety of athletes, and are the NCAA rules, regulations, and penalties fair and effective? One big question that is being asked is if college sports are compatible with the goals of higher education. There has been some serious tension between the athletic programs and the universities they represent, it seems they both have different missions or goals. Sports have gotten so big and competitive over the past several years that most people only look at the sports programs and the academics is not taken seriously or viewed to be as important as success on the field. Next, is the question of do we exploit college athletes if we don’t pay them, well this is also a legal issue that continues to go on. The universities generate millions upon millions of dollars from revenue generating sports such as football and men’s basketball, and people believe they are just using the labor of the athletes by not giving them
The antitrust litigations are trying to bring down the rules that the NCAA has set that decide how much student athletes can be paid. The next one is a huge legal battle that saw EA Sports spot making college sports games and that is the right-of-publicity litigation that involves whether each student athlete should be compensated if their likeness is used in a game or advertisement. Another legal issue that formed is when the Northwestern University football players were trying to form a union so they could get paid, that labor legal issue got denied but is expect to be appealed and will be brought up again. The last legal issues involves concussion litigation and this is about a dozen lawsuits that are seeking damages for college athletes all who suffered head injuries while competing in a sport for an university. John King is an attorney with Hangens Berman, the law firm involved with the lawsuits against the NCAA has a fair point when he said “These four all address the rights a worker has in a normal workplace, you would expect a safe workplace, you expect fair wages, and you would expect that if you were put into a video game or used as advertisement you would be paid for