The Importance Of Paying College Athletes

College athletics have gained immense popularity among Americans over the past few decades. This has resulted into increased revenues for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the participating colleges which has fuelled the debate of whether college athletes should be compensated beyond their athletic scholarships. Athletes should not receive payment for their athletic play for reasons such they already receive a full scholarship, which athletes would get paid, and undermines what college is all about. First, athletic scholarships are college athlete’s compensation and a very reasonable and rational one at that. Essentially the student-athletes receive a free education and in return they represent their school in a sport of
Would all the athletes get paid the same amount? If so, that certainly seems strange and borderline imbalanced. It is to no fault of the athlete who plays a sport that doesn’t air on national television; but it doesn’t seem acceptable that they get paid the same amount as the college football player competing in the National Championship with 33 million people watching them. No fault to the “non-revenue producing” sport that an athlete is playing. They may work just as hard, so shouldn’t they be rewarded equally? The viewer rating for the NCAA’s men’s basketball national championship game is significantly higher than the ratings for the women’s national championship. Are those woman who put in the same amount of blood and sweat into their game at fault too? They can’t control the popularity and ratings of the sport they play. The reality of the situation is there is too big a gray area when it comes to analyzing different sports. The same goes for Division II and Division III sports. Why shouldn’t those athletes be paid the same if they put in the same amount of time to practice, travel, and play