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The Pros And Cons Of Paying College Athletes

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The Pros And Cons Of Paying College Athletes
The Controversy behind College Athletes
Since 1957, the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) has permitted universities to provide athletic scholarships for players they felt would benefit their teams ("Paying College Athletes"para.4). The NCAA’s revenue has significantly increased over the past couple of decades. In 2006, colleges that were members of the NCAA earned $4.2 billion from their basketball program and about $1 billion more than the revenue generated by all NBA teams combined in the 2004–05 season ("Paying College Athletes"para.4). Although college athletes are not fairly compensated, College athletes should not be paid, because of their amateur status, pay in equivalency between sports, and total revenue gains from colleges.
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More than half of black Americans, 54 percent, support paying college athletes based on revenue they generate, due to the poll. Among white Americans, however a far smaller 31 percent support paying athletes, while 59 percent are opposed. Hispanics split more evenly, 41 percent say athletes should be paid, while 47 percent say scholarships are adequate (Will para.4) This showed, racially how people feel about paying college athletes. Boyce Watkins, argues that if what athletes do, earn money then they should be able to negotiate for their fair share. (“Paying College Athletes” para.5) Although, some believe that college athletes should be paid, they are still amateurs at the college to focus on an education. College athletes are at the college to play the sport they love, but are still there to get a degree and to partake a future job. (“Paying College Athletes” para.4-5) College athletes are not employees of the colleges, they are amateur athletes that are seeking a future …show more content…
Supporters of paying college athletes proclaim that players should be paid simple because their hard work makes money for other people. (“Paying College Athletes” para.6) Hard work and a lot of time comes with being a college athlete, and college athletes wish to see a compensation for the hard work. Although, some college athletes believe they should get a financial compensation for their hard, the effort of some of the athletes would be affected if they were to get paid. Kristi Dosh, ESPN's sports business reporter, argues that paying college athletes could destroy competitive balance, because the most successful schools would be able to offer much bigger paychecks. (Karaim para.13) It all comes down to being a student first and an athlete second, Stanford University President Marc Tessier Lavigne, said paying college athletes "would get in the way of them being students first and foremost, and athletes second."(Torry

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