Sandin
English 101
13 October 2012 Amateurism In NCAA Football The National Collegiate Athletic Association is corrupted with sneakiness, unfairness and greediness, particularly in division one colleges. In North America, sports play a huge role, especially sports like football, hockey, basketball and baseball. Sometimes this causes us to become vanished of fairness, like are the players being treated right? A great example of injustice in sports is amateurism of football players in division one colleges. Division one and division two athletes must obtain amateurism, which is playing the sport as a hobby rather than for the money, many would define amateurism as worthy but it is really tainted and monopolized! Should NCAA athletes get paid? Numerous of people would easily answer no because college athletes are on scholarships and various athletic departments loses money even with a winning record. Also college athletes have advantages with free tuition, books, living expenses, food, clothing and health. Although all of these features appear wonderful but there are more cons …show more content…
than pros of amateurism. For example the NCAA is a business that are making money out of these athletes basically for free and yes they do receive tuition but that does not compare to the large amount of money the NCAA is making out of them. According the Stanford Review, college athletic is a multimillion-dollar industry with recruiting the best of the best in the nation.
So why not pay the best of the best, if they put in all this hard work, then they should be rewarded. Instead the National Colligate Athletic Association is a monopoly because of its limitation of scholarships and other payments to boost its college sports program. Also not all of the athletes receive scholarships. College football players put in more work on the field than they do in the classrooms. For example when in season they have five-hour practices and that doesn’t include lifting for an hour and this is from Tuesday to Friday with game day on Saturday. After the season is over then they begin spring ball which is just only practices and plus they don’t have a summer break because they have to stay for summer
ball. We consider college athletes as student athletes but that is such an oxymoron because in realty their sport does come before their schoolwork. When playing in a big division one school, most athletes believe to make it in the big leagues but sadly only about 2% makes it. Colleges should stress more on education for so call student athletes but they don’t because of the athlete’s popularity and how the NCAA is making money out of them regardless if they have a future afterward or not. It’s horrible how the NCAA contract includes that when an athlete commits and decides to transfer to play for another school then they have to sit out a year. This rule is so unfair because coaches don’t have to do that. The NCAA is the biggest monopoly in America according to Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine. When selling college souvenirs and jerseys, videogames, etc and the athlete does not make any money from that, even if they are the main reason for those sales. It is amazing that most players receive a free education but does not compare to what the NCAA is making off of them. The players should receive a cut of these profits or gain a portion of this money after graduation so it can help them financially with their futures. Sadly the NCAA is too considerate of themselves and if an athlete is injure or not performing well then they have no problem wiping their name off the record books. The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a business that makes tons of money from college athletes. Another reason why the NCAA doesn’t pay their athletes is because they will be tax and they can lose a lot of money from that. Well, professional sports obviously pay their athletes and they are tax too but the professional leagues are doing well. College basketball and college football are highly talked about and televised just like the professional sports so it shouldn’t be a problem if college athletes get paid. With amateurism in college sports, athletic programs cheat. They secretly cheat by illegally over paying top players or handing them out free stuff. For instance Cam Newton who was an All-American quarterback playing for Auburn and Mississippi before was secretly offered 120,000 to 18,000 from Mississippi State. Playing in top division one colleges, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” and if athletic programs will cheat to have the best recruits and this is no surprise. If amateurism didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be any cheating scandals and every player will treated equally from their performance.
Brown, Noah. "The NCAA Monopoly - The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!" The Toonari Post. N.p., 24 Mar. 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://www.toonaripost.com/2011/03/sports/the-ncaa-monopoly/>.