For quite some time now, there has been a huge debate about whether or not college athletes should be paid. Some people believe that a scholarship should be sufficient payment. After all, a scholarship can easily be worth $15,000 – $25,000 or more per year, plus a career after college that can be worth a million dollars over a lifetime. Plus, student athletes receive all sorts of benefits while in college, like staying in fancy hotels, being seen on national TV, and all the notoriety that comes with being a star athlete. It’s hard to put a price on all of that.
However, considering the fact that certain college sports generate millions of dollars for college athletic programs, many people believe that athletes are being used. If the average soccer scholarship is worth $20,000 per year, but the university earns $70,000 per year in revenue per scholarship player (note that this figure is only an estimate; the actual number may be higher), the university will earn a profit of $50,000 per year, per scholarship player, or $200,000 over a four-year period.
It is very difficult to put a numerical value to exactly how much an athlete is worth to a university. A star quarterback will not only help sell tickets, but will also generate a lot of merchandise sales. The NCCA will not allow universities to sell a college football jersey with a player’s name on it, but will sell the jersey with the player’s number, which is easily recognizable in local and sometimes national markets. Major universities make huge sums of money from this type of merchandise alone, yet the student-athlete whose number is used to sell merchandise won’t see a dime of the profits. To say that the student athlete is not being exploited in this situation is an understatement.
It goes way beyond that. College athletic programs get millions of television and advertising contracts. They also bring in millions of dollars in donations from sports promoters. Yes, salaries need to be paid to athletic directors and trainers, not to mention travel and other costs for student athletes, and it’s great that major college football and basketball programs help fund non-revenue-generating athletic programs. The fact is, however, that compared to the amount of revenue student-athletes generate for their universities, what they receive in return is very small.
This is where it gets really interesting. An athlete can be “disciplined” for selling his or her tickets to a fan on game day, but how much money do NCAA directors make as a result of student-athlete efforts? The reality is that college athletes literally pay a large chunk of the salaries of every person employed by the NCAA. If an NCAA executive can drive a Mercedes, he can thank a star quarterback or running back for it, and maybe even several tickets.
So here’s the point: If the NCAA, coaches, and athletic directors can make big bucks from student athletes, shouldn’t student athletes get a piece of the pie, too? This is not to say that college athletes should be paid big bucks, but it would definitely be nice if their scholarships paid them a little extra to go out for pizza once in a while, or buy nice clothes, just a little bit of money. extra to spend as a way of saying “thank you” for your efforts.
If for some reason college athletes could be paid, that opens up a whole new can of worms. All the athletes in a soccer team with 125 players work very hard in practice, but only 11 can start in attack and defense. Do you only pay holders? Plus, if you were to pay a star quarterback more than you would for a “good” receiver, you’re going to run into a lot of other problems. With that being said, the first thing to avoid when paying college athletes is having student athletes fight over how much money they make or should make, which happens frequently in the NFL.
The second thing you want to avoid is an uneven playing field. While some colleges at the Division I level can afford to pay athletes, many simply don’t generate enough revenue. If a student athlete knows that he can earn more at USC than if he plays for her state university, then the playing field becomes more uneven than it already is. Athletes would almost always choose “money schools” over other universities. Technically, this happens more today than people realize, because the colleges with the longest traditions, the best coaches, and the best records are often the colleges with the most money… but if a college could pay more to the athletes than other universities, the playing field would be even more uneven.
If you’re going to start paying athletes, all athletes should be paid the same amount of money, and all universities should have the same amount of money to pay their athletes, which could be predetermined by the NCAA. Even if this amount were small, like $1,000 PER YEAR, per player (for a total of ($125,000 per year for a 125-player college football team), paid every month during the school year, it would be much fairer). For the student For the few colleges that can’t afford it, the NCAA could always throw in the extra money from the millions it generates from bowling, it would be cutting the salaries of all the NCAA executives who have gotten rich off of NCAA athletics. by 25%- and give the difference to the athletes…
Most of this article focused on college football programs. The revenue generated from basketball programs is even more staggering, considering smaller teams, less expensive travel expenses, and fewer scholarships needed, making the profits the NCAA earns from college basketball programs even more amazing.