Kevin Quinlan

14287653

Maurine Phful

3/17/18

Paying College Athletes

The relationship between the NCAA and college athletes is probably the worst that it has

ever been. These athletes want to be paid for the work they do, and the NCAA is holding firm in

denying them this demand. The debate on whether college athletes should be paid or not has

been going on since 1905 (Swanson). It has been 113 years and there still has not been any

resolution. College athletes are committing full-time hours to their craft and their schools are

making countless amounts of money off them; therefore, they deserve to be paid.

College athletes should be allowed to profit off their name. They should be allowed to

sell their autographs and game-worn items, but they are not. If they were to do so they would

lose their eligibility to play; however, for some reason their colleges can. Rick Reilly wrote an

article for ESPN back in 2013 saying, “Johnny Manziel, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, is

a national sensation -- Johnny Football. His school, Texas A&M, is making the GNP of Kuwait

off him in jersey sales and T-shirt sales and ticket sales and donations and anything else it can

dream up. To A&M, he's Johnny Man-sell” (Reilly). This makes no sense. This school is making

hundreds of thousands if not millions off these sales and the player whose name is on these items

is not getting a single penny from it. There is no argument that can justify that. It is wrong on an

ethical and moral level to be raking in the money by using a player’s name and not give them the

amount that they rightfully deserve. This Johnny Manziel case is just one specific example to

highlight what is going on in college sports, but it is far from the only example. This is
happening at every single college that has an athletics program. These schools are using their

athlete’s popularity to profit and do not pay them their fair share and it needs to stop.

College athletes are working a full-time job for free. Mike Benedykciuk, a columnist for

the Daily Free Press wrote an article advocating for college athletes to be paid and in it he stated,

“The average Division I football player dedicates over 43 hours per week to his sport, meaning

that he spends more than a typical American work-week training and playing football, in

addition to his classwork(Benedykciuk). (While those numbers were exclusively for football it

can be assumed that other sports are right around there.) Colleges always make sure to label

students that play sports for them as “student-athletes” they try to give off the allusion that their

sport comes second to their academics when in reality that is false. These athletes are waking up

early for practice and going to sleep late for training and film sessions, and they still have to try

and find time to study for their courses. School is a full-time job and their sport is a full-time job.

With all of that on their table, something is going to suffer and more often than not it is their

academics. These students are neglecting their education to help the school have a successful

program and they still are not being paid. It is just wrong on so many levels.

Some student-athletes are unable to afford food. With their sport being their first full-

time job and school being the other these athletes have no time in their schedule for a part-time

job. Some of these athletes come from upper or middle-class homes, but there are also some who

come from lower class families who do not have parents that can send them money whenever.

Combine this with the inability to work to support themselves and there is a major problem. In

the documentary titled, “The Price of College Sports” there is a scene where former NFL running

back Arian Foster is talking about being hungry as a college athlete. He describes a conversation

he had with one of his coaches, "Coach, we don't have no food. We don't have any money. We're
hungry. Either you give us some food, or I'm gunna go do something stupid. He came down and

he brought like 50 tacos for like four or five of us. Which is an NCAA violation” (Schooled: The

Price of College Sports). Arian Foster was on a scholarship and he had to resort to begging his

coach for food. When things like this are happening in college sports there is a major problem

that needs to be fixed. The easiest way to fix the problem is to pay these college athletes because

they definitely have earned it.

Not everyone shares the opinion that college athletes should be paid. Those who oppose

it have one main argument. It is that the schools simply cannot afford to pay student-athletes. Not

every school is as successful as an Alabama is in football or as Kentucky is in basketball.

Winning and money have a direct correlation in college sports, so the less successful schools

may not be able to pay their students and if every school cannot afford to pay their students then

none will because it would not be fair for some athletes to get paid and others do not. This

argument is quickly debunked by Maxwell Strachan who is a writer for the Huffington Post he

wrote, “when The Huffington Post asked five sports economists whether the NCAA and its

member institutions could afford to pay student-athletes, the response was quite different: a

resounding yes. Some of the economists were almost surprised by the question; the answer

seemed so obvious to them” (Strachan). The NCAA does not want to pay its student-athletes, so

they will say anything to make people believe that it is just not possible, but these economists

have no bias, so their answer is more credible and should be believed.

College athletes need to be paid. They sacrifice their education to be a part of the team

and they go hungry to be apart of the team. Not to mention how much money the schools make

off these players. The reason professional athletes are paid so much is because the amount of

professional level talent in the world is scarce, so supply and demand kicks. While it is not as
scarce as professional level talent the amount of college-level talent is also scarce, so they should

be paid to represent the market for their talents.

 Works Cited

Benedykciuk, Mike. “The blue line: College athletes should be paid - the daily free

press.”Columnists.    The Daily Free Press, 8 Apr. 2015. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.

Rick Reilly. "Selling Johnny Football." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 26 Feb. 2013. Web. 01

May 2013.

Schooled: The Price of College Sports. Dir. Ross Finkel. Trevor Martin. Makuhari Media, 2013.

Film.

Strachan, Maxwell. “NCAA Schools Can Absolutely Afford To Pay College Athletes,

Economists Say.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Mar. 2015,

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ncaa-pay-student-athletes_n_6940836.html.

Swanson, Ryan. “Want to clean up college athletics? Pay the players.” The Washington Post,

WP Company, 2 Oct. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-

history/wp/2017/10/02/want-to-clean-up-college-athletics-pay-the-players/?

utm_term=.cb9c576bd7e0.