Should College Athletes Be Paid?

There is a lot of controversy over the college athlete and their role in the NCAA’s revenue lately. Students who play at the college level are considered student-athletes. The “student” is put in the front for a reason because in college you should concentrate on your academics and your career you are pursuing. Granted a student could come through college with a career playing the sport of their choice. To be successful at the sport they choose though they have to spend a lot of time at it, more time than studying for final exams even. As a student in college it should be a priority to get keep your grades up. As an athlete in college you are labeled as having amateur status not professional.

It’s easy to say that college athletes are the reason why the NCAA makes its money but they need to be coached and not all talent is “God-given.” College football and basketball games boost the ratings of many T.V. stations as well as bring a lot of money to the NCAA through ticket sales, sponsorships and television contracts. A total of $330,560,000 in total revenue was brought into the NCAA in the 2000-2001 season with 78.7% of that being from television companies. CBS signed an 11-year contract to cover the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship and other events. The money coming from CBS is for the competition of the tournament every year not for specific athletes because almost every year there is a new starting five in there. 

Every year seniors leave and new recruits come in. Of those seniors how many actually go onto play professionally? This stat was very appealing to me because the percentage for all sports is rather low. Of NCAA male senior basketball players only 1.2 percent will get drafted by an NBA team. Only 1 percent of NCAA senior female athletes will get drafted by a WNBA team. You would think that a lot of NCAA senior football players would get drafted but a mere 1.8 percent get drafted to an NFL team. At an almost alarming rate, 9.4 percent of NCAA senior baseball players will get drafted by a MLB team. If you couldn’t sense it I added some sarcasm into that last stat because college athletes just aren’t making it to that next professional level because of their skill.

College athletes are amateurs which by definition means they are athletes who shouldn’t ever accept money, or only accept money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition. In order to maintain amateurism the NCAA has devised a number of rules to eliminate all dollar benefits to athletes. First off athletes can only receive educational benefits which include room, board, tuition, books and fees. Also as an amateur athlete you are not able to sign with an agent and still retain eligibility or appear in a commercial. To maintain amateurism you can’t receive meals, clothing, any form of transportation, or other gifts. I feel that these are great rules set out because technically most college athletes are getting paid with scholarships. Those with full-rides don’t have to pay for anything except general expenses.

Division I student athletes graduate at an average rate of 58 percent. The rates of revenue sports is much lower though. Only 51 percent of football players and 43 percent of men's basketball players graduate. Many critics feel that if college athletes get paid it could even increase graduation rates. I feel that it would in fact lower them because if college athletes are already making money they won’t focus so much on their studying and once the day comes for that draft day and they don’t get signed they will have to pay money to go back to college.

Many people say that college athletes are the only reason why the NCAA makes any money. Many people don’t take into effect that athletes must be taught many things. With that they need coaches and trainers. If your going to pay college athletes are you going to raise the wages of