Should Collegiate Athletes Be Paid?
by Carl Stamey
For many years there has been an ongoing debate about whether collegiate athletes, also known as student-athletes, should be paid to play because of the revenue they generate for their colleges and universities. There are two questions that need to be asked before we can look at the question of paying collegiate athletes: first, how many colleges and universities actually turn a profit off of their athletic programs; and second, how big of a profit is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) generating from these athletes? Then I will argue why it is best that collegiate athletes are not paid by their educational institutions and/or by the NCAA. Also, I will discuss why I feel that collegiate athletes should be allowed to be compensated for their name and image.
One of the biggest misconceptions about collegiate athletics is that a majority of colleges and universities make money off of these programs. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. The NCAA announced in a study that they completed last year, that no Division III or Division II schools made any money off of their athletic programs and only twenty Division I schools made money off of their athletic programs in 2013. All twenty of these schools are a part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and they make up sixteen percent of the schools in this subdivision (Burnsed, 2014). Last fiscal year though, the NCAA generated $989.1 million in revenue and had expenditures of $908.6 million so they turned a profit of $80.5 million (Strachan, 2015). A majority of their revenue comes from the March Madness basketball tournament, in which the NCAA will continue to generate $771.4 million a year until 2024 with their media rights contract with CBS and Turner Broadcasting System (Wolverton, 2010). So if collegiate athletes were paid, would men’s basketball player be paid more than the other athletes because they generate the most revenue for the NCAA and because there are more men’s regular season basketball games televised compared to any other sport under each conferences media rights deal? Or would only the athletes at the twenty schools that turned a profit get paid?
There are many issues that would arise if the decision was made to pay collegiate athletes. How much will the athlete be paid? Will this pay be based on his or her performance? In terms of Title IX, would it require female athletes to be compensated equally to their male counterparts? Additionally, once athletes get paid, they would be on their institutions payroll and they would be considered an employee of that college/university. This would bring up the issue of whether or not the athlete is qualified for workers’ compensation if they were to get injured. Would the NCAA or institution have to provide the athlete with insurance or would the athlete have to have his own insurance? If paying the athletes is the way to go, then do you get rid of athletic scholarships all together and just pay them a cash salary over the course of a year for the same amount of what their scholarship was worth for that year? Or, do you give the athlete the option to either be paid cash and have to pay for their degree or take the athletic scholarship?
Many people would make the argument that many of these athletes are already are paid because of the scholarships they receive for their athletic talent. I fully agree with this because education is money. The U.S. census bureau has reported that the lifetime earnings of a college graduate is on average one million dollars more than that of a non-graduate. Athletic scholarships can cost colleges and universities anywhere from $30,000 to $200,000 per athlete over the course of four years, depending on if the school is private or public (Acquaviva & Johnson, 2012).
Several Division I universities turn a profit off of their athletic programs and many other university athletic boosters have lots of money to spend on coaching contracts, such as LSU’s athletic boosters that were ready to buy out the remaining $15 million of Les Miles contract if he did not win the last game of LSU’s regular season (Gaines, 2015). Even if these universities do produce revenue off of their athletics, it does not mean that student-athletes at these universities should be paid. Because of how expensive media rights contracts and coaching contracts are becoming, I fear that collegiate student-athletes have started to loose focus on the main reason for going to college. They are getting wrapped up in the business side of athletics and feel that they are entitled to more than just the free education, team apparel and footwear that they are provided with, nutrition and strength/conditioning coaches, name recognition/media exposure, and catastrophic injury insurance. This is all because they feel that it is their right to play the sport instead of being privileged with the opportunity to play the sport while getting their degree.
However, I do believe that collegiate athletes have the right to their name and image and should be allowed to be compensated for both. What exactly do I mean by this? These athletes should be allowed to sign items and sell or auction them off and make as much money off of these items as they want. Yet, if they are selling their institutions merchandise with their signature on it, then they should have to give a small percentage of the profit they earn off of each item back to their institution. I feel that student-athletes should be allowed to sign contracts with companies like Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour. I also feel that if a local company or a big corporation wants them to appear in an advertisement to help market their product, then these athletes should be compensated for it. Collegiate athletes should also be allowed to be paid for speaking at events. For example, if Ohio State’s running back, Ezekiel Elliott, was asked by Nike to speak to the high school football players at Nike SPARQ Combines, he should be allowed to be paid like any professional player or coach would be paid.
In terms of restructuring the NCAA system, it is necessary for a couple of changes to take place. The main change that the NCAA would have to make is with their regulations on amateurism, which is documented in the 2015–16 Summary of NCAA Eligibility Regulations. The first change dealing with amateurism would have to deal with Bylaws 12.1.2 and 12.1.2.4, which state that student-athletes are not to use their athletic skill for pay (NCAA Academic and Membership Affairs Staff, 2015). These Bylaws would have to be changed so that collegiate athletes could be able to sell items with their autograph on it. The second change dealing with amateurism would have deal with Bylaws 12.5.2.1 and 12.5.2.2, which state that student-athletes are not allowed to accept any form of payment for promoting a product or service or allowing their name or image to be used to promote a product or service (NCAA Academic and Membership Affairs Staff, 2015). These bylaws would have to change so that collegiate athletes could receive compensation for promoting a product or service as I discussed in the previous paragraph. These bylaws should not be changed to allow the student-athlete to be compensated for their performance on the field however.
In conclusion, I believe that collegiate student-athletes should not be compensated for their participation in collegiate athletics. Overall, only twenty Division I schools turn a profit off of their athletic programs, so it would be impossible for every athlete at the Division I level to be paid. There are numerous other problems that would occur as well if collegiate athletes were compensated for playing. There is the problem of how the universities should allocate the money for the athletes. Should the teams that make the most profit for the school make more? Should male and female sports teams be paid the same even if they do not make the same amount of revenue for the university? Should individual athletes that are the most talented and notorious make more than their respective teammates? Worker’s compensation and insurance effects if these student-athletes are paid must be considered as well, which creates complication. Lastly, paying collegiate athletes would create confusion over the balance between scholarships and compensation. Overall, both at the university and NCAA levels, there are current issues with the collegiate system. At the university setting, many athletes are already too focused on the business aspect of the sports industry and feel as though it is their right and not their privilege to play. Paying collegiate athletes would only increase this shift. However, I do believe that the NCAA should make some changes to allow student-athletes to be compensated for their name and image.
References
Acquaviva, J., & Johnson, D. (2012, June). Point/Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes. Retrieved from http://thesportjournal.org/article/pointcounterpoint-paying-collegeathletes/
Burnsed, B. (2014, August). Growth in Division I athletics expenses outpaces revenue increases: And no Division II or Division III institutions generate more revenue than they spend, according to a recent study. Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/growth-division-i-athletics-expenses-outpaces-revenue-increases
Gaines, C. (2015, November). LSU boosters reportedly willing to pay $15 million to make Les Miles go away. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/lsu-les-buyout-2015-11
NCAA Academic and Membership Affairs Staff. (2015, April). 2015–16 Summary of NCAA Eligibility Regulations. Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Summary%20of%20NCAA%20Regulations.pdf
Strachan, M. (2015, March). The NCAA Just Misses $1 Billion In Annual Revenue. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/11/ncaa-revenue-2014_n_6851286.html
Wolverton, B. (2010, April). NCAA Agrees to $10.8-Billion Deal to Broadcast Its Men’s Basketball Tournament. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Signs-108-Billion-De/65219/
