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Research study on female and male athletes equal pay
Studies about paying college athletes
The difficulties with paying college athletes
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College Athletes Should Remain Student Athletes If someone plays a college sport he or she is part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Meaning that athlete is a student-athlete and an amateur competitor. To remain eligible to compete, all athletes in the NCAA are not allowed to tryout, practice, or compete with a professional team or any professional players. Also cannot have a contract with a professional team. In addition, cannot receive any benefits from an agent or a potential agent. This means no contact with a sports agent. The most important rule that has to be followed, and the one that is under the most scrutiny is a student athlete cannot receive a salary for participating in athletics. (“Amateurism”, 2013) Today more and more people are agreeing that college athletes should be paid for their work. In reality, it is in the best interest of everybody if they were not directly paid for playing. If they were to get paid, where would you draw the line? If you pay one specific group of athletes, all of the sports and all the different divisions in college athletics would want paid. This is just not financially possible. People think that it would be only the lower divisions that would not be able to pay because of the amount of revenue that the bigger schools bring in. Texas, in 2012, had revenue of $163,295,115 with $138,269,710 in expenses. (Berkowitz et al. 2012) Texas has a large number in net income that would allow them to pay their athletes. There are many schools that have a negative income. These schools include Iowa, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, Kansas, Arizona State, and Missouri. (Berkowitz et al. 2012) There are many more schools that are barley positive if not right at even. Also the majorit... ... middle of paper ... ...ng-ncaa-athletes-washington-post-abc-news-poll-finds/2014/03/22/c411a32e-b130-11e3-95e8-39bef8e9a48b_story.html O'Connor, J. (2013, February 2). Top 10 winningest d-i men's college basketball coaches. Retrieved from http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/lists/All-time-top-10-winningest-D-I-college-basketball-coaches-111511 Remaining eligible: Amateurism. (2013, 12 26). Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.org/remaining-eligible-amateurism Trahan, K. (2014, April 15). NCAA allows 'unlimited meals'. SB Nation. Retrieved , from http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/4/15/5618236/new-ncaa-rules-meals-snacks-SNACKS Watson, G. (2013, February 4). Alabama’s new weight room becomes yet another recruiting tool. Retrieved from http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/alabama-weight-room-becomes-yet-another-recruiting-tool-213442483--ncaaf.html
The proposal of payment toNCAA student-athletes has begun major conversations and arguments nationwide with people expressing their take on it. “This tension has been going on for years. It has gotten greater now because the magnitude of dollars has gotten really large” (NCAA). I am a student athlete at Nicholls State University and at first thought, I thought it would be a good idea to be able to be paid as a student-athlete.After much research however; I have come to many conclusions why the payment of athletes should not take place at the collegiate level.The payment of athletes is only for athletes at the professional level. They are experts at what they do whether it is Major League Baseball, Pro Basketball, Professional Football, or any other professional sport and they work for that franchise or company as an employee. The payment of NCAA college athletes will deteriorate the value of school to athletes, create contract disputes at both the college and professional level, kill recruiting of athletes, cause chaos over the payment of one sport versus another, and it will alter the principles set by the NCAA’s founder Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Under Roosevelt and NCAA, athletes were put under the term of a “student-athlete” as an amateur. All student athletes who sign the NCAA papers to play college athletics agree to compete as an amateur athlete. The definition of an amateur is a person who “engages in a sport, study, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons” (Dictonary.com).
Should College athletes stay in school? Many people wonder about this subject. Some people say athletes should stay in school to get in education before they become professional athletes. Others think, why stay in school when you can make millions of dollars just playing a sport. I believe athletes should stay and get a degree and in this essay you will see why.
College athletes are undoubtedly some of the hardest working people in the world. Not only are they living the life of an average student, they also have a strenuous schedule with their specific sport. One of the most discussed topics in the world of college athletics is whether or not student-athletes should be paid money for playing sports. The people who disagree with the idea have some good arguments to make. Primarily that the athletes get to go to school for free for playing sports. Another argument is that if student-athletes were to get paid then it would ruin the amateurism of college sports. People who are against paying the athletes do not want to see the young people become focused on money. “Paying student-athletes would dramatically shift their focus away from where it should be - gaining knowledge and skills for life after college” (Lewis and Williams). This is very understandable because one of the biggest reasons college sports are so popular is because the athletes play for school pride and for bragging rights. They play because they enjoy the game, not because it is their job. Most people that disagree with the idea of paying the athletes fail to realize what really goes on behind the scenes. At most Universities around the country the bulk of the income the school receives is brought in through the athletic programs. In fact the football and basketball teams usually bring in enough money to completely pay for the rest of the athletic programs all together. To get a better understanding of how much has changed in the world of college sports a little history must be learned.
First lets explore the history behind the paying of college athletes. Over the past 50 years the NCAA has been in control of all Div.1, 2 and 3 athletic programs. The NCAA is an organization that delegates and regulates what things college athletes can and can’t do. These regulations are put in place under the label of ‘protecting amateurism’ in college sports. This allots
15 May 2014. http://espn.go.com/ncaa/revenue>. Goldman, Lee. A. "65 Notre Dame Law Review 1989-1990." 65. Notre Dame Law Review 1989-1990.
Pappano, Laura. “How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life” Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition, 8th ed. Pages 591-600. 2013.
In the beginning of inter-collegiate competition and even now the governing body the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) wanted athletes to maintain their amateurism. Being an amateur means, to remain unpaid why competing and performing a c. Athletes were to come from the student body and off-campus recruitment of athletes was prohibited. The problem with the many rules and regulations of the NCAA early on was that they expected schools to police themselves and uphold a certain amount of morality, but without checks and balances corruption was sure to take place and did so. From the late 1920’s and into the 1940’s big-time athletes would be “sponsored” by alumni in order to get them to play for that schools team. The alumni would usually just pay the tuition for the athlete and usually it was seen as a loan but rarely got paid back.
The NCAA prides itself as an organization dedicated to safeguarding the well-being of student-athletes and equipping them with the skills to succeed on the playing field, in the classroom and throughout life. In order to ensure that participants are students first and athletes second the NCAA has specific rules pertaining to athlete amateurism. The requirements prohibit contracts and tryouts with professional teams, salary for participating in athletics, prize money, and representation by an agent. (Amateurism) These rules not only limit the freedom of the player but also put the player at risk of being taken advantage of due to the lack of a players union and illegality of employing an agent. Other aspects of the NCAA’s rule book have been under scrutiny as well. Marc Edelman, Professor of Law at Baruch College, wrote in his treatise: Why the NCAA’s No-Pay Rules Violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act that courts are now beginning to overturn certain rules that are deemed anticompetitive. This development is important because according to the Sherman Act “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherw...
Hypothetically, as athletes recognize that they can get an education, play college sports, and also get paid like an employee, they will start transitioning away from the lesser schools while creating a pool of players in the top schools. Not only would that turn out to be a horrible situation for minor schools, but this also means that college sports’ would not be exciting to watch when the top four schools fight it out, in the tournament each year. Eventually, ratings and ticket sales would go down due to the loss of unpredictability in games. College athletics are only a portion of the negatives that come out of paying student athletes, the athletes themselves are also in virtue of disorder. Not only would college athletics find itself in jeopardy, another negative of giving a college student a paycheck comes to mind.
According to the NCAA regulations an athlete will lose his/her eligibility if they are paid to play; sign a contract with an agent; receive a salary, incentive payment, award, gratuity educational expenses or allowances; or play on a professional team. The word amateur in sports has stood for positive values compared to professional, which has had just the opposite. The professional sport has meant bad and degrading; while the amateur sport has meant good and elevating. William Geoghegan, Flyer News sports editor writes, “Would paying athletes tarnish the ideal of amateurism? Maybe, but being fair is far more important than upholding an ideal” (Geoghehan 1).
Recently college athletes have been granted permission to work, from the NCAA. Even with this permission, their jobs are still regulated. One regulation to the athletes working is that they cannot work for alumni of the school. The NCAA has this rule because they feel if athletes work for people with close ties to the school then they will be receiving special benefits while working. These special benefits include, (but are not limited to), athletes being paid while not at work and higher salaries then other workers doing the same job (Anstine 4).
"The best argument against paying players is that it diminishes the value of an education" (qtd. in Zimbalist). State University has breached its academic standard by allocating unnecessary expenditures to athletically advanced students. Student athletes should not be paid at State University, because it focuses on an extracurricular activity as a means of profit, praises athletic ability over merit/ scholastics, promotes a bridge between players and regular students, and creates hierarchy between universities.
The college athletes of their respective sports today, have the opportunity of showcasing their talents in competition on local and national programming on a regular basis which has lately brought attention this controversy, paying college athletes. The issue was brought on by the athletes over time, then caught onto coaches, sports columnists, and fans. The athletes dedicate themselves to the sport to a caliber comparable to the professional tier. The idea of paying the athletes could be considered as they play major factor in reputation of their schools, as well as funds for their schools. However most colleges do not have profitable sports teams. Thus, paying athletes would prove to be a very difficult endeavor and this could destroy college athletics as we know them today.
Colleges make a plethora of money off of the sports teams and the players do not see any of that money at all but if they do then their performance would be poor on the field and off the field as well. According to Fred Bowen, “only football and men’s basketball are money-making college sports. Most others, such as field hockey, wrestling and swimming, do not attract big crowds or make big bucks.” (Should college athletes get paid?). Also the sports team that give out the most money for athletes to come and play for them, are football and men’s basketball. “Critics of paying college athletes note that only a small number of them compete in sports or on teams that actually generate revenue. They argue that if players were paid, a handful of exceptional athletes would receive large salaries while most players would receive a pittance, and would probably no longer be offered valuable athletic scholarships” (Paying College Athletes). It is not a surprise to anyone that the main athletes that do want to be paid is football and basketball players. They want to be paid because they bring in all of the money for the school and the...
Robe, Johnathon. "Rethinking the Benefits of College Athletics." Forbes 15 Mar. 2012: n. pag. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. .