Why Do Student Athletes Get Paid?

ESPN college basketball analyst and former Duke basketball player Jay Bilas once said, “For what reason do we limit athletes, and athletes only, in this multibillion-dollar business?”. The reason for his strong opinion is because there has been an ongoing discussion on whether or not college athletes should receive compensation for the sports that they play. The NCAA’s justification for why student athletes aren’t paid is that they believe that the real compensation is benefitting from academics and being able to receive major professional sports contracts for their efforts. “Rather than push college athletics further and further from academics, we need to bring it closer.”, said NCAA president Mike Emmert, who backs up the explanation set up by the NCAA. While many still consider college

athletes ‘amateurs’, the fact of the matter is college athletes should receive compensation based on the time and effort that they put into both academics and athletics.
The NCAA is a multi billion dollar industry that made around $11 billion in revenue in 2014, and in addition signed a $10.8 billion television agreement that will last 14 years with CBS. As a matter of a fact, the University of Alabama received $143.3 million in athletic revenue which is more than all of the revenues of the 30 NHL teams and a majority of the NBA teams. The 2013 March Madness Tournament was able to generate $1.15 billion in ad revenue. Of all of that revenue made by the University of Alabama within it’s athletics department, less than 6% went back towards academic programming. While some schools, like the University of Florida, gave $7.2 million to academic programming, which may sound like a significant amount, but when the spending funds equate to $524.6 million, the $7.2 million starts to not sound like that much.
Nick Johnson, who played for the University of Arizona for the 2013-2014 season and who was considered to be the best player in the Pac-12 division in that season, earned the school roughly $2.23 million, while his scholarship is only worth a mere $41,000. That money won’t even cover the remaining $28,000 that he owes in tuition fees, while the NCAA and television programs are bringing in billions of dollars. Full scholarship athletes, while having $41,000, could still potentially have to pay about $3,200 for every year they are in school to pay for meal plans and possible injuries. Alabama offensive linemen Arie Kouandjo claims that, “We don't really have the time for jobs. Not everybody can go to their parents to ask for money. I probably would never do that if I could avoid it. Playing football, there's a lot of pressure that goes into it and time constraints. It's fun for us. It's not really a job, but it's something that makes money for somebody." The problem wasn’t as apparent at first but with the rise and popularity and the rise in TV deals, money brought in by the athletic departments of universities have went up about 27%. Not only that, but across all of the major college sports, coaches salaries and benefits rose by about 79%. As of 2014, the average salary of a major televised college football coach is $2.05 million, while the average salary for a Division 1 televised college basketball coach was $1 million.
While this may be a problem for numerous college students, student athletes have to put in a lot of time into their respective for every week. The Florida State football players had to miss their first day of spring classes in order to participate in the 2014 National Championship game. March Madness is also a tournament that is a total of 128 games, which can result in it affecting more than 6 days of classes for student athletes and may even require some students to miss a quarter of all of their classes during the spring semester. For students with scholarships, this means keeping the minimum GPA requirements and also devoting about 40 hours a week into their sport. If some college athletes are having trouble with academics and athletics, how are they expected to also work a full time, or even a part time job?
In 2014, the football players at Northwestern University decided that players should receive compensation, so as a result of that the whole football team cast secret ballots that decided whether or not to form the first union for college athletes.

This was a huge historic event in the collegiate sports world because it would mean that college athletes are no longer, according to former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter, “stuck with sports-related medical bills, do not lose their scholarships when they are injured, are not subject to unnecessary brain trauma and are given better opportunities to complete their degree." Colter, along with other supporters of the unionization of the athletes, argue that players can receive actual compensation that can help with potential medical bills or other benefits including a meal plan or housing. Former Northwestern football player Michael Odom felt that a union was “long overdue” ever since he had to quit the team because the demands of staying on the football team distracted him from earning his journalism degree. The decision on whether or not the players can unionize or not is being appealed and could remain so for months or even

years.
College football received its first playoff bracket and National Championship game in 2015 with the two teams being Ohio State and Oregon. While the players on both teams are both granted a reward worth up to $550 as a gift and their families can receive up to $2,500 as a reimbursement for going to the game, this is nothing compared to the mere price of a ticket for the game, priced at a face value of $450. Ohio State offensive lineman Darryl Baldwin said, “To put it simply, us not getting any, I mean, it's nothing new, but it's unbelievable. You would think they would make a change about it, but they haven't.". On the other team, Oregon player DeForest Buckner pleaded that, “We put a lot of time and effort into what we do and the football program brings in a lot of money to the school, it's pretty much our job throughout college. We're up early, we go to bed late with meetings and practices.”. Buckner ends his argument with,"Coaches get a big bonus in their check. It would be cool to get a little piece of the earnings.", while the players don’t receive any real compensation, Ohio State coach Urban Meyer received a $50,000 bonus for reaching the National Championship Game and before the National Championship Game, Oregon coach Mark Helfrich had already received $460,000 for on field related bonuses. Ohio State player Adolphus Washington also made a interesting point by saying, “I feel like a player should be able to get paid off a signature or off their likeness because if they play good enough to where people want to give them money for a picture or give them money for a signature, I feel that's right because you've worked to get that notoriety." Another aspect of college sports (and sports in general) is injuries, which can cause a lot of problems for student athletes and their families.
Kyle Hardwick, a student on the University of Oklahoma basketball team, told medical officials of a pain in his knee during the 2010-2011 season, but his mother Valerie claims that they did not identify or treat the problem correctly. When she had finally heard the news on what was wrong with her son, she found out that he had a torn lateral meniscus, and he would have surgery done. By the time Kyle finally had surgery the damage was worse than originally thought and while his health insurance covered $20,000 of it, his family still had to pay $10,000 in medical bills.
Stanley Doughty played on the South Carolina University football team from 2003 to 2006, and within that time, he was diagnosed with temporary paralysis as well as a spinal injury which ultimately ended his college football career. Doughty is filing a lawsuit against the university and within it, he claims that in 2005 he experienced an injury that momentarily paralyzed him and the only treatment he got was a five minute rest in the locker room that did not include any MRI testing. When Doughty came out of college he was undrafted but was signed as a free agent by the Kansas City Chiefs but was ultimately let go because the Chiefs doctors told him that the only was that he could ever safely play football was to get surgery, which he did not know about up until then. When he tried to contact the school regarding the issue, they stopped returning his calls and they denied him re-entrance into the university. The lawsuit argues that not only should the NCAA be aware of potential future medical problems, but that they also failed to establish a practice to lessen the risk of injuries in the first place.
Another aspect of college athletes that are usually failed to be seen are the amount of smarter students that they attract. For example, when Doug Flutie, a football player at Boston college, won the Heisman trophy in 1984. The following year undergraduate admissions increased by 25 points and the average SAT score increased by 110 points. The same happened with Patrick Ewing for his efforts in the 1982-1983 season, where in the following year helped provide a 47% increase in undergraduate admissions and a 40 point rise for SAT scores for Georgetown University.