essay on why college athletes should not be paid

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The argumentative essay is one of the most frequently assigned types of essays in both high school and college writing-based courses. Instructors often ask students to write argumentative essays over topics that have “real-world relevance.” The question, “Should college athletes be paid?” is one of these real-world relevant topics that can make a great essay subject! 

In this article, we’ll give you all the tools you need to write a solid essay arguing why college athletes should be paid and why college athletes should not be paid. We'll provide:

• An explanation of the NCAA and what role it plays in the lives of student athletes
• A summary of the pro side of the argument that's in favor of college athletes being paid
• A summary of the con side of the argument that believes college athletes shouldn't be paid
• Five tips that will help you write an argumentative essay that answers the question "Should college athletes be paid?" 

The NCAA is the organization that oversees and regulates collegiate athletics. 

What Is the NCAA? 

In order to understand the context surrounding the question, “Should student athletes be paid?”, you have to understand what the NCAA is and how it relates to student-athletes. 

NCAA stands for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (but people usually just call it the “N-C-double-A”). The NCAA is a nonprofit organization that serves as the national governing body for collegiate athletics. 

The NCAA specifically regulates collegiate student athletes at the organization’s 1,098 “member schools.” Student-athletes at these member schools are required to follow the rules set by the NCAA for their academic performance and progress while in college and playing sports. Additionally, the NCAA sets the rules for each of their recognized sports to ensure everyone is playing by the same rules. ( They also change these rules occasionally, which can be pretty controversial! ) 

The NCAA website states that the organization is “dedicated to the well-being and lifelong success of college athletes” and prioritizes their well-being in academics, on the field, and in life beyond college sports. That means the NCAA sets some pretty strict guidelines about what their athletes can and can't do. And of course, right now, college athletes can't be paid for playing their sport. 

As it stands, NCAA athletes are allowed to receive scholarships that cover their college tuition and related school expenses. But historically, they haven't been allowed to receive additional compensation. That meant athletes couldn't receive direct payment for their participation in sports in any form, including endorsement deals, product sponsorships, or gifts.  

Athletes who violated the NCAA’s rules about compensation could be suspended from participating in college sports or kicked out of their athletic program altogether. 

The Problem: Should College Athletes Be Paid? 

You know now that one of the most well-known functions of the NCAA is regulating and limiting the compensation that student-athletes are able to receive. While many people might not question this policy, the question of why college athletes should be paid or shouldn't be paid has actually been a hot-button topic for several years.

The fact that people keep asking the question, “Should student athletes be paid?” indicates that there’s some heat out there surrounding this topic. The issue is frequently debated on sports talk shows , in the news media , and on social media . Most recently, the topic re-emerged in public discourse in the U.S. because of legislation that was passed by the state of California in 2019.

In September 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that allowed college athletes in California to strike endorsement deals. An endorsement deal allows athletes to be paid for endorsing a product, like wearing a specific brand of shoes or appearing in an advertisement for a product.

In other words, endorsement deals allow athletes to receive compensation from companies and organizations because of their athletic talent. That means Governor Newsom’s bill explicitly contradicts the NCAA’s rules and regulations for financial compensation for student-athletes at member schools.

But why would Governor Newsom go against the NCAA? Here’s why: the California governor believes that it's unethical for the NCAA to make money based on the unpaid labor of its athletes . And the NCAA definitely makes money: each year, the NCAA upwards of a billion dollars in revenue as a result of its student-athlete talent, but the organization bans those same athletes from earning any money for their talent themselves. With the new California law, athletes would be able to book sponsorships and use agents to earn money, if they choose to do so. 

The NCAA’s initial response to California’s new law was to push back hard. But after more states introduced similar legislation , the NCAA changed its tune. In October 2019, the NCAA pledged to pass new regulations when the board voted unanimously to allow student athletes to receive compensation for use of their name, image, and likeness. 

Simply put: student athletes can now get paid through endorsement deals. 

In the midst of new state legislation and the NCAA’s response, the ongoing debate about paying college athletes has returned to the spotlight. Everyone from politicians, to sports analysts, to college students are arguing about it. There are strong opinions on both sides of the issue, so we’ll look at how some of those opinions can serve as key points in an argumentative essay.

Let's take a look at the arguments in favor of paying student athletes!

The Pros: Why College Athletes Should B e Paid

Since the argument about whether college athletes should be paid has gotten a lot of public attention, there are some lines of reasoning that are frequently called upon to support the claim that college athletes should be paid. 

In this section, we'll look at the three biggest arguments in favor of why college athletes should be paid. We'll also give you some ideas on how you can support these arguments in an argumentative essay.

Argument 1: The Talent Should Receive Some of the Profits

This argument on why college athletes should be paid is probably the one people cite the most. It’s also the easiest one to support with facts and evidence. 

Essentially, this argument states that the NCAA makes millions of dollars because people pay to watch college athletes compete, and it isn’t fair that the athletes don't get a share of the profits

Without the student athletes, the NCAA wouldn’t earn over a billion dollars in annual revenue , and college and university athletic programs wouldn’t receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NCAA each year. In fact, without student athletes, the NCAA wouldn’t exist at all. 

Because student athletes are the ones who generate all this revenue, people in favor of paying college athletes argue they deserve to receive some of it back. Otherwise, t he NCAA and other organizations (like media companies, colleges, and universities) are exploiting a bunch of talented young people for their own financial gain.

To support this argument in favor of paying college athletes, you should include specific data and revenue numbers that show how much money the NCAA makes (and what portion of that actually goes to student athletes). For example, they might point out the fact that the schools that make the most money in college sports only spend around 10% of their tens of millions in athletics revenue on scholarships for student-athletes. Analyzing the spending practices of the NCAA and its member institutions could serve as strong evidence to support this argument in a “why college athletes should be paid” essay. 

I've you've ever been a college athlete, then you know how hard you have to train in order to compete. It can feel like a part-time job...which is why some people believe athletes should be paid for their work!

Argument 2: College Athletes Don’t Have Time to Work Other Jobs

People sometimes casually refer to being a student-athlete as a “full-time job.” For many student athletes, this is literally true. The demands on a student-athlete’s time are intense. Their days are often scheduled down to the minute, from early in the morning until late at night. 

One thing there typically isn’t time for in a student-athlete’s schedule? Working an actual job. 

Sports programs can imply that student-athletes should treat their sport like a full-time job as well. This can be problematic for many student-athletes, who may not have any financial resources to cover their education. (Not all NCAA athletes receive full, or even partial, scholarships!) While it may not be expressly forbidden for student-athletes to get a part-time job, the pressure to go all-in for your team while still maintaining your eligibility can be tremendous. 

In addition to being a financial burden, the inability to work a real job as a student-athlete can have consequences for their professional future. Other college students get internships or other career-specific experience during college—opportunities that student-athletes rarely have time for. When they graduate, proponents of this stance argue, student-athletes are under-experienced and may face challenges with starting a career outside of the sports world.

Because of these factors, some argue that if people are going to refer to being a student-athlete as a “full-time job,” then student-athletes should be paid for doing that job.  

To support an argument of this nature, you can offer real-life examples of a student-athlete’s daily or weekly schedule to show that student-athletes have to treat their sport as a full-time job. For instance, this Twitter thread includes a range of responses from real student-athletes to an NCAA video portraying a rose-colored interpretation of a day in the life of a student-athlete. 

Presenting the Twitter thread as one form of evidence in an essay would provide effective support for the claim that college athletes should be paid as if their sport is a “full-time job.” You might also take this stance in order to claim that if student-athletes aren’t getting paid, we must adjust our demands on their time and behavior.

Argument 3: Only Some Student Athletes Should Be Paid

This take on the question, “Should student athletes be paid?” sits in the middle ground between the more extreme stances on the issue. There are those who argue that only the student athletes who are big money-makers for their university and the NCAA should be paid.  

The reasoning behind this argument? That’s just how capitalism works. There are always going to be student-athletes who are more talented and who have more media-magnetizing personalities. They’re the ones who are going to be the face of athletic programs, who lead their teams to playoffs and conference victories, and who are approached for endorsement opportunities. 

Additionally, some sports don't make money for their schools. Many of these sports fall under Title IX, which states that no one can be excluded from participation in a federally-funded program (including sports) because of their gender or sex. Unfortunately, many of these programs aren't popular with the public , which means they don't make the same revenue as high-dollar sports like football or basketball . 

In this line of thinking, since there isn’t realistically enough revenue to pay every single college athlete in every single sport, the ones who generate the most revenue are the only ones who should get a piece of the pie. 

To prove this point, you can look at revenue numbers as well. For instance, the womens' basketball team at the University of Louisville lost $3.8 million dollars in revenue during the 2017-2018 season. In fact, the team generated less money than they pay for their coaching staff. In instances like these, you might argue that it makes less sense to pay athletes than it might in other situations (like for University of Alabama football, which rakes in over $110 million dollars a year .) 

There are many people who think it's a bad idea to pay college athletes, too. Let's take a look at the opposing arguments. 

The Cons: Why College Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid

People also have some pretty strong opinions about why college athletes shouldn't be paid. These arguments can make for a pretty compelling essay, too! 

In this section, we'll look at the three biggest arguments against paying college athletes. We'll also talk about how you can support each of these claims in an essay. 

Argument 1: College Athletes Already Get Paid

On this side of the fence, the most common reason given for why college athletes should not be paid is that they already get paid: they receive free tuition and, in some cases, additional funding to cover their room, board, and miscellaneous educational expenses. 

Proponents of this argument state that free tuition and covered educational expenses is compensation enough for student-athletes. While this money may not go straight into a college athlete's pocket, it's still a valuable resource . Considering most students graduate with nearly $30,000 in student loan debt , an athletic scholarship can have a huge impact when it comes to making college affordable . 

Evidence for this argument might look at the financial support that student-athletes receive for their education, and compare those numbers to the financial support that non-athlete students receive for their schooling. You can also cite data that shows the real value of a college tuition at certain schools. For example, student athletes on scholarship at Duke may be "earning" over $200,000 over the course of their collegiate careers. 

This argument works to highlight the ways in which student-athletes are compensated in financial and in non-financial ways during college , essentially arguing that the special treatment they often receive during college combined with their tuition-free ride is all the compensation they have earned.

Some people who are against paying athletes believe that compensating athletes will lead to amateur athletes being treated like professionals. Many believe this is unfair and will lead to more exploitation, not less. 

Argument 2: Paying College Athletes Would Side-Step the Real Problem

Another argument against paying student athletes is that college sports are not professional sports , and treating student athletes like professionals exploits them and takes away the spirit of amateurism from college sports . 

This stance may sound idealistic, but those who take this line of reasoning typically do so with the goal of protecting both student-athletes and the tradition of “amateurism” in college sports. This argument is built on the idea that the current system of college sports is problematic and needs to change, but that paying student-athletes is not the right solution. 

Instead, this argument would claim that there is an even better way to fix the corrupt system of NCAA sports than just giving student-athletes a paycheck. To support such an argument, you might turn to the same evidence that’s cited in this NPR interview : the European model of supporting a true minor league system for most sports is effective, so the U.S. should implement a similar model. 

In short: creating a minor league can ensure athletes who want a career in their sport get paid, while not putting the burden of paying all collegiate athletes on a university. 

Creating and supporting a true professional minor league would allow the students who want to make money playing sports to do so. Universities could then confidently put earned revenue from sports back into the university, and student-athletes wouldn’t view their college sports as the best and only path to a career as a professional athlete. Those interested in playing professionally would be able to pursue this dream through the minor leagues instead, and student athletes could just be student athletes. 

The goal of this argument is to sort of achieve a “best of both worlds” solution: with the development and support of a true minor league system, student-athletes would be able to focus on the foremost goal of getting an education, and those who want to get paid for their sport can do so through the minor league. Through this model, student-athletes’ pursuit of their education is protected, and college sports aren’t bogged down in ethical issues and logistical hang-ups. 

Argument 3: It Would Be a Logistical Nightmare

This argument against paying student athletes takes a stance on the basis of logistics. Essentially, this argument states that while the current system is flawed, paying student athletes is just going to make the system worse. So until someone can prove that paying collegiate athletes will fix the system, it's better to maintain the status quo. 

Formulating an argument around this perspective basically involves presenting the different proposals for how to go about paying college athletes, then poking holes in each proposed approach. Such an argument would probably culminate in stating that the challenges to implementing pay for college athletes are reason enough to abandon the idea altogether. 

Here's what we mean. One popular proposed approach to paying college athletes is the notion of “pay-for-play.” In this scenario, all college athletes would receive the same weekly stipend to play their sport . 

In this type of argument, you might explain the pay-for-play solution, then pose some questions toward the approach that expose its weaknesses, such as: Where would the money to pay athletes come from? How could you pay athletes who play certain sports, but not others? How would you avoid Title IX violations? Because there are no easy answers to these questions, you could argue that paying college athletes would just create more problems for the world of college sports to deal with.

Posing these difficult questions may persuade a reader that attempting to pay college athletes would cause too many issues and lead them to agree with the stance that college athletes should not be paid. 

5 Tips for Writing About Paying College Athletes

If you’re assigned the prompt “Should college athletes be paid," don't panic. There are several steps you can take to write an amazing argumentative essay about the topic! We've broken our advice into five helpful tips that you can use to persuade your readers (and ace your assignment).

Tip 1: Plan Out a Logical Structure for Your Essay

In order to write a logical, well-organized argumentative essay, one of the first things you need to do is plan out a structure for your argument. Using a bare-bones argumentative outline for a “why college athletes should be paid” essay is a good place to start. 

Check out our example of an argumentative essay outline for this topic below: 

• The thesis statement must communicate the topic of the essay: Whether college athletes should be paid, and 
• Convey a position on that topic: That college athletes should/ should not be paid, and 
• State a couple of defendable, supportable reasons why college athletes should be paid (or vice versa).
• Support Point #1 with evidence
• Explain/interpret the evidence with your own, original commentary 
• Support Point #2 with evidence
• Explain/interpret the evidence with your own, original commentary
• Support Point #3 with evidence
• New body paragraph addressing opposing viewpoints
• Concluding paragraph

This outline does a few things right. First, it makes sure you have a strong thesis statement. Second, it helps you break your argument down into main points (that support your thesis, of course). Lastly, it reminds you that you need to both include evidence and explain your evidence for each of your argumentative points. 

While you can go off-book once you start drafting if you feel like you need to, having an outline to start with can help you visualize how many argumentative points you have, how much evidence you need, and where you should insert your own commentary throughout your essay. 

Remember: the best argumentative essays are organized ones! 

Tip 2: Create a Strong Thesis 

T he most important part of the introduction to an argumentative essay claiming that college athletes should/should not be paid is the thesis statement. You can think of a thesis like a backbone: your thesis ties all of your essay parts together so your paper can stand on its own two feet! 

So what does a good thesis look like? A solid thesis statement in this type of argumentative essay will convey your stance on the topic (“Should college athletes be paid?”) and present one or more supportable reasons why you’re making this argument. 

With these goals in mind, here’s an example of a thesis statement that includes clear reasons that support the stance that college athletes should be paid: 

Because the names, image, and talents of college athletes are used for massive financial gain, college athletes should be able to benefit from their athletic career in the same way that their universities do by getting endorsements. 

Here's a thesis statement that takes the opposite stance--that college athletes shouldn’t be paid --and includes a reason supporting that stance: 

In order to keep college athletics from becoming over-professionalized, compensation for college athletes should be restricted to covering college tuition and related educational expenses.

Both of these sample thesis statements make it clear that your essay is going to be dedicated to making an argument: either that college athletes should be paid, or that college athletes shouldn’t be paid. They both convey some reasons why you’re making this argument that can also be supported with evidence. 

Your thesis statement gives your argumentative essay direction . Instead of ranting about why college athletes should/shouldn’t be paid in the remainder of your essay, you’ll find sources that help you explain the specific claim you made in your thesis statement. And a well-organized, adequately supported argument is the kind that readers will find persuasive!

Tip 3: Find Credible Sources That Support Your Thesis

In an argumentative essay, your commentary on the issue you’re arguing about is obviously going to be the most fun part to write. But great essays will cite outside sources and other facts to help substantiate their argumentative points. That's going to involve—you guessed it!—research. 

For this particular topic, the issue of whether student athletes should be paid has been widely discussed in the news media (think The New York Times , NPR , or ESPN ). 

For example, this data reported by the NCAA shows a breakdown of the gender and racial demographics of member-school administration, coaching staff, and student athletes. These are hard numbers that you could interpret and pair with the well-reasoned arguments of news media writers to support a particular point you’re making in your argument. 

Though this may seem like a topic that wouldn’t generate much scholarly research, it’s worth a shot to check your library database for peer-reviewed studies of student athletes’ experiences in college to see if anything related to paying student athletes pops up. Scholarly research is the holy grail of evidence, so try to find relevant articles if you can. 

Ultimately, if you can incorporate a mix of mainstream sources, quantitative or statistical evidence, and scholarly, peer-reviewed sources, you’ll be on-track to building an excellent argument in response to the question, “Should student athletes be paid?”

Having multiple argumentative points in your essay helps you support your thesis.

Tip 4: Develop and Support Multiple Points

We’ve reviewed how to write an intro and thesis statement addressing the issue of paying college athletes, so let’s talk next about the meat and potatoes of your argumentative essay: the body paragraphs. 

The body paragraphs that are sandwiched between your intro paragraph and concluding paragraph are where you build and explain your argument. Generally speaking, each body paragraph should do the following: 

• Start with a topic sentence that presents a point that supports your stance and that can be debated, 
• Present summaries, paraphrases, or quotes from credible sources--evidence, in other words--that supports the point stated in the topic sentence, and
• Explain and interpret the evidence presented with your own, original commentary. 

In an argumentative essay on why college athletes should be paid, for example, a body paragraph might look like this: 

Thesis Statement : College athletes should not be paid because it would be a logistical nightmare for colleges and universities and ultimately cause negative consequences for college sports. 

Body Paragraph #1: While the notion of paying college athletes is nice in theory, a major consequence of doing so would be the financial burden this decision would place on individual college sports programs. A recent study cited by the NCAA showed that only about 20 college athletic programs consistently operate in the black at the present time. If the NCAA allows student-athletes at all colleges and universities to be paid, the majority of athletic programs would not even have the funds to afford salaries for their players anyway. This would mean that the select few athletic programs that can afford to pay their athletes’ salaries would easily recruit the most talented players and, thus, have the tools to put together teams that destroy their competition. Though individual athletes would benefit from the NCAA allowing compensation for student-athletes, most athletic programs would suffer, and so would the spirit of healthy competition that college sports are known for. 

If you read the example body paragraph above closely, you’ll notice that there’s a topic sentence that supports the claim made in the thesis statement. There’s also evidence given to support the claim made in the topic sentence--a recent study by the NCAA. Following the evidence, the writer interprets the evidence for the reader to show how it supports their opinion. 

Following this topic sentence/evidence/explanation structure will help you construct a well-supported and developed argument that shows your readers that you’ve done your research and given your stance a lot of thought. And that's a key step in making sure you get an excellent grade on your essay! 

Tip 5: Keep the Reader Thinking

The best argumentative essay conclusions reinterpret your thesis statement based on the evidence and explanations you provided throughout your essay. You would also make it clear why the argument about paying college athletes even matters in the first place. 

There are several different approaches you can take to recap your argument and get your reader thinking in your conclusion paragraph. In addition to restating your topic and why it’s important, other effective ways to approach an argumentative essay conclusion could include one or more of the following: 

While you don’t want to get too wordy in your conclusion or present new claims that you didn’t bring up in the body of your essay, you can write an effective conclusion and make all of the moves suggested in the bulleted list above. 

Here’s an example conclusion for an argumentative essay on paying college athletes using approaches we just talked about:

Though it’s true that scholarships and financial aid are a form of compensation for college athletes, it’s also true that the current system of college sports places a lot of pressure on college athletes to behave like professional athletes in every way except getting paid. Future research should turn its attention to the various inequities within college sports and look at the long-term economic outcomes of these athletes. While college athletes aren't paid right now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a paycheck is the best solution to the problem. To avoid the possibility of making the college athletics system even worse, people must consider the ramifications of paying college students and ensure that paying athletes doesn't create more harm than good.

This conclusion restates the argument of the essay (that college athletes shouldn't be paid and why), then uses the "Future Research" tactic to make the reader think more deeply about the topic. 

If your conclusion sums up your thesis and keeps the reader thinking, you’ll make sure that your essay sticks in your readers' minds.

Should College Athletes Be Paid: Next Steps 

Writing an argumentative essay can seem tough, but with a little expert guidance, you'll be well on your way to turning in a great paper . Our complete, expert guide to argumentative essays can give you the extra boost you need to ace your assignment!

Perhaps college athletics isn't your cup of tea. That's okay: there are tons of topics you can write about in an argumentative paper. We've compiled 113 amazing argumentative essay topics so that you're practically guaranteed to find an idea that resonates with you.

If you're not a super confident essay writer, it can be helpful to look at examples of what others have written. Our experts have broken down three real-life argumentative essays to show you what you should and shouldn't do in your own writing.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Home / Blog

Should College Athletes Be Paid? Reasons Why or Why Not

January 3, 2022 

Tables of Contents

Why are college athletes not getting paid by their schools?

How do student athlete scholarships work, what are the pros and cons of compensation for college athletes, keeping education at the center of college sports.

Since its inception in 1906, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has governed intercollegiate sports and enforced a rule prohibiting college athletes to be paid. Football, basketball, and a handful of other college sports began to generate tremendous revenue for many schools in the mid-20th century, yet the NCAA continued to prohibit payments to athletes. The NCAA justified the restriction by claiming it was necessary to  protect amateurism  and distinguish “student athletes” from professionals.

The question of whether college athletes should be paid was answered in part by the Supreme Court’s June 21, 2021, ruling in  National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, et. al.  The decision affirmed a lower court’s ruling that blocked the NCAA from enforcing its rules restricting the compensation that college athletes may receive.

• As a result of the NCAA v. Alston ruling, college athletes now have the right to profit from their  name, image, and likeness  (NIL) while retaining the right to participate in their sport at the college level. (The prohibition against schools paying athletes directly remains in effect.)
• Several states have passed laws  that allow such compensation. Colleges and universities in those states must abide by these new laws when devising and implementing their own policies toward NIL compensation for college athletes.

Participating in sports benefits students in many ways: It helps them focus, provides motivation, builds resilience, and develops other skills that serve students in their careers and in their lives. The vast majority of college athletes will never become professional athletes and are happy to receive a full or partial scholarship that covers tuition and education expenses as their only compensation for playing sports.

Athletes playing Division I football, basketball, baseball, and other sports generate revenue for their schools and for third parties such as video game manufacturers and media companies. Many of these athletes believe it’s unfair for schools and businesses to profit from their hard work and talent without sharing the profits with them. They also point out that playing sports entails physical risk in addition to a considerable investment in time and effort.

This guide considers the reasons for and against paying college athletes, and the implications of recent court rulings and legislation on college athletes, their schools, their sports, and the role of the NCAA in the modern sports environment.

Back To Top

The reasons why college athletes aren’t paid go back to the first organized sports competitions between colleges and universities in the late 19th century. Amateurism in college sports reflects the “ aristocratic amateurism ” of sports played in Europe at the time, even though most of the athletes at U.S. colleges had working-class backgrounds.

By the early 20th century, college football had gained a reputation for rowdiness and violence, much of which was attributed to the teams’ use of professional athletes. This led to the creation of the NCAA, which prohibited professionalism in college sports and enforced rules restricting compensation for college athletes. The rules are intended to preserve the amateurism of student participants. The NCAA justified the rules on two grounds:

• Fans would lose interest in the games if the players were professional athletes.
• Limiting compensation to capped scholarships ensures that college athletes remain part of the college community.

NCAA rules also prohibited college athletes from receiving payment to “ advertise, recommend, or promote ” any commercial product or service. Athletes were barred from participating in sports if they signed a contract to be represented by an agent as well. As a result of the NIL court decision, the NCAA will no longer enforce its rule relating to compensation for NIL activities and will allow athletes to sign contracts with agents.

Major college sports now generate billions in revenue for their schools each year

For decades, colleges and universities have operated under the assumption that  scholarships are sufficient compensation  for college athletes. Nearly all college sports cost more for the schools to operate than they generate in revenue for the institution, and scholarships are all that participants expect.

But while most sports don’t generate revenue, a handful, notably football and men’s and women’s basketball, stand out as significant exceptions to the rule:

• Many schools that field teams in the NCAA’s Division I football tier  regularly earn tens of millions of dollars  each year from the sport.
• The NCAA tournaments for men’s and women’s Division I basketball championships  generated more than $1 billion in 2019 .

Many major colleges and universities generate a considerable amount of money from their athletic teams:

• The Power Five college sports conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) —  generated more than $2.9 billion  in revenue from sports in fiscal 2020, according to federal tax records reported by  USA Today .
• This figure represents an increase of $11 million from 2019, a total that was reduced because of restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In the six years prior to 2020, the conferences recorded collective annual revenue increases averaging about $252 million.

What are name, image, likeness agreements for student athletes?

In recent years some college athletes at schools that field teams in the NCAA’s highest divisions have protested the restrictions placed on their ability to be compensated for third parties’ use of their name, image, and likeness. During the 2021 NCAA Division I basketball tournament known familiarly as March Madness, several players wore shirts bearing the hashtag “ #NotNCAAProperty ” to call attention to their objections.

Following the decision in NCAA v. Alston, the NCAA  enacted a temporary policy  allowing college athletes to enter into NIL agreements and other endorsements. The interim policy will be in place until federal legislation is enacted or new NCAA rules are created governing NIL contracts for college athletes.

• Student athletes are now able to sign endorsement deals, profit from their use of social media, and receive compensation for personal appearances and signing autographs.
• If they attend a school located in a state that has enacted NIL legislation, they are subject to any restrictions present in those state laws. As of mid-August 2021,  40 states had enacted laws  governing NIL contracts for college athletes.
• If their school is in a state without such a law, the college or university will determine its own NIL policies, although the NCAA prohibits pay-for-play and improper recruiting inducements.
• Student athletes are allowed to sign with sports agents and enter into agreements with school boosters so long as the deals abide by state laws and school policies.

Within weeks of the NCAA policy change, premier college athletes began signing NIL agreements with the potential to  earn them hundreds of thousands of dollars .

• Bryce Young, a sophomore quarterback for the University of Alabama, has nearly $1 million in endorsement deals.
• Quarterback Quinn Ewers decided to skip his last year of high school and enroll early at Ohio State University so he could make money from endorsements.
• A booster for the University of Miami pledged to pay each member of the school’s football team $500 for endorsing his business.

How will the change affect college athletes and their schools?

The  repercussions of court decisions and state laws  that allow college athletes to sign NIL agreements continue to be felt at campuses across the country, even though schools and athletes have received little guidance on how to manage the process.

• The top high school athletes in football, basketball, and other revenue-generating college sports will consider their potential for endorsement earnings while being recruited by various schools.
• The first NIL agreements highlight the disparity between what elite college athletes can expect to earn and what other athletes may realize. On one NIL platform, the average amount earned by Division I athletes was $471, yet one athlete made $210,000 in July alone.
• Most NIL deals at present are for small amounts, typically about $100 in free apparel, in exchange for endorsing a product on social media.

The presidents and other leaders of colleges and universities that field Division I sports have not yet responded to the changes in college athlete compensation other than to reiterate that they do not operate for-profit sports franchises. However, the NCAA requires that  Division I sports programs  be self-supporting, in contrast to sports programs at Division II and III institutions, which receive funding directly from their schools.

Many members of the Power 5 sports conferences have reported shortfalls in their operations, leading analysts to anticipate  major structural reforms  in the governing of college sports in the near future. The recent changes have also caused some people to believe the  NCAA is no longer relevant  or necessary.

How do highly competitive athletic scholarships work? According to the NCAA and Next College Student Athlete: $3.6 billion+ in athletic scholarships are awarded annually, and 180,000+ student athletes receive scholarships every year. Additionally, about 2% of athletes win a sports scholarship; college coaches award scholarships based on athletic ability; full scholarships are given for the top six college sports categories; and athletic scholarships are renewable each year.

The primary financial compensation student athletes receive is a scholarship that pays all or part of their tuition and other college-related expenses. Other forms of financial assistance available to student athletes include  grants, loans, and merit aid .

• Grants  are also called “gift aid,” because students are not expected to pay them back (with some exceptions, such as failing to complete the course of study for which the grant was awarded). Grants are awarded based on a student’s financial need. The  four types of grants  awarded by the U.S. Department of Education are  Federal Pell Grants ,  Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants ,  Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants , and  Teacher Education Assistance for College or Higher Education (TEACH) Grants .
• Loans  are available to cover education expenses from government agencies and private banks. Students must pay the loans back over a specified period after graduating from or leaving school, including interest charges. EducationData.org estimates that as of 2020, the  average amount of school-related debt  owed by college graduates was $37,693.
• Merit aid  is awarded based on the student’s academic, athletic, artistic, and other achievements.  Athletic scholarships  are a form of merit aid that typically cover one academic year at a time and are renewable each year, although some are awarded for up to four years.

Full athletic scholarships vs. partial scholarships

When most people think of a student athlete scholarship, they have in mind a  full-ride scholarship  that covers nearly all college-related expenses. However, most student athletes receive partial scholarships that may pay tuition but not college fees and living expenses, for example.

A student athlete scholarship is a nonguaranteed financial agreement between the school and the student. The NCAA refers to full-ride scholarships awarded to student athletes entering certain Division I sports programs as  head count scholarships  because they are awarded per athlete. Conversely, equivalency sports divide scholarships among multiple athletes, some of whom may receive a full scholarship and some a partial scholarship. Equivalency awards are divided among a team’s athletes at the discretion of the coaches, as long as they do not exceed the allowed scholarships for their sport.

These Division I sports distribute scholarships per head count:

• Men’s football
• Men’s basketball
• Women’s basketball
• Women’s volleyball
• Women’s gymnastics
• Women’s tennis

These are among the Division I equivalency sports for men:

• Track and field
• Cross-country

These are the Division I equivalency sports for women:

• Field hockey

All Division II and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) sports programs distribute scholarships on an equivalency basis. Division III sports programs do not award sports scholarships, although other forms of financial aid are available to student athletes at these schools.

How college athletic scholarships are awarded

In most cases, the coaching staff of a team determines which students will receive scholarships after spending time scouting and recruiting. The NCAA imposes  strict rules for recruiting student athletes  and provides a guide to help students  determine their eligibility  to play college sports.

Once a student has received a scholarship offer from a college or university, the person may sign a national letter of intent (NLI), which is a voluntary, legally binding contract between an athlete and the school committing the student to enroll and play the designated sport for that school only. The school agrees to provide financial aid for one academic year as long as the student is admitted and eligible to receive the aid.

After the student signs an NLI, other schools are prohibited from recruiting them. Students who have signed an NLI may ask the school to release them from the commitment; if a student attends a school other than the one with which they have an NLI agreement, they lose one full year of eligibility and must complete a full academic year at the new school before they can compete in their sport.

Very few student athletes are awarded a full scholarship, and even a “full” scholarship may not pay for all of a student’s college and living expenses. The  average Division I sports scholarship  in the 2019-20 fiscal year was about $18,000, according to figures compiled by ScholarshipStats.com, although some private universities had average scholarship awards that were more than twice that amount. However, EducationData.org estimates that the  average cost of one year of college  in the U.S. is $35,720. They estimate the following costs by type of school.

• The average annual cost for an in-state student attending a public four-year college or university is $25,615.
• Average in-state tuition for one year is $9,580, and out-of-state tuition costs an average of $27,437.
• The average cost at a private university is $53,949 per academic year, about $37,200 of which is tuition and fees.

Student athlete scholarship resources

• College Finance, “Full-Ride vs. Partial-Ride Athletic Scholarships”  — The college expenses covered by full athletic scholarships, how to qualify for partial athletic scholarships, and alternatives to scholarships for paying college expenses
• Student First Educational Consulting, “Athletic Scholarship Issues for 2021-2022 and Beyond”  — A discussion of the decline in the number of college athletic scholarships as schools drop athletic programs, and changes to the rules for college athletes transferring to new schools

According to College Strategic, Fansided, and Future of Working, reasons why paying college athletes is fair include: 1. Playing sports resembles a full-time job. 2. Sports take time away from studies. 3. Sports generate corporate profits. 4. Pay minimizes athlete corruption. 5. Pay provides spending money. 6. Playing sports creates injury risk. 7. Sports elevate school brands. 8. Pay motivates performance. 9. Scholarships reduce poverty.

There are many reasons why student athletes should be paid, but there are also valid reasons why student athletes should not be paid in certain circumstances. The lifting of NCAA restrictions on NIL agreements for college athletes has altered the landscape of major college sports but will likely have little or no impact on the majority of student athletes, who will continue to compete as true amateurs.

Reasons why student athletes should be paid

The argument raised most often in favor of allowing college athletes to receive compensation is that  colleges and universities profit  from the sports they play but do not share the proceeds with the athletes who are the ultimate source of that profit.

• In 2017 (the most recent year for which figures are available), the NCAA recorded $1.07 billion in revenue. The organization’s president earned $2.7 million in 2018, and nine other NCAA executives had salaries greater than $500,000 that year.
• Elite college coaches earn millions of dollars a year in salary, topped by University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban’s $9.3 million annual salary.
• Many of the athletes at leading football and basketball programs are from low-income families, and the majority will not become professional athletes.
• College athletes take great physical risks to play their sports and put their future earning potential at risk. In school they may be directed toward nonchallenging courses, which denies them the education their fellow students receive.

Reasons why student athletes should not be paid

Opponents to paying college athletes rebut these arguments by pointing to the primary role of colleges and universities: to provide students with a rewarding educational experience that prepares them for their professional careers. These are among the reasons they give for not paying student athletes.

• Scholarships are the fairest form of compensation for student athletes considering the financial strain that college athletic departments are under. Most schools in Division I, II, and III spend more money on athletics than they receive in revenue from the sports.
• College athletes who receive scholarships are presented with an opportunity to earn a valuable education that will increase their earning power throughout their career outside of sports. A Gallup survey of NCAA athletes found that  70% graduate in four years or fewer , compared to 65% of all undergraduate students.
• Paying college athletes will “ diminish the spirit of amateurism ” that distinguishes college sports from their professional counterparts. Limiting compensation for playing a sport to the cost of attending school avoids creating a separate class of students who are profiting from their time in school.

According to Best Colleges, Salarship, and CollegeVine, reasons why paying college athletes is less than ideal include: 1. Money may harm students. 2. Pay diminishes love of the game. 3. Pay deemphasizes academic purpose. 4. Secondary sports struggle. 5. Rich schools monopolize talent. 6. The financial benefit is marginal. 7. Setting salaries can be messy. 8. Academic requirements are substandard. 9. Other program budgets are reduced.

How do college athlete endorsements work?

Soon after the Supreme Court released its decision in NCAA v. Alston, the NCAA issued  guidelines for schools  that allow college athletes to make money from product endorsements, social media accounts, autographs, and other uses of their name, image, or likeness. This counters the NCAA’s longstanding opposition to student athletes profiting from endorsements. At present, implementation of the guidelines varies from school to school and state to state, which means athletes at some institutions may benefit more from NIL agreements than those attending other schools.

Several  NIL consultancy firms  are actively soliciting endorsements from college athletes in the aftermath of the rule change.

• Highly touted 19-year-old basketball recruit Hercy Miller, who joined the Tennessee State University basketball team in 2021, signed a $2 million endorsement deal with Web Apps America.
• University of Michigan quarterback Cade McNamara has entered into an endorsement deal with cryptocurrency company More Management that will  pay him in cryptocurrency .
• Twin sisters Haley and Hanna Cavinder of the Fresno State University basketball team have  marketing agreements  to promote Boost Mobile and Six Star Pro Nutrition to the 3.3 million followers of their TikTok account.
• Gable Steveson, a wrestler for the University of Minnesota, entered into an endorsement deal with the delivery service Gopuff; Steveson has 245,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 on Twitter.

Despite the rush of high-profile college athletes signing endorsement deals, some educators and analysts express concern about the  impact of the endorsements  on schools, athletes, and college sports.

• Schools with more favorable endorsement rules may entice student athletes away from the schools they are currently attending.
• Likewise, states that have enacted endorsement laws that provide more earning potential for college athletes may see more top recruits choosing to attend schools in those states.
• The time college athletes spend meeting the requirements of their endorsement contracts could detract from study and practice time. This can have an adverse effect on their education and athletic careers — if they are unable to maintain grade requirements, for example, they may be disqualified from playing.
• If a college athlete’s performance in the sport declines, they may be less likely to attract and retain endorsement deals. While the NCAA has banned NIL agreements based on the athlete meeting specific performance criteria, the group acknowledges that a student’s athletic performance  may enhance their NIL value .
• Because of complicated contracts and tax laws, student athletes will have to rely on agents, advisers, and managers, which may leave them vulnerable to exploitation.

From the onset of intercollegiate sports, students have benefited from their participation by learning dedication to their sport, building relationships, and being part of a team. Sports allow students to acquire many important values, such as fair competition and physical and mental health. Education should remain at the forefront of all aspects of college, including sports, whether or not collegiate athletes are paid.

Infographic Source

Best Colleges, “Should College Athletes Be Paid?”

College Strategic, “Why College Athletes Should Be Paid”

CollegeVine, “Should College Athletes Be Paid? Pros and Cons”

Fansided, “64 Reasons College Athletes Need to Be Paid”

Future of Working, “17 Advantages and Disadvantages of Paying College Athletes”

NCAA, “Scholarships”

Next College Student Athlete, “What Are the Different Types of Offers I Could Get?”

Salarship, “Should College Athletes Be Paid: Pros and Cons”

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What’s Covered:

History of the debate: should college athletes be paid, why college athletes should be paid.

• Why College Athletes Shouldn’t Be Paid
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College athletics provide big benefits for many schools: they increase their profile, generate millions of dollars in revenue, and have led to one of the most contentious questions in sports— should college athletes be paid? Like other difficult questions, there are good arguments on both sides of the issue of paying college athletes. 

Historically, the debates over paying college athletes have only led to more questions, which is why it’s raged on for more than a century. Perhaps the earliest group to examine the quandary was Andrew Carnegie’s Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which produced a mammoth study in 1929 of amateur athletes and the profits they generate for their universities. You don’t have to get past the preface to find questions that feel at home in today’s world:

• “What relation has this astonishing athletic display to the work of an intelligence agency like a university?”
• “How do students, devoted to study, find either the time or the money to stage so costly a performance?” 

Many of the questions asked way back in 1929 continue to resurface today, and many of them have eventually ended up seeking answers in court. The first case of note came in the 1950s, when the widow of Fort Lewis football player Ray Dennison took the college all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court in an effort to collect a death benefit after he was killed playing football. She lost the case, but future generations would have more success and have slowly whittled away at arguments against paying athletes. 

The most noticeable victory for athletes occurred in 2019, when California Governor, Gavin Newsom, signed legislation effectively allowing college athletes in the state to earn compensation for the use of their likeness, sign endorsement deals, and hire agents to represent them.

The court fights between college athletes and the NCAA continue today—while not exactly about payment, a case regarding whether or not schools can offer athletes tens of thousands of dollars in education benefits such as computers, graduate scholarships, tutoring, study abroad, and internships was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2021. A decision is expected in June 2021. 

There are a number of great reasons to pay college athletes, many of which will not only improve the lives of student-athletes, but also improve the product on the field and in the arena. 

College Athletes Deserve to Get Paid

In 2019, the NCAA reported $18.9 billion in total athletics revenue. This money is used to finance a variety of paid positions that support athletics at colleges and universities, including administrators, directors, coaches, and staff, along with other employment less directly tied to sports, such as those in marketing and media. The only people not receiving a paycheck are the stars of the show: the athletes. 

A testament to the disparate allocation of funds generated by college sports, of the $18.9 billion in athletics revenue in 2019, $3.6 billion went toward financial aid for student-athletes, and $3.7 billion was used for coaches’ compensation. A February 2020 USA Today article found that the average total pay for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football head coaches in 2020-21 was $2.7 million. The highest-paid college football coach—the University of Alabama’s Nick Saban—earns $9.3 million a year and is the highest-paid public employee in the country. He is not alone, college coaches dominate the list of public employees with the largest salaries. 

If there’s money to provide college coaches with lavish seven-figure salaries (especially at public institutions), why shouldn’t there be funds to pay college athletes? 

Vital Support for Athletes 

A 2011 study published by the National College Players Association (NCPA) found that an overwhelming number of students on full athletics scholarships live below the federal poverty line—85% of athletes who live on campus and 86% athletes who live off-campus. “Full scholarship” itself is a misnomer; the same study found that the average annual scholarship for FBS athletes on “full” scholarships was actually $3,222. Find out more information about athletic scholarships . 

Paying student-athletes would help eliminate the need for these student-athletes to take out loans, burden their families for monetary support, or add employment to their already busy schedules. The NCAA limits in-season practice time to 20 hours a week, but a 2008 NCAA report shows that in-season student-athletes commonly spent upward of 30 and 40 hours a week engaged in “athletic activities.” 

Encouraged to Stay in College Longer

A report produced by the NCPA and Drexel University estimated the average annual fair market value of big-time college football and men’s basketball players between 2011 and 2015 was $137,357 and $289,031, respectively, and concluded that football players only receive about 17% of their fair market value, while men’s basketball players receive approximately 8% of theirs.

If colleges paid athletes even close to their worth, they would provide an incentive for the athletes to stay in college and earn degrees, rather than leaving college for a paycheck. This would also help keep top talents playing for college teams, improve the level of competition, and potentially lead to even higher revenue. On a side note, this would incentivize athletes to complete their degree, making them more employable after the end of their athletic career. 

Limit Corruption 

Just because there are rules prohibiting the compensation of college athletes doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, and over the years there have been numerous scandals. For example, in 2009, six ex-University of Toledo players were indicted in a point-shaving scheme , and in 2010, Reggie Bush returned his Heisman Trophy after allegations that he was given hundreds of thousands of dollars from sports agents while he played for USC.  

Paying college athletes will likely not totally eliminate corruption from college sports, but putting athletes in a less-precarious financial position would be a good step toward avoiding external influence, especially when you consider some of the players involved in the University of Toledo point-shaving scandal were paid as little as $500. 

It’s a Job (and a Dangerous One) 

As mentioned before, college athletes can put in upward of 40 hours a week practicing, training, and competing—being a “student-athlete” is a challenge when you’re devoting full-time hours to athletics. A New York Times study found a 0.20-point difference in average GPA between recruited male athletes and non-athletes. The difference is less pronounced among females, with non-athletes averaging a 3.24 GPA and recruited women athletes at 3.18.

It’s not just the time commitment that playing college athletics puts on student-athletes, it’s the risk to their health. A 2009-2010 CDC report found that more than 210,000 injuries are sustained by NCAA student-athletes each year. Full athletic scholarships are only guaranteed a year at a time, meaning student-athletes are one catastrophic injury away from potentially losing their scholarship. That is to say nothing of the lasting effects of an injury, like head traumas , which made up 7.4% of all injuries in college football players between 2004 and 2009.

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Why College Athletes Should Not Be Paid

There are a lot of great reasons why college athletes should be paid, but there are also some compelling reasons why college athletes should not be paid—and why not paying athletes is actually good for both the institutions and athletes. 

Compensation Conundrum 

One of the most common reasons cited against paying college players is compensation. Will all college athletes get compensated equally? For example, will the star quarterback receive the same amount as the backup catcher on the softball team? A 2014 CNBC article estimated that Andrew Wiggins, a University of Kansas forward (and soon-to-be first-overall draft pick), had a fair market value of around $1.6 million.

Similarly, will compensation take into account talent? Will the All-American point guard get the same amount as the captain of the swim team? In all likelihood, paying college athletes will benefit big-time, revenue-generating sports and hurt less popular sports. 

Eliminate Competitive Balance 

According to the NCAA , in 2019, the 65 Power Five schools exceeded revenue by $7 million, while all other Division I colleges had a $23 million deficit between expenses and revenue. If college athletes were to get paid, then large, well-funded schools such as those of the Power Five would be best positioned to acquire top talent and gain a competitive advantage. 

From a student’s point of view, paying college athletes will alter their college experience. No longer would fit, college, university reputation, and values factor into their college decisions—rather, choices would be made simply based on who was offering the most money. 

Professionalism vs. the Classroom

There’s a feeling that paying college athletes sends the wrong message and incentivizes them to focus on athletics instead of academics, when the reality is that very few college athletes will go on to play sports professionally. Just 1.6% of college football players will take an NFL field. NCAA men’s basketball players have even slimmer odds of playing in a major professional league ( 1.2% ), while the chances of a professional career are particularly grim for women basketball players, at a mere 0.8% . 

Although the odds of a college athlete turning pro are low, the probability of them earning a degree is high, thanks in part to the academic support athletes are given. According to data released by the NCAA, 90% of Division I athletes enrolled in 2013 earned a degree within six years. 

It Will End Less-Popular, Unprofitable Sports 

If colleges and universities pay their athletes, there is a fear that resources will only go to popular, revenue-generating sports. Programs like football and men’s basketball would likely benefit greatly, but smaller, unprofitable sports such as gymnastics, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and wrestling could find themselves at best cash-strapped and, at the worst, cut altogether. 

It’s just not less-popular sports that paying athletes could threaten—women’s programs could also find themselves in the crosshairs of budget-conscious administrators. Keep in mind, it was just in March 2021 that the NCAA made national news for its unequal treatment of the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments. 

Financial Irresponsibility 

Former ESPN, and current FOX Sports, personality Colin Cowherd made news in 2014 when he voiced a popular argument against paying college athletes: financial irresponsibility. In Cowherd’s words:

“I don’t think paying all college athletes is great… Not every college is loaded, and most 19-year-olds [are] gonna spend it—and let’s be honest, they’re gonna spend it on weed and kicks! And spare me the ‘they’re being extorted’ thing. Listen, 90 percent of these college guys are gonna spend it on tats, weed, kicks, Xboxes, beer and swag. They are, get over it!”

A look at the professional ranks bolsters Cowherd’s argument about athletes’ frivolous spending. According to CNBC , 60% of NBA players go broke within five years of departing the league and 78% of former NFL players experience financial distress two years after retirement.

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An Argument For Not Allowing College Athletes To Earn Compensation

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Ekow Yankah, author of The New Yorker essay, "Why N.C.A.A. Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid," about the NCAA's decision to allow college athletes to earn compensation.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The NCAA makes close to a billion dollars in revenue each school year, but college players see none of that money. Now that might change. Yesterday, the NCAA's Board of Governors voted to permit student-athletes to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness. Now, some see this as addressing an unfair practice of exploitative behavior by the NCAA. Others see this as a lousy idea.

Here to discuss is Ekow Yankah. He's a professor at Cardozo School of Law. He has written about this, an essay in The New Yorker back in 2015 titled "Why NCAA Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid." He joins me now from London.

Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

EKOW YANKAH: Thank you for having me.

KELLY: What did you make of this announcement yesterday?

YANKAH: Like most people, we're all sort of waiting to see what the announcement means. The NCAA often tries to do the vaguely right thing when it has absolutely no other choice. So I take it that this is a capitulation of what they see coming down the pike in terms of a slew of laws that are passing from state to state and threatened federal action.

KELLY: But I gather you think this is a lousy idea. You're in the lousy idea camp. How come?

YANKAH: Well, I'm torn about the name and likeness issue, which is slightly different than paying the athletes. But at bottom, the reason I'm concerned is because I think this will be awfully hard to distinguish from salaries. I consistently worry about the continued professionalization of college athletics.

Look; there's no question that the current system is deeply exploitative and deeply problematic. I guess my baseline worry is many people - I think people in good faith - see the exploitation, and they say the answer is to pay these young athletes some amount of money while they're playing football or basketball. I look, and I say the answer is to make sure that these young men - and with the revenue generated in sports, it's typically young men - that they get the thing that they were promised that was of value. That is to say they get a college degree that was of value.

And one of the things I worry about is how many of, at least the listeners to NPR, those who have opportunity and resources - how many of them would trade a college degree for their child for three years of their child being paid in college? I doubt that's a trade that your listeners would make. Those are not the dreams I have for my children.

KELLY: So in your view, should anything change in the current system?

YANKAH: Yeah. I think everybody agrees that the current system needs to be changed and that the corruption of the current system is untenable and, indeed, deeply racially scarred. I'm not interested in whether or not even my beloved Wolverines crank out three or four professionals a year. I'm interested in universities that can crank out generations of black lawyers and doctors and engineers.

It seems to me that the best way to make sure that we are actually serving these young men is to do our best to support and create a true minor league system.

KELLY: Similar to the way it works in Europe already.

YANKAH: Similar to the way it works in Europe. Young kids who want to play for Manchester United are playing in soccer camps from when they're young. Every year, they get cut down. But the ones who dream of playing on the big stage pursue through the minor league system - and similar to the way it works in baseball and, by the way, similar to the way it works in hockey in the United States.

KELLY: I want to make this personal. You played soccer a little bit in college. New college athlete - would you have wanted to get paid?

YANKAH: Maybe in this way I'm a little bit pushed the other way. I played very briefly when Michigan was a club team. In order to keep playing, I would've had to pay money to play. I was working a full-time job in college on top of scholarships. I would've been thrilled to be able to play, just not to pay. And so in this way, I am one of the people who truly thinks that sports are actually a part of an education. You know, we don't think of the dancers as not students, and we don't think of the chess players as not students.

KELLY: The chess team isn't bringing in a billion dollars every year, though.

YANKAH: No, that's true. That's absolutely right. And I think, you know, that's a concern. On the other hand, if there was a true professional league where the students who wanted to make their money could go make their money, then the university could look the student-athletes in the eye and be quite clear that the revenue generation was more about the university than any particular student-athlete. That is to say if your skills are the kind for which you can get paid, you can go to the minor league and get paid.

KELLY: That's Ekow Yankah. He is a professor at Cardozo School of Law, and he wrote an essay for The New Yorker titled "Why NCAA Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid."

Ekow Yankah, thanks.

YANKAH: Thank you for having me.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Why College Athletes Should Not Be Paid, Essay Sample

College athletics has been a topic of discussion for years, with one of the most contentious issues being whether or not college athletes should be paid. The debate has been ongoing, with strong arguments on both sides. In this essay, we will examine why college athletes should not be paid, covering various reasons such as the potential for budget cuts, concerns about amateurism, unfairness among athletes, educational compromise, and the slippery slope effect. Through a critical analysis of these arguments, we will demonstrate why paying college athletes could have detrimental consequences.

It could lead to budget cuts

One of the main arguments against paying college athletes is that it could lead to budget cuts for other academic and athletic programs at universities. College sports programs already require significant funding, and paying athletes would require even more money, potentially putting a strain on university budgets.

Opponents of paying college athletes argue that universities may be forced to cut funding for other programs, such as academic departments or other athletic teams, in order to pay for athlete compensation. In some cases, universities may even be forced to cut the size of their sports programs altogether, eliminating opportunities for athletes to participate in college sports.

In addition, it is argued that paying college athletes could also lead to a disparity between larger and smaller schools, with the larger and more profitable schools having an advantage in recruiting athletes. This could create an even greater imbalance in college sports and undermine the competitive balance that currently exists.

Furthermore, some critics argue that paying college athletes would detract from the amateur nature of college sports, and could lead to legal issues and complications, such as disputes over pay rates and contract negotiations.

It goes against the amateurism model

College sports have traditionally been associated with amateurism, meaning that the athletes participate for the love of the sport and the experience, rather than for financial gain. The NCAA and many universities maintain that paying college athletes would be a violation of this amateurism model and could have negative consequences.

The argument is that if college athletes were paid, they would no longer be considered amateurs and would instead be seen as professional athletes. This could cause issues with the organization of college sports, as well as the eligibility of athletes to participate in NCAA-sanctioned events. Additionally, paying some college athletes but not others could lead to legal challenges and accusations of discrimination.

It could create unfairness among athletes: Paying college athletes would likely result in some athletes receiving more compensation than others, which could create an unfair playing field.

It could create unfairness among athletes

One of the arguments against paying college athletes is that it could create unfairness among athletes. While it is true that college athletes contribute significantly to the success and revenue of their respective sports programs, paying them could lead to some athletes receiving more compensation than others. This could create an unfair playing field, as some athletes may have more bargaining power or be more valuable to the team than others.

It’s also important to note that not all college sports generate the same amount of revenue. Football and men’s basketball, for example, are generally the most profitable college sports, while many other sports operate at a loss. If college athletes were to be paid, it’s likely that the compensation would be distributed unevenly across different sports and even different athletes within the same sport.

Furthermore, paying college athletes could create divisions within teams and lead to decreased team cohesion. Athletes who are paid more may be perceived as having more status or importance, leading to potential resentment from teammates who are paid less. This could create a toxic team environment and negatively impact team performance.

It could compromise the educational aspect of college sports

The concern is that if college athletes are compensated, they may focus more on their sport and less on their studies, which goes against the primary purpose of attending college.

College sports are intended to provide a platform for student-athletes to develop their skills while receiving a quality education. Universities argue that compensating college athletes would go against this purpose and may even discourage some students from pursuing sports at the college level. Furthermore, if college athletes are paid, they may feel that they do not need to prioritize their education, leading to lower graduation rates and academic performance.

There is also the concern that if college athletes are paid, it could create a divide between those who receive compensation and those who do not. This could lead to resentment among teammates and create an unfair playing field. Additionally, paying college athletes could create financial strains on smaller universities that may not have the resources to pay their athletes, further exacerbating the divide.

It could lead to a slippery slope: Some worry that if college athletes are paid, it could lead to similar demands from high school athletes, which could fundamentally change the landscape of amateur sports.

It could lead to a slippery slope

If high school athletes were to demand payment for their participation in sports, it could put pressure on schools to allocate more funding towards sports programs, and possibly lead to an arms race where schools compete for the best athletes by offering them more money. This could result in a system where only the top-tier athletes receive compensation, leaving behind those who are not as talented or who participate in less popular sports.

Furthermore, if high school athletes were to receive compensation, it could create a situation where they are no longer considered amateurs and are instead seen as professionals. This could lead to issues with eligibility and participation in college sports, as the NCAA has strict rules on the participation of professional athletes.

In conclusion, while there are certainly arguments for paying college athletes, there are also valid concerns that need to be considered. The potential budget cuts, violations of amateurism, unfairness among athletes, compromising of the educational aspect, and slippery slope of demands from other athletes all need to be carefully examined. The current system is not perfect, but it is important to remember that college sports are fundamentally different from professional sports, and the amateurism model has been in place for a long time. Ultimately, paying college athletes would require a significant restructuring of the current system, and it remains to be seen whether it would truly benefit college athletes in the long run. Therefore, it is important for universities and the NCAA to continue to explore and evaluate all options for improving the current system while also considering the potential consequences of any changes.

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Why N.C.A.A. Athletes Shouldn’t Be Paid

By Ekow N. Yankah

Two weeks ago, as Americans were settling into the harvest comfort of football Saturdays, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in the antitrust suit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The decision drew blood on both sides. The court sided with the players in affirming that the N.C.A.A. is not immune to antitrust regulation, but simultaneously reversed a lower-court ruling that would have granted former athletes as much as five thousand dollars a year in deferred compensation—essentially back pay—for the use of their images in video games and other commercial ventures. At the same time, the court required that the N.C.A.A. increase scholarship payouts to cover the full cost of college attendance, thus making mandatory an option that the N.C.A.A. first permitted a few years ago.

These legal niceties did very little to address the deeper question of fairness. The N.C.A.A. ideal of amateurism in college athletics has come to border on farce. In the highest-revenue sports—football and basketball—the argument in favor of paying players is so searingly obvious as to seem undeniable. These athletes collectively generate tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars annually for their schools. Many college coaches are the highest-paid public employees in their states—a five-million-dollar salary is no longer eye-popping—and that paycheck doesn’t include gifts from boosters, who will occasionally pay for a coach’s house to make sure that he stays happy.

But this understates the exploitation. The athletes in major football and men’s basketball programs are disproportionately black, many from poor and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. For too many of them, the N.C.A.A. is the only game in town. In some dispiriting cases, the students are so unprepared that academic failure seems inevitable. In worse cases still, their scholarships are cynically undermined by the schools themselves. Coaches steer students into empty classes (what one recent report from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill characterized as a “ shadow curriculum ”) or supply so-called academic support that amounts to cheating. It hardly seems coincidental, then, that sports with less African-American participation, such as baseball and hockey, maintain robust minor-league systems without the national gnashing of teeth.

And yet I believe that the drive to pay college athletes is a grave mistake—not because it misdiagnoses the disease but because it suggests that the only cure is to put the patient out of his misery. It fails, first of all, to recognize the value of sports as a part of education. This value can be seen in the countless student athletes, from gymnasts to softball players, who pour hours of work into training and competing with no hope of going pro. (Similarly, many of those in even the biggest sports show dedication long after it is clear that they will never be professionals.)

This value is again revealed in the fact that many N.C.A.A. teams are vastly more popular than their professional counterparts. My beloved Michigan Wolverines pack the Big House with more than a hundred thousand spectators each football Saturday; the Detroit Lions, meanwhile, do not. (I know, I know—it’s the Lions. That’s why their stadium is smaller.) Minor-league arenas attract even fewer spectators. Fans are not only seeking athletic excellence as such—the biggest and fastest players in descending order. Our connection to the athletes is deeper. These student athletes walk the same halls, have the same professors, and sweat the same midterms that we did, however long ago. At the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where I once taught, the inscription on the statue of Alma Mater reads, “To thy happy children of the future, those of the past send greetings.” It’s easy to dismiss that sentiment as saccharine, but it gets at an important truth: we are embedded in our cultures and social groups, and we revel in their excellence.

Paying student athletes erodes that association. If a high-school football prodigy reported that he chose Michigan not for its academic quality, tradition, or beautiful campus but because it outbid all other suitors, a connection to the university’s values would be lost. This is not naïve idealism. Auburn fans still bristle at accusations that Cam Newton auctioned them his services; prideful Michigan fans still smart over the sanctions surrounding Chris Webber, and over stinging comments intimating that he might just as well have attended a rival school. These episodes reveal what happens when college sports are reduced to a market; that this occurs all too often already is no reason to surrender to it.

The law plays a critical role here, and the Ninth Circuit’s ruling can be a constructive step. It recognizes that the N.C.A.A. is subject to antitrust regulation—unlike, say, Major League Baseball —and refuses to put a monetary value on college sports. In the future, Congress could, through antitrust and commerce legislation, promote a more just landscape in college and professional sports. Professional leagues, in particular, could be encouraged to invest more seriously in their minor-league programs—the N.B.A. Development League is at least the right idea—and drop the relevant age restrictions. This would mean that the extraordinary few could go pro out of high school, and some other highfliers, could enter the developmental leagues, paid whatever the market will bear. College sports might well lose some spectacular stars, but the stars alone were never really the point.

None of this would be easy to accomplish, of course, given the money that is at stake, and there would be casualties. Some of the players who might at least have been exposed to college would forgo it entirely. We might lose the story of the exceptional athlete, often poor and dark-skinned, who goes to school solely to play sports but then sees the world widen before him. Nor should we imagine that those who opt for the developmental leagues have made it; minor-league baseball and the lower tiers of European soccer remind us how thankless and poorly compensated such a life can be. But this is no less true for those who skip college to pursue music or theatre, and, more to the point, there is no reason to think that we wouldn’t hear stories of intellectual discovery among slightly less athletically gifted athletes from the same streets. Even if we cannot save sports (or music, or theatre) from its high-risk nature, we can go some way toward making sure that a few élite college programs are not unduly feeding off it.

At sports bars, when I hear people dismiss these (or other) ideas for preserving college amateurism, I realize that it’s not simply a question of their being overwhelmed by the practical difficulties involved. It is, rather, another manifestation of that corrosive American belief that anything that has value must also have a price. The recent ruling, though, hints at a path ahead, a way to cheer for our student athletes without being held hostage to money, exploitation, racism, or cynicism.

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Student Opinion

College Athletes Can Now Be Paid. But Not All of Them Are Seeing Money. Is That Fair?

A Supreme Court ruling allows student athletes to be compensated. Should those who are raking in the money have to share it with their teammates?

By Shannon Doyne and Jeremy Engle

Do you follow college sports? Did you know that college athletes can now make money? They are not paid by their colleges or universities, but they can receive gifts from boosters; make deals with companies to use their names, images and likenesses; and endorse products.

What do you think about that? If you play a sport, would you like to play in college someday? Do you think you could make money doing it?

In “ Student. Athlete. Mogul? ” Bruce Schoenfeld wrote about changes made in July 2021 to the rules that govern collegiate athletics that allow student athletes to earn money from corporate sponsorships and to accept money from supporters. But few players, he writes, are seeing any of it:

For more than a century, or as long as the N.C.A.A. has presided over college sports, athletes had no legal way to earn anything more tangible from their achievements than plaques and trophies. The rules were as clear as they were strict: Players couldn’t receive any benefits linked to their participation in a sport. Over the years, football and men’s basketball have come to generate billions of dollars for television networks, corporate sponsors and universities. Seven-figure salaries for coaches have become common. The players, however, could get nothing beyond a free — often perfunctory — education. That changed on July 1, 2021. Following a Supreme Court decision against the N.C.A.A. , the organization ended nearly all its restrictions on what athletes could earn from the use of their names, images and likenesses, an amorphous category that has become known as N.I.L. Overnight, those athletes could make deals with companies and endorse their products. They could even accept money from boosters — usually longtime donors, or local businessmen with ties to a university — in transactions that previously would have led to severe sanctions against their teams. Around the country, administrators were astonished by the abrupt reversal. “It’s not a hole in the dike,” is how Vince Ille, a senior associate athletic director, describes the N.C.A.A.’s change of course. “It’s the obliteration of the entire dam.”

The article continues:

The upheaval that gave college athletes the right to earn money from their sports began with a reasonable grievance. In 2014, Ed O’Bannon, a former power forward on the U.C.L.A. basketball team, sued the N.C.A.A. and E.A. Sports because he felt entitled to income from a video game that included his likeness. His primary claim was that the N.C.A.A. rules prohibiting student-athlete compensation were a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The U.S. district judge who heard the case agreed with O’Bannon. In 2019, the same judge issued a similar ruling in a separate lawsuit, known as the Alston case. Those decisions struck a chord with many sports fans, who identified with O’Bannon’s position. When California’s Legislature passed a law that year allowing college athletes to hire agents and negotiate business deals, Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, signed it on HBO with LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers sitting beside him. By then, the N.C.A.A. understood that change was inevitable. That fall, it surveyed its members about whether income should be shared by all players or retained by those who made individual deals. When North Carolina’s football team met to discuss the issue, a quarterback named Sam Howell, then a freshman, made the case that letting players profit from deals they negotiated would unfairly favor those, like himself, who played marquee positions. Everyone pretty much agreed. “I knew N.I.L. was coming,” Cunningham says now, “but I didn’t think it would happen the way that it did. I thought we’d start with group licensing — bring back the video game, jersey sales, things that you could somewhat control.” He figured the schools would make the deals, collect the money, then spread it out among their athletes. In the months that followed, the N.C.A.A. created a template for distributing money through the schools. But in the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion upholding the lower court’s decision in the Alston case, the organization decided that any limitations on college athletes’ potential earnings could prompt a lawsuit — and that it probably would lose in court. In the end, the N.C.A.A. (which declined to comment for this article) felt comfortable imposing only a few rules on its member institutions regarding the deals that athletes could make. The most basic rule is that for an athlete to earn money, something of ostensible value must be provided in return. You can’t just give $10,000 to Leaky Black ; he would at least have to pose for a selfie with you, or sign an autograph, or maybe agree to call your sister on her birthday. Income cannot directly compensate performance — a specific sum per touchdown pass, for example. Schools can’t pay their players, though some coaches have proposed that college athletes be treated as salaried employees. Also, the promise of deals can’t be used to recruit high schoolers, or to entice current students to transfer through a web portal that was created in 2018 to make player movement more transparent. The rule against recruiting, which is all but unenforceable, is widely believed to be broken by one school or another pretty much every day. The other rules are flimsy enough to be easily circumvented. The opportunity to earn money while playing college sports is available to all athletes, from football’s Heisman Trophy winner to small-college wrestlers. But of the approximately 520,000 students currently competing in intercollegiate athletics, maybe 519,000 are making nothing at all. A vast majority of deals reward the top players on the nationally competitive teams in two sports: football and men’s basketball. Some of the deals are as lucrative as those that established professionals earn. According to On3, this academic year the Alabama quarterback Bryce Young will earn a total of at least $3.2 million from Nissan, BMW of Tuscaloosa, the mobile-payment service Cash App and other companies.

Students, read the entire article , then tell us:

What do you think of the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing student athletes to earn money from the use of their names, images and likenesses (N.I.L.)? Do you think the ruling goes far enough in compensating players, or does it go too far?

The article points out that “of the approximately 520,000 students currently competing in intercollegiate athletics, maybe 519,000 are making nothing at all.” Is this fair? Do you think collegiate athletes who are making money — like Armando Bacot, a senior on North Carolina’s basketball team who will earn roughly $500,000 this year, or Bryce Young, an Alabama quarterback who will earn at least $3.2 million — should have to share it with their teammates? Their school? Or is that money entirely theirs?

Should all college athletes be paid? Or are their scholarships, free education and fame enough? If yes, what do you think is fair compensation?

Are you a fan of college sports? If so, which schools and programs do you root for? Do you think N.I.L. will help or hurt college athletics? What ideas do you have to improve college sports — for players and fans?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

College Athletes Should Not Be Paid Argumentative Essay Example

So the question has been going on for years now, and it’s still a hot debate even today. Should college athletes be paid?  According to America, 51% of people in 2020 believe these athletes should be paid for their performance while in college. However, they are wrong because these athletes are already given many opportunities other students will not get, along with they will preform differently if they were getting paid. 

The first reason why college athletes shouldn’t be paid is because it would effect their gameplay while on and off the field. Students looking to go pro aren’t playing college sports for money. While that may be the reason they want to play and succeed, when in college they aren’t getting paid. According to the second text, It’s Time to Pay College Athletes, it states, “Most scholarships are revokable, so if an athlete doesn’t perform well on the field, he can, in a sense, be fired from college.” So, this shows us the instead of playing for money and fame, they are playing for their lives and future if the game. Each time an athlete steps onto the court or field, they preform their hardest and try their best to get into the professional level so they CAN be paid in the professional league. Also, according to John Rowady, president of sports marketing firm rEvolution (who is much more familiar with the situation), states he believes, “Paying the players as professionals carries a big risk of the public quickly tuning out. It would create a massive unknown, you have to wonder if it would change the whole dynamic of what it means to be a student-athlete.” And in this, he is telling us what the National Collegiate Athletic Association [NCAA] won’t. They don’t want to pay their athletes because it could change the entire way their organization works. It means something to be a student athlete, and one of those things means to not be paid. That is the end goal for these athletes. 

The second reason why college athletes shouldn’t be paid kinda ties with the first, they have more benefits than the average college student. College athletes earn scholarships, they are given many more opportunities, and they are given the supplies to help them succeed. According to the forth text, There’s No Crying in College: The Case Against Paying College Athletes, it says that, “College athletes are already being paid with an athletic scholarship that is worth between $20–$50,000 per year. Oh, and that does not even begin to factor in the medical and travel expenses, free gear, top-notch coaching, unlimited use of elite athletic facilities and a national stage to audition for a job in the professional ranks.” This shares the idea that student athletes are already getting many more benefits than the average student. They are getting scholarships, free health and travel expenses, gear and so much more. There is no need to be paying them when they are already getting top care. It’s nonsensical. Also, in the same text, John Rowady expresses his opinion on this matter. “They perform in a high profile environment, and gain access to incredible networks of people,” says Rowady. For those who aren’t pro material: study. Your education is free, remember.” He tells us that even if the student athlete is not pro material yet, they are still getting a free education and they should jump on these opportunities because not a lot of people get these chances. 

Finally, the third and final reason college athletes should not be paid is because not every student would be getting paid. Only certain schools and sports depending on how much revenue they get from their season. In the second text it states that, “Not every school would—or could—participate. Only the 60 or so schools in the power conferences, which have the football and basketball revenues to support such payments, would likely even consider such an option.” Only the really popular college sports, like football and basketball would eligible to even pay their athletes because of the revenue they bring in. Other sports like hockey and soccer don’t make as much so they wouldn’t have the chance to pay their students. 

So, after all of the research, it is clear that college athletes should not be paid. For the reasons above and many more. And while one may try and argue that the amount of revenue the NCAA makes, they could split it amongst the students. But the research shows that even if they did this, not all schools and players would be paid. The gear, medical and travel expenses, and more would no longer be available to them. What they have now will be completely changed if they got paid. No matter how many protests or people agree on the matter. The NCAA will not be paying their student athletes because of this. It would change the corse of college sports forever.

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The Case for Paying College Athletes

The case against paying college athletes, the era of name, image, and likeness (nil) profiting, why should college athletes be paid, is it illegal for college athletes to get paid, what percentage of americans support paying college athletes, the bottom line, should college athletes be paid.

The Case For and Against

Should college athletes be able to make money from their sport? When the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was founded in 1906, the organization’s answer was a firm “no,” as it sought to “ensure amateurism in college sports.”

Despite the NCAA’s official stance, the question has long been debated among college athletes, coaches, sports fans, and the American public. The case for financial compensation saw major developments in June 2021, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA cannot limit colleges from offering student-athletes “education-related benefits.”

In response, the NCAA issued an interim policy stating that its student-athletes were permitted to profit off their name, image, and likeness (NIL) , but not to earn a salary. This policy will remain in place until a more “permanent solution” can be found in conjunction with Congress.

Meanwhile, the landscape continues to shift, with new cases, decisions, and state legislation being brought forward. College athletes are currently permitted to receive “cost of attendance” stipends (up to approximately $6,000), unlimited education-related benefits, and awards. A 2023 survey found that 67% of U.S. adults favor paying college athletes with direct compensation.

Key Takeaways

• Despite the NCAA reporting nearly $1.3 billion in revenue in 2023, student-athletes are restricted to limited means of compensation.
• Although college sports regularly generate valuable publicity and billions of dollars in revenue for schools, even the highest-grossing college athletes tend to see only a small fraction of this.
• One argument for paying college athletes is the significant time commitment that their sport requires, which can impact their ability to earn income and divert time and energy away from academic work.
• Student-athletes may face limited prospects after college for a variety of reasons, including a high risk of injury, fierce competition to enter professional leagues, and lower-than-average graduation rates.
• The developing conversation around paying college athletes must take into account the practical challenges of determining and administering compensation, as well as the potential impacts on players and schools.

There are numerous arguments in support of paying college athletes, many of which focus on ameliorating the athletes’ potential risks and negative impacts. Here are some of the typical arguments in favor of more compensation.

Financial Disparity

College sports generate billions of dollars in revenue for networks, sponsors, and institutions (namely schools and the NCAA). There is considerable money to be made from advertising and publicity, historically, most of which has not benefited those whose names, images, and likenesses are featured within it.

Of the 2019 NCAA Division I revenues ($15.8 billion in total), only 18.2% was returned to athletes through scholarships, medical treatment, and insurance. Additionally, any other money that goes back to college athletes is not distributed equally. An analysis of players by the National Bureau of Economic Research found major disparities between sports and players.

Nearly 50% of men’s football and basketball teams, the two highest revenue-generating college sports, are made up of Black players. However, these sports subsidize a range of other sports (such as men’s golf and baseball, and women’s basketball, soccer, and tennis) where only 11% of players are Black and which also tend to feature players from higher-income neighborhoods. In the end, financial redistribution between sports effectively funnels resources away from students who are more likely to be Black and come from lower-income neighborhoods toward those who are more likely to be White and come from higher-income neighborhoods.

Exposure and Marketing Value

Colleges’ finances can benefit both directly and indirectly from their athletic programs. The “Flutie Effect,” named after Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie, is an observed phenomenon whereby college applications and enrollments seem to increase after an unexpected upset victory or national football championship win by that college’s team. Researchers have also suggested that colleges that spend more on athletics may attract greater allocations of state funding and boost private donations to institutions.

Meanwhile, the marketing of college athletics is valued in the millions to billions of dollars. In 2023, the NCAA generated nearly $1.3 billion in revenue, $945.1 million of which came from media rights fees. In 2022, earnings from March Madness represented nearly 90% of the NCAA’s total revenue. Through this, athletes give schools major exposure and allow them to rack up huge revenues, which argues for making sure the players benefit, too.

Opportunity Cost, Financial Needs, and Risk of Injury

Because participation in college athletics represents a considerable commitment of time and energy, it necessarily takes away from academic and other pursuits, such as part-time employment. In addition to putting extra financial pressure on student-athletes, this can impact athletes’ studies and career outlook after graduation, particularly for those who can’t continue playing after college, whether due to injury or the immense competition to be accepted into a professional league.

Earning an income from sports and their significant time investment could be a way to diminish the opportunity cost of participating in them. This is particularly true in case of an injury that can have a long-term effect on an athlete’s future earning potential.

Arguments against paying college athletes tend to focus on the challenges and implications of a paid-athlete system. Here are some of the most common objections to paying college athletes.

Existing Scholarships

Opponents of a paid-athlete system tend to point to the fact that some college athletes already receive scholarships , some of which cover the cost of their tuition and other academic expenses in full. These are already intended to compensate athletes for their work and achievements.

Financial Implications for Schools

One of the main arguments against paying college athletes is the potential financial strain on colleges and universities. The majority of Division I college athletics departments’ expenditures actually surpass their revenues, with schools competing for players by hiring high-profile coaches, constructing state-of-the-art athletics facilities, and offering scholarships and awards.

With the degree of competition to attract talented athletes so high, some have pointed out that if college athletes were to be paid a salary on top of existing scholarships, it might unfairly burden those schools that recruit based on the offer of a scholarship.

‘Amateurism’ and the Challenges of a Paid-Athlete System

Historically, the NCAA has sought to promote and preserve a spirit of “amateurism” in college sports, on the basis that fans would be less interested in watching professional athletes compete in college sports, and that players would be less engaged in their academic studies and communities if they were compensated with anything other than scholarships.

The complexity of determining levels and administration of compensation across an already uneven playing field also poses a practical challenge. What would be the implications concerning Title IX legislation, for example, since there is already a disparity between male and female athletes and sports when it comes to funding, resources, opportunities, compensation, and viewership?

Another challenge is addressing the earnings potential of different sports (as many do not raise revenues comparable to high-profile sports like men’s football and basketball) or of individual athletes on a team. Salary disparities would almost certainly affect team morale and drive further competition between schools to bid for the best athletes.

In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA violated antitrust laws with its rules around compensation, holding that the NCAA’s current rules were “more restrictive than necessary” and that the NCAA could no longer “limit education-related compensation or benefits” for Division I football and basketball players.

In response, the NCAA released an interim policy allowing college athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) , essentially providing the opportunity for players to profit off their personal brand through social media and endorsement deals. States then introduced their own rules around NIL, as did individual schools, whose coaches or compliance departments maintain oversight of NIL deals and the right to object to them in case of conflict with existing agreements.

Other court cases against the NCAA have resulted in legislative changes that now allow students to receive “cost of attendance” stipends up to a maximum of around $6,000 as well as unlimited education-related benefits and awards.

The future of NIL rules and student-athlete compensation remains to be seen. According to the NCAA, the intention is to “develop a national law that will help colleges and universities, student-athletes, and their families better navigate the name, image, and likeness landscape.” However, no timeline has been specified as of yet.

Common arguments in support of paying college athletes tend to focus on players’ financial needs, their high risk of injury, and the opportunity cost they face (especially in terms of academic achievement, part-time work, and long-term financial and career outlook). Proponents of paying college athletes also point to the extreme disparity between the billion-dollar revenues of schools and the NCAA and current player compensation.

Although the NCAA once barred student-athletes from earning money from their sport, legislation around compensating college athletes is changing. In 2021, the NCAA released an interim policy permitting college athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness (NIL) through social media and endorsement and sponsorship deals. However, current regulations and laws vary by state.

In 2023, a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults found that 67% of respondents were in favor of paying college athletes with direct compensation. Sixty-four percent said they supported athletes’ rights to obtain employee status, and 59% supported their right to collectively bargain as a labor union .

Although the NCAA is under growing pressure to share its billion-dollar revenues with the athletes it profits from, debate remains around whether, how, and how much college athletes should be paid. Future policy and legislation will need to take into account the financial impact on schools and athletes , the value of exposure and marketing, pay equity and employment rights, pay administration, and the nature of the relationship between college athletes and the institutions they represent.

NCAA. “ History .”

Marquette Sports Law Review. “ Weakening Its Own Defense? The NCAA’s Version of Amateurism ,” Page 260 (Page 5 of PDF).

U.S. Supreme Court. “ National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston et al. ”

NCAA. “ NCAA Adopts Interim Name, Image and Likeness Policy .”

PBS NewsHour. “ Analysis: Who Is Winning in the High-Revenue World of College Sports? ”

Sportico. “ 67% of Americans Favor Paying College Athletes: Sportico/Harris Poll .”

Sportico. “ NCAA Took in Record Revenue in 2023 on Investment Jump .”

National Bureau of Economic Research. “ Revenue Redistribution in Big-Time College Sports .”

Appalachian State University, Walker College of Business. “ The Flutie Effect: The Influence of College Football Upsets and National Championships on the Quantity and Quality of Students at a University .”

Grand Canyon University. “ Should College Athletes Be Paid? ”

Flagler College Gargoyle. “ Facing Inequality On and Off the Court: The Disparities Between Male and Female Athletes .”

U.S. Department of Education. “ Title IX and Sex Discrimination .”

Congressional Research Service Reports. “ National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston and the Debate Over Student Athlete Compensation .”

NCSA College Recruiting. “ NCAA Name, Image, Likeness Rule .”

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Paying College Athletes — Free College is Enough: Why College Athletes Should not Be Paid

Free College is Enough: Why College Athletes Should not Be Paid

• Categories: Paying College Athletes Student Athletes

About this sample

Words: 1480 |

Published: Apr 8, 2022

Words: 1480 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Works Cited

• “Introduction to Should College Athletes Be Paid?: At Issue.” Should College Athletes Be Paid? Ed. Geoff Griffin. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
• Forbes. “Forbes: Texas A&M Most Valuable College Football Team.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 12 Sept. 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-football-ncaa-tam-forbes-finances/forbes-texas-am-most-valuable-college-football-team-iduskcn1ls04k.
• Future, Big. “Pay for College: What Is a Pell Grant?” Pay for College | What Is a Pell Grant?, bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/grants-and-scholarships/what-is-a-pell-grant.
• Griffin, Geoff. Introduction to Should College Athletes Be Paid?: At Issue . Greenhaven Press, 2007.
• Mitchell, Horace. “Students Are Not Professional Athletes.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 25 Feb. 2017, www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/01/06/ncaa-athletes-should-not-be-paid.
• National Collegiate Athletic Association. “Scholarships.” NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA, 10 Mar. 2017, www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/future/scholarships.
• Whitlock, Jason. “College Athletes Already Paid in Full.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 17 Feb. 2017, www.espn.com/page2/s/whitlock/020919.html.

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Survey shows most people want college athletes to be paid. You hear that, NCAA?

It's difficult for any fair-minded american to look at the vast amounts of money flowing into college sports and not see hypocrisy in its reliance on an unpaid labor force. .

When the legal threats to amateurism began to emerge about a dozen years ago, the NCAA’s main strategy was to claim that college sports would become less popular if athletes earned money. 

Administrators said it repeatedly in the media. They said it in court. They even threatened to take their ball and go home if schools had to pay the athletes who help generate hundreds of millions of dollars playing college football and basketball.

And now they all need to admit that they were wrong. Historically, spectacularly, wrong. 

A new national survey commissioned by Sportico in cooperation with The Harris Poll found that 67 percent of American adults believe college athletes should be paid — not just through name, image and likeness payments but in direct compensation from the school. 

Further, 64 percent of those surveyed believed athletes should be able to claim status as employees, and 59 percent were in favor of college athletes being able to bargain as a union. 

The numbers were relatively consistent across a variety of demographic groups. Whether man or woman, Democrat or Republican, white or Black, the notion of paying college athletes was supported by a majority of respondents. The only category registering less than 50 percent approval was respondents over the age of 58. 

This is only one poll and one data point in a long-running narrative, but the trends are clear. College sports officials would be wise to pay attention.

TOP 25 RANKINGS: A closer look at every team in college football's preseason coaches poll

A similar survey conducted in 2014 by the Washington Post and ABC News found that only 33 percent supported paying college athletes, including just 24 percent of white people. So when former NCAA president Mark Emmert testified during the O’Bannon vs. NCAA trial in 2014 that paying athletes would be “tantamount to converting it into minor league sports, and we know that in the U.S., minor league sports aren’t very successful either for fan support or for the fan experience,” he had at least some data to support it. 

But in the real world, there’s never been a link between the popularity of a sport and players being unable to make money. 

Golf and tennis exploded across the world once they became fully professionalized. The International Olympic Committee was staunchly against including professional athletes until the 1980s. Once they opened the floodgates, the Olympics only got bigger and more popular. And even amidst all the consternation over the messy implementation of NIL in college, there’s absolutely nothing in the data from ticket sales to television ratings to suggest that fans are being turned off because the star quarterback has a nice car to drive. 

It's been the same story time and time again throughout history: People like watching the games far more than they care about who’s getting paid to play them. 

So perhaps former Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany was slightly out of touch when he said during the O’Bannon trial: “These games are owned by the institution, and the notion of paying athletes for participation in these games is foreign to the notion of amateurism.”

Maybe Delany and his colleagues really believed that at the time — or had convinced themselves of it — because they had spent their entire careers in the amateur model and had no other frame of reference for what college sports would look like if the athletes had the same access to large amounts of money that coaches and administrators did. 

Or maybe they always knew they were full of it and used whatever rhetoric they could to preserve a dying system.

But you'd be laughed out of any room these days — and particularly a courtroom — if you tried to argue that college sports are widely consumed by the American public because players are unpaid students. 

Not only is it flatly untrue, as Sportico’s poll illustrates, but it is difficult for any fair-minded American to look at the vast amounts of money flowing into college sports and not see hypocrisy in its reliance on an unpaid labor force. 

We can have a good-faith argument about how sharing those revenues with college athletes would work and the variety of complications attached to things like Title IX, employment law and collective bargaining. The implementation might not be simple. But it wouldn’t offend the vast majority of fans, and it certainly wouldn’t lead to college sports turning into Triple-A baseball. 

In fact, when you look at how quickly the attitudes have shifted from being pretty strongly against paying college athletes to a significant majority in favor, it likely wouldn’t be controversial at all within a few years. 

The NCAA, which has built up a pretty bad track record in court trying to argue for amateurism over the last decade, simply can’t afford to ignore which way the wind is blowing on this. Even among some administrators, there is a growing resignation that revenue-sharing is the end game. Short of Congress giving the NCAA a lifeline, it’s probably the only way to end the stream of lawsuits that arise from a system that only restricts athletes’ earnings while everybody else’s go up, up and up. 

If you believe that’s an important principle to preserve in the NCAA model, go right ahead. But arguing that fans will revolt if athletes get paid is now officially a talking point from the Stone Age. 

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Introduction

Over the past few decades, college athletic has become more popular among Americans. This helps National Collegiate Athletic Association NCAA to earn millions of dollars r annually and now there is a debate whether the college athletic should get compensations beyond their scholarships. The National Labor Relations board of Chicago defines an employee as a person who has signed a contract to perform agreed service for another; employer is in control and gets payment in return (Hardin, James and Timothy 46). According to these standards the players may be considered employees based on their time and effort. However, college sports are not all about money. The opportunity to play a game that a person likes should not be equated to a job.

According to NCCA approximately 2% of high school sportsmen are given a chance to compete for college athlete. It is a privilege for anyone to get this opportunity, let alone the scholarship. This is one of the highest levels any athlete would dream to compete in, therefore, it should not be taken for granted. Collegiate athletic are driven by passion for an individual to become successful in both sport and life. The athletic scholarship is worth between 20.000 and 50,000 dollars per year (NCAA 67). Moreover, this does not include their medical and travel allowances, professional coach and also the chance to audition for professional jobs. All their expenses are fully paid by the universities where these athletes were chosen.

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College athletics especially division 1 provide a huge source of revenue to universities and college. It is earned through sales of tickets, television contracts and other merchandise related to sport. A recent study conducted in the University of Texas showed that athletic program earned revenue of approximately 120,000,000 dollars. Yet the players are not compensated. NCAA declares that a person is not eligible for sport if one have ever received payment or promised it (58). Athletes work very hard to bring revenue to the university yet they are not rewarded monetary value.

There are reasons the game student participate in colleges and universities referred to as college sports rather than professional sports. This is because the players are college students. People go to universities to improve their skills and learn how to perform their jobs better. In college student plays in in order to be pros and not to receive paycheck. Moreover, universities pay enough money to build training facilities, coaches, scholarships and directors to enhance their chance for win. If college paid the athletes there would be no more opportunity to cater for these expenses. The college helps the players to be a part of team by giving them scholarships and thus making school affordable. In addition, paying the college athlete would in turn ruin the role of the university the main purpose of which is to educate. The knowledge and skills they get in the university is not equitable to the money they would get if they were to get paid. There are many people who have suggested several reasons why the college athlete should be allowed to get compensation, but those arguments are not adequate because the main objective of a university is to educate rather than provide sports entertainments. Despite the hindrances in the system, pay to the student athlete contradicts to the primary function of education institution.

Education and scholarships

The collegiate-level athletes get higher education in colleges and universities that most of their high schoolmate would not afford. In addition, they will graduate with a degree. In other words, these players are already paid through the scholarship which is awarded according to a player’s talent determined by the training coach (“Athletic Scholarships” 23). In addition to the university degree, the student learns values that will help them in real life situation and work once they leave college.

Before they start demanding to be paid, let’s take into account the benefits they already have. The athletic scholarships are enough to cover all the expenses a student will require for a period of four years including tuition, books, medical care and meals. Most universities charges between 30,000 and 50,000 per year. In other words, each student is reimbursed the amount of money an average American would make annually.

An additionally college degree allows a student to earn more money that one would make with an ordinary high school diploma whether the student get a professional job or not. A graduate student makes an approximate additional 1 million more in their lifetime. Moreover, the students get the privilege to travel around the world.

Money allocation

Most people believe that colleges and universities make off money with the help of athletics. A sport analysis conducted indicated that only 23 out 238 departments in public schools had generated enough money to pay for their expenses. The revenue obtained from athletics however does not outweigh the cost of running the athletics programs despite the sports being used as an attraction to a university. The revenue obtained is used to pay salaries to the staff. The cost of tuition of each student is less than the salary of an athletic trainer which is 44,720 dollars according to the bureau labour statistics. These are the staffs that make the athlete to become professional and most schools can not even afford to pay the staffs, let alone the student athlete.

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Contractual Agreement

During university admission the student signs the scholarships contractual agreement. While studying at the university, the student not only gets an opportunity to play the preferred sports at a better level but also earn a university degree. Therefore, money compensation is not part of the agreement and should not be debatable matter during their tenure in the university.

Before signing these contracts, the students are aware that they will not receive extra compensation from the organization. The signing of contracts declares they are now playing for their university rather than individual. Also they represent the organizations that sponsor those universities including Nike, Adidas and Under Amour. These companies sponsor the universities as well as the athlete students. A recent study showed that the athlete student spend about seven hours weekly outside for practices.

In other words, the universities would be forced to eliminate some sports in order to pay some athletic teams. Generally, not all the universities have the capability to pay the athletes and this would result in fact that some sport has to get cut in order to get the amount required for compensation. All athlete dedicate their time to sports, therefore, it would be unfair if some its kinds were cut. If several teams were eliminated some student would have no sports and all their effort will be totally wasted.

Living the Dream

College athlete should realize that it is a privilege to get certain opportunity that most of their age mate aspire to have. They should give the game their all because that is what they love. The game is not a duty or an hourly job, but if they are paid this is what it would mean. The dedication and the passion of the game would be lost. Therefore, the question should never be about how much money the game is worth.

The favourite sport is about fulfilling their dreams. The players should be proud and passionate about how winning a game will bring gratification (Schneider and Robert 25). They should do it for the completion and the glory it brings. It is about the sacrifices an individual makes for his or her teammates he/she have trained with and for the name of the school.

It is a chance to play a game a person is passionate about for another four year. Also it is a privilege rather than a job. The college athletes are not professional ones who are paid salaries and allowances for the sport careers. This is because in college a person has access to education through participation in sport where they earn the scholarship to pay tuition and other expenses.

College athletes are not professional

A student athlete focuses on education and sport unlike professionals who focussed on sports alone. This makes the student athlete to be more passionate about sport because they are playing for the school rather than the money. If the athlete were to get compensation the innocence would be taken away. The funds that are used for academics would also reduce if they were to get paid. Also being an athletic student one is already isolated from university; therefore, compensation would increase this gap. At the end, the athletic departments would become more of a business rather than focus on helping the athlete to attain education. According to Bleacher report scholarship are met to facilitate education for student who cannot afford to attend universities. Neither were they to attract top athletes to school who had no intention to get education. When the students are allowed to be compensated, that is what a scholarship would become.

Nowadays, full scholarships are awarded to the most talented athletes rather than the needy student who cannot afford college education; universities appeals through athletic programs making it harder to attain a scholarship ("Federal student aid" par 6). If the athletes were to get paid, university popularity would be measured on the amount of compensation instead of the quality education offered. In other words paying the student will be harmful to both universities and students.

Disadvantage to small universities

Additionally, if all universities started paying athletes, this would make a difference between bigger and smaller university athletic teams. A bigger university has more revenue; therefore, it can be able to obtain the best player. On the other hand, smaller universities would not be able to afford them thus will be disadvantaged. The college sports should not be centred on the money alone. The athlete should focus more on the sport they play because not every one is lucky enough to receive the aid they do.

NCAA ensures the student’s well-being and the institution has a responsibility to maintain a good environment where the activities are conducted in a way that encourages academic success and personal development. The program of collegiate athlete is also maintained an essential component of educational program in such a way that the student athletes become a part of the student’s community. In every university or college the academic standards are designed to promote education and are consistent with the student’s society.

College sports are more of students' vehicle in attaining a graduate degree rather than a career. The access to education is dependant upon continuous participation in sports for which they receives the scholarship. Most students’ athlete graduate university without students loans which most other students have. Participating in the intercollegiate athletics is student athlete’s choice as a part of educational experience; therefore, there is a distinction between the collegiate level athlete and professional one.

Though many are in favour of salaries, the universities spend a lot of money for the players benefit and also for the sport to which they participate in. This might cause a lot of problem relating passion to salaries. The scholarships they get should be seen a privilege because many of their high school student cannot afford it. Therefore, student athlete should not be paid.

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College athletes still are not allowed to be paid by universities − here’s why | The Conversation

• Updated: Apr. 13, 2024, 9:08 a.m. |
• Published: Apr. 13, 2024, 9:04 a.m.
• Guest Editorial

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Why should College Athletes be Paid

This essay about why college athletes should be paid argues for compensation based on the significant economic benefits they bring to their institutions and the intense commitment required of them. It highlights the massive revenues generated from college sports, emphasizing that athletes are at the center of this financial ecosystem yet receive none of the profits. The piece also tackles the argument that scholarships suffice as compensation, pointing out the professional-level demands placed on student-athletes that limit their ability to work or enjoy typical college experiences. Furthermore, it addresses recent changes allowing athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), but stresses this doesn’t cover direct compensation for their sports participation. The essay counters concerns about damaging the purity of amateur sports and financial imbalance, suggesting that structured compensation systems can be developed. Ultimately, it champions paying college athletes as a matter of fairness and equity, reflecting the commercialized reality of modern college sports.

How it works

For ages, the heated debate on whether college athletes should pocket some cash for their sweat and talent has raged on. It’s a conversation that’s echoed in dorm rooms, lit up sports forums, and even found its way to the higher echelons of justice. Strip it down to its basics, and you’ve got a classic tug-of-war between the love of the game and the hard, cold reality of economics. Here’s why tipping the scales in favor of paying these athletes isn’t just good sense—it’s downright necessary.

Let’s lay it out straight: college sports isn’t a quaint little side hustle. It’s a juggernaut industry that rakes in cash by the boatloads, especially when you look at the big guns like football and basketball. These programs aren’t just playing for trophies; they’re playing in a market where broadcasting rights, merch, and tickets translate to big bucks. Yet, while the cash flow turns universities into economic powerhouses, the athletes at the heart of this frenzy see none of it. Talk about a raw deal.

These student-athletes are doing way more than just juggling coursework and practice. They’re putting in hours that would make a pro athlete nod in respect, all while being expected to keep up academically and somehow manage to not be broke. The usual argument that scholarships are pay enough doesn’t cut it when you consider the personal and physical toll these athletes endure. It’s like saying, “Thanks for all the revenue and the national attention, here’s your textbook.” Hardly seems fair, right?

And yes, the winds of change are blowing with the NCAA cracking open the door for athletes to earn from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). It’s a step in the right direction but doesn’t quite tackle the elephant in the room: getting paid for the game itself. Creating a system where athletes get a slice of the revenue pie is about acknowledging their role in this multi-million dollar dance.

Now, there’s the chorus of naysayers warning that paying athletes will tarnish the purity of college sports or upset the financial apple cart among schools. But let’s be real—the sheen of amateurism got smudged the minute big money entered the chat. And as for financial fairness, well, professional leagues have been balancing those books with salary caps and shared revenues for years. It’s about time college sports figured out its version.

In essence, making sure college athletes get paid is about leveling the playing field and recognizing the blood, sweat, and tears they pour into their sports. It’s about transforming an industry that profits from their talents into one that also respects their contribution. This isn’t just about sports; it’s about fairness, equity, and maybe, just maybe, bringing a bit more honesty to the game.

College Athletes Still are Not Allowed to be Paid by Universities

Ever since July 1, 2021, student-athletes have been able to pursue endorsement deals . But when it comes to getting paid by the universities for which they play, the students have been shut down. Here, Cyntrice Thomas, a professor of sport management at the University of Florida, answers questions about the hurdles that stand in the way of college athletes being compensated for their athleticism.

What stands in the way of paying college sports players?

NCAA rules are the main obstacle.

Not long after it was formed in 1906 , the NCAA prohibited schools from compensating student-athletes for their athletic ability. In 1948, the NCAA adopted the Sanity Code , which also prohibited athletic scholarships for students who couldn’t demonstrate financial need or economic hardship.

The organization began to allow athletic scholarships in 1956 without regard to financial need. But that was limited to tuition, room and board, and books.

Over time the NCAA has made more allowances, such as funding for medical insurance and by creating the Student Assistance Fund. The fund is meant to “ cover unforeseen expenses ” related to attending college .

Are the rules being challenged?

In 2009, Ed O’Bannon , a former UCLA basketball player, sued the NCAA over its rules that limited the amount in scholarships that schools could offer as well as the compensation for student-athletes with regard to the use of their image in video games. O’Bannon was successful in showing that the NCAA’s rules were unlawful, and the court allowed for schools to offer scholarships up to the cost of attendance .

Most recently, in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Alston that colleges must be allowed to compensate students for education-related expenses up to $5,980 annually. The Supreme Court found that the NCAA rules against this were a violation of antitrust law. The purpose of antitrust law is to protect and promote competition in the marketplace to keep prices competitive for consumers.

NCAA rules negatively affected competition because schools could offer only up to the cost of attendance in scholarships – not additional incentives that may attract student-athletes.

Currently, several lawsuits – including Johnson v. NCAA , Carter v. NCAA and House v. NCAA – have plaintiffs using different legal arguments to challenge NCAA rules that limit their access to compensation. In Carter v. NCAA, the plaintiffs claim the limitations on compensation are unlawful and that they are entitled to a share of the million-dollar television contracts of the conferences and NCAA.

Why are ‘name, image and likeness’ deals not enough?

States have passed laws that require student-athletes to be compensated by third parties for the use of their name, image and likeness . These laws directly contradict past NCAA rules that made this type of compensation an explicit NCAA violation because they threaten the notion of amateurism.

However, these laws do not apply to schools and universities. The laws apply only to third parties such as corporations like Gatorade or sport manufacturers like Nike, and that’s where these laws arguably fall short. Schools can continue to make millions of dollars from intercollegiate athletics without having to share that with student-athletes.

Schools and universities, however, can continue to use student-athletes’ names and images to promote their sports and do not have to compensate them. This is because NCAA rules prohibit schools from compensating student-athletes for their publicity or fame related to athletic ability.

Barbara Osborne , a sports scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, argues that through scholarships, student-athletes do receive compensation. However, when recognizing that Division I schools, especially those in a Power Five conference, generate billions of dollars in revenue , other scholars, such as Mark Nagel and Richard Southall , argue that a scholarship is insufficient and that “profit-athletes,” as he refers to them, deserve the fair market value of their labor.

Instead of paying their athletes, schools pour the revenue they make back into the athletic departments and use it to fund salaries, operating costs, facilities and other expenses. This can include funding other sports that do not generate revenue.

Who has the power to change things?

The NCAA, for one. However, the NCAA sees change as the end of amateurism . In fact, at its most recent convention in January, the organization restated its hopes of regaining some of its power to regulate intercollegiate athletics . Specifically, it plans to do this by seeking legal protection from the continuous threat of lawsuits. The organization is also lobbying Congress to declare that student-athletes are not employees .

Another possibility is for schools and universities, specifically those in the Power Five conferences, to simply leave the NCAA . They could then create their own governing body with rules that allow for schools to pay student-athletes, which would allow them to get the best recruits and make more money.

A third possibility is the federal government. Because of the number of legal challenges to the NCAA rules brought by current and former student-athletes, the NCAA has tried to lobby Congress. The organization spent over $750,000 lobbying Congress to create limitations on athlete pay . They also sought to get Congress to pass laws that limit name, image and likeness deals and give the organization an exemption from antitrust laws .

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Cyntrice Thomas is an Instructional Associate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Florida.

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28 Highest Paid College Athletes – 2024

April 15, 2024

The highest paid college athletes—Bronny James, Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark—are already celebrities in their own right. They’ve captured the attention of the sports world by shattering records at the college level. They’ve amassed huge social media followings. And they’ve become objects of imagination, speculation, and hope as they consider going pro. Scroll down for the highest paid NIL athletes (mostly the highest paid college football and highest paid college basketball players).

But first, what exactly does “highest paid college athletes” mean?  It’s a well-known fact that college athletes aren’t paid —at least not in the sense we typically mean when we speak about employees being paid for their labor. College athletes aren’t paid for their on-the-field performance. Nor are they compensated for the time and effort they put into their off-the-field regimen of training and preparation, a regimen that looks suspiciously like a full-time job . The reason why college athletes aren’t paid has to do with the NCAA’s policy of amateurism, which states that college athletes are “amateurs” and thus not eligible for compensation for their on-the-field play. But when one considers just how much money is in college sports, and that nearly every other aspect of college sports has been monetized—from coaches making millions to media contracts in the billions—the NCAA’s “amateur” rule becomes increasingly absurd.

Highest Paid College Athletes – (Continued)

And while that fundamental principle of amateurism remains enshrined in NCAA policy, California’s Fair Pay to Play Act, passed in 2019, forced the NCAA to revisit its stance on college athletes receiving compensation for their name, image, and likeness (NIL). In 2021, the NCAA implemented an interim policy which allows student-athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness. College athletes can now enter partnerships with brands, sign endorsement deals, sell their autographs and other merchandise, make paid appearances, and so on.

But before we turn to the highest paid college athletes, there are a few things to keep in mind about the NCAA’s new NIL policy. It’s certainly a step towards fairness. In the past, only the schools and the NCAA were profiting from athletes’ NIL. However,  it doesn’t get at the root of the problem. College athletes still aren’t paid for their labor, which, as I’ve already noted, amounts to a full-time job. And it’s easy to marvel at the amount of cash the top earners are bringing in, but keep in mind that in 2022, only 17% of student athletes at Division I schools participated in NIL activities .

What’s more, the average compensation per NIL activity was $1300 and the median compensation was just $65. Sure, that was in 2022, the first year under the NCAA’s new NIL policy, and there’s every reason to believe that those numbers will go up. But the point is clear: only some college athletes will benefit from the NCAA’s NIL policy, and most of the earnings will accrue to an elite group of super-talented, touted, and visible college athletes.

Highest Paid College Athletes

28) garrett nussmeier, lsu – $1 million.

Kicking off the list of the highest paid college athletes is LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who has an estimated NIL valuation hovering around $1 million. According to NIL platform On3 Elite , Nussmeier has engaged in NIL partnerships with Cheez-It, EA Sports, and a Louisiana law firm.

27) Blake Corum, Michigan – $1.1 million

Running back Blake Corum is the University of Michigan’s all-time leader in rushing touchdowns. In 2023, Corum led the Wolverines to a national title, along the way setting a single-season record of 27 rushing touchdowns. Off the field, Corum was quick to take advantage of the NCAA’s newly implemented NIL policy. Since 2021, he’s struck a number of deals, including partnerships with Bose, Subway, and the National Guard.

26) Shilo Sanders, Colorado – $1.1 million

Shilo Sanders play safety for the University of Colorado Buffaloes, where his dad, hall-of-famer Deion Sanders, is the head coach. Shilo has inked deals with KFC, Gillette, and Porsche, among others. Additionally, back in February, Shilo took to his Instagram to hint at a possible deal with sports behemoth Nike.

Highest Paid NIL College Athletes (Continued)

25) cooper flagg, duke – $1.1 million.

Cooper Flagg hasn’t yet played a game at the college level, but he already boasts an estimated NIL value of $1.1 million. The six-foot-nine forward is the top-ranked high school player in the class of 2024, and he’ll soon be suiting up for the Duke Blue Devils.

24) Brady Cook, Missouri – $1.1 million

In 2023, Brady Cook had a breakout season as quarterback for the University of Missouri, leading the Tigers to a 10-2 record and an appearance in the Cotton Bowl Classic.

Highest Paid College Basketball/Football Player

23) hansel emmanuel, austin peay – $1.2 million.

At six years old, Hansel Emmanuel lost his left arm in an accident. Today, he’s a Division 1 basketball player. He’s entered into NIL deals with major brands such as Oakley, Champs Sports, Adidas, T-Mobile, and Gatorade.

22) Nico Iamaleava, Tennessee – $1.2 million

The Volunteers’ quarterback’s current NIL valuation is estimated to be around $1.2 million, though last year it was reported that he’d signed an NIL deal worth $8 million .

21) Flau’jae Johnson, LSU – $1.2 million

The LSU shooting-guard has inked deals with heavyweight companies like Puma, Meta, and JBL.

20) Jordan Travis, Florida State – $1.2 million

Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis had a brilliant final year of his college career. Unfortunately, a serious leg injury sustained against North Alabama. Despite the injury, he’s projected to be a top pick in the 2024 NFL draft.

19) Dillon Gabriel, Oregon – $1.3 million

Prior to taking the ball for the Oregon Ducks, Dillon Gabriel played quarterback for the University of Central Florida and the University of Oklahoma.

18) Michael Penix Jr., Washington – $1.3 million

The decorated quarterback has partnered with Amazon and Epic Seats, among others.

17) Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State – $1.4 million

Wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. already has quite the football resume. He’s the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Marvin Harrison, is a two-time unanimous All-American, and was the recipient of the 2023 Fred Biletnikoff Award, which is awarded to the most outstanding receiver in college football. Lastly, Harrison has participated in an ad campaign for Chipotle and signed a deal with Kane Footwear.

16) Bo Nix, Oregon – $1.4 million

Quarterback Bo Nix started his college career at Auburn and ended it at Oregon. He holds the record for the highest completion percentage in a single season in college football history. In 2023, he was named the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year. Off the field, he’s done deals with Google Shopping and fast-food chain Raising Cane’s.

15) Jared McCain, Duke – $1.4 million

Jared McCain is just getting his college basketball career started at Duke, but he already ranks among the highest paid college athletes. He’s partnered with Kim Kardashian clothing brand Skims, American Eagle Outfitters, and beauty brand Sally Hansen.

14) Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss – $1.4 million

Quarterback Jaxson Dart started his college football career at USC before transferring to Ole Miss in 2022. In February 2024, he signed an NIL deal with Nicholas Air, in so doing becoming the first college athlete to enter into an NIL partnership with a private airfare company. The deal allows Dart to receive an undisclosed number of flights for “travel, training, and philanthropy.”

13) Evan Stewart, Oregon – $1.4 million

The Oregon wide receiver (formerly a Texas A&M Aggie) has gone into business with luxury fashion brand Coach and EA Sports.

12) Carson Beck, Georgia – $1.5 million

In 2021, Georgia quarterback appeared in the Peach Bowl and the Orange Bowl, and in 2022 and 2023 he led the Bulldogs to back-to-back college football national championships. In December 2023, he announced that he’d be returning for the 2024 season. And although there was speculation that his enormous NIL valuation might have played a role in his decision-making, he stated that money was “never a main factor” in his decision to return to college football for another year. Nevertheless, as one of the highest paid college athletes, he’s signed partnerships with Associated Credit Unit, Zero FG Energy Drink, and the Players’ Lounge.

11) Drake Maye, North Carolina – $1.5 million

The North Carolina quarterback made his biggest NIL splash in 2023, when he partnered with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s energy drink brand, Zoa. At the end of 2023, he declared for the NFL draft.

10) Jalen Milroe, Alabama – $1.6 million

Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe has partnered with clothing company Rhoback and headphone brand Beats by Dre.

9) Angel Reese, LSU – $1.8 million

Over the course of her college basketball career, forward Angel Reese was one of the most dominant athletes in the sport. Accordingly, she became one of the highest paid college athletes. In 2023, she signed an endorsement deal with Reebok. She has also engaged in NIL activities with brands like Amazon, Bose, Coach, Discord, Outback Steakhouse, Sonic, TurboTax, Wingstop, and Xfinity. Earlier this month, she declared for the WNBA draft.

8) Quinn Ewers, Texas – $1.9 million

On April 12, 2024, Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers signed an NIL deal with private jet company Nicholas Air , becoming just the second college athlete to partner with a private airline. No wonder he’s one of the highest paid college athletes, with an NIL valuation just below $2 million.

7) Travis Hunter, Colorado – $2.4 million

Travis Hunter, wide receiver and cornerback for the Colorado Buffaloes, is only in the second year of his college football career. In that time he’s partnered with major brands and companies like Celsius, 7-Eleven, American Eagle Outfitters, and Cheez-It.

6) Caleb Williams, USC – $2.6 million

USC quarterback Caleb Williams is expected to be the number one overall draft pick in the 2024 NFL draft. As an NIL-eligible college player, he partnered with Wendy’s, Beats by Dre, Dr Pepper, United Airlines, PlayStation, AT&T, and many other household-name brands. Although more conservative estimates put his NIL worth around $2.6 million, some outlets reported that the star quarterback made as much as $10 million in NIL endorsements during his time at USC.

5) Arch Manning, Texas – $2.8 million

Arch Manning’s last name should give you a hint as to why he’s one of the highest paid college athletes. He’s football royalty, nephew to legendary pro quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning. In 2023, Arch announced that he’d inked his first licensing deal with Panini America, a sports memorabilia company.

4) Caitlin Clark, Iowa – $3.1 million

This year, Caitlin Clark was the biggest phenomenon not just in college basketball, but across all of college sports. She broke the NCAA basketball all-time scoring record and led Iowa deep into the NCAA tournament. Along with Angel Reese, she’ll headline one of the most high-profile and anticipated WNBA drafts of all time.

Clark signed at least 11 NIL deals during her time as a college player. Combined, those deals—which included partnerships with Gatorade and Nike—amounted to about $3.1 million .

3) Livvy Dunne, LSU – $3.7 million

Gymnast Livvy Dunne is one of the highest paid college athletes of all time. Additionally, she’s amassed huge social media followings and has done deals with brands like Nautica, Motorola, Body Armor, Forever 21, Grubhub, Linktree, American Eagle Outfitters, and more. Further, in a 2023 interview , she revealed that she’d made over $500,000 on a single NIL agreement.

2) Bronny James, USC – $4.5 million

The son of one of the greatest talents basketball has ever seen, Bronny James is still trying to cement his own legacy on the court. Five months after suffering a heart attack, James made his college basketball debut for USC in December 2023. In April 2024, he announced for the 2024 NBA draft.

Lastly, as an NIL-eligible player, he inked deals with Google, Beats by Dre, Nike, and more.

1) Shedeur Sanders, Colorado – $4.7 million

Quarterback Shedeur Sanders plays for his dad, Deion Sanders, at the University of Colorado. According to On3, his NIL value currently sits around $4.7 million. That’s thanks to deals with brands like Topps, Urban Outfitters, Beats by Dre, Under Armour, Gatorade, and Mercedes-Benz.

Highest Paid College Athletes – Additional Resources 

In conclusion, we invite you to check out some of our other blogs on college athletics:

• 25 Highest Paid College Basketball Coaches 
• Biggest College Football Rivalries 
• Largest College Football Stadiums 
• All Time Winningest College Basketball Coaches 

Dane Gebauer

Dane Gebauer is a writer and teacher living in Miami, FL. He received his MFA in fiction from Columbia University, and his writing has appeared in Complex Magazine and Sinking City Review .

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Signing Ceremonies Honor Students Who Want to Be Teachers

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In schools across the country this spring, high school seniors are being celebrated as they ceremoniously sign declarations of intent. They’re not student-athletes announcing which school they are committing to—they’re future teachers.

Future teacher signing days have become an increasingly popular tactic by school and district leaders to strengthen the teacher pipeline. They’re a chance to position teaching as a career that deserves recognition and applause, and honor the teenagers who are interested in entering the field.

“We think this is as big of a deal as announcing that you’re going to play women’s basketball at [the University of] Iowa, or men’s basketball at the University of North Carolina,” said James Lane, the CEO of PDK International, whose signature program is Educators Rising , which works to create pathways for students who want to be teachers. “It’s just as big of a deal when kids announce that they ... want to become a teacher and give a life of service to children.”

District leaders should be targeting their K-12 students to ensure a sustainable supply of teachers long term, Lane said. After all, past research has found that more than 60 percent of teachers work within 20 miles of where they went to high school.

“School districts spend a lot of money on HR and recruiting,” Lane said. “But their best recruiting tool is actually with the kids in their community and convincing them that education is a great life, and you can make a difference.”

It can be a hard sell. Teaching has a reputation as a low-paid, overworked, and disrespected profession. Research has shown that college undergraduates who are interested in teaching say that they’ve received discouraging messages about the field from people they respect, such as family members, friends, and former teachers, as well as from the media.

But signing days are a chance to flip that narrative. In those ceremonies, students who are interested in teaching are celebrated and encouraged.

“We want people to know that the moment that you make that decision to become a teacher, you’re making a decision to make people’s lives better and our world a better place,” Lane said. “We believe we have a responsibility to let people celebrate the folks that are making those decisions to raise the next generation of students, side by side with parents in our communities.”

For the past few years, Educators Rising has hosted a signing day at its national conference, which brings more than 3,300 students to Washington in the summer. And during Teacher Appreciation Week, which takes place the first full week of May, local chapters host their own signing days with support from the national organization, which provides a toolkit of resources.

This year, the national signing day for Educators Rising chapters is on May 7, although other schools hold their own signing ceremonies at other points throughout the spring.

A positive school affair

Earlier this month, four seniors at Baldwin County High School in Bay Minette, Ala., signed a pledge demonstrating their commitment to be a teacher. It was the school’s second time hosting a signing day event, and everyone was excited.

The art teacher created the students’ nameplates for the ceremony. The media teacher created posters with the future teachers’ names and colleges. The business teacher made the certificates the students signed. The science teacher designed invitations to send to district and state officials.

“It was a school effort,” said Vickie Locke, an English teacher at the school and the lead adviser for the school’s chapter of Future Teachers of Alabama. “We wanted it to look just right.”

Locke encouraged the students to contact the admissions department at their future colleges to get some paraphernalia, like pennants and pompoms, to decorate the signing tables, and to wear their college T-shirts to the ceremony. The future teachers were allowed to invite their close school friends to the ceremony, in addition to their family members.

All those little touches made for a special ceremony for the future teachers, Locke said. They also drew the interest of other students who aren’t in the Future Teachers of Alabama club.

“Some students see this and how we talk it up and how dignified it is and how nice it is—they like that,” Locke said, adding that some have asked how they can join the club next year.

During the ceremony, Locke asked each student the same question: Why do you want to be a teacher?

This year, one student said she feels that she could help some of the students in the area because she relates to some of the challenges they might be facing.

“She just wants to give back to our community in a positive way,” Locke said. “She said, ‘I want to come back to Baldwin County and be a teacher.’ That’s kind of what we hope—that they’ll come back.”

Added Locke, a 28-year teaching veteran: “I need someone to come back and take my place who’s in it for the right reasons.”

‘We want alumni back’

Some districts have added incentives for students to come back and teach in their signing day programs.

At Colquitt County High School in Norman Park, Ga., any senior participating in the signing day is guaranteed a position in the district if they graduate from college with a teaching certificate.

“We are really working hard to grow our own teachers,” said Daniel Chappuis, the school’s principal. “We want alumni back and engaged in the community that they grew up in.”

Last year, 10 students signed pledges to pursue teaching, and Chappuis expects a few more to do so in this year’s ceremony, which will be held next month.

Meanwhile, at Center Grove High School in Greenwood, Ind., students are guaranteed a first-round interview at the district once they graduate college and earn their teaching license. While earning their degrees, they’ve got a spot as a student-teacher in the district.

Building up homegrown talent is one way the district is working to combat the decline in applications for teaching positions, said Krista Nelson, the director of human resources and student services. The high school offers opportunities for students to earn college credit in education courses, as well as a cadet teaching program that lets students work in elementary or middle school classrooms throughout the school year.

Last year, 20 high school seniors committed to the field of education during the school’s inaugural teacher signing day, which drew a crowd of more than 100 people. This year, the district is expecting 30 signees, Nelson said.

“We did it to put a spotlight on those students who have that passion to support others,” she said. “Not only was it kids feeling proud because there was a large group of people cheering them on, ... there were a lot of joyful tears from parents.”

Nelson plans to keep in touch with every student who signs a commitment by sending them letters twice a year to see if there’s anything the district can do to support them. So far, she hasn’t heard that anyone has changed their minds.

Celebrating current teachers, too

School and district leaders say there’s another benefit to future teacher signing day: showing appreciation to the current teachers who inspired students to follow in their footsteps.

For example, the Mansfield, Mass., school district held its first signing event for prospective teachers last year, using resources provided by the state education department. One special touch: The students who were honored at the event invited an educator who inspired them to become a teacher to watch them sign their declaration of intent.

“It’s a win-win: It’s honoring the students who are looking to be teachers, [and] it’s honoring the teachers” who inspired them,” Superintendent Teresa Murphy said. This year’s ceremony will be held next month.

Lane, the CEO of Educators Rising, said he often sees students at signing ceremonies talking about their own teachers and thanking them for inspiring them. It’s a huge source of pride for teachers, he said.

“The signing day isn’t just about the student going into the field,” Lane said. “It’s about everyone who had a role in helping the student get to that point in that decision having that moment of celebration. ...

“It’s a celebration of the community—that we are a place that grows educators. And what better story can we tell from our school environment, that we are convincing our kids that the work we do with them every day is important [enough] that they can make it a part of their lives?”

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