Summary: College Athletes Should Be Paid

The National Collegiate Athletic Association “signed a $6,200,000,000” deal with CBS giving [CBS the] authority to broadcast the men’s basketball championship (Eitzen 1). Even though the NCAA’s primary purpose is to keep sports fair and college athletes safe, they often focus on the amount of profit they make from these students. None of that benefits goes to the student-athletes. When high school students are recruited to play at the collegiate level, they often earn a scholarship. A full scholarship pays for room, board, textbooks, and food. Even though college athletes have scholarships, the scholarship money is not equivalent to the amount of money the athletes raise for their school. College athletes should be paid to increase the athletes’ …show more content…
Only “50 percent of men’s football and 41 percent men's basketball players” graduate from college (Eitzen 3). Graduating from college is vital for these athletes because playing professionally is not guaranteed. Because professional sports are so competitive and intense, many athletes end their careers with an injury. When an athlete is injured, they are kicked off the team, and the athletes without a degree have nothing to fall back on. People often need to have a degree to get a high-paying job. If colleges would pay their athletes, more students would stay in school because the professional offers would not seem as appealing. Keeping the athletes in school would benefit not only the student but also the school. The school would have more star athletes to produce a better game for the audience and consumers, and the student would finish with a …show more content…
Athletes create a product for the school by allowing the school to use their names and pictures for t-shirts, jerseys, posters, and other merchandise. Since the school is able to sell tickets and film rights to the games, the school and the NCAA make a huge profit off of the athletes’ skills as well. The conferences of the NCAA “have an eight-year package [that is] worth $930,000,000 with ABC” to televise all of the athletic games played in those conferences (Eitzen 1). Without the athletes to play the game, the NCAA would not be able to sell the rights to televise the game. The success of the team also impacts the deals the school attracts contracts with athletic companies and sponsorships. The companies know that more successful teams will improve their sales, so they are willing to pay that school more money for the athletes to wear their product. Colleges also use their athletes’ skills to promote their schools. The success of a certain sports teams can bring in more competitive applications to the school because many students often base their college decision on a school’s education and teams. Because the athletes have created this product for their school, they should be able to earn a salary for their

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