Payment Of College Athletes Assignment | Top Essay Writing

Should College Athletes be Paid?

Whether college athletes should be compensated by their respective institutions has become a widely debated topic as college sports continue to increase in popularity.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) generates approximately $1 billion in revenue annually, none of which is directly received by its athletes. A federal judge’s ruling in August 2014 held that the NCAA could not prohibit its athletes from receiving payment for the commercial use of players’ own names, images, or likenesses.

However, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the NCAA’s right to allow colleges to only provide athletes with compensation up to the value of attending their school, dealing a blow to those in favor of granting more rights to student athletes.

During its 2014 fiscal year, for example, the NCAA–a non-profit organization–generated $989 million in revenue. Over 80 percent of this revenue is related to the men’s collegiate basketball tournament, popularly known as “March Madness,” which is held annually between late March and early April.

Most of the rest of the revenue is generated by Division I college football games. The primary source of revenue garnered by the NCAA comes from television contracts. CBS and the Turner Broadcast System paid the NCAA $681 million for the rights to broadcast March Madness games, while ESPN paid $24.5 million to broadcast games.

The NCAA’s revenue has nearly quadrupled since 1998; that year the college sports association generated slightly under $250 million. The NCAA’s revenue increased each year between 2001 and 2015, even during the recession of the early 2000s and the economic downturn of 2008-2009.

The NCAA has expanded from 350 employees in the 1990s to approximately 500 in the mid-2010s, and with many employees earning salaries of more than $100,000 per year.

Against this backdrop, a nationwide debate has intensified in recent years as to whether college athletes should be paid by the NCAA and their respective colleges or universities for their athletic performance. At first glance, this debate may appear contradictory.

College athletes are, by definition student-athletes and, therefore, amateurs playing for their schools as part of their educational program.

This logic is now being challenged by a growing number of current and former athletes, lawyers, political pundits, and sportswriters who point to the huge profit margins that colleges and universities, as well as the NCAA, make off of their sports programs.

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