College Athletes Should Be Paid - Assignment Example

College athletes should be paid Introduction Today in the United s, the completion of any college sports sponsored or overseen by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) usually marks the start of a standoff. This emerging standoff involves the NCAA and the participating colleges who feel that they should be awarded more than just the verbal appreciation and trophies. This issue has been expanding in magnitude recently with the NCAA maintaining its stand that it has no responsibility over college students, and that the responsibility lies with the constituent colleges. In short, the NCAA implies that the colleges should reward their athletes since they are mere students and not employees of the body. Whichever way the debate goes, the obvious fact is that in manning the college sports, the NCAA earns a lot of revenue and as such, a little token of appreciation would be necessary to the contributing athletes. This paper will argue that the NCAA has been unfair to college athletes, and since it benefits in many ways from college games, college athletes should receive part of the income just like employee athletes of the body do. The tussle between the NCAA and the college athletes make headlines in April when the Northwestern University Basketball players presented the National Labor Relations Board with a proposal to form a union. The idea of the union is to protest against the NCAA which does not treat them like employee athletes. The debate was further ignited by government officials stating that the NCAA was in no way liable to the students since they were not recognized as employees of the body. The reiterations further claimed that the students should be awarded by their colleges since it is they who benefit most from participating in the games. Normally, the only rewards offered to successful college athletes are scholarships, medical covers, and expert coaching. According to Bowen (n.p.), the students’ demands are deep-rooted, largely being influenced by the fact that schools themselves have to struggle much to make more money out of sports. Again, it seems like coaches of college teams are the biggest beneficiaries, reaping from the students’ games more than they do. For instance, the coach of the University of Kentucky basketball team makes approximately $5.5 million every season. Broadcasters on their part make an approximate $1 billion off the games. This happens even as schools try to accommodate more tournaments and games every season just so their athletes can be better exposure and earn some rewards from their skills. One of the most unfair dealings in the tussle is that while college athletes may be blinded with scholarships, whatever they get is not worth what they do. It may be argued that say, if an average scholarship is worth $25,000 annually, that sums up as $100,000 for the four years that a college student is bound to enjoy the “reward” (Hartnett n.p.). However, more reasoning should be applied to this occurrence. First of all, it is obvious that none or only a minimal amount of this sum gets to the student athlete in cash. Rather, the scholarship is divided amongst their tuition fees, textbooks, meal-plans, housing, and other miscellaneous expenditures. First of all, it should be noted that this student was in college even before the scholarship arrived, and therefore the “reward” claim does not impact significantly on them. Second, no one student (athlete) is tied to a particular college for the entire four years. This means that they may be transferred to different schools due to multiple reasons, and when this happens, they lose the scholarship since they are usually not transferable. In the event that this happens, the reward escapes from the athlete’s hands. Pervasively, if the rewards were made in cash, the freedom of spending would lie with the awarded athlete and they could always carry their rewards with them wherever they went. The second factor that should be considered is that being an athlete requires more than just the normal sessions allocated for games. The performing athletes in college report to injecting extra practicing time. They have to get up early, get conditioning or lift sessions, go to class, and have additional time for practice during the games or after-school times. As such, it is justifiable that being an athlete is more of a full-time job than it is a student affair. More unfairness emerges in that for the case of college students who have to work for their fees, they end either quitting their part-time jobs or live under excess strain just so they can be fit for the athletics. The reason is that when the seasons approach, they need more practice time and this has to be squeezed into their regular days of classes and homework. At the end of their outmost dedication and toil, it is the NCAA, coaches, broadcasters, and other unrelated parties who take the larger chunk of the outcomes home. The student athletes receives thunderous claps, pats on the back, a few dollars if lucky, or a scholarship. Then everyone sits back and waits for the next season to arrive just so the exploitation cycle continues (Nixon 62). At the end of it all, the athletes retain their statuses as these highlighted parties reap big from the athletes’ sweat all in the name of “they are not employees but students”. Third and closely related to the above factor, is that college athletics consume precious time from the school programs which goes a long way in affecting the learning curricula. On average, a Division I college athlete will devote about 44 hours every week to their workouts and preparedness. In comparison to the normal American work week, this is an extra 3 hours. Concisely, a college athlete spends more time in their games than a typical American worker (Arnold 652). Apart from just the athletes, the NCAA’s calendar takes out days from the students’ year. For example, the NCAA men’s basketball tournaments deduct an average 6 days of classes from the college calendar. In some colleges, the road to the same games held in the spring semester takes away a quarter of all class days. All these factors combined, it makes sense that the college students have to struggle in order to fit in the NCAA’s demands as well as retain their focus in school. Particularly for the participating athletes, it must be quite demanding of them to keep switching from school to sports during the athletic seasons. Such occurrences depict much sacrifice by college students to making the NCAA successful in its mandates. Again, this revelation paints of the NCAA as an overly mean body which does not appreciate the athletes in the best way. It makes sense that if these athletes were paid in cash, it would work to console them for their sacrifice as well as compensate for their utilized time, not to mention appreciating their talents and skills. Apart from the NCAA, colleges should also take part in paying their athletes. First of all, the coaches who receive hefty pays from the NCAA get their pay because they deal with college athletes (students). Second, the popularity and success of the NCAA is boosted in a significant way by college athletics. Third, and most importantly: colleges from which top athletes are drawn from gain so much from them. When universities with athletic programs host events, millions of dollars are attracted annually from advertising, ticket sales, donations, media rights, and all other related items with price tags attached. Apart from these cash gains, the reputation arising from the student achievers goes a long way in making such colleges profitable (Goldman 206). Enrollments increase significantly and in as much as the NCAA prevents student athletes from being used as promotional items, this one is automatic and unavoidable. Does it not make sense then that these golden geese should be rewarded by their colleges at least if not the NCAA? It happens at times, yes, but the rewards are decided upon by the colleges meaning that what they may be receiving are just peanuts as compared to what they influence for their colleges. It would be more sensible if the NCAA devised policies to ensure that the students enjoy a larger piece of the cake they bake for their schools. In as much as this deal seems one-sided, reasons have been provided as to why college students should not be paid. The major reason offered is that there are no sufficient finances to cater for all the student athletes who participate in the sports. Apart from basketball and football which are the highest earners of revenue amongst college sports, the other sports are not as good earners (Marzili 16). The other sports that include swimming, wrestling, and field hockey are played in most colleges and events hosted for them. However in comparison to basketball and football with regards to the crowds and dollars that they attract, a deep abyss exists between them. In a nutshell, the returns are not enough to pay the athletes as well as cater for the expenses incurred. If they were to be paid, it is argued, the money to pay everyone would have to be drawn from the football and basketball coffers. If this was the case, then the football and basketball players would be paying the other athletes since their sports do not earn sufficient funds to pay them. The other refuting claim is with regards to learning and earning consecutively. The reason students are in college is because they have to learn and build up their careers. Sports are meant to shun the dullness and monotony of learning. As such, others perceive of it that even the idea of including the NCAA in college sports is a little exaggerated. To some extent, some parties argue that exaggerating the sports only affects the students’ learning by consuming their school time as they practice or attend the events. Again, if the students were to be handsomely paid in a manner that their athletics posed off as their careers, it is possible that most of them would be derailed from their learning as the money took the better of them. Rather than focus on their core reasons for being in college, they would go after money thus lose their tracks as well as initial objectives. Evidently, there are sensible reasons offered as to why the college athletes should not be paid but in comparing the pros and cons, the reasons are not sufficient. One of the potential causal factors of this occurrence is that the college sports have been shifting their roles as means of relaxation to profit-making channels. As herein provided, it is not only the colleges that benefit from the athletes but the NCAA, broadcasters, and advertisers as well. The irony lies in the fact that these sports are meant to only break monotony in the school curricula but in contemporary sense, they have become enterprises. People such as coaches are making multimillion careers out the college students, earning more than most politicians. Broadcasters make pies from televising the events. Colleges too are acquiring excellent reputation, and the NCAA in turn furthers its objectives and comes out as an overly performing body all thanks to the student athletes. Not to paint of all these parties as inconsiderate but the big query is that if all of them are gaining from the students’ sacrifice and hard work, why is it so hard to let the students share something from these? If only it was possible to highlight the struggle and juggle that these athletes play between books and the field, maybe somebody somewhere would hit the point home that they suffer to create such glamour. It makes sense that the “other” sports do not attract as much revenue but the idea is that the entire collective returns end up with either the NCAA or colleges. Again, no one is demanding that the athletes should earn $100,000. Rather, small tokens of say, $1,500 would be mild enough in that they act as warm appreciations and would not blind the students out of college. Second, it should not be refuted that paying students would make them spend more time in sports because they are already spending enough time out of class in practicing and participating in the sports. The idea of paying them is not to convert colleges into athletic schools but to reward the students for what they do. To keep them from losing track, more time should not be allocated to the sports than it is now, and neither should their pay be as hefty. Conclusion As the discussion reveals, college athletes have been putting in too much of their blood in ensuring the sports are a success. Traditionally, the idea of sports was to act as a means of change from the tedious school curricula but the concert has changed over time. Today, college sports are being used as profit-making activities. Making profits from the sports is not the problem. The problem lies in the sense that if the involved parties are raking in millions from the games, why would the students not have a piece of the cake? After all, they are the reason why all these things happen. Contrary to the reasons offered as to why the college athletes should not be paid such as loss of educational focus and unevenness in the revenue attracted by different sports, the injustice still stands. Measures should be installed to ensure that this does not happen such as not adding to or reducing the time allocated for the sporting activities. Again, the funds gotten from the other sports can be used to supplement the pay for the other sports since the collective revenue is handled by the same bodies. In a nutshell, the outcry being heard from schools such as Northwestern University basketball players to form unions and demand for pay are justified, and more should join since it is the only promising way that they can be able to tell the taste of their own cooking. Works Cited Arnold, Roger. Economics. Cengage Learning, 2013. Print. Bowen, Fred. “Should college Athletes get Paid?” The Washington Post, 2014. Web. 12 Nov. 2014. Goldman, Lee. “Sports and Antitrust: Should College Students Be Paid to Play”. Notre Dame Law Review, 1990. 65 (2), 206-261. Hartnett, Tyson. “Why College Athletes should be Paid”. The Huffington Post. Web. 12 Nov. 2014. Marzili, Alan. Amateur Athletics. Infobase, 2009. Print. Nixon, Howard. The Athletic Trap: How College Sports Corrupted the Academy. Johns Hopkins, 2014. Read More