Background of Sports Play at College and Problems in Pay for Play - Case Study Example

Running Head: PAY FOR PLAY Pay for Play Every college is active in sports as this is one segment which boosts the ego and goodwill of an education institution among its counterparts. Youth are the epitome of strength and liveliness. Play at the college levels provides and enhances the mental and the physical toughness. Play also helps in the character and personality development and provides impetus to evolve any person into a true human being. In our society many students have been involved actively in the college sports and have taken the same as the profession. Sports players are a huge asset for the colleges because they enhance the college reputation and prestige. One of the realities of the current university and college system is that they derive a residual level of profitability from whatever sports programs that the school offers. This residual level of revenue has come to be an important funding stream that colleges and universities rely on to ameliorate the economic pressures of hard times. However, regardless of the degree of revenue that these institutions are able to garner as a result of their sports programs, the student athletes are not paid for their work outside the scholarships that they are oftentimes offered as an incentive to play the game. However, it is normally seen that the athletes or sportsmen have not given much consideration when it comes to upholding their rights. When it came to my college, I saw that our college athletes were not given due respect with regard to the reward structure. In our society college athletes undergo much sacrifice and bring money but not be paid in return. I myself have been a football player in college and I understand what it means to be able to have spending money to survive during the university experience; a luxury that those not playing sports can readily achieve merely by picking up a part time job while in school. Thus, following inductive reasoning I can say that those college athletes who participate in major money making sports, such as football in the SEC, should be paid and not just in kind. The approach of ethos, pathos and logos is used in this paper to prove the point. For logical approach inductive rasoning is used base don facts, ethical appeal is used after ocnsiderin views of different authors regarding payment of college athletes and an emotional appeal also lies underneath the arguments presented in the paper. Background of Sports Play at College and Problems in Pay for Play: Regulation regarding payment of college athletes should be changed in order to compensate psort athletes and payment should be made mandatory. This is because these players bring in lot of money and put in too much work for that without earning a paycheck. The idea of sports played in college came into existence during 1850. Soon after, sports achieved its place in the curriculum of the college activities. Gradually colleges started to prepare for the intercollegiate competition as a mean of boosting the self confidence and as a method of learning to overcome the obstacles in life. The first intercollegiate athletic competition held in America was secondary to the promotional wishes and was launched as a commercial venture. It has been regarded as the perfect physical activity and the desire of the young men. The competitive spirit and vigor which are parts of college sports enhanced the mental and physical pleasure of the students. The college authorities elaborately planned sports activities which motivated the students immensely and sports events at college and national levels became a prestigious venture and money making phenomena for college authorities. The media kept the young athletes in the lime light and the scholarship provided by colleges to them stood as a bonus (Smith, 2011, pp. 1-8). However one should consider their importance to the colleges and their role as revenue earners in order to compensate them in cash and kind. Here lies the ethical appeal. Playing college sports have evolved to be an honor and is tough. Recruiting is a significant phase in college sports. The recruitment process is headed by college coaches and large amount of power is vested with him in selecting the college athletes. College coaches work with the players, hand in hand and exert immense importance on their physical fitness. A large amount is vested by the college authorities in training and development of the athletes to make them play at the higher level. It has been experienced that the selection procedure of athletes is subject to the biases and discriminations. For the recruitment procedure, the athletes are required to do rigorous practice and this take lot of energy and time of the students which ruined their academics. This assures that the athletes primarily depend over their sports activities as a source of income as well. There remains a high chance for the athletes to take up the sports as the profession in the future and as a source of income as well (Mazzoni , 2003, pp. 15-17). For the fulfillment of the same, the sports play need to be paid in proportion of the hard work. In this regard one can logically deduce the reason why athletes should be paid what they deserve. However, when it comes to payment and benefits less is being done by the college authorities to encourage college athletes. In order to encourage more of the sports play the recruitment procedure should be improved by the college authorities. The college authorities should aim at making the procedure bias free. Measures must be taken so that the right candidate gets absorbed at the right place. Favors and bias, which the sports recruitment process often suffer from, should be avoided by appointing the right judges’ panel in the sport category (Pareni, 2004, pp. 230-232). In reality the issue of the payment of the sports play has gone through several debates. In order to avoid logical fallacies we should consider both sides. Several arguments took place regarding the free scholarship and free college education as a result of playing sports on behalf of the college. Many eminent personalities held their views that the sports players should not be paid as they already receive grants from colleges and universities. On the other hand few questioned how could the college authorities be ignorant about giving the youth the required motivation to grow in athletics i.e. in terms of monetary pay. In this context question arises regarding what will happen when the sportsmen get hurt? What will be the mode of payment to the athletes which can make up their physical fitness as well? In addition to this the college sports level system has been full of corruption and unethical practices. Question also emerged as “What if people in the business of money took $1.3 billion off the top, invested it, sheltered it and made it available to provide a stipend to college athletes?” (Wilbon , 2011 ) Problems also emerged in terms of payment to the athletes. Moreover the college level sports also suffered from proper exposure and sponsorship which resulted into zero or low payment of the athletes (Johnson, 2012). Question also strikes that what will happen to the non revenue earning sports in the college if the same loses money for the whole sports programs. Need For Payment, Economic/Social/ Political Environment, Solution To The Problem And Advantages (Bran, 2011) Payment is highly essential for the college athletes as payment serves the source of motivation for the betterment for the college athletes. National College Athletic Association (NCAA), who entirely handles the college sports activities and is responsible in framing the rules and regulation of the same, should take initiatives in making payments to the college athletes. If the NCAA is not in the favor of paying the players then from the very starting it should restrict the players from entering college sports. As per the reports, “in 2005 a draft ready football player is worth $495000 and a draft ready basketball player is worth over $1.4 million to the NCAA respectively” (Gregg , 2012). This assures the fact that the scholarship value a player receives in monetary terms for playing is nowhere in comparison with the player’s actual worth to the school. This also assures the fact that the players in the college level receive no pay and are also restricted by means of oppressive policies at the professional level. Eventually, the value of sportsmanship has excelled and hence paying them sufficiently has become mandatory. For the accomplishment of the same the NCAA should arrange for the payment in real terms of the worth of the athletes and should also encourage the equal pay for the coaches through SEC game pay proposal. NCAA can also encourage functions like cartel for encouraging the athletes by keeping the cost down while increasing the profits with more tournaments (Johnson, 2012). A contradictory scenario exists for the management at differentlevels. According to Sander “As a nonprofit organization, the NCAA is not required to pay taxes on its income. That has rankled some critics of spending in college sports, including a few members of Congress, who have asked the association to justify its tax-exempt status.”A look at their compensation would prove that: (Sanders, 2010) Getting essential compensation will ensure for the college athletes to have a means of providing basic nourishment for themselves and have ways and earn in the same way as non-athlete working students. This will not only provide them with additional money, but will also allow them to have a greater level of enjoyment and self-satisfaction while they are playing sports bringing untold revenues to the universities/colleges in question. There remains a possibility that a base of satisfied student athletes will necessarily translate to a higher level of sporting prowess and increased ticket sales, boosting funds for the university/college in question (Gregg, 2012). Arguments have also raised the point that the NCAA is there in the business to take benefit of the capitalism and make money. The question should be answered that how far the NCAA will be successfully managing the system. The social economical problem emerged regarding the payments to the athletes can be resolved by the solutions as mentioned. A work study proposal or a big ten plan can be formulated. In such a proposal NCAA should allot money to the athletes as per the cost of living by enhancing the scholarship. Such a measure will provide the athletes to support their living and pursue sports at the college level. This measure will also support the athletes to meet their need of clothes, travel and other petty expenses for playing activities. An authority should be assigned with the responsibility for monitoring the activities of NCAA. This will help assure that the organization work as per the rules and regulation as per standard and the risk of avoiding excess profit making can be avoided. Measures should be taken for to set the minimum remuneration for the athlete for each play. Measures should also be taken for enhancing the rumeneration o the coach as well. Thus with inductive reasoning we can come to the conclusion that college athletes should be paid in order to compensate the time they spend in earning for their college rather than working for money elsewhere. Possible Disavdantages, Answers with Visuals: The disadvantages mentioned related to the payment are focused on the social economical issues related to the payment made to the athletes and in the recruitment policies of the athletes. The recruitment policy is full of flaws and sometimes instrigated with corruption as well. From time to time it has been noticed that the right athletes are not absorbed at the right role. The recruitment policies works in biasness. Athletes having strong recommendation are absorbed first ad given first preferances. Due to the defects in the recruitment policy the sports at college level has been greatly effected where biasness are made on the base of recommendation but not talent. Sometimes it has been argued that the pay for play cause of athletes should not be sanctioned. If the same is done then this can result into problems with payment. Arguments have also been on the issue that the grants should only be made for education and the athletes have already been in receipt of the same. Evidences have been found supporting the arguments. At many times it has been seen that lots of dollars were spent on the athletes but the certain amount of money has gone into waste. This is because paying to the players out of the individual department budget is hardly feasible and impractical. But in the light of the disadvantage, there are advantages of the same as well. If any athlete becomes a known face then he/she can endrose a lot of other brands. This can be beneficially for enhancing the college level sports exposure as well. The taboo that the athlete is provided with free education is not correct. When an athlete devote his/her entire time for the play ignoring his/her education, the higher authority sould take care of the matter and facilitate the payment procedure of the atheletes (Johnson, 2012). Ethics in College Sports: Sports interesting events for the college students as well as the authorities but there should be a moral standard when it comes to its functioning. Students do a lot of sacrifice when it comes to college sports as they even compromise on their studies and health. So it is the moral obligation of the college authorities to give right consideration to the college athletes. They should be boosted and encouraged by scholarships, other benefits and pay. Tracing events back to the initiation of College Athletes during the early part of the year 1900 when the National Collegiate Athletic Association was formed, reluctance and non-acceptance in the attitudes of the coordinators were evident from their attitude of holding back on the pay offers (Johnson, 2012). This would discourage them and dampen their motivation and the spirit in sports engagements. The college athletes bring in financial benefit and honor to the college or university, so it makes it ethically ideal to give privileges and remuneration to them to give them justice. Conclusion As a result of the information that has thus far been presented, it is to my understanding that the Pay to Play approach to college athleticism is an equitable and ethical approach. The discussion presented so far has provided logic and facts to support our thesis. The reasons mentioned appeal to the emotions and ethics as well thorugh supporting literaturs. Ultimately, colleges and universities should pay these student athletes as they are effectively responsible for bringing in huge revenues to their colleges and universities. It is a fact that paying the student –athletes would motivate the athletes to remain in school and complete their education program without obstacle rather than them leaving college for the professional league. In the past it has been noted that athletes lose interest in sports as well as education due to the unethical stand of the college authorities. So I recommend that fair monetary compensation for the play be made as a conclusive solution to this issue. References Brynn, M. (2011), Responding to LA Times’ ideas for NCAA Reforms, retrieved on September 3, 2013 form: http://www.thesportsiq.com/ncaa-reform/ Gregg W, (2012) ,The Shirly Povich Centre for Sports Journalism, retrieved on 2 September 2013 from: http://povichcenter.org/should-college-athletes-be-paid-should-there-be-an-age-restriction-for-pros Johnson D A, (2012), Point/ Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes, The Sport Journal Organization, retrieved on 2 September 2013 from: http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/pointcounterpoint-paying-college-athletes Mazzoni W, (2003), The Athletic Recruiting & Scholarship Guide for High School Atheletes & Parents, California, Mazz Marketing Inc. Pareni M C, (2004), Forward Progress- An Analysis of Whether Students-Atheletes Should be Paid, retrieved on 2 September 2013 from: http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/virspelj3&div=12&id=&page= Sanders, L (2010), Pay for Top 14 NCAA Executives Totaled Nearly $6-Million Last Year, Chronicles, retrieved on September 3, 2013 from: http://chronicle.com/article/Pay-for-Top-14-NCAA-Executives/124358/ Smith A R, (2011), Pay for Play, A history of Big time College Athletic Reform, United States of America, Library of Congress Cataloging Publication Wilbon M, (2011), College Athletes deserve to be Paid, ESPN College Sports, retrieved on 2 September 2013 from: http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/6778847/college-athletes-deserve-paid Read More