Should college athletes be paid for their labor?

¶ … College Athletes be Paid?

Whether college athletes should or should not be paid has been a subject for debate for many years. As athletes get stronger and more proficient at younger ages, many college athletes are capable of doing what professional athletes can do - and that means they have the opportunity to move up to the "big leagues" after they finish college. Some of them even leave college to pursue professional athletic dreams before they have finished their degrees. They do not see the point of continuing with a degree when they are able to receive hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per year by playing their sport professionally. If they were paid, would they stay in college instead? Is that a reason to offer them money when they are still in college, or would that further hamper them from actually getting an education? The arguments are heated, and important.

Discussed here will be the arguments both for and against paying college athletes for their playing and their abilities. The reasons behind each argument will be addressed, in order to understand what most people find acceptable and why some people think that these athletes should be paid while others feel it is a poor choice. The difficulty with this issue is that there are no studies providing empirical evidence about college athletics in the sense that they have been paid in the past. College athletes have never been paid in the way that professional athletes have, so determining whether paying them is good or bad is mostly conjecture and opinion. This is important to note, but it does not negate the validity of the arguments regarding this very important issue.

The Argument for Paying Athletes

According to those who believe that college athletes should be paid, they deserve to get a percentage of what they are providing to the school and the coaches. In other words, the coaches who work with college athletes receive large checks. They also get perks and bonuses that they enjoy - especially when their team has a winning season. Because of that, they bring in a lot of money for themselves and the university where they teach (Nocera, 2011). Additionally, the merchandise and marketing of the team brings in billions of dollars per year across all colleges that have sports teams. This money is a huge financial boon for the colleges and universities, but what about the players? What do they receive. Beyond a college education, they are not given anything. They see copies of their jerseys for sale in the campus bookstore, and they see thousands of fans screaming and cheering from the stands, but they do not see anything in their bank account - while the school and its coaches get rich off of what the players have to offer (Nocera, 2011). Many would not consider that fair.

In the past, some schools have experimented with paying their players a stipend for the work that they do on the field or the court. The amount was $2,000, but there was such an issue made of it that the amount was cancelled (Nocera, 2011). Of course, those who signed up when the amount was in force will most likely still receive it, but that does not mean that others will be able to get it - even though it was previously offered to some. Paying athletes is important, the school argued, not because of the money they make for the school but because they work so hard and they often do not get a completely free ride in the sense that all of their tuition and other fees are covered. In other words, that $2,000 stipend was believed to be something that would help to cover the cost of tuition and other fees for those students - not something that was used to actually "pay" them.

Still, many colleges (and athletes and the parents of those athletes) believe that college athletics is less of a sport and more of a money-making endeavor for the college (Eassom, 1994; Hill, 2007). While the students are, technically, there to get a college education, the argument is that they are given a high level of breaks and are provided with easy classes so that they can stay eligible to play their sport. For them, the college experience is not about learning and their resume is their actual playing ability. They are being watched and monitored when they play, and those who do exceptionally well are often "drafted" right out of their college careers and into professional sports, where they will be paid handsomely. For those athletes who do not make it that far, though, the issue is more about how hard they work while they are in college and how much benefit they provide to their school. Being paid for that is important, just like being paid for any other job.

Conclusion

As can be seen, there are two sides to the story. There are good reasons to avoid paying athletes, but there are also good reasons why paying them could be helpful and beneficial. Whichever is decided, it is clear that there will be a high level of disagreement from those who are opposed to the decision that is ultimately made. When people are uncertain about what to do in any given situation, it also helps to focus on what has been done in the past, or what has worked for others. With the issue of paying or not paying college athletes, that is not something that can be undertaken. In other words, because it has not been done before, there is no baseline by which a judgment about how well it worked can be made. Overall, colleges and universities will have to set their own rules, and make sure they abide by any laws that govern how college athletes must be treated and how (and whether) they can be compensated beyond what they already receive.

The one experiment into giving college athletes a $2,000 "stipend" failed miserably, which would indicate that the majority of people are not ready for a college athletics program where the athletes are paid. Even a small amount created a problem for the school, and it was not called a salary, payment, or anything that could be construed as paying them to play. It was marketed as something that would help them focus on their education and their athletics, because they would not have to be as worried about how they were going to pay for their education. By all means, allow them to get an education in exchange for playing sports. However, it is unfair in the eyes of most people to provide them with more than their education as compensation for playing sports. They made a choice to play sports at the college level, and were not forced to do so.