Should college athletes get paid

College athletes are one of the nation’s best. Due to the high prices of college, most Division 1 schools offer scholarship towards their players to get them to come to the school (schools such as Kentucky or duke or ucla) for the sport that they excel at. I believe that college athletes should be getting paid, many college athletes have come out and said that although its illegal to accept money in exchange for playing many of them still get paid.

The NCAA is a multi-billion-dollar company whose revenue is brought in from their athletes. With all the tournaments and events that they host, the NCAA is worth about 10.8 billion dollars according to the contract that they signed back in 2010 with CBS and Turner broadcasting.  The average income of a Division 1 athlete is about 170,000 dollars per year. They would spend an approximate 4.5 million dollars which they would make back and then some with a tournament such as March Madness in which they gain more revenue from televised views, big sponsors, a and attendance to the game.

College athletes not getting paid is equivalent to having a full-time job and not being paid for your work. They are always working and never get a break. Having them get paid they would give these student athletes excuse and come back to college and work towards getting a degree. Even if they don’t turn professional, they would be able to get a job seeing as though they have been educated for 4+ years. Also, they would be able to send money home $170,000 is a lot of money and it would be beneficial for so many struggling families.

“O’Bannonand 19 others sued the NCAA, claiming the organization violated United States antitrust laws by not allowing athletes to get a share of the revenues generated from the use of their images in broadcasts and video games. Many former collegiate players were compensated, but some felt it was inadequate and they were owed more.”-Ed O’Bannon

“We do have hungry nights that we don’t have enough money to get food in. Sometimes money is needed. I don’t think you should stretch it out to hundreds of thousands of dollars for playing, because a lot of times guys don’t know how to handle themselves with money. I feel like a student athlete. Sometimes, there’s hungry nights where I’m not able to eat, but I still got to play up to my capabilities.” –Shabazz Napier

These two quotes have come from a former NBA player and a current NBA player, this goes to show how not getting paid is a crime and it should be corrected these athletes even if it’s not the largest pay day they should be able to get some sort of compensation for what they do, in some situations you have college athletes who draw in more of a crowd than some professional athletes.

A lot of athletes have chosen to go overseas to play, especially in the sport of basketball in which they would be getting the same if not better competition with professional training and a paycheck, this method is preferred by many because it also helps them get a taste of what being a professional athlete is because at the end of the day if that’s why you got into a division 1 school that’s what you probably intend for your job to be.

Works cited

• Lemmons, Malcolm. “College Athletes Getting Paid? Here Are Some Pros And Cons.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Mar. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/college-athletes-getting-paid-here-are-some-pros-cons_us_58cfcee0e4b07112b6472f9a.