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Credit: Jess Tan

Last week, Charlie Dolgenos, a fellow DP staffer, wrote a column on why college athletes should be paid.

I'm about to ostracize myself from at least half of the athletics community by arguing why student athletes should not be paid for participating in amateur sports.

Most arguments saying that student athletes should be paid center around equating practice and competition hours with labor. Because college athletes dedicate five hours a day to their sport, in addition to adequately taking care of sleep, hydration, and nutrition, they should be paid since the time spent honing their skills could be valuable elsewhere.

In an argument based on pure compensation of labor, we must talk about the economic value of an athlete's labor in comparison with the alternatives. The average out-of-state tuitions for the 2018-2019 school year are $21,629 for public school and $35,676 for private school. An athlete on full scholarship at Duke, a basketball powerhouse, will avoid paying roughly $235,000 for a top-notch education, which I believe is worthy compensation for putting in several years of hard work into becoming a player with a high enough caliber to be recruited by Duke in the first place.

Surely then, the opportunity cost for time spent training, in exchange for the waiver of crippling debt, cannot be offset by a work-study job that pays minimum wage minus taxes. Alternatively, only about two percent of college athletes make it big. Specifically, only 1.1 percent of basketball players and 1.5 percent of football players play in the NBA and NFL, respectively.

So athletes who believe that they should be paid because they could be making money as pros already have tremendous odds stacked against them. Even then, statistically, being the No. 1 draft pick doesn't guarantee an extremely successful career; between 1990 and 2014, only 80 percent of players drafted in the No. 1, 2, and 3 spots have averaged at least 10 points in the NBA. Those picked outside the top 12 have a fewer than 30 percent chance.

Now, the debate moves to exploitation. Big sports schools make a lot of money through their athletic programs; Texas A&M made an average of $148 million per year over three years through its football team alone. The argument evolves to say that if a school makes money from making athletes miss school to play in revenue-making games and uses player likeness to boost publicity and admissions, then the athlete is being exploited as he or she fulfills the duties of a professional without being rewarded for doing so. The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is a prime example of this.

I have two counters to this argument. First off, an athlete gains a lot more from an established school, be it brand exposure or an elite platform to showcase their talent, than the other way around. Zion Williamson's fall against North Carolina sparked outrage; why should the likely future No. 1 NBA draft pick risk his potentially successful (and lucrative) NBA career for a team that will give him nothing?

To consolidate his position as a top draft pick, Williamson needed Duke. What better than a school led by legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski, who has led Duke to 14 ACC Championships, 12 Final Four appearances, and five National Championships, to help a young athlete emotionally and physically mature and get ready for the big leagues? In what world would have Nike's stock value dropped by $1.1 billion if a top high school basketball player's shoe had blown up in a local game?

The platform these schools provide is only made possible by the heavy reinvestment of profits into state-of-the-art athletic facilities, gear, exclusive dorms and cafeterias, world-renowned athletic staff, and the automatic propulsion of athletes to celebrity status before they even step foot on the college campus. One cannot quantify the effect of Duke on Williamson's personal brand, bolstered by him being named ACC Rookie and Player of the Year, as it requires the calculation of many intangible variables. When less than two percent of college athletes go pro and even fewer make it big, I think that demanding extra compensation on top of a free education and star-treatment for four years at big sports school is misuse of a privilege to be able to carry your passion with you to the next level.

My fellow student athletes and I may have received some leeway in the academic realm of our acceptances to college as a reward for our athletic prowess, as while growing up we invested the time that could have been spent studying to pursue our athletic goals. I believe we deserve this flexibility because we have earned it and proudly represent our school for four years, but demanding monetary compensation is an abuse of this privilege.

Secondly, the NCAA Tournament accounts for 90 percent of the NCAA's annual budget. All the profits are divided amongst participating conferences in a complex long-term pay structure, and the NCAA retains only four percent of the money made during March Madness, which largely goes towards their own operating costs. Larger conferences divide profits and send them to member schools, while smaller conferences use most of the money for their own expenses, with very little transferred to member schools.

Moreover, only one-third of schools made a profit or broke even on their basketball programs in the 2013-2014 school year. Louisville topped the earning charts with $24.2 million, an amount which likely went to support most of the non-revenue-making sports.

The myth of schools and the NCAA holding on to revenue without distribution is a harmful one; the fixed costs of athletic programs are aplenty, especially when it comes to modernizing facilities, providing scholarships, and paying for good recruiting for all sports. I believe that there is no real merit in demanding compensation for labor because the profits aren't stagnant - they pay for operating costs like administration, staff, and other overhead.

Lastly, I think that student athletes mainly continue to play their sports at the collegiate level because competition and training become an integral part of us. Personally, tennis has been my life since I was three years old. Growing up, it was not only therapeutic, but it became intertwined with my identity and sense of self. I moved to the United States from India at the age of 12 to pursue my dream of playing professional tennis.

On the eve of my 16th birthday, while fulfilling a lifelong dream of playing for India at the Youth Olympic Games, I was told that I had torn my shoulder and would have to take three months off. I had felt that sharp pain for a year, but in the chaos of pushing myself to get to the next level, I didn't want to stop.

My body wanted to stop, and, consequently, my mind took a dark dive.

Although I started the recruiting process really late, Penn saved me from my spiral. For 15 years, my happiness had been inextricably linked with how I performed on a tennis court, and Penn made me believe that I could be so much more. My mental health suffered immensely because of underperformance on the court in college; my grades slipped and I fell into a black hole of self-destruction where I blocked out any light from entering and helping me out. The sheer joy of being able to represent something bigger than myself and play alongside teammates whom I love dearly not only helped me rebuild myself, but also changed my vision of who I want to be in the future.

College athletics helped me emotionally mature and developed my character in ways that no other activity ever could, and I am all the better for it. The relationships I've formed along the way, be it with the staff at the tennis center, or with the school itself, have enriched my college experience beyond measure. At no point did I ever think of monetary compensation; I just felt grateful for every moment I got to hold a tennis racquet, all the pain included.

Don't get me wrong, Penn can do a lot more for its athletes, and one of those many improvements is excusing absences for varsity athletes who miss class to represent Penn in competitions.

However, as a second-semester senior on the brink of leaving competitive tennis forever, I couldn't imagine college without athletics and would do it all over again in a heartbeat - even without any compensation.

OJ SINGH is a College senior from New Delhi, India and an Associate Sports Editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian. She is also a member of Penn women's tennis. She can be reached at .

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Singh | I'm a Penn athlete and we shouldn't be paid. Here's why.

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Last week, Charlie Dolgenos, a fellow DP staffer, wrote a column on why college athletes should be paid. I'm about to ostracize myself from at least half of the athletics community by arguing why student athletes should not be paid for participating in amateur sports.

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Abstract Big-time commercialized intercollegiate athletics has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Popularity of this uniquely American activity, measured by attendance, television ratings, or team revenues, has never been higher. At the same time, however, several high-profile scandals exposing unseemly behavior on the part of players, coaches, and even respected higher education institutions-as well as questions about the distribution of the enormous revenues pouring into university athletic departments-have marred the image of these college football and men's basketball programs. Currently there are several legal challenges to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its member institutions that may change dramatically and permanently the arrangements between the NCAA cartel, its member colleges and universities, and the "student-athletes" who play on the teams. These challenges all focus on the NCAA's collective fixing of players' wages. We describe this peculiar "industry," detailing the numerous market imperfections in both output and labor markets, the demand for and supply of college athlete labor, and possible alternative arrangements in the college athlete labor market, including the ramifications of compensating players beyond the tuition, room, board, books, and fees that some current players already receive as grants-in-aid.

Citation
Sanderson, Allen R., and John J. Siegfried. 2015. "The Case for Paying College Athletes." Journal of Economic Perspectives, DOI: 10.1257/jep.29.1.115

JEL Classification

I23 Higher Education; Research Institutions

L83 Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

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The Case for Paying College Athletes by Allen R. Sanderson and John J. Siegfried. Published in volume 29, issue 1, pages 115-38 of Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2015, Abstract: Big-time commercialized intercollegiate athletics has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Popular...

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About | HeinOnline

Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds.

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65 Notre Dame L. Rev. 206 (1989-1990)
Sports and Antitrust: Should College Students Be Paid to Play

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing nearly 3,000 academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.

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profiles profiles most

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sports and antitrust: should college students
be paid to play?
lee goldman*
i. introduction
amateur athletics at the major college level is big business. it is
marketed

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packaged and sold the same way as many other commercial
products. last year's national collegiate athletic association (ncaa)
basketball tournament generated over $70 million in gross receipts.' fi-
nal four participants received direct payments of over $1.3 million.2
merely making the tournament earned invited schools almost $275

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000.3
football revenues were similarly lucrative. during the 1988-89 season

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$53 million of which was distributed
to participating schools.4 the sale of television and radio rights to regu-
lar season games provided additional income to ncaa member schools.
a successful college athletic program can also generate substantial indi-
rect revenues. schools can convert their athletic programs' prestige and
notoriety into generous alumni donations and increased enrollment.5
nevertheless

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beyond educational
scholarships and specified expenses

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to the athletes who are responsible
for producing those revenues.6 ncaa rules also restrict the ability of
college-athletes to earn outside income.7 thus

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
football and basketball players reported having less money
available after expenses than nonathlete students.8 almost fifty-eight
percent say the money they have is inadequate.9 many students are not
even provided the education that is promised them.'0
*  associate professor of law

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
col. 4.
2 id.
3 id. these revenues may soar under the ncaa's new billion dollar contract with cbs sports.
see n.y. times

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essentials of amateur sports law 22 (1988); jensen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
and the professionalization of college athletics

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col. 1.
6 see infra notes 45-48 and accompanying text. the ncaa also limits the ability of students to
receive government assistance to fund living expenses. see infra note 335.
7 see 1989-90 ncaa manual 140 (1989).
8 see center for the study of athletics

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report no. 1: summary results from the 1987-
88 national study of intercollegiate athletes 32-33 (nov. 1988) [hereinafter report no. 1].
9 id. sixty-one percent of black and 40% of nonblack football and basketball players reported
they had less than $25 per month for personal expenses. see center for the study of athletics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
report no. 3: the experiences of black intercollegiate athletes at ncaa division i institu-
tions 20-21 (mar. 1989) [hereinafter report no. 3].
10 see

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at 46 (a survey of professional football players indicated that two thirds had never received a
college degree; similar results had previously been obtained for college basketball players). the
recent norby walters trial revealed some of the academic abuses occurring on college campuses. see

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. %init> 65 Notre Dame L. Rev. 206 (1989-1990) Sports and Antitrust: Should College Students Be Paid to Play HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing nearly 3,000 academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S.

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The debate rages on: Should college athletes be paid to play their sport? Read our take on both sides of the argument and watch our accompanying video here!

Originally Posted: Mar 20, 2017

Should college athletes be paid? People who think college student-athletes should be paid often say the students' names and images are used on products and in advertising, among other things, so they should receive some of the profits. Those who say college student-athletes should not be paid argue that they receive scholarships as a form of payment for their talents. Then there are plenty of other questions: Would athletes be paid differently depending on the sport they play? How do you quantify the true worth of a college sports team, especially if it's making the school much more popular overall and bringing in lots of students? Where would the money even come from? The debate could go on and on. Here's a look at each side.

Why student-athletes should get paid

Being a college student-athlete is a full-time job, bouncing between the weight room, the court/field, classes, and film sessions. College athletics are extracurricular activities, but the schedules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) tournaments require an extended period in which the student-athletes must miss school. Not only do they miss class, but they are absent for nationally televised games that make a lot of money and receive millions of viewers, according to Marc Edelman in his article " 21 Reasons Why Student-Athletes Are Employees and Should Be Allowed to Unionize."

Since student-athletes also bring in revenue for their team and college or university, especially in the championship games, those who debate in favor of paying them say the students could receive a small portion of the profits. Yes, pay would vary, just as the universities with the more successful teams receive more television time or money than those with less successful teams. College football and men's basketball programs earn far more than any other athletic program, so these athletes would likely earn more as well. This may not be considered fair pay, but many of those who argue in support of paying college players point out that team popularity and consumers generally determine what is "fair." These sports also tend to support other less popular sports that do not bring in a lot of money on their own.

Student-athletes are the ones working hard out on the court and field. Coaches might have a big effect on a team, but it is up to the athletes to get it done. Coaches receive bonuses for breaking records, reaching the offseason, and winning the big games; the athletes receive none of it, writes Tyson Hartnett for HuffPost. Most profits from college athletics do not go toward academics. Instead, they go to the coaches, athletic directors, and some administrators, reports Edelman. Student-athletes do not need to receive huge salaries like their coaches; rather, they could still be paid a reasonable amount relative to how much the program makes. Scholarships often cover most of the student-athletes' books and room expenses, but even few extra hundred dollars per year could compensate for the lack of time these students have to earn spending money at a regular part-time job, argues Harnett.

It's also important to note that college student-athletes are not only a part of a sports team; they are a part of the college or university's advertising team. For example, the "Flutie effect" is used to describe a surge in college admission following a big sports win. It's named for Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie; he won the Heisman Trophy in 1984, and the College's admissions rose significantly in subsequent years-though the extent of Flutie's impact has been largely refuted by BC officials since then. Still, colleges and universities use their athletic success to promote their school and entice potential applicants. Student-athletes would be paid for this and all the additional benefits they provide for their schools.

A timeout of the regular season college football game between the University of Michigan at the University of Iowa
📸: Madisen Martinez

Why student-athletes should not get paid

In 2013, survey expert John Dennis found that 69% of the public is opposed to paying student-athletes. (This proposed payment would be in addition to the scholarships given in men's football and basketball programs.) If scholarships were taken out of the deal, and only salaries were given, then it would be more fair and affordable for the university, right? Wrong. If salaries were given, then these college student-athletes would have to pay taxes. Depending on the student-athlete's income, those taxes could be high enough to reduce what they earn until they can barely cover tuition, according to John R. Thelin in his article "Here's Why We Shouldn't Pay College Athletes."

Those who opposed paying college student-athletes say scholarships are the best option; there is no question as to what the scholarship money is going toward. Cash or a salary could be spent on wants rather than necessities, potentially leading the athletes into a debt they would not have with the benefit of a scholarship. Furthermore, those who debate against paying student-athletes say it would change the very nature of college athletics. College student-athletes are given a rare opportunity. It's difficult to earn a position on a college team. Though a dream for many, only about 7% of high school athletes move onto the bigger stage. Another 2% of these athletes reach the Division I level, reports Dave Anderson in his article " Top 10 Reasons College Athletes Should Not Be Paid."

If payments were involved, athletes would be given incentive to commit to the college or university with the highest offer. The next year, they may transfer to another school with an even higher offer. Before you know it, these college sports would be 100% a business. This new "business" could also lead to the downfall of other college programs. The money to pay athletes must come from somewhere, which might put the least-popular college programs at risk of being cut. That, in turn, can deprive other students of their chance to gain the education and experience at the college of their dreams, since their desired program will no longer be offered, says Anderson.

Finally, even though these college student-athletes may be playing at an advanced level, they still aren't playing professionally, Anderson notes. It is not their job to play sports; it is an extracurricular activity that is pursued while pursuing a higher education. Student-athletes are going to school to learn, and many are lucky enough to do so for reduced cost, given the often generous athletic scholarships. If these athletes were paid, it would change their motives as students. They are still in college-which is a privilege in itself-while pursuing their dreams of playing a sport.

What do you think?

Whether student-athletes should be paid is an ongoing debate often brought up during championship seasons, especially the college football playoffs and the basketball post-season. What's your view of this heated debate? Will a salary for college-athletes ever come to be? It's up to the NCAA to decide if they'll break away from their current model of collegiate sports, in which "the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second."
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Should College Student-Athletes Be Paid to Play? Both Sides of the Debate

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The debate rages on: Should college athletes be paid to play their sport? Read our take on both sides of the argument and watch our accompanying video here!

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NCAA should incentivize education, not paid employment

By

Photo by Angel Jimenez | The State PressAlex Coil | 09/29/2019 4:24pm
"Even worse, imagine athletes just coming to college for the money." Illustration published on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019.

In the entirety of college football's 150-year history, college athletes have not been paid, and it needs to stay that way.

Earlier this month, California lawmakers approved a bill, that the governor has not yet signed, that would allow college athletes to profit off their name and likeness.

Tim Tebo w, a former college quarterback who won the Heisman, went on ESP N's First Take to share his belief that paying student athletes is the wrong approach.

Tebow is exactly right.

The phenomenon around paying college athletes and those driving the movement forward are forgetting the reason one goes to college: to get an education.

In an era striving for competitive balance, how would the NCAA keep from giving schools like Kentucky and Alabama even more of a competitive advantage than schools like Valparaiso and Florida Gulf Coast?

The issue gets complicated when taking into consideration how the salary difference between the quarterback on the football team and the third-string goalie on the lacrosse team gets decided.

Even worse, imagine athletes just coming to college for the money.

"You're going to see bigger schools use (paying athletes) as a recruiting advantage," said Marco Salas a redshirt freshman offensive lineman on the football team. "I think some people are going to come just to make money."

We call college athletes amateurs. Oxford's definition of amateur is "a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid basis."The keyword there is unpaid.

The history of the word amateur dates back to the French, from the Latin, word "amator", which means lover, and also from "amare"which means to love.

Essentially, the word amateur is based on the word love. College athletes should be playing their sport for the love of the game, not the money that would be given to them if we decide to give them a salary.

Rules should not be made for the fractional minority, and in this instance only two percent of athletes play professional sports. The expected career span of that two percent is 10 years, three and a half years in the NFL.

An appalling 80 percent of retired NFL players go broke within three years of retirement, 60 percent in the NBA within five years.

This is why the NCAA and its member institutions should implement a "stay and learn" rule.

This rule should state that if athletes choose to come to college, they will get paid in scholarships that last the entirety of the educational process and the athlete must stay in school until they earn a degree, associates at minimum, in the area of study they choose. If they choose not to go to college and play professionally, that is the risk they take.

By not forcing athletes to play in college, the argument for paying them goes away.

"I'd value the education," Salas said. "That money (from going pro) is going to run out sometime, but the degree will always be there for you. You can use that in the long term."

We need to protect the future of these athletes by arming them with the free education they choose to pursue. These athletes need a backup plan in case of a career-ending injury or a more common issue, the lack of talent to play professionally.

Look at college athletics for what it is and should always be, a high-pressure learning environment and an avenue to earn an education. A much more fun extension of the classroom if you will. After all, they are called student-athletes.
Editor's note: The opinions presented in this column are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
Reach the columnist at ancoil@asu.edu or follow @anc2018 on Twitter.

Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 500 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.

Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.

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Opinion: Paying college athletes is not the answer

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California lawmakers approved a bill that legalizes payment of college athletes. Instead of paying them, institutions need to focus on educating them.