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Should Student-Athletes Get Paid? | The 2-Minute Warning

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College sports generate billions of dollars in revenues in the United States every year. In 2016, CBS and Turner Broadcasting extended their contact with the NCAA Division 1 basketball tournament with an 8-year, $8.8 billion extension. That placed the value of March Madness at more than $1 billion per year for the first time in history.

The extension in 2016 followed a 2010 contract which offered a 14-year agreement to broadcast the annual tournament for $10.8 billion.

The NCAA states that 90% of the revenues generated through the games played by student athletes go into services, programs, or direct distribution opportunities which directly benefit member conferences and schools. Aside from equipment access, medical care, scholarships, and travel support, student athletes receive zero compensation for their participation in their chosen support.By definition, paying the athlete would make them a professional. On the other hand, it could be argued that scholarships are an alternative form of payment already being provided. Because of the revenues their activities generate, the pros and cons of paying college athletes are closely scrutinized.

List of the Pros of Paying College Athletes

1. It encourages healthier student athletes.
Paying college athletes for their participation in sports eliminates the need for them to find outside employment to support themselves. Many scholarships may offer tuition, room, and board coverage in return for participating in a sport, but not every student athlete qualifies for a scholarship. Walk-on players have their images used to generate revenues for the NCAA too for zero compensation. Paying all athletes would allow them to focus on academics and athletics without worrying about making ends meet.

2. It provides relief for families.
Families are often tasked with providing direct support for their student athletes to abide by current payment rules. Student athletes are not even permitted to autograph items, or sell certain personal memorabilia, as a way to generate revenues. Outside of student loans for partial scholarship or walk-on athletes, it is up to each family to pay for the student to be at the school. Paying the athlete would provide some financial relief to these families, which may not have the funds to make long-term supports.

3. It provides another incentive to play.
Most student athletes who play in college never become professional athletes. In the NCAA, fewer than 2% of college athletes go on to become professional athletes. Most become professionals in their chosen field of study. By offering a stipend for playing, much like a work-study program, students would gain another incentive to become involved in athletics. They could use these funds to pay for costs not covered by a scholarship. Students could save the money for a first apartment outside of college. If a student knows they will not go pro, they may decide to give up sports instead, which would ultimately reduce the income generated by collegiate sporting activities.

4. It would stop corruption.
Despite rules preventing such actions, coaches, shoe executives, agents, apparel representatives, and other industry professionals often conspire to pay recruits to join a specific college. It is a practice that stays out of the public eye because everyone involved benefits if no one knows about the payments. Using money to influence a high school student to select a specific program and hire a specific business manager is felony-level conduct. Allowing college athletes to be paid would help to limit this issue, which would reduce investigation costs across the board.

5. It would attract better athletes who stay in programs longer.
The goal of attending a college program should be to earn a degree. Academics should be the top priority. For the athletes that do have the ability to play professionally, going to college is a stop on the journey toward a good paycheck. If these athletes could be paid while they are attending a college program, then they would be more likely to stick with the program to eventually earn their degree. They could then be drafted into a professional league once they've completed their courses.

6. It could lower tuition rates.
Paying student athletes does not mean that the costs for everyone would automatically go up. For some institutions, the costs could actually go down. Increased competition for the best athletes would create improved programming at colleges across the country. Athletic facilities would be upgraded to encourage enrollment. Although the richest institutions would always be able to offer more, at the end of the day, most people would benefit from lower costs because the system would require more efficiencies to remain productive.

7. It could create college credits that could be used toward graduation.
One of the benefits of work-study programs is that it can supplement the credits earned while supplementing college tuition costs. Athletes could use some of the concepts and skills they learn within their program to enhance their educational experience. Depending on the setup of the program, it could even help athletes graduate with a degree in their chosen faster.

List of the Cons of Paying College Athletes

1. It would eliminate the line between amateur and professional sports.
The reason why student athletes are not currently paid, according to the NCAA, is that it would eliminate the separation between amateurism and professionalism in sports. If that line is eliminated, then the links between an education at a college and sports played at a college would weaken. That would cause the athletes who don't eventually turn pro to suffer because they'd have fewer opportunities available to them.

2. It would prioritize athleticism over academics.
Although students would still be required to meet academic standards to qualify for academic programs, paying athletes for sports participation would likely shift personal priorities. They would be required to maintain their position on the team to benefit from the income, much like they are required to do so now to maintain a scholarship. Athletes would choose programs where they would be paid the most, instead of choosing programs where they could learn the most.

3. It would become a burden on taxpayers.
The idea of paying college athletes a salary comes out of the revenues which are generated by sporting activities. In reality, much of that money is already used by the conferences and schools to host games or conduct events already. To pay athletes a salary, most public institutions would need to ask taxpayers for monetary support. Private institutions would likely increase tuition rates to meet the financial obligations involved. Those burdens could stop some students from enrolling for academic purposes, which would create lower-skill workers over time throughout the country.

4. It would burden smaller schools.
Would all student athletes receive the same amount of pay, no matter which school they chose to attend? If so, then there would be an undue burden placed on smaller schools that compete at higher levels. If pay levels are allowed to be tiered, based on where a college competes, then is it fair for one athlete to be paid more than another because they were accepted into a "superior" program? There are plenty of structural questions that would need to be resolved before paying college athletes became the norm.

5. It could encourage schools to cut other programs.
Many schools use the funds from their athletics programs to fund other programs and activities. If those funds are ordered to be used as a salary for college athletes, then the other programs and services might suffer because of it. That would degrade the quality of life available on-campus at many institutions. Depending on what programs were cut, it could even impact the safety of students over a long time period.

6. It could create issues of paycheck equality.
If athletics is treated like a work-study program, there could be issues of equality in pay that would need to be evaluated. Some students in other programs would likely not earn the same amount as an athlete for their work-study program. When everything comes down to dollars and cents, there could be more discrimination put into college campuses by paying college athletes than the benefits such an activity would provide.

7. It would create opportunities to unionize.
Student athletes who are receiving a salary would be classified as employees. That would give student athletes the right to unionize in many states. That would create conflicts between schools and athletes in a manner that is similar to the conflicts seen between owners and professional athletes. Some participants would still be minors, which means their parents would need to be involved in contract negotiations. New levels of administrative complication would be incorporated into the educational system, which would further increase costs.

Paying student athletes creates a number of variables which offer plenty of pros and cons to think about. Most people would agree that athletes should be compensated when profits are generated by their likeness and activities. Most would also agree that university programs should emphasize academics over athletics. Finding a balance, using key points like these, is the only way progress on this issue will be obtained.

Blog Post Author Credentials
Louise Gaille is the author of this post. She received her B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington. In addition to being a seasoned writer, Louise has almost a decade of experience in Banking and Finance. If you have any suggestions on how to make this post better, then go here to contact our team.

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14 Should College Athletes Be Paid Pros and Cons

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College sports generate billions of dollars in revenues in the United States every year. In 2016, CBS and Turner Broadcasting extended their contact with the NCAA Division 1 basketball tournament with an 8-year, $8.8 billion extension. That placed the value of March Madness at more than $1 billion per year for the first time in history.

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As national collegiate sports becomes an ever larger and more lucrative industry, a debate has been brewing over whether the athletes that compete at the highest levels should be paid for their time and the revenue they provide for their universities. Indeed, the time athletes put in often resembles a full-time job, with grueling conditioning that many argue interferes with their studies.
History
The debate over compensation for student-athletes began in 1955 when the widow of Ray Dennison, who died of a head injury while playing football for Fort Lewis A&M, filed for workmen's compensation death benefits. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Dennison's college was "not in the football business" and as such, was not required to pay.

This ruling was influenced by the creation of the term "student-athlete" by Walter Byers, the NCAA's first executive director, in the 1950s. According to the Aspen Institute, this classification was created for self-serving reasons on the part of the NCAA: if athletes performing at a high level were considered students first and athletes second, the payment of workmen's compensation benefits could be avoided. A central component to this viewpoint is that student-athletes are amateurs, which is what differentiates college sports from professional leagues. Indeed, according to the NCAA bylaws, the student-athlete is "one who engaged in athletics for the education, physical, mental, and social benefits he derives therefrom, and to whom athletics is an avocation."

The legal challenges to the NCAA are still underway in recent times as well. In 2009, Ed O'Bannon, a former UCLA star basketball player, filed a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA in order to secure payment for the use of athletes' names, images, and likenesses (NIL). In 2014, District Judge Claudia Wilkes ruled in favor of O'Bannon, and that the NCAA's stance on not paying student-athletes violates anti-trust laws and constitutes an unreasonable restraint on fair trade and competition. She stated that universities would now be able to provide a full scholarship including cost of living expenses, meals, and housing to athletes, as well as pay them up to 5,000 a year for the use of their likenesses. The NCAA appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit Court, which maintained that student-athletes are entitled to a scholarship covering the full cost of attendance, but rejected the ruling that athletes are also entitled to payment outside of educational expenses. Two Ninth Circuit judges wrote that "The difference between offering student-athletes education-related compensation and offering them cash sums untethered to educational expenses is not minor; it is a quantum leap."

However, the legal battle is not over. A new case, Jenkins vs. NCAA, led by renowned sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler, will challenge limits placed on compensation for student athletes, and, if successful, has the potential to fundamentally reshape collegiate athletics by removing the amateurism that, rightly or wrongly, defines the industry.
Perspectives
Many legal experts and advocates see this as potential for a positive change. Robert McCormick, who was an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board under Jimmy Carter, says "There are more demands put on these young men than any employee of the university," and "These young men are laboring under very strict and arduous conditions, so they really are laborers in terms of the physical demands on them while they're also trying to go to school and being required to go to school." According to him and his wife, both now law professors at Michigan State University, these long and arduous practices should allow Division I student-athletes to unionize and negotiate their own hours, compensation, and working conditions. They, however, acknowledge this to be a perhaps unpopular opinion and is also not supported by current law.

Many, however, disagree with this perspective and question if universities can afford to pay student athletes in the first place, since most of their profits are reinvested into the athletic program itself, and that such revenues would be open to taxation. In addition, universities would be liable for student-athletes' conduct as well as for benefits and workmen's compensation.
The Future of College Athletics
The debate surrounding pay-for-play in college athletes and the legal challenges therein lead many to wonder about the future of collegiate athletics. If paying student-athletes becomes legal, which would occur if Jenkins vs. NCAA is decided in Jenkins' favor, the fundamental spirit of college sports will change. The NCAA has always held amateurism up as a lofty ideal which is what differentiates college athletics from professional sports. Indeed, a case can be made that this itself is the reason that college athletics have become so popular. In college sports, one does not see players receiving multi-million dollar contracts and then refusing to play due to labor disputes, as is seen in professional leagues. Instead, the student-athlete is, for Jeff Brown, writing in the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, comparable to the early Olympic athlete. When the Olympics began in Ancient Greece, there were strict laws against professional athletes competing. Rather, participation was confined to amateurs, which is derived from the Latin amare, meaning "to love". Eventually, however, the Games degenerated into a business, with all the excesses inherent in such professionalism, and were finally abolished. For Brown, our society should be careful that college sports do not follow in the same footsteps. Indeed, in our concern for the well-being of student-athletes, we neglect the ideals that make the system possible in the first place.

It is undisputed that student-athletes, specifically Division I Men's football and basketball players, bring in vast sums of money for their universities. Indeed, the 2015 total revenue for the 5 major conferences (ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, PAC-12) exceeded two billion dollars, most of which comes from media contracts, licensing, sponsorships, and royalties. While the industry becomes larger and head coaches' salaries increase to astronomical heights, players, although often recipients of full scholarships including meals and all necessary expenses, receive none of the profits. Many argue this is unjust. Although this is a rather convincing argument, it is worth considering how such a system of paid athletes would function. First, university athletics programs would lose their tax-exempt status, because, as strictly commercial ventures, universities could hardly justify that their athletics programs are related to education. They would then be required to pay taxes on their revenues, which would limit the amount they could spend on less popular sports and on athlete scholarships. Secondly, if athletes become employees, this could "open a Pandora's box for employment claims, including salaries, the right to form unions, and worker's compensation benefits." (Brown) This does not even begin to cover the bidding wars that would inevitably arise for top athletes among universities and the overwhelming business concerns and contractual obligations that student-athletes would be expected to contend with. None of this is in the best interests of student athletes.

Despite this, it is clear that some aspects of the NCAA's current system of amateurism need to be changed, as there is no doubt that college sports have become considerably more commercialized in recent years. First, the NCAA allows for universities to force athletes to wear jerseys displaying corporate sponsor logos. This, for Brown, "clearly crosses the line between a fair mix of amateurism and commercialism." This should be stopped, as it turns student-athletes into walking billboards and neglects the spirit of college athletics. Secondly, the value of a college education should be emphasized by the NCAA and its member universities. As Teddy Roosevelt said in 1907, "It is a very poor business indeed for a college man to learn nothing but sport." It is a great opportunity for young men and women to play a sport for their university, but it is important for universities not to lose sight of the fact that their primary mission is education.
The Movement on Campus
UNC has been at the center of the debate surrounding the future of college athletics fairly recently when, in 2014, it was found to have encouraged student athletes to enroll in "scam" classes in the African and Afro-American Studies department. In these classes, attendance was optional, and grades were dependent on only one very leniently-graded paper, earning them the nickname "paper classes". The purpose of these classes was so that student-athletes, primarily men's basketball and football players, could receive an easy boost to their GPA and thus be allowed to play. The NCAA conducted a years-long investigation into this matter, and concluded that the university was not at fault, because these "paper classes" were available to all students, not merely athletes, thus rendering the NCAA effectively powerless due to it being an academic, not athletic issue.
Conclusion
The debate over pay-for-play, and the role of athletics at universities in general, is one with no easy answers. Proponents of pay-for-play raise many valid points, such as that the time and effort student-athletes spend on their sport and the revenue they bring in for their school is such that it is not only unfair, but also immoral, to deprive them of what is seen as just compensation. Opponents see the professionalization of college sports as self-defeating, as the amateurism is what makes viewers interested in the first place. They see the neglect of the classification of student-athletes as students first as detrimental to athlete's futures and for the university as a whole.

America has commercialized college sports in a way unlike any other nation. This brings great benefits for students, student-athletes, viewers at home, and entertainment companies. We, however, must not neglect that which makes our system of college sports special in the first place: amateurism at its purest form.

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Works Cited

Tracy, Marc. "N.C.A.A.: North Carolina Will Not Be Punished for Academic Scandal." The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/sports/unc-north-carolina-ncaa.html.

McCann, Michael. "Supreme Court Decision Leaves NCAA Amateurism in Limbo." Sports Illustrated, 3 Oct. 2016, www.si.com/college/2016/10/03/ed-obannon-ncaa-lawsuit-supreme-court.

Solomon, Jon. "The History Behind the Debate Over Paying NCAA Athletes." The Aspen Institute, 24 May 2018, www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/history-behind-debate-paying-ncaa-athletes/.

Brown, Jeff K. "Compensation for the Student-Athlete: Preservation of Amateurism." Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. 5, no. 3, 1995-1996, p. 147-154. HeinOnline, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/kjpp5&i=537.

Cooper, Kenneth J. "Should College Athletes be Paid to Play?" Diverse Issues in Higher Education, vol. 28, no. 10, Jun 23, 2011, pp. 12-13. ProQuest, http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/874652804?accountid=14244.

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As national collegiate sports becomes an ever larger and more lucrative industry, a debate has been brewing over whether the athletes that compete at the highest levels should be paid for their time and the revenue they provide for their universities.

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The NCAA is a joke. Our teammate Jordan McNair passes away during a NCAA sanctioned workout. But now, as a NCAA student athlete, I am not allowed to promote a fundraiser we are having for his parents Jordan McNair Foundation! I can't even tweet the flyer! That's my Ted Talk.
- Ellis McKennie (@emck_cubed97) February 22, 2019

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These State Lawmakers Want College Athletes to Get Paid

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The NCAA is a joke. Our teammate Jordan McNair passes away during a NCAA sanctioned workout. But now, as a NCAA student athlete, I am not allowed to promote a fundraiser we are having for his parents Jordan McNair Foundation! I can't even tweet the flyer!

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Jim Treleaven: Should College Athletes be Paid? | Sports and Society Initiative

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The following is an article written by a member of SSI’s Board of Advisors, and President and Founder at Via Strategy Group LLC, Jim Treleaven.