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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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https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/lets-start-paying-college-athletes.html

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Imagine working for countless hours, six days a week, then putting on multiple performances just so someone else can be paid billions. That is the life of a college athlete. College athletes do not get any recognition or benefits that they deserve for the revenue they bring to their university and the surrounding community. For some college athletes, things such as tuition, gear, recovery items, and other necessities needed to perform are not free or cheap. Many college athletes pay money out of their own pockets to be able to perform at the level they need to, but who gets all the financial benefits? The NCAA and the university itself.

According to USA Today, the NCAA had a revenue of $1.1 Billion from 2017 NCAA college sporting events. How much of this money went to the college athletes who are the ones physically and mentally performing generating this money? Zero. However, in a legal way, college athletes who are playing at Division 1 or Division 2 schools are being paid with full scholarship tuition. It is fair to say that, paid tuition is equivalent to being a paid athlete. This leaves out Division 3 college athletes who put in just as much hard work and time to be able to perform at a high level and generate money for the NCAA and their university, but do not receive full rides. At Division 3 colleges, the only scholarship that is allowed is academic, not athletic. I interviewed Walker McDonald, a current college athlete at Greenville University, and asked him the question of, should college athletes get paid for playing for their university? Walker said, "I believe college athletes should be paid based on how much money they get from scholarships...athletes should at least make enough money to cover their tuition if the scholarship doesn't."

Media by NCAA Money Revenue.

Media by All NCAA College Sports.

College athletes have to sign contracts by the NCAA stating that they will not receive any money from anyone while they are playing for the university. I do not dismiss the fact that playing for a university is a privilege and not a right, college athletes have many experiences and memories that are priceless in life. However, times are hard for many students, and college athletes have a bit more expenses when it comes to necessities, they need to be able to perform at high levels. I was able to interview Josias Parker, an alumna of the men's basketball team at Greenville University. I asked him if college athletes should get paid for their time playing for their university. Josias replied by saying, "I definitely think college athletes should get paid, because universities make a lot of money from sports, sports bringing a majority of income, especially for small schools like Greenville University. Athletes should get paid especially because college is a tough time with money, so paying money to athletes will give college athletes more relief and will try to help them and aid them with whatever they need, like necessities they need to perform well."

There is a good compromise with those who disagree with the idea of college athletes getting paid, instead of a set salary like professionals. The very least college athletes could receive is donations from fans or other organizations. College athletes are told to treat their sport as a job and be professional about every aspect of the game. However, like waiters and waitresses get tips for doing a good job, why can't athletes be rewarded the same way?

Even without pay, the very least college athletes could receive is a guarantee that their scholarship will not be taken away if they are hurt playing. If we are going the route that an athlete's pay is their scholarship, then it shouldn't be able to be taken away when they are no longer "useful" for the university. Athletes like Kyle Hardrick who lost his basketball scholarship at Oklahoma University after he tore his meniscus in his knee are examples that universities only care about the ability of the player to perform. If universities only care about the usefulness of the athlete, then there should be guaranteed tuition or pay allowing the athlete to finish college even after being injured and unable to play. Student college athletes should get paid, especially after seeing the details of what they go through to perform at the high caliber level they compete at.

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Imagine working for countless hours, six days a week, then putting on multiple performances just so someone else can be paid billions. That is the life of a college athlete. College athletes do not get any recognition or benefits that they deserve for the revenue they bring to their university and the surrounding community.

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https://www.businessinsider.com/pay-college-athletes-2015-10

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https://payingcollegeathlete.weebly.com/causes--effects.html

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The 100-year-old orthodoxy holding up the big business of college sports is facing a new challenge.

A California law passed in September bans schools in the state from keeping student athletes from hiring agents or accepting advertising deals. It's a direct affront to the NCAA, which created those rules in the first place, but has shown signs of lifting them.

The NCAA itself is a billion-dollar business, and the call to give student athletes a piece of that revenue has gotten louder in recent years.

On this week's "Make Me Smart," we're talking with former UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi about it. After her perfect-10 floor routine went viral last year, she's speaking out about NCAA restrictions about the money she can make from her talents.

But paying college athletes is a complicated issue dating back to the first Roosevelt administration, so here's a refresher with everything you need to know.
What is the NCAA? Why do we need it?
Its full name is the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and it's the administrative authority on college sports at 1,117 colleges and universities, large and small. The NCAA sets eligibility criteria for student athletes, maintains official rules of play, regulates recruitment, awards championships and so on. In short, it's the administrator of a business that brings in $995 million a year.

The NCAA's been around for a long time. President Teddy Roosevelt is often credited with establishing the group to regulate college football.

It was a different game in the late 1800s, even more brutal than the game we watch today. Because games were big moneymakers, the pressure to win led some schools to cheat, and others abolished the game entirely.

But Roosevelt thought football built character, so he held a meeting at the White House with the presidents of Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities to establish some rules. The meeting didn't directly produce the NCAA, but college presidents decided with proper rules and enforcement, football could be reinstated. The Intercollegiate Athletic Association became the new organization to enforce the rules. And in 1910, the organization changed its name to the one we know today.
So it's basically like the National Football League or the National Basketball Association, but for college sports?
Well, this is where things get contentious. The NCAA is a tax-exempt governing body similar to the NBA and NFL, but those leagues have players unions that negotiate on behalf of the athletes. Since college sports are ostensibly extracurricular activities, student athletes aren't represented in the same way.

When some college football players at Northwestern University tried to unionize in 2015, the National Labor Relations Board, the federal organization responsible for organizing labor unions, unanimously declined to classify the student athletes as employees.

The NCAA agreed with the decision.

"This attempt to turn student athletes into employees undermines the purpose of college: an education," Donald Remy, then the NCAA chief legal officer, wrote at the time. "Student athletes are not employees, and their participation in college sports is voluntary."
Is that what people talk about when they bring up "amateurism"?
Yes, NCAA Bylaw 12 is where this is all laid out: "Member institutions' athletics programs are designed to be an integral part of the educational program. The student athlete is considered an integral part of the student body, thus maintaining a clear line of demarcation between college athletics and professional sports."

In the eyes of the NCAA, any payment would make a college athlete a "professional" and would disallow that athlete from competing in college athletics. But the definition of NCAA "amateurism" has changed as players have sued the NCAA for compensation. As amateurs, college athletes are allowed to receive scholarships for their time and effort, along with and expense allowance for things like travel, equipment, health care, facilities and other "reasonable" costs. They can also get meals covered by their schools, but that's been its own controversy.
So what's the problem?
The NCAA and its proponents say further compensating athletes not only ruins the purity of the sport, but ruins equality on campus. Critics say the very idea of "amateurism" is a myth and that, specifically with men's basketball and football, the revenue generated by these sports for the NCAA, universities, broadcasters and everyone else is due to the student athletes' labor, so they should be compensated.

Then there's the issue of players' names and likenesses. The idea of college athletes making money off their actual playing came into the public consciousness in 2014, when former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon took the NCAA to court over a popular series of licensed college basketball video games.

That antitrust case ended in a sort of stalemate but made the NCAA vulnerable to more challenges around amateurism and its restrictions on players' income. Roger Noll, an emeritus professor at Stanford University, said at the time: "The NCAA is a cartel that creates a price-fixing agreement among the member schools and among the student athletes."
How does Title IX fit into this? Do you risk creating more inequality in college sports when basketball and football players, mostly men, make more money than, say, swimmers?
That's certainly an argument amateurism proponents are making. But you could also argue that the right to make money on your name, image and likeness gives women and athletes who compete in smaller sports (like gymnastics) to profit from what they're spending enormous amounts of time doing in college. There's no question that a running back for the University of Alabama is going to make more money from an image and likeness than a women's field hockey player at Ithaca College, but it doesn't seem that this is going to make sports any more unequal.
What exactly did the NCAA do last month?
The NCAA did a lot of suggesting. The NCAA didn't do a lot of deciding. In September, California passed a law allowing student athletes to get professional representation and make money from endorsement deals and the like. The NCAA followed up by saying an exploratory committee had recommended the association open itself up to something similar nationwide. But what that "something similar" will end up looking like is anybody's guess at this point.

The language in the announcement makes it clear that the NCAA doesn't fully know where this is headed. There are tons of caveats and bullets in the announcement, so you have to wonder if this is a Pandora's box situation for the NCAA.
What happens now?
Your guess is as good as ours. What we do know is that the NCAA is giving this exploratory committee until April 2020 to monitor legislative proposals and gather feedback from outside experts. The NCAA has given its three divisions until January 2021 to come up with any new rules on athletes being compensated for their name, image and likeness.

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A guide to the NCAA and paying student athletes - Marketplace

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The 100-year-old orthodoxy holding up the big business of college sports is facing a new challenge. A California law passed in September bans schools in the state from keeping student athletes from hiring agents or accepting advertising deals. It's a direct affront to the NCAA, which created those rules in the first place, but has shown signs of lifting them.

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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.