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Sports are activities involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Sports are a big business. Their totals add up to about $100 billion a year. Making some professional athletes some of the highest paid people in the world.

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Sports are recreational activities that require some degree of physical strength, skill, or stamina. Depending on the sport, athletes compete, either alone or as part of a team, against others or against their own previous performance. Sports can be a source of both exercise and entertainment. Friends and family often spend time together playing and watching sports. Some credit youth sports with teaching young people values like teamwork, competition, and discipline. Support for local professional and amateur athletes can foster community pride and a sense of togetherness.

Sports at all levels are also a big business, amounting to about $100 billion a year annually. While professional athletes receive attention for drawing some of the largest salaries in the United States, many other Americans also earn their incomes from the professional sports industry, a market worth over $73 billion in 2019 that was expected to grow until the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic began in early 2020. The most profitable professional team sports in the United States are football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer. Tennis, golf, and boxing also garner significant attention. However, less traditional sports have grown in popularity, particularly NASCAR stock car racing and mixed martial arts (MMA). More controversially, scripted professional wrestling and competitive video gaming, also referred to as eSports, challenge common perceptions of what constitutes a sport.

Though many benefits are credited to sports, controversies occur surrounding both sports organizations and athletes at the college and professional levels. Some of the main discussions regard the profits made by sports organizations, the compensation and safety of athletes, and the expectations of individual athletes to be role models. Disputes have also arisen over athletes' political and social activism. In 2020 the global spread of COVID-19 created uncertainty about the future of sports.

Main Ideas

Sports in the United States provide entertainment, fitness, and community-building aspects as well as economic benefits.

Athletes are usually the highest-paid and most-visible participants in the sports economy, and their high salaries have generated controversy.

Often cast as role models, professional athletes often face scrutiny of their behavior off the field and criticism of irresponsible or unsavory behavior in personal relationships and social media.

Political activities by athletes also draw criticism and censure. The resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 led to new attempts among sports leagues to recognize player concerns with issues of societal racism.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a complete shutdown of sports for part of the year in 2020. Sports organizations struggled to deal with the economic fallout and the complexities of safely resuming play.

Sports Industry Practices

The $100 billion sports industry in the United States, which includes youth, college, and professional sports, generates income primarily from ticket sales, media rights, sponsorship, and merchandise and employs thousands of people. Some object to the high salaries paid to professional athletes, while others point out the short career spans, risks of injury, and exceptional talents of the athletes to justify the pay. While student athletes in college sports receive scholarships, they do not receive salaries despite the income they help generate for the schools and the amount of time they spend training and playing. In the twenty-first century, calls for paying student athletes have increased. In a 2019 poll by College Pulse, 53 percent of college students surveyed were in favor of paying athletes. That year, California passed the Fair Play to Pay Act, which allowed college athletes to receive sponsorships without losing their eligibility to play. Partly in response to the California law, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) voted in October 2019 to allow student athletes to be compensated for the use of their names and images.

Safety and risk of injury remain an ongoing controversy, particularly within sports involving large amounts of violent contact, such as football, boxing, and MMA. Despite improved protective gear and rule changes to make playing safer, football players in particular are likely to experience multiple head injuries throughout their careers, which can result in chronic degenerative brain disease.

Questions about athlete safety have also arisen from scandals involving allegations of sexual abuse. In some cases, evidence has shown national sports organizations and schools working to cover up abuse and obstruct investigations. In 2017 and 2018 Dr. Larry Nassar, a team physician for USA Gymnastics, the US Women's Olympics Gymnastics team, and Michigan State University, was found guilty of sexually assaulting hundreds of minor patients during treatments and examinations. All three organizations employing Nassar faced criticism and investigations for inadequately investigating reports of abuse. In January 2018 Congress passed the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act, which established the United States Center for Safe Sport, an independent organization created to protect athlete interests, and also mandated professionals with sports organizations to report suspected abuse of athletes within twenty-four hours of learning of it.

Several names of several professional and college sports teams have been identified as racially insensitive, particularly to Indigenous peoples. Despite pressure from Native American leaders and their allies, teams like the Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Chiefs, and Washington Redskins have long refused to consider changing their names. However, in July 2020 the Redskins team announced that it would be dropping both its name and its logo depicting a Native American man and would be known as the Washington Football Team until a new name was selected.

Conduct of Professional Athletes

Professional athletes are often seen as role models, particularly to young people. Many professional athletes engage with their fans and the local community through public appearances and charity work. Other athletes use their celebrity to make a positive impact in the world. Tennis star Serena Williams, for example, served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and has raised funds to establish schools in Jamaica and Africa. In June 2020 Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan started a fundraising campaign for the Black community in Atlanta, Georgia, seeding it with a $500,000 donation.

Because athletes are often in the spotlight, their conduct therefore frequently comes under scrutiny. In some cases, such as when an athlete is found to be using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), the questionable behavior relates directly to the sport. However, irresponsible behavior in an athlete's personal life can not only tarnish their image but impact the teams on which they play. Criminal and reckless behavior in athletes has sparked criticism that professional leagues prioritize profits and the league's image over player accountability and the safety of others. For example, the National Football League (NFL) has repeatedly been accused of overlooking cases of players accused of sexual assault or domestic violence, including an incident captured on video of Ray Rice assaulting his then-girlfriend in 2014. However, the publicity around his case provided impetus for the league to change its policies. Repeated allegations of sexual assault and other criminal misconduct involving National Football League (NFL) wide receiver Antonio Brown ultimately left him without a contract in 2019, though critics argue that the league is still too lenient on athletes charged with criminal behavior.

Social media provides professional athletes a medium in which to connect with fans, build their brand, and use their popularity to positive effect. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, players and coaches in the National Basketball Association (NBA) used their social media accounts to educate fans about how to protect themselves and to share information about how to stop the spread of disease. Others have used their platform to address social causes. However, in other cases, both professional and student athletes are faulted for using offensive language on social media. In 2018 old racist, misogynist, or homophobic tweets from several Major League Baseball players, including Josh Hader, Sonny Gray, Trea Turner, and Sean Newcomb, and NFL player Josh Allen were uncovered. All apologized publicly and some were asked to complete inclusion and diversity training programs. In July 2020 Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson apologized for antisemitic Instagram posts containing references to Jewish plans for "world domination." In June 2020, an incoming freshman track and cross country athlete at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, lost his positions on both teams and had his admission offer withdrawn after making offensive posts on Twitter about the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Athletes and Political Activism

As public figures, professional athletes can wield significant political influence. Many have held political office. For example, after playing football with the Tennessee Titans between 2006 and 2010, Colin Allred became a civil rights lawyer and was elected to the US House of Representatives in Texas in 2018.

Athletes have also used their public platform for political activism, expressing support for specific causes or protesting social injustices. Movements for civil rights in the United States have benefited from the support of high-profile athletes. In 2016 NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began to kneel during the national anthem before football games, protesting against police brutality against African Americans and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Kaepernick became a free agent at the end of the 2016 season but remained unsigned through the next several seasons. He filed a grievance against the NFL team owners, charging that they improperly colluded to bar him from the league. The dispute was settled in February 2019 in a confidential agreement. In 2017 and 2018 more football players joined in the kneeling protests, and the practice spread to other sports such as soccer and baseball. The protests were particularly controversial in the NFL, as some saw them as disrespectful, while others supported the players' rights to peacefully protest. In 2018 the NFL announced a requirement for all players to stand for the anthem, though players could opt to remain in the locker room during that time.

Following widespread protests after the killing of George Floyd in June 2020, governing bodies of several professional sports leagues offered new rules and options for players wishing to express support for racial equality. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell apologized to Kaepernick and said that kneeling during the anthem should be allowed. The NFL announced that the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing," often called the "Black national anthem," would be played or performed before home opening games of the 2020 season. The NBA and Major League Baseball (MLB) allowed players to wear "Black Lives Matter" or related messages or patches on their uniforms as well.

Critical Thinking Questions

What are some health and safety risks associated with organized sports?

Under what circumstances, if any, do you think professional or amateur athletes should face consequences for their conduct off the field?

What are some of the steps that professional sports organizations took in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Do you think they are sufficient? What would you do differently?

COVID-19 and Sports

As COVID-19 reached the level of pandemic in spring 2020, all major sports organizations shut down their activities amidst great uncertainty about when and how they could resume. Some events were canceled completely such as the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. The NBA and National Hockey League (NHL) suspended their seasons just as their respective playoffs were about to begin, and the MLB postponed the start of its season. The Summer Olympic Games, scheduled for July and August 2020 in Tokyo, Japan, were rescheduled for the same period in 2021.

As the initial lockdowns began to ease, sports organizations developed plans to resume play. The NBA and NHL opted to set up a "bubble" rather than have teams travel between cities. Instead, all teams would remain quarantined in one place with extremely limited outside contact for the duration of the playoff series. The MLB chose to have a shortened season beginning in July 2020, with reconfigured leagues to reduce travel. Almost immediately after professional baseball resumed, multiple players on several teams tested positive for COVID-19, forcing game cancellations and causing uncertainty whether completing even a short season would be possible. In all three leagues, the games took place without fans in attendance but were aired on television.

The pandemic struck during the professional and college football off-season, but as COVID-19 continued to spread in summer 2020, authorities struggled to develop policies to allow football to resume safely. The risk of contact in football is particularly high, especially among the offensive and defensive line positions. The NFL agreed to allow players to opt out of the season, suspending their contracts for the year, and several players announced plans to do so. In August 2020, as multiple college campuses opened and then almost immediately suspended in-person classes due to COVID-19 outbreaks, the NCAA football season remained uncertain. While the Southeast Conference announced a limited ten-game schedule for fall 2020, the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences postponed games until spring 2021.

The economic impact of the shutdown on sports was massive. An ESPN analysis estimated a loss of $12 billion in sports revenue within the first months of the pandemic, with that figure predicted to double if the football seasons are canceled. Even as play resumed, revenue remained low without in-person attendance. The MLB projected that the league would lose an average of $640,000 per game in the truncated 2020 season. Loss of the college football season may cost billions to schools in the midst of other pandemic-related losses and a weakened economy.

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Sports are recreational activities that require some degree of physical strength, skill, or stamina. Depending on the sport, athletes compete, either alone or as part of a team, against others or against their own previous performance. Sports can be a source of both exercise and entertainment.

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College athletes should be paid the wages they deserve. They go out there and play their hearts out, putting their bodies on the line, and balancing school work on top of that. They raise tons of money and even more is gambled on the outcome. However, they get none of it.

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In Thailand, bony little boys as young as nine and 10 are thrown into the boxing ring to punch each other into bloody submission while parents, relatives and other screaming adults bet on the outcome. Youth sports or child abuse? While most Americans feel outrage and revulsion at the idea, as a culture we are just as willing to toss our college-age kids into the gladiatorial arena to risk life and limb while we snack, guzzle and wager on the outcome. All while compensating the young athletes who are at risk with - relative to the money being made by sports barons - about the same as little kids we used to send into coal mines earned: a few coins and lots of chronic ailments. Sound too social justice warrior hyperbolic? During the three weeks of March Madness basketball last year, the NCAA earned $900m dollars while $9.2bn was gambled on the outcome. The players banging it out on the courts earned zip. Nada. Nothing.

I've been writing about this issue for several years now calling for college athletes to be paid the wages that they deserve and am sad to acknowledge that very little has changed since I was a college athlete at UCLA, so poor that I and most of my teammates could barely scrape by. But just as with every injustice, wrongs don't get righted unless we keep raising our voices again and again. So, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

For those of you who think the life of a college athlete is all glitter and glamour, you couldn't be more wrong. If you came to college from a family with money than you were fine, but if you came on an athletic scholarship from blue-collar working families, then it was tough going. It wasn't hairshirts and gruel, but it wasn't nightly yacht parties and frat keggers either. It was mostly holing up in the dorms at night because you couldn't afford to go out and you needed a lot of rest after punishing practices. There's nothing wrong with living lean as a college student: it keeps you focused on your studies and teaches you discipline and the joys of being frugal. However, athletes must focus on their studies while also working a more than full-time job in the gym.

Playing basketball at UCLA was a seven-days-a-week job, involving intense practices, learning new plays, playing home games, and traveling around the country to compete against other schools. Our efforts earned millions of dollars for the university, both in cash and in recruiting advertisement to attract new students. But I was generally too poor to do anything but study, practice and play. The little spending money I managed to scrape together was earned on summer jobs. That money had to get me through the whole academic year. It was frustrating to win championship after championship every year, hear thousands chant my name, and then go to my bedroom to count my change so I could buy a burger.

What made it even worse was that students with academic scholarships were allowed to work jobs during the school year while we were forbidden to. And if we were injured seriously enough that we couldn't play anymore, our scholarships were revoked, despite the medical bills adding up. We were only as valuable as our ability to tote that ball and lift that score. Our coach, John Wooden, was sympathetic, but he made it clear that the NCAA would not change their policies. They were, he said, "immovable, like the sun rising in the east."

Here we are nearly 50 years later and the arguments for and against haven't changed. Portland Trailblazer Shabazz Napier described his experience as a college point guard in 2014 that was eerily, and sadly, so close to mine: "We do have hungry nights that we don't have enough money to get food in. ... Sometimes, there's hungry nights where I'm not able to eat, but I still gotta play up to my capabilities." The only thing that has significantly changed is that the NCAA, television broadcasters, and the colleges and universities are making a lot more money.

Top college coaches make between $4m and $9m per year, plus outside fees. In 40 out of the 50 states, they are the highest paid state employees. Of course, coaches in less profitable sports, such as baseball, make far less. And only a third of Division I men's basketball programs are profitable. These facts are tossed in our faces like sand to blind us to the awareness that other programs, like football at the University of Texas made $92m in profit in 2015, making it more profitable than most NFL teams. Yet, their players made nothing. Some apologists claim that the value of the scholarships, training, and other considerations give the players $50,000 to $125,000 a year in value, if not in cash. Plus, the best players get the invaluable publicity that they can cash in for big bucks when they turn pro. I certainly benefited from it. However, the reality is that, the chance of turning pro after college is less than 2% (except in baseball, which is 11.6%).

Race is definitely a factor in determining which side people support. A 2017 HuffPost/YouGov survey showed only 27% of whites strongly or somewhat are for paying college athletes. However, 52% of African-Americans strongly or somewhat support paying. Why the divide along racial lines. A study in Political Research Quarterly concluded that "harboring negative racial views about blacks was the single strongest predictor of white opposition to paying athletes." There are other divides: men support paying college athletes more than women do, Democrats more than Republicans, adults under 30 more than adults 65 and older. But race is the largest percentage difference.

There are two reasons for this difference of opinion along racial lines. First, in basketball and football, which generate the most income, a large percentage of players at Division I schools are black. Their families, and the rest of the African-American community, don't want to continue the same policies of having their efforts exploited while others profit. Second, white Americans who don't have the same financial pressures think that receiving a sports scholarship is enough reward. Grand Valley State University professor Louis Moore, who studies African-American and sports history, observed, "In a sense, most whites see the black athlete and his presence in college as a gift. [He is] somehow getting a favor, and this is somehow not work." But scholarships depend on one's ability to play and they may be taken away in cases of severe injury. This leaves the student without the ability to play or earn an education.

The short list of opposition reasons would not stand up in any college logic class. They are startlingly similar to reasons not to pay minimum wages, not to have unions, not to ratify the women's vote, and on and on. But those shaking their Cheetos-stained fists at the prospect of paying college athletes don't care about the "elitist" rules of logic, they care about the profitable rules of bottom line or their blind allegiance to outdated tradition. As my old pal Henry V might say today, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; / Or close the wall up with our fallen, failed, or forsaken college athletes."

Or maybe we should just set out a tip jar.

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It's time to pay the tab for America's college athletes

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In Thailand, bony little boys as young as nine and 10 are thrown into the boxing ring to punch each other into bloody submission while parents, relatives and other screaming adults bet on the outcome. Youth sports or child abuse?

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You may argue, most athletes already have scholarship money. And full ride athletes already don’t have to pay anything, with free housing, free food, and free team clothing. However, while bringing in billions of dollars for the NCAA, most of these athletes come from difficult backgrounds and their families are financially unstable. Outside of the college campus these athletes have little to no spending money.

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The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a multi-billion dollar industry. The NCAA website states that "student-athletes who receive athletics scholarships receive an amount covering a portion of these costs. Many student-athletes also benefit from academic scholarships, NCAA financial aid programs such as the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund and need-based aid such as Federal Pell Grants." Yes, it seems backwards that the collegiate athletes bring in the money, and yet they do not get paid a single penny. The only one's getting paid are the coaches. Most of these athletes receive scholarships that leaves them paying absolutely nothing to go to a University. If you pay college athletes on top of that, it would be too much.

The average cost to go to a university is about $25,000 each year, according to College Data.com! To attend a four year university, that is about $100,000.

Almost all college athletes get scholarship money to play for a university. If you consider athletes who get full rides, instead of paying 100 grand, they pay absolutely nothing. Most people would agree that these college athletes are already getting paid!

These college athletes also get free food on their meal plans. Players also get free housing on campus with teammates that is completely paid for. Also, they get free styled clothing for spirit wear from big brands such as Nike. I played sports all my life, and that sounds like a dream come true!

Spirit Wear: Florida State University

College is meant for students to learn. It is not a job. It is not meant for student athletes to get paid. That is what the professional level is for. School comes first before any extracurricular activity, such as sports. If any athlete were to get injured where they could never play their sport again, they must realize that school must be their only focus. Also, most injured athletes that will not get better lose their scholarships, and must transfer to a different college because they cannot financially afford to go to their original university.

If colleges were to pay student athletes, players would start prioritizing sports over academics. This would happen because schools would obviously be paying more to the athletes who are more talented at their sport, which would cause less attention to their studies. This also cannot happen because the line drawn between amateur and professional would weaken.

Former division 1 college basketball player, Cody McDavis, from the University of Northern Colorado, speaks on the issue of paying college athletes. He says if the universities start paying athletes, it comes at a cost. No college will have enough funds for that, so they will have to start cutting other programs that do not make enough revenue such as women's sports and other men's sports that do not include men's football and basketball. This causes other problems to arise such as unhappy athletes because their sport is getting cut.

Paying athletes is not the solution. All of the money that athletes are indirectly paid with scholarship money, food, clothing, and much more is a great fortune for the players. You cannot pay amateurs as it will weaken the line between them and professionals.

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NCAA: Why College Athletes Should NOT be Paid

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The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a multi-billion dollar industry. The NCAA website states that "student-athletes who receive athletics scholarships receive an amount covering a portion of these costs. Many student-athletes also benefit from academic scholarships, NCAA financial aid programs such as the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund and need-based aid such as Federal Pell Grants."

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Micheal Wilbon, a man who works for ESPN and was once strongly against the idea of college players being paid has now realized he’s been wrong and explains why. “If a music student goes out in the summer and earns 50 grand, who objects? Who even knows? The student-musician is no less a college student because he struck a lucrative deal”.

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Michael Wilbon, Pardon the Interruption co-hostJul 18, 2011, 03:00 AM ET

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Michael Wilbon is a featured columnist for ESPN.com and ESPNChicago.com. He is the longtime co-host of "Pardon the Interruption" on ESPN and appears on the "NBA Sunday Countdown" pregame show on ABC, in addition to ESPN. You can follow him on Twitter: @RealMikeWilbon

I used to argue vehemently against paying college athletes. Tuition, room, board and books were compensation enough. And even if, increasingly, it wasn't enough and virtually every kid who accepted a scholarship was in the red before Christmas of his freshman year, the notion of pay-for-play was at best a logistical nightmare. Where exactly would the money come from? How could you pay college football players but not baseball players or members of the women's field hockey team? And how in the world would you pay men in a way that wouldn't violate Title IX?

So you know what caused me to do a 180 on the issue? That $11 billion deal -- OK, it's $10.8 billion to be exact -- between the NCAA and CBS/Turner Sports for March Madness between 2011 and 2024. We're talking $11 billion for three weekends of television per year. On top of that, there's a new four-year deal with ESPN that pays the BCS $500 million. So, if those two deals were worth, say, a combined $10 billion instead of $11.3 billion, would the games not be televised? Would the quality of the broadcasts or the coverage or the staging of the events be somehow diminished? What if people in the business of money took $1.3 billion off the top, invested it, sheltered it and made it available to provide a stipend to college athletes, how could anybody stand on principal and argue against paying the people who make the events possible in the first place?

Let me declare up front I wouldn't be the slightest bit interested in distributing the funds equitably or even paying every college athlete. I'm interested in seeing the people who produce the revenue share a teeny, tiny slice of it. That's right, football and men's basketball players get paid; lacrosse, field hockey, softball, baseball, soccer players get nothing. You know what that's called? Capitalism. Not everything is equal, not everything is fair. The most distinguished professor at the University of Alabama won't make $5.9 million in his entire tenure in Tuscaloosa; Nick Saban will make that this year. So I don't want to hear that it's "unfair" to pay the quarterback of Alabama more than all the sociology students in the undergraduate college.

Using the inability to distribute the funds equally as an impediment is an excuse, a rather intellectually lazy one at that. Nothing about the way hundreds of millions of dollars is distributed is equitable or even fair. The BCS' new deal with ESPN was based, in part, on paying more money to schools/conferences with regard to what has been called "population centers." Of the $174 million distributed from five bowl games, 83.4 percent went to six conferences in 2011. In question right now is whether the BCS even conducts its business dealings in a manner consistent with principles expressed in federal anti-trust laws. So, the equitable-application excuse for not paying athletes doesn't hold water; at the very least there's a level of hypocrisy here that ought to make the opponents of paying athletes uncomfortable.

Don't get me wrong, paying players out of individual athletic department budgets is beyond impractical; it's probably not feasible. Because so many athletic departments run at a deficit, it's difficult to make the case that schools should pay regular salaries to athletes, even football players who produce more income than anybody. But it's another thing entirely for the students who play for revenue-producing teams (at UConn and the University of Tennessee, this would include the women's basketball teams) to be somehow compensated from the lucrative television/radio/Internet rights fees they make wholly possible.

It's commendable that the NCAA has paid millions into a fund for in-need athletes to cover clothing purchases, emergency travel and medical expenses. There's also a special assistance fund and a student-athlete opportunity fund. Why can't hundreds of millions of dollars be directed into those, and in turn make money much more accessible to athletes for the kinds of regular day-to-day expenses regular college students pay by working jobs that are off-limits to intercollegiate athletes?

In the meantime, if they cannot be paid outright, surely the scholarship athletes should be able to engage in entrepreneurial pursuits that currently leads to costly NCAA investigations that have proven to be mostly a waste of time since, one, such activities historically haven't been checked and, two, the kids who commit the "infractions" aren't effectively punished. Their revelations, short of Heisman Trophy winners having to return their statues, wind up penalizing only the kids and coaches who remain on the team and in the vast majority of cases have done nothing to merit a penalty themselves.

If somebody is willing to give A.J. Green $750 or $1,000 or even $2,500 for his Georgia Bulldogs jersey, fine, good. If one of his teammates, a tackle, can fetch only $50 for his jersey, then it'll be a good marketing lesson for both of them. It's called supply and demand, and if both men are fortunate enough to reach the NFL it'll be a lesson worth learning because that dynamic will exist their entire careers. If a soccer player can't get a dime for his jersey, well, there's a realization in that, too.

The question from the opponents of paying college athletes inevitably comes back, "What would stop a star player from agreeing to shake hands at a local car dealership for $50,000?" The answer is, nothing. If a car dealer wants to strike that deal then good for the player in question. If a music student goes out in the summer and earns 50 grand, who objects? Who even knows? The student-musician is no less a college student because he struck a lucrative deal. Neither is the student-journalist who spends his nights writing freelance stories and picking up as much money along the way as he can.

If the student as athlete can find a way, he/she should be able to endorse products, to have paid-speaking gigs, to sell memorabilia, as Allen Sack, the author and professor at the college of business at the University of New Haven has suggested in recent years. The best college athletes in the two revenue-producing sports have always been worth much more than tuition, room, board and books. The best football and basketball players in the Big Ten have produced to the degree that a television network has become the model for every conference in America, a network worth at least tens of millions of dollars to the member institutions. Yet, no player can benefit from that work. The players have become employees of the universities and conferences as much as students -- employees with no compensation, which not only violates common decency but perhaps even the law.
Michael Wilbon is a featured columnist for ESPN.com and ESPNChicago.com. He is the longtime co-host of "Pardon the Interruption" on ESPN and appears on the "NBA Sunday Countdown" pregame show on ABC in addition to ESPN. Wilbon joined ESPN.com after three decades with The Washington Post, where he earned a reputation as one of the nation's most respected sports journalists.

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You don't have to pay all of the players all of the same. But not giving athletes a cut of the billion-dollar deals they've helped happen? That's incredibly wrong.

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Baylor NCAA Boys Basketball Team Wins National Championship.

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Brennan Thomas presents a valid argument about college football. They are some of the hardest workers balancing rigorous college courses and Grinding through grueling workouts, practices and games every day of the year. College football has become a multi-million dollar business. Universities continue to make money, while all athletes are given is a scholarship. The biggest issue with this is that the expenses required to attend a college exceed the amount that athletes are awarded in their scholarships.

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Pay for Play: Should College Athletes Be Compensated?

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Grinding through grueling workouts, practices and games every day of the year, combined with rigorous college courses, student-athletes are some of the hardest working people in the country…

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Just by making this tournament, a school earns its conference a projected $1.67 million over the next six years, broken into annual payments from the NCAA.

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Average revenue of each athletic department.

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This is a former executive of the NCAA and he speaks on how he opened his eyes and realized that college athletes should be compensated. “In his retirement the NCAA first and longest serving executive director Walter Byers described  college sports as the plantation mentality resurrected and blessed by today’s campus executives”.

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The Exploitation of College Athletes | Tim Nevius | TEDxDayton

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People of ESPN have a debate and feel as though college athletes should be paid. “If they can make an appearance, if they could do an endorsement, let them make those dollars. Coaches are making millions, everyone’s making money, let the kids make money”.

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Paying the players would make college sports more fair – Stephen A. | First Take