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C- July 18,2011
R- Yes, the article agrees with my claim of the players should be paid. There is not a counterclaim.
A- Author-Michael William
Sponsor- Taboola
Publisher- The Walt Disney Company
Opinion based
A- No spelling or grammar errors
P- To Persuade and to Inform

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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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C- June 1,2018
R- Yes the article agrees with my claim of the players should be paid. There is no counterclaim.
A- Author- Matthew Brooks
Sponsor- Drexel University
Source/Publisher- The Triangle
Opinion Based
A- No spelling or grammar errors
P- To Persuade

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College athletes should be making money in some way related to the sports that they play. It doesn't make much sense for them to not see monetary gain from what they are potentially going to be doing for a living. Sports is one of the most popular industries in the entire world, and it is still growing. Because of this, it only makes sense that college athletes should have some of the same financial opportunities as their professional counterparts.

One argument that has been made to justify college athletes not being paid is that they are not professionals and, therefore, should not receive income. This argument does have some logic behind it, but it simply does not hold up when one takes into account the fact that head coaches are making millions of dollars per season.

The increasing amount of money being made in college sports each year is making it more difficult to argue against paying players, according to a Time article by sports writer Sean Gregory. Nick Saban, who is the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide Football team, made $11 million this past season, and defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll were both paid over $1 million. How is it okay for players to not get paid at all when coaches are being paid so much money?

Yes, some of these players are getting scholarships and some special privileges, like priority when it comes to registering for courses, but that's just not enough when they are playing sports, especially ones with physical contact. It's no secret that highly physical sports and injuries go hand-in-hand, and a player could have a career-ending injury at any moment while playing. The unsafety of the sports alone should be reason enough for players to earn some kind of revenue from going out and competing for their schools.

If the National Collegiate Athletic Association will not to allow college athletes to be paid for playing the sports, then they should at least let them make money by marketing themselves. Players don't make any money from the selling of merchandise, such as their jerseys. They aren't allowed to market themselves and earn money as a result. Why is that?

According to a 2011 NCAA Survey, many students average 30 hours of practice a week, while some spend over 40. When you combine that amount of time with the time spent in classes and the time spent doing homework, it's practically impossible for them to find time to work a part time job to earn some spending money.

This restriction on college athletes is doing more harm than good. I see no real point in hindering the athletes in this kind of way when other college students can do work within their majors and not be penalized. Music majors with scholarships are completely free to be part of and play in school performances while also going out and performing at clubs to make money. The same goes for students studying acting in college and performing in school films while also being allowed to act in films outside the school. I've never heard anything about students in these majors being prohibited from promoting themselves, so why are college athletes restricted from doing so?

Allowing athletes to sign endorsement deals with brands like Nike and Adidas would be a huge step forward, and it would benefit both the players and the companies. In the past, major shoe corporations were essentially bribing college athletes and their family members as a way to get them to attend certain colleges. Making it legal for athletes to have endorsement deals with companies would eliminate this problem. As an additional benefit, college athletes would also be more likely to stay in school until they graduate, because they would be earning money and wouldn't have to worry about dropping out to financially support their families.

What harm could come from giving college athletes a respectable level of freedom and opportunity when it comes to making money from playing sports? Perhaps at one point in time the practice of not letting them do so made sense, but we are now living in an age when there are so many options for marketing oneself, and college athletes have access to none of them. As a fan of college sports and a friend of several college athletes, I feel obligated to support them in any way I can when it comes to changing these policies so that they can start to make income.

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College athletes deserve to be paid for their play - The Triangle

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College athletes should be making money in some way related to the sports that they play. It doesn't make much sense for them to not see monetary gain from what they are potentially going to be doing for a living. Sports is one of the most popular industries in the entire world, and it is still growing.

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C-  Published- October 21, 2013
Edited- January 23, 2014
R- This article agrees with my claim and it also has a counterclaim.
A- Author- Tyson Hartnett
Source- Huffpost
Publisher- Verizon Media
Opinion based
A- There is no spelling or grammar errors
P- Persuade

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There has been major discussion recently if college athletes should or shouldn't be paid while they are in school. The first thing opponents say is, "They're already getting a scholarship! That's more than anybody else! Don't be greedy!"

Fine, let's not be greedy and look at how much a scholarship is actually worth. On average, a full Division 1 scholarship is $25,000 per year.

"That's $100,000 over four years!"

Yes it is, but most athletes don't last at a school for the whole four years. Once you get a sport involved, there are politics, injuries, and a call to the office to tell the player, "Thanks, but we don't need you on this team anymore." Many players will get a scholarship for a year or two, then transfer to a different school which turns out to be a better situation.

A $25,000 scholarship may seem like a lot of money, but it really only covers the basics. It covers thousands of dollars in mysterious, unknown university fees, tuition, housing, a meal-plan and multiple hundred-dollar textbooks. Some players, if they come from a low-income household, get a few hundred dollars each semester from Pell Grants which enables them to buy chicken soup instead of chicken-flavored ramen.

Contrary to what all the opponents believe, being an athlete is a full-time job. On a typical day, a player will wake up before classes, get a lift or conditioning session in, go to class until 3 or 4 p.m., go to practice, go to mandatory study hall, and then finish homework or study for a test.

For a little extra money to see a movie or go out to dinner once a week, my freshman roommate worked a job at the university, earning about $7/hour. He would work his butt off all day, with two or sometimes three basketball training sessions, plus classes and homework, and go to that job for a few hours late at night. He would come back exhausted, but he needed whatever money they would pay him.

However, once the season started up, he couldn't work that job anymore. We were on the road all the time, even gone for two straight weeks at one point. The teachers let us do our work from the road, but the job wasn't going to pay you just because you were playing basketball on a road trip. The team gave us meal money (about $7 per meal) so we could get chips and condiments with our sandwiches, but anything else was considered an NCAA violation.

The point of this is that a scholarship doesn't equal cash in a player's pocket. Even with any type of scholarship, college athletes are typically dead broke. But how much do the top NCAA executives make? About $1 million per year.

Who else makes money off these near-professional level athletes?

First, their own coaches. Many coaches earn at least $100,000 per year to coach one of the major sports like baseball, basketball, or football at a school. These coaches will receive bonuses for getting to the playoffs, winning championships, or breaking school records. You know what athletes receive as a bonus? Nothing.

Second is the NCAA. Recently, the NCAA and CBS signed a $10.8 billion television agreement over 14 years. The NCAA is also considered a non-profit company.

Third, the athletic programs. Universities bring in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to their athletic programs each year. Through donations, ticket sales, media rights, advertising, and anything else with a price tag, these athletes are symbols for their school and their program. If a school makes a huge scientific achievement, they will be in the newspaper for a few days. The athletic teams, however, are in the newspaper the entire year.

The flip side of this is that not all sports teams are profitable. For example, some less popular teams like swimming, tennis, or volleyball don't earn the university much money, and the bigger sports like basketball and football make up for the lost revenue. So why would we pay athletes if entire teams are struggling to survive?

We would pay athletes because when President Theodore Roosevelt helped create the NCAA in 1906, he had no idea what it would grow into. At first, it was a great place to watch athletes play sports while making sure the rules were being followed. But now in the 21st century, the NCAA is a billion dollar company. Why hasn't anything changed? Because the decision makers have the mentality of, "This is the way it's always been." They're scared to make amendments, even when it's necessary.

I'm not saying we should be paying athletes $5,000 or even $10,000 per semester. If each athlete got $2,000 paid over the course of the semester, this would give them some spending cash and an opportunity to start managing their money. Most athletic programs can't afford to pay athletes on their own, so the NCAA and their executives need to figure out a way to start compensating their golden geese.

Athletes earn their schools hundreds of thousands of dollars, increase enrollment, and if they do well, provide a recruiting piece for generations. Top NCAA executives are getting $1 million per year while an athlete can't earn $50 from signing a few autographs.

Let's open our eyes to what's really going on. The NCAA "prevents student-athletes from allowing their likeness to be used for promotional purposes."

There's only one thing I can say to this: Why?

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There has been major discussion recently if college athletes should or shouldn't be paid while they are in school. The first thing opponents say is, "They're already getting a scholarship! That's more than anybody else! Don't be greedy!" Fine, let's not be greedy and look at how much a scholarship is actually worth.

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C- February 11,2020
R- This article agrees with my claim. There is no counterclaim.
A- Author- Michael T. Nietzel
Source/Publisher- Forbes Media LLC
Opinion based
A- No spelling or grammar errors
P- To Inform

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Mark Emmert, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), once strongly opposed ... [+]
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Two-thirds of adults now believe college athletes should be permitted to earn money from the use of their names, images and likeness (NILs). Beyond that, half of Americans say that athletes participating in major university sports programs should get a cut of the revenue universities rake in from their lucrative broadcast deals.

Those are two of the topline results from a recent survey conducted by The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The survey was taken just about two months after the NCAA reversed years of vehement objections to athletes being eligible for any such compensation. Here's a quick reminder of that history.

Despite repeatedly issuing doomsday predictions about the danger and damage that would be done if athletes were able to receive benefits from use of their NIL, the NCAA's Board of Directors voted unanimously last November to permit athletes to receive such benefits "in a manner consistent with the collegiate model." That's a squishy position, one that the NCAA will attempt to interpret in a way that denies athletes payment for use of their NILs.

The NCAA's action came after the state of California passed the Fair Pay to Play Act into law, permitting athletes at the state's schools to receive NIL benefits. As other states lined up to do the same thing and Congress formed a bipartisan working group on compensating collegiate athletes, NCAA leadership and its member institutions suddenly saw the light. A big bright light shining on their outdated and unfair policies. Caught in that glare, the NCAA backpedaled.

A nationwide poll about compensating college athletes was conducted from December 5 to December 9, 2019, by NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews were conducted with 1,053 adults. The margin of error for the survey was plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

According to the survey, in additional to the strong support for NIL-related compensation, substantial percentages of adults also favor other forms of payment for college athletes beyond receiving NIL benefits. Almost half (46%) believe they should be provided with additional spending money. More than a third (38%) would support their receiving a salary in exchange for their participation. Even 19% support athletes being exempted from certain academic courses needed for graduation.

Public attitudes about compensation for college athletes differ a bit by race and ethnicity. Endorsement deals for college athletes are popular overall among the public, but 80% of black and Hispanic adults say they should be allowed compared to 60% of white adults.

White and non-white adults also differ in their opinions about other kinds of compensation. Fewer than half of whites believe college athletes should share a portion of a university's broadcast revenue, receive additional spending money, or be paid a salary, but the majority of blacks and Hispanics believe they should. And Black and Hispanic respondents were more than twice as likely as whites to endorse athletes being given exemptions from certain academic courses.

Level of education was also correlated with views on athletes' compensation. Those with a high school education or less were more likely than those completing at least some college to say college athletes playing in major programs should be given a salary and be exempted from certain academic requirements.

Prior to California passing its watershed law, Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA, wrote to legislators, warning that the bill would "create local differences that would make it impossible to host fair national championships," and, "likely would have a negative impact on the exact student-athletes it intends to assist."

After the bill passed and several other states enacted similar laws, Emmert changed his tune. Now, he's asking for Congress to help: "The debate and discussion is (sic) well past the ability of a group of states to resolve it. I feel very strongly, as do all the universities, that college sports shouldn't be run out of the federal government ... but in terms of addressing these issues and creating a legally valid model in which the schools can provide more than what they do now, whatever that might look like, it has to be created at a national level."

The NCAA isn't interested in congressional intervention because it wants to do what's best for college athletes. It's interested because it hopes Congress will preempt any actions that go farther down the road of paying college athletes what they are worth. It will preach the need for national consistency, but what the NCAA really wants is for Congress to tie the states' hands so they don't allow athletes to dig into universities' deep pockets.

But here's the good news. Public opinion is swiftly moving to the athletes' side. Compensating college athletes is one of the few topics remaining where even Republicans and Democrats agree. The NCAA knows it, and, even though it will try, it will not be able to buck the trend or pass the buck on fair compensation for college athletes much longer.

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Americans Now Overwhelmingly Support College Athletes Earning Endorsement And Sponsorship Money

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Two-thirds of adults now believe college athletes should be permitted to earn money from the use of their names, images and likeness (NILs). Beyond that, half of Americans say that athletes participating in major university sports programs should get a cut of the revenue universities rake in from their lucrative broadcast deals.

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C- October 4, 2008
R- This article is a counterclaim compared to my thoughts.
A- Author- Lisa Horne
Sponsor- Bleacher Report
Source-  Twitter
Publisher- Turner Sports Network
Opinion based
A- No spelling or grammar errors
P- Persuade

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We've heard the arguments a million times. Football players make schools a ton of money and should be able to reap some of the rewards. Players are risking permanent injury by playing for free. Players are being used.

Blah blah blah.

Apparently, the gift of a free education is not considered enough anymore. Fine. But it's not just that five-year full ride the players get. It's all of the other stuff.

Free food. Any of you naysayers want to pony up the dough to feed an offensive lineman for a week? And it has to be healthy too. That's at least 500 bucks a month.

Free insurance. It costs approximately 400 bucks a month per person for decent insurance. Multiply that by 85 scholarshipped players...per month. Gulp.

Free publicity. Just how much is it worth to have ESPN talk about your team every week? To show your mug? Your stats? Think an agent can do better? For free?

Parental mentoring. Some of these players come from single-mom households, with no paternal influence in their life. How much is finally having a father-figure in your life worth?

Housing allowance. I know a few hundred thousand families who foreclosed on their homes might be thinking you got it pretty sweet. Live in a dorm and it's free. Act spoiled and want to live on your own? You still get a monthly stipend/allowance for that.

Free travel. I wonder how many kids who live in a small town ever will have the chance again to travel to California, Florida, Hawai'i or other beautiful spots. For free.

Travel costs. Ding, ding, ding. This is a killer, even for big programs. The cost for buying food, hotel rooms and such is a nightmare for teams on the road. The players never have to look at a bill. The school eats it all up.

The bill for Ohio State's trip to Los Angeles was $346,000. Over 24k was due to fuel surcharges. With most commercial airlines dinging you for a second bag and excessive weight, can anyone even imagine what those charges were? All that equipment? All that excess weight? Ohio State had to charter two planes. One was not enough.

The cost for NCAA football teams to travel for the '07-'08 season was 42.6 million dollars. Grasp that. Just for travel.

Universities and colleges spent over 42 mil to pay for players who, except for an elite couple hundred, will never set foot on the gridiron again. And they want to get paid???

Don't they get enough already? Can we stop future Divas-in-the-making now?

Only a small percentage of all active players actually make it in the NFL. Why should a perennial third stringer get paid to sit on a bench? Should Matt Cassel have been paid while at USC? He never started a game but is now starting QB for the Pats.

Maybe, just maybe, these student-athletes could cut down their expenses a bit. Maybe stop buying iphones, ipods, laptops, diamond studs, Sirius radio, GPS devices and expensive cars.

Stop paying for $5 beers at nightclubs and then getting into trouble which may require the school to hire you a $350 dollar an hour lawyer to defend you in a civil suit.

Study, instead of paying tutors to do your work for you.

Last time I checked, the student came before athlete. Student-athlete.

Respect that. And get that degree. Ask Gino Torretta or Jason White how important that is-two Heisman winners who actually had to go out into the real world and get real jobs.

Players need to start showing up and playing and instead of thinking they can coast through the games and land an NFL gig. The odds are against you.

Whether you make it there or not, make sure and send a thank you note to the school who gave you unlimited opportunities. A school that spent at least a million on you, the bench warmer, to represent the school. They are already paying you.

Don't stare a gift horse in the mouth. Just keep your mouth shut, study, and play.

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Why College Football Players Should Not Get Paid To Play

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We've heard the arguments a million times. Football players make schools a ton of money and should be able to reap some of the rewards. Players are risking permanent injury by playing for free. Players are being used. Blah blah blah. Apparently, the gift of a free education is not considered enough anymore.

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Picture 1

Website is in Arabic. Cannot read.

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Site requires a subscription to get on.

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C- October 18, 2018
R-  Yes the player is not getting paid for giving the NCAA money.
A- Source- PSU.EDU University
A- Yes but intentionally.
P- Inform

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C- February 24,2015
R- The ball is money and it relates to Athletes not being paid
A- Author- Chuck Zodda
Source- Inside Pylon
A- No
P- Inform

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C- September 20, 2011
R- Yes, the students are struggling to pull the NCAA with making all their money.
A- Author- Ugo Uche
Source- Psychology Today
A- No spelling or grammar
P- Inform

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C- March 24,2019
R- Yes the maker of this video believes that the college athletes should be paid
A- Author/Source- Business Insider
Opinion based
A- Zero spelling or grammar errors
P- Persuade

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NCAA Sports Bring In $1 Billion A Year — Why Aren’t The Athletes Paid?

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C- April 6,2019
R- No this video is a counterclaim to my argument
A- Author- Cody McDavis
Source- CNN
A- Zero spelling or grammar errors
P- Persuade

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Ex-college basketball player: NCAA shouldn't pay players