Should College Athletes Be Paid?

By: Ross Goldfarb

We are slaves, Malcolm Brent said.

Brent, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County basketball player, is one of
many student-athletes that believe they arent being properly compensated for all the
money that they make for the NCAA. The age-old debate of whether or not college
athletes should be paid has taken on a new life recently as TV deals get bigger and the
NCAA gets wealthier. A multitude of debates and lawsuits are taking place regarding the
legality of one organization profiting off of other peoples name and likeness, but a
solution has yet to be reached.
On one hand, you have those who believe that college athletes should not be paid.
They argue that a free education is enough compensation for these athletes. These players
are indirectly getting $200,000, which is the approximate cost of a four-year education.
Among this group is Georgia State University Athletic Director Charlie Cobb.
I think we do enough for scholarship athletes that any additional compensation is
against the meaning of collegiate sports, Cobb said. Most scholarship kids experience
college living in a safe environment, eating multiple meals per day, and securing their
future with an education that lasts a lifetime all with incurring little or no college debt.
Statistics show that most of their daily activities throughout an academic year do not
involve athletics, but being a college student. All this does not include the once-in-alifetime opportunity to play and compete for their school.
Others believe that paying the players will take away the one thing that they love
most about the college game: the authenticity. They believe that the money will take
away from the work ethic of the kids and the players will no long be playing their hearts

out trying to make it to the professional league because they already got their first check
in college. This group suggests that if the players need money that badly, they should just
play overseas immediately after graduating high school. This route is tried and true by
current NBA players Emmanuel Mudiay and Brandon Jennings who are two recent
examples of prospects who decided to take professional money and experience over
attending college.
Another major argument against the payment of student-athletes is the gap
between conferences and divisions that will invariably grow due to the amount of money
that each school will be able to offer. Because the high majors, also known as Power
Fives or schools in the SEC, ACC, PAC-12, Big Ten, or Big 12 conferences, will
unquestionably have more money to spend than the mid majors (schools in any of the
other, lesser conferences), the chances of having smaller schools make deep runs in the
NCAA Tournament will greatly diminish, which, in turn, will cause the excitement
brought about by this event to curtail as well.
This fact also holds true with football. There will be no room for non-Power Fives
to sneak into the rankings or the college football playoff. No more Boise States, TCUs, or
Utahs. There will be no more rooting for the underdog, because there will be no
underdog.
Trying to properly compensate student-athletes raises many questions as well.
Where will the money come from? Who gets the money? How much money do they get?
The logical answer would be that the money is taken from ticket and jersey sales as well
as the salaries of the NCAA employees and distributed to all players under the NCAA
umbrella with Division I athletes getting the most, Division II a bit less, and Division III

even less than that. But then the question arises, how much money can each player
possibly get if all 460,000 NCAA players are to be paid? Also, it would make sense for
most of the money to go to Division I football and mens basketball players, as they are
the ones who generate the most money. But doing this would violate Title IX, which is a
federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally-funded
education program or activity. So even if the NCAA was able to navigate down this
slippery slope and pay its student-athletes for their contributions, it is nearly a guarantee
that there will be multiple parties unsatisfied with the final results.
On the other side of the argument, many current and former college athletes
believe that they should be reimbursed for all the time that they put in and all the money
that they make for the NCAA. Brent, the UMBC basketball player, disputed the claim
that scholarship athletes are getting paid in education.
I believe we should get paid, Brent said, They talk about education like its
such a big deal yet they push their players towards bullshit classes and majors. These
schools prioritize a passing GPA in order to keep their players eligible over the
accumulation of knowledge.
This statement is supported most recently by the allegations against the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. According to SB Nation, These allegations
state that over the course of 18 years, roughly 1,500 student-athletes were enrolled in
sham classes that undoubtedly helped these athletes remain eligible to play their
respective sports. Coincidentally, the school just happened to win four national
championships in basketball over that 18-year period.

One of the biggest issues that athletes see with the current system is that they have
no way to make money.
At Pitt we dedicate six hours a day, six days a week (to football) said Stephen
Ezekoye, a football player at the University of Pittsburgh.
Joey Dudek, a hockey player for number one ranked Boston College echoed
Ezekoyes statement about the amount of time he puts in.
I personally think we should get paid because it is a lot more than a regular
college schedule with the amount of practice times, workouts, and games that we have,
Dudek said.
Charlton Muhlauri, a soccer player at Northeastern University likened his sport to
a job.
We have practice three hours a day and we have to fly out at least once a week
for a game all on top of classes, Muhlauri said. Its really like a job no Thanksgiving
break, only a day off for Christmas. There is no time to get work, even in the summer we
have to take classes.
These athletes said that even if they wanted to get a job to earn money, they arent
able to because of the time commitment that their respective sports demand. It is easy to
argue that these student-athletes have a full-time job that results in no reimbursement
whatsoever.
The NCAA made $32 million in 2012, Brent said. We are slaves. It didnt start
like that but the TV money has turned it into that. This is a system that worked fine when
there were three television networks and no Internet, but in todays world, a scholarship
alone just doesnt cut it.

That being said, it is evident that positive strides are being made to find a middle
ground on this issue. The NCAA has passed two rules, the Student Assistance Fund and
the meal allowance expansion, as recently as 2014 to help Division I student-athletes
cover the cost of necessities. The Student Assistance Fund allocates the majority of its
money to students for educational purposes, like tutoring or summer classes, with a small
portion going to other needs, such as clothes. The expansion of meal allowance allows all
Division I athletes to have unlimited meals and snacks in conjunction with their athletics
participation instead of the previous rule which enabled only scholarship players to have
three meals a day or a food stipend.
Another significant advancement is the payment of athletes cost of attendance.
According to the NCAA, cost of attendance calculates the total amount of money it
would cost a full-time student to complete a full academic year. This amount, which
differs from school to school and student to student, is awarded to every high major
scholarship athlete and some mid major athletes if the school decides it has enough funds
to participate. The average amount paid to players in 2014 was $3,500.
This is a number that Texas Tech University basketball player Devon Thomas said
allowed him to live comfortably even away from his home.
It's definitely a plus, Thomas said, I mean, as a college athlete, being away
from home for an entire school year, there are a lot of things that we need that our parents
can't get anymore. So the money that we get, we can grab food for the crib or even stuff
like glasses and plates for the house.
Although progress is being made, there is always room for improvement. North
Carolina State University Athletic Director Debbie Yow sees the current situation as a

terrific deal for most student-athletes. But, in her mind, one small tweak could make the
system perfect.
I have been a proponent for the select few whose numbers and names are used
on apparel sold to the public to receive some small percentage of those sales, put in
escrow, and held for whenever they leave the school, Yow said. That would likely
impact only two to three percent of all athletes.
This suggestion would take care of one of the largest hypocrisies in the whole
debate. Because the NCAA is not allowed to put players names on jerseys sold to the
public, they rely on the public knowledge to sell their merchandise. For example, in 2013
the NCAA website sold generic Texas A&M football jerseys with the number two on
them. Coincidentally, that is the number that famously belonged to Heisman Trophy
winner Johnny Manziel. If this jersey is bought, technically you are not buying a specific
Johnny Manziel jersey, although it is widely implied to whom the jersey belongs.
This issue hit its peak in mid-2013 when ESPNs Jay Bilas tweeted evidence that
anyone could go to the NCAA Shop website, type the word Manziel into the search
box, and end up at a page filled with Texas A&M number two jerseys. Bilas then tried the
same thing with multiple other high-profile college football players and, unsurprisingly,
every one resulted in a page of that specific players jerseys. Although this feature was
taken down later in the day, it directly conflicts with the NCAAs insistence that
specialized jerseys of individual players are not for sale.
This debate has two clear sides with ardent supporters that dont figure to give in
any time soon. Even with the growing influx of money from TV deals and the

commercialization of college athletes, progress is being made every day to reach a middle
ground that can be agreed upon by both parties.

Sources:
Malcolm Brent nl40896@umbc.edu
Stephen Ezekoye scu5@pitt.edu
Joey Dudek Dudekjo@bc.edu
Charlton Muhlauri Muhlauri.c@husky.neu.edu
Devon Thomas - Devon.thomas@ttu.edu
Charlie Cobb ccobb13@gsu.edu
Debbie Yow dayow@ncsu.edu
NCAA participation:
http://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes
Cost of attendance:
http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2015-09-03/cost-attendance-qa
UNC allegations:
http://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2015/6/5/8735807/north-carolina-basketballacademic-scandal-ncaa-2015