Should College Athletes Be Paid?
There is a lot of controversy over the college athlete and their role in the NCAA’s revenue lately. Students who play at the college level are considered student-athletes. The “student” is put in the front for a reason because in college you should concentrate on your academics and your career you are pursuing. Granted a student could come through college with a career playing the sport of their choice. To be successful at the sport they choose though they have to spend a lot of time at it, more time than studying for final exams even. As a student in college it should be a priority to get keep your grades up. As an athlete in college you are labeled as having amateur status not professional. It’s easy to say that college athletes are the reason why the NCAA makes its money but they need to be coached and not all talent is “God-given.” College football and basketball games boost the ratings of many T.V. stations as well as bring a lot of money to the NCAA through ticket sales, sponsorships and television contracts. A total of $330,560,000 in total revenue was brought into the NCAA in the 2000-2001 season with 78.7% of that being from television companies. CBS signed an 11-year contract to cover the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship and other events. The money coming from CBS is for the competition of the tournament every year not for specific athletes because almost every year there is a new starting five in there.  Every year seniors leave and new recruits come in. Of those seniors how many actually go onto play professionally? This stat was very appealing to me because the percentage for all sports is rather low. Of NCAA male senior basketball players only 1.2 percent will get drafted by an NBA team. Only 1 percent of NCAA senior female athletes will get drafted by a WNBA team. You would think that a lot of NCAA senior football players would get drafted but a mere 1.8 percent get drafted to an NFL team. At an almost alarming rate, 9.4
Cited: Bracken, Nicole M. Estimated Probability of Competing in Athletics Beyond the High School Interscholastic Level. NCAA. Indianapolis, IN, 2007. 1. 3 Dec. 2007 <http://www.ncaa.org/research/prob_of_competing/probability_of_competing2.html>. Donahue, Kevin. "Who Gives What? 2005 Bowl Game Gifts." Fanblogs.Com. 16 Dec. 2005. 3 Dec. 2007 <http://www.fanblogs.com/bowl_games/006264.php>. Revenue. NCAA. Indianapolis, IN: NCAA, 2001. 1. 3 Dec. 2007 <http://www.ncaa.org/library/membership/membership_report/2000/revenue.pdf>.