The Problem with College Athletics-Draft Two

For every normal job that someone holds, the typical model is that you do work in order to make your employer money.  For this work that you do, you are paid accordingly.  This is the usual model for jobs all across the country.  There is an exception to this model though, and that would be college athletics and the NCAA.  Student athletes all across the country put in maximum effort in the classroom and on the field every single day, and they are not allowed to make a single dollar off of their name while their "employers" in the NCAA make millions of dollars.  If you find yourself thinking this doesn't make any sense, it's because it doesn't.  I believe that student athletes should be able to make money off of their own image because the current lack of compensation is unfair to athletes.

The current NCAA rules are as follows.  College athletes are not paid any sort of salary or compensation outside of a full-ride academic scholarship.  Athletes cannot use their name or image to make any money, and athletes cannot accept any sort of outside payment for things such as food or travel.  While a full-ride scholarship may seem like an adequate payment, this is simply not the case.  Without any sort of outside payment, the spending cash needed for the things I mentioned like food and travel just doesn't exist.  The more confusing idea is still yet to come.  NCAA officials and university athletic directors make millions of dollars in their salaries, and the big business mentality of the governing body of college athletics pulls in billions of dollars per year through advertising and TV deals.  But the athletes, the ones who perform on the field in order to put games on TV to make all this money, don't receive any of it.  It simply does not make any sense.  The current NCAA model is completely unfair to student athletes, and it needs to be changed.

I propose a change to the NCAA student athlete model, and it is one that many likely would agree with.  First off, I actually do not believe that athletes should be paid a straight salary.  I do believe that continuing this lack of a salary keeps around the idea of amateurism in college athletics.  However, I propose that athletes would be able to make money off of their name through things like endorsements and video game licensing royalties.  I also propose that universities, instead of paying an actual salary, allow some extra money on top of a scholarship to be given to athletes for things like food and travel, as well as medical benefits and educational assets.  It is the simple truth that athletes are currently exploited for their talents and treated unfairly and that the NCAA's student athlete model needs to be changed.