Paying College Athletes- Counterargument (Paper 4: Draft 3)

According to uslegal.com, the definition of a profession athlete is “an individual who is employed as an athlete by a team that is a member of an association of 6 or more professional sports teams whose total combined revenues exceed $ 10,000,000 per year, if the association governs the conduct of its members and regulates the contests and exhibitions in which its member teams regularly engage; or any minor league team that is affiliated with such an association.”(uslegal par.1). If we begin to pay our college athletes then we would be considering them to be professionals. Student athletes are not professionals who receive salaries as an incentive for a career in sports. They are students who receive an education through the opportunity given to them to play sports. Sports are their way towards an education not a way out of it. For student athletes grades and education should come before scoring touchdowns and slam dunks. Professional athletes are professionals for a reason; they have one job and it is to perform well for their team. Paying college athletes will mean that they are professionals. College athletes are not professionals because academics come before sports. Their main focus in college should be their schoolwork not sports. We should not twist college athlete’s priorities by paying them.

These athletes are not professionals. If paying athletes does not end at a college level who’s to say where it will end. Why not pay high school athletes for their efforts in their respective sports? If we go by the logic “They are making money off of the athletes so why not give the athletes a cut?” then we will never find an end. The high-schools that make profit off of their successful sports teams will pay their players and so will the grade schools and so on. The argument of profit will not work in every situation. Where do athletic salaries stop if we adopt this mindset?

While the argument for not paying college athletes does a good job of explaining that student-athletes’ priorities should have academics first but it does not consider the well-being of the student-athletes. This aspect of the entire debate is by far the most important. The bottom line is that student-athletes should be able to support themselves. Whether their college expenses are paid for or not, it still has to be taken into account that these players have to support themselves monetarily on a daily basis. In order to be effective any argument about college athletics should have the players’ health and well-being at the top of the priority list.

Bibliography

"Professional Athlete Law & Legal Definition." Professional Athlete Law & Legal Definition. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2014. <http://definitions.uslegal.com/p/professional-athlete/>.