Should College Athletes Be Paid? Draft 2

   The argument about paying college athletes should be paid has been the on of most controversial argument in sports the past few years. Athletes being fairly compensated in college is a good idea, all you have to do is look at the amount of money that they bring into the university. If you follow sports at all you see this issue everywhere, on big sports TV networks, sports blogs online, and even major news networks have debated this issue many times. Although I do understand some peoples arguments against paying athletes I truly believe they should be fairly compensated for what they make the NCAA and universities.

               The NCAA makes nearly a billion dollars off of the division one college basketball tournament, Universities make millions from their athletic department, and none of this money even comes close to the people that bring in this money, the athletes, (Scupp, par.12). Because of this there have been talks in the past five or so years that major universities may break apart from the NCAA and start their own association. Although, this is very unlikely it still poses a threat to the NCAA but they still do not seem to really care. The NCAA refuses to give any money to athletes even if something is sold with their name on it. An example of this is when University of Louisville’s Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome leg injury in the NCAA tournament, t shirts were sold with the phrase “win for ware” on them. Although he probably was not too worried about this at the time Ware got no compensation for the thousands of dollars made off of a shirt with his name on it.

 

               Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the NCAA none bigger than Northwestern University athletes arguing that they were employees of the university and had the right to unionize, (Scupp, par.5). The NLBR (National Labor Relations Board) ruled that the students did have the right to unionize. If it is ruled that student athletes are indeed considered employees of a university then why are they not paid for the work that they do? Also, could it be considered illegal for the NCAA not to pay athletes if they are considered employees? With these questions being brought up we are in for a major shake up of college athletics in the next few years.