College athletics is a multi-billion dollar industry. In 2010, the collective revenue of 15 of the highest-grossing football programs was more than 1 billion dollars. That's just 15 school out of 347 division 1 schools in the United States. In an article by ESPN, it showed a list of the top 75 schools royalties in retail collegiate-licensed merchandise from July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2014 was over 4 billion dollars. I'm just talking about football but I'm sure that many other sports bring in lots of money too. Yet, the athletes that play for these school will never see one dime of these outrageous profits. Why is this?
For one, many high level officials feel that it would be immoral and unfair to pay some athletes more than others when they both worked very hard to get into school. Others, say that there just isn't enough money to pay the athletes.
Both of these arguments make no sense, in the workforce the most qualified receive higher compensations and it should be the same in sports. If one athlete is better than the other than they deserve higher accolades. Also, how can there not be enough money when many of these schools are making millions off these athletes. Oh and I forgot to mention that college athletes aren't allowed to receive anything for free or they can face suspension. But universities have no problem getting easy money from many of these athlete.
If someone creates something that other people value then they should be rewarded for it. Many schools sale thousands of jerseys and yet the athlete doesn't receive even a small percentage of these sales. This is simply not right! I'm not saying that we should pay all college athletes because I think that athletes are extremely lucky to receive a free education. However, I think that athletes should at least receive a percent of their jersey sales just like they do in NFL. I don't the answer to this problem but I do know that it is a problem that needs to be changed.
When considering the issue of college athletes getting paid, let us extend that to all amateurs. The research that graduate students do benefits many people, yet they don't see the money for it. There are plenty of unpaid internships out there, these people are working for free. perhaps it is larger than just college athletics.
ReplyDelete