We’ve heard the arguments hundreds of times.
Student-athletes receive more than enough from a full scholarship & free
education. Student-athletes enjoy perks that regular students don’t have access
to. Student-athletes should be getting a cut of the revenues the athletic
department earns. Student-athletes should profit off the likeness of their
names. Over the last few years, this question has lead to heated debates about
how universities profit off their athletes while those same athletes can’t profit
off themselves until they go pro. The NCAA itself has been taking heat about
the petty rules & regulations they use to govern & restrict its
student-athletes off the field. “Impermissible benefits” is a phrase everyone
has heard & it has affected many big time college football programs around
the country such as Ohio State, Miami, Florida State, USC, North Carolina, SMU,
& Auburn.
Many people argue that there are so many cases of illegal
benefits in college sports because the athletes aren’t being properly
compensated. Combine that with the wild wild west nature of recruiting where
recruits are being offered any & everything from coaches to play for their
teams. You hear stories about athletes getting free cars to play for this
football team or getting paid thousands of dollars for a big play. You hear
stories of star athletes that can’t even afford clothes or food, such as
Shabazz Napier, who said he sometimes goes to bed starving. And then you see
cases across the country where the NCAA penalizes programs over little things
such as an athlete receiving some extra help here & there from a coach such
as a free meal or gas money and you can see why people have been turning on the
NCAA to loosen up their rulebook. Even artists such as Wale have taken notice
to the hypocrisy of the NCAA, rapping about it in a song called “Varsity
Blues.”
Some student-athletes consider it a full-time
job. They wake up early in the morning for practice, workouts &
conditioning. Go to class late into the afternoon. Another evening practice, study
hall and then spend the rest of the day finishing up on studying or homework.
Some athletes desire to work part-time jobs on the side to earn a little extra
income but they’re not even allowed to earn money outside of their scholarships.
So it’s easy to see how they end up struggling in college. I honestly think
student-athletes will be paid eventually. College football, and college sports
in general have become too big of a business for the athletes not to see any of
the profit. The NCAA & athletic departments make billions, not millions but
billions, off television contracts, sports apparel deals, & sponsorships
and some of the top coaches are getting paid more than 5 million every year.
The University of Texas even have their own network channel with ESPN dedicated
to their athletic program. Student-athletes should be getting more than a
scholarship & free gear. I don’t believe in them being salaried employees
making millions in college but they should at the least, be able to profit off
jerseys being sold with their names on it. That’s another issue that rises if
they do end up getting paid, how will they split the profits among
revenue-generating sports like football and the lesser sports like tennis &
volleyball, and how big of a paycheck should they see? But when you realize
that some of the top athletic programs earn more in revenues than professional
sports teams, they have more than enough to share the wealth. 
