Kyle Emanuele

4/5/16
English 102
Argumentative Essay

Should NCAA student-athletes be paid?

Sports have become one of the worlds most popular events to watch and play in the past
hundreds of years, dating back to the late 1800s when the first ever baseball game was played. As
time went on, leagues began to form for the sports world, including the NFL, the MLB, NHL,
NBA, PGA Tour, and many soccer leagues around the world such as the Premiere League and
Bundesliga. But then in the middle 1900s, the NCAA came along implementing athletics at
universities around the country. Over the past few decades, college sports have become one of the
most entertaining sports to watch on television and at different schools. Allen R. Sanderson
explains, What transformed college athletics and the NCAA from a "cottage industry" 60 years
ago to the 800-pound financial behemoth it is today? First and foremost is the growth of television
that fostered unprecedented expansion in broadcast revenues. He later went on to say, Exposure
via television also nudged the industry from one of local or regional interest to a national market,
leading to an explosion in the number of contests and televised games, and even changes in the
time of day or day of the week when they take place to accommodate endless broadcast network
and cable demands for lucrative live-sports programming (Sanderson). This quote explains how
the NCAA has had such a big impact not only on the sports industry, but on the media industry as
well over the past decades. The NCAA involves many different sports including football, soccer,
basketball, swimming, baseball, and many more. Some of the worlds greatest athletes of all time

Comment [MW1]: Remove this word

have played under the NCAA at some point in their sports career, including Michael Jordan, Tiger
Woods, Tom Brady, to name a few. An ongoing controversy over the last decade has brought the
collegiate athletic world in a swivel, and that is should the NCAA be paying college athletes other
than paying them through scholarships? Through the athletes dedication to the sport and all the
revenue they bring into the NCAA, NCAA student-athletes should be rewarded for their
contribution to the success of the NCAA with money instead of scholarships.

Comment [MW2]: Athletes dont get payed scholarships.

They are given scholarships exempting them from paying
tuition and fees

Comment [MW3]: You should address your counter in your

introduction

First of all, the NCAA exploits its student athletes by not paying them. Not only does the
NCAA not pay the athletes, the student-athletes are not aloud to be sponsored by any company or
get any sort of pay for the merchandise profit they bring to the NCAA. Although there has been
some controversy around this topic for a while, not until recently in 2009 has it been brought up
in court. In 2009, Ed OBannon was saw himself in an NCAA basketball video game, and realized

Comment [MW4]: Was it actually him with his name or was

it just too close of a replica of him?

that he didnt receive any sort of pay for having himself in a video game. The NCAA was making
all the profit from this video game, and all the athletes in the video game received nothing.
OBannon realized that this ongoing problem needed to be solved, so he brought it to court in a
well known case OBannon vs the NCAA. Marquette Law Review explains, Unless something
changes in the near future, it is likely that OBannon will become a banner case for student-athletes
bringing Section 1 claims against the NCAA, just as Board of Regents was for the NCAA for the
past thirty years. And it is about time. It later explains, The economic realities of FBS Football
and Mens Basketball in the twenty-first century are such that there is no longer a viable reason to
treat these players as though they are amateurs. They are not. And OBannon takes the first step
towards this new paradigm in college athletics (Marquette Law Review 524). This quote explains
how this is still an ongoing case, and once the court rules that the NCAA should give student

Comment [MW5]: Very powerful quote. You should

elaborate on this more

athletes the necessary sponsorships and compensations they need, then this controversy will finally
be put to rest.
Also, with the NCAA exploiting its own student athletes for their own gain, they are
making tons and tons of revenue each year off of the student athletes, and the athletes get only
scholarships in return. According to the article The Case for Paying College Athletes, the table
shows that in 2004, the average amount of money a college was making for football was 28.3
million dollars in revenue. In just 9 years, that number has risen all the way to 61.9, more than
doubling the amount in 2004. Furthermore, in 2004 the amount of athletes on scholarship has risen
from around 577 all the way up to 611. After this much rise in revenue and publicity for the world
of college sports, there is no other option but to reward the student athletes by paying them. With
student athletes providing a great source of revenue for the university, it also attracts other students
to come to successful division 1 sports schools. Allen R Sanderson explains, The presence of
high-profile sport programs, like various other campus amenities, may attract additional applicants
and enrollments. He went on to say, North Carolina State University enjoyed a 40 percent rise
in applications after winning the NCAA Mens Basketball Championship in 1983 under
charismatic coach Jim Valvano (Sanderson). This quote explains that the student athletes and the
success of sports programs is what drives people to enroll into their respective universities. With
that being said, the student athletes should be rewarded for their contribution to the universities
athletics. In the article Should college student-athletes be paid?, the author explains that the
NCAA makes so much revenue, there is no reason that they cant pay college athletes some of the
money they make each year. The article also goes in depth as to how the NCAA is actually
breaking the law. Marc Edelman explains, Not only are the NCAA rules that
prevent colleges from paying student-athletes immoral, but they also are likely illegal. Section 1

Comment [MW6]: Great job elaborating your quote and

sharing its significance

of the Sherman Antitrust Act, in pertinent part, states that every contract, combination or
conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce is declared to be illegal. Applying this language,
any agreement among NCAA members to prohibit the pay of student-athletes represents a form of
wage fixing that likely violates antitrust law. He goes on to say, In addition, the NCAA's no-pay
rules seem to constitute an illegal boycott of any college that would otherwise seek to pay its
student-athletes (Edelman). This quote explains that not only is it immoral to not pay college
athletes, it is actually against the law. According to the NCAA, the student athletes work under the
NCAA and under the Sherman Antitrust Act, the NCAA should be paying ALL of their employees
including the student athletes.
Although it is clearly evident that student-athletes should be paid by the NCAA with money
instead of scholarships, there are other reasons as to why they should not be paid by the NCAA.
First of all, people argue that the term student-athlete is misinformed. The word student comes
before the word athlete, and that is the incentive by the NCAA to award student-athletes with a
free education rather than money to be spent on anything. Horace Mitchell argues, Students are
not professional athletes who are paid salaries and incentives for a career in sports. They are
students receiving access to a college education through their participation in sports, for which
they earn scholarships to pay tuition, fees, room and board, and other allowable expenses.
Collegiate sports are not a career or profession. It is the students' vehicle to a higher education
degree (Mitchell). This quote explains that the motivation for student-athletes is to get a great
education at their respective universities, with the athletics coming second. Education is a very
important part when playing a sport at a university, but when athletes come from poor families and
need money for working under the NCAA, then the case for paying college athletes becomes pretty
apparent. In an article titled, Should College Athletes be paid to play?, Donald Remy who is the

NCAAs general counsel and vice president for legal affairs, gave his take on why college athletes
should not be paid. He says, Athletes attend college as a privilege and are provided the unique
opportunity to earn a degree and at the same time compete in intercollegiate athletics. That
opportunity is incongruent with the notion of being an employee (Cooper). Remy explains that
being a student-athlete has nothing to do with being an employee under the NCAA, which is
wrong. He defends the fact that being a student-athlete is a privilege, and they shouldnt receive
any compensation other than scholarships for free education. Horace Mitchell argues, A
fundamental NCAA commitment under the collegiate model is to student-athlete well-being,
where institutions have the responsibility to establish and maintain an environment in which
student-athletes' activities are conducted to encourage academic success and individual
development as an integral part of the educational experience. He further explains, Another
commitment is to sound academic standards. Intercollegiate athletic programs should be
maintained as an important component of educational programs, and student-athletes should be an
integral part of the student body. Each institution's admissions and academic standards for studentathletes should be designed to promote academic progress and graduation and be consistent with
the student body in general (Mitchell). Along with Remy, Horace Mitchell agrees that playing
college sports is secondary to education and getting a college degree should be the number one
priority instead of worrying about getting paid by the NCAA.
In retrospect, the NCAA should be paying student athletes with money instead of giving
them full scholarships. Between it being immoral for the NCAA to not give its employees any
compensation, and them making millions of dollars in revenue every year, it is clear that the NCAA
needs to make some changes and start paying student athletes. Nick Romeo of the Boston Globe
explains, Division 1 football and mens basketball are the major cash-generating sports in college

Comment [MW7]: Should they be paid and how much?

Should they be paid and still receive full scholarships

athletics. Americas 25 highest-paid football coaches at public universities earned an average

annual salary of $3.85 million in 2014. Some argue that the scholarships that athletes receive are
generous compensation, but as percentage of total revenue their value is paltry (Romeo). Romeo
explains how there is no excuse for the athletes to not be paid by the NCAA, when the NCAA
makes all this revenue every year. Scholarships are a good reward to the athletes, but compared to
the amount of money the NCAA makes, it is not right to give the student athletes such a low
number. Changes to how the NCAA operates in giving student athletes compensation needs to
happen fast, because the student athletes need to be rewarded for their success to their university
and to the NCAA itself. In conclusion, the NCAA needs to pay student athletes with a different
compensation other than education scholarships.

You have a great topic and paper. There are quite a few sentences that do not make sense and need
to be reworded. You did a great job providing quotes and using statistical information to put in
perspective the gap between what the athletes are receiving and how they are being taken
advantage of. Continue to polish up your paper by re reading your paper. Elaborate more on
sentences and arguments that I commented on and you will reach 2000 words no problem.

Comment [MW8]: This is your most significant reason for

your argument and should have a lot of elaboration