College Athletes Should Be Paid Argumentative Essay

Have you ever wondered if college athletes should be paid to play sports in college? In this essay, there will be people supporting this cause that has gone on for too long, and there will be people who are against this, and they like how it is right now in the college sports world. Even professional sports players are now coming about as they had to deal with this when they were in college. As well as sports reporters are giving their own opinion about this situation that has crossed our minds a lot of times. College athletes should be paid because they put a lot of hard work into the game they play, but they shouldn’t be paid because it throws the whole fun out of playing sports in college and they are also students before athletes. 

College athletes should be paid because they might not have money and come from harsh backgrounds and also the NCAA is making a lot of money off of them and they don’t get any and they can’t advertise themselves. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, former professional basketball player in the NBA, writes an article about student athletes not getting paid, and even gets a quote from present NBA player Shabazz Napier.  “Portland Trailblazer Shabazz Napier described his experience as a college point guard in 2014 that was eerily, and sadly, so close to mine: "We do have hungry nights that we don't have enough money to get food in. … Sometimes, there's hungry nights where I'm not able to eat, but I still gotta play up to my capabilities." The only thing that has significantly changed is that the NCAA, television broadcasters, and the colleges and universities are making a lot more money.” As we can see, both Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shabazz Napier support college athletes getting paid because they help give money to the universities and to the college tv broadcasters. There also some athletes don’t have as much money so they have to use a lot of money which might seem little to someone, but they waste it on food for only night. So it makes sense that the college athletes should be getting paid as they are giving everyone else money by playing. For the supporters, Kareem Abdul next states that the NCAA makes billions of dollars off of the players yet they get nothing. “Top college coaches make between $4m and $9m per year, plus outside fees. In 40 out of the 50 states, they are the highest paid state employees. Of course, coaches in less profitable sports, such as baseball, make far less. And only a third of Division I men's basketball programs are profitable. These facts are tossed in our faces like sand to blind us to the awareness that other programs, like football at the University of Texas made $92m in profit in 2015, making it more profitable than most NFL teams. Yet, their players made nothing.” Again, College players that play for teams don’t even get money, but college coaches get a lot more money that shouldn’t be given to them. Even in the NFL, the coaches are making more money as they don’t even do anything all they do is call the timeouts and do things like make gameplans. While the players are fighting trying to win a game that will supposedly give them money and in that chance they get injured so it is a risk for reward that is not happening in the College sports world and professional sports organizations like the NFL. Another article that supports college athletes. “The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its corporate partners make billions of dollars from college athletes. Those players should be compensated for their hard work, sacrifice, and dedication, and they should be free to profit from the licensing of their names and likenesses.” “Supporters of paying college athletes argue that the NCAA is a huge, profit-making enterprise that gets rich off the labor of student-athletes. Players who help generate billions of dollars for a wide array of companies and organizations, they contend, deserve a portion of those profits.” As we can see, in both of these quotes, Players put a lot of hard work and time in to win games and the NCAA takes money out of them that should go to the college athletes they have earned, not just people just watching the game and making money by owning it. They should also be able to make money off their name as they struggle as is. The NCAA is basically a sports organization taking advantage of the talent and hardwork of the student athletes. And some of these athletes put a lot of time into getting where they are. They could have possibly turned down jobs that could’ve given them money. As you can see, the supporters have a lot of good points on why the athletes in college should be paid, but now let’s take a look at what the opposition has to say about this question.

As we have seen why they should get paid now let’s see what the arguers have to say about college athletes getting paid. Adele Birkenes and Akash Bagaria state their opinion of why student athletes should not be paid. “I think college athletes should not receive direct payment from schools for several reasons. College athletes already receive numerous benefits. Many get scholarships, which help pay for their tuition, supplies, housing, and sporting equipment. According to the NCAA, college athletes often receive grants worth more than $100,000. They also have the benefit of being the first choice for professional leagues, which draft college athletes at a higher rate than they select others.” “Second, college athletes should be considered students first. By receiving direct payment, they would be more similar to employees or professionals than students. College athletes should not forget that their main purpose at school is to learn and study, not to receive money.” As we can see from this article, college athletes should not be paid as they already get numerous sponsorships which will help with all the basic necessities for college. They don’t need any more money because they already get $100,000 and that is a lot for a college athlete. They also most likely make the NBA or NFL or any other professional sports organization, which they will get a lot of money. So there is no point in giving them money in college if they get it later on in life. That comes from the student athletes hence they are students before athletes and should be treated like students. It is very unfair that if someone is a genius that is struggling with money to go to college, but if someone can do something related or plays sports for the college they get additional money. Another article gives their own reasons. “And yet I believe that the drive to pay college athletes is a grave mistake—not because it misdiagnoses the disease but because it suggests that the only cure is to put the patient out of his misery. It fails, first of all, to recognize the value of sports as a part of education.” “In some dispiriting cases, the students are so unprepared that academic failure seems inevitable. In worse cases still, their scholarships are cynically undermined by the schools themselves.” What we learned from that quote was that it is a waste of money as they might not have the talent or the motivation to make it to the pros. This is a growing problem as money is given to an athlete that is hyped up by everyone to be the greatest player ever and doesn’t even make it to any professional sports organization. If they get money, all they will think about is sports, and if they don’t think about school they will fail out of school and their scholarship will be revoked. It will make it harder for them to find a job later on.

As we have seen from all the articles, all the quotes we have seen, this is becoming a big issue in the world. There are a lot of good reasons why they should be paid. Like they earn after working hard for a tough and rough season and the NCAA is making money off of them when they do all the heavy and hard work. As well as a lot of bad reasons why they should not be paid because they might make it to the big leagues and they are students before athletes. They shouldn’t be paid because it throws the whole fun out of playing sports in college and they are also students before athletes, but College athletes should be paid because they put a lot of hard work into the game they play and they are getting robbed.