College athletics are corrupt and unfair to the athlete. The athletes are treated as objects and as a source of making money, not as a person who is risking a lot to try to make it as an athlete. In college, players are getting a free education or a scholarship to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), who is making billions of dollars off of free labor. For example using their likeness in video games and their jerseys in sales in which they get no profit. The sporting industry has been very important to the United States for over one hundred years. It is time to help the players out by catering to their rights of the people who have been giving all there time and effort for the entertainment of millions and for the NCAA and the universities to make millions.
The biggest problem in the sports system today is the fact that college athletes do not make any compensation for the work that they do. They go out and work hard everyday, lifting, conditioning and practicing, going to study hall and meetings with their tutors’ everyday, and they are not given the same rights as individuals as the rest of the student body. They are even labeled as student athletes. You don’t look at a student and say that they are student-pizza delivery boy or a student-barista. It places a stigmatism on the students that they are different than the rest of the students in the student body. They are being held accountable by the rules of the NCAA, who are making millions on college basketball. Luckily there is a difference in football so the “not for profit organization of the NCAA” does not get any money for the TV deals. But the TV deals for the national championship series is billions of dollars. The students become slaves to that money. They are working hard hours every day of the week just so they can have a free education, even though most athletes do not even receive full tuition in their allotted scholarship.
The free education argument is not validated though. The free education that the athletes receive in scholarships implies that everyone gets a free tuition and that the school thinks that education came first. Why do schools cancel classes when their school is in the national championship games? The school’s education is becoming a slave to the athletic department. University president’s are only getting paid more than in the past because universities gets embarrassed when all of their highest paid employees are coaches. These coaches are making millions of dollars a year and in many states they are the highest paid public employees. There is all this money surrounding college athletics, but when we think of college athletics, we don’t think of the NCAA or ESPN. We are thinking about the players celebrating after a national championship win, or the football player at the end of the year winning the Heisman trophy. But what do they receive in the end of it? Athletes will receive a scholarship, if they are lucky, and 4-5 years of rights being suppressed.
The NCAA also argues that most of the student-athletes will never make it pro, so they will “be going pro in something other than sports”(NCAA’s slogan). So what the NCAA is telling these kids, is that they have worked their who life and have trained so hard to be as great at they probably can be at a sport that they wont make any money doing, so the NCAA shouldn’t even bother being paid them for it. This is just a poor excuse, because if the athlete has worked as hard as he could to be at the point that people can make it to college to play any sport best he possible and just because he or she may not be able to make it to next level just means they should be compensated for the work they are doing while they still have the ability to do so. Athletes need to be compensated for doing the work that they have strived to be great and are best at doing.
There is an inherent problem with the NCAA and it’s relationship with the players. They try to pretend that the most important thing that they are worried about is the education of these student athletes while in reality all they are truly concerned with is the money that they are receiving from TV deals and licensing. This is a non- profit organization that is making almost a billion dollars a year. They would be making more if the football programs and conferences did not assert themselves and demand that the NCAA does not make money of broadcasts. Now the conferences make all the money and they split the money that is earned from football and splitting them between everyone in the conference making a more balanced pay for each of the schools. The NCAA is making all this money off of the students but they don’t even give them the proper rights as humans. There are too many rules on who can work to earn money and where they can work to earn money. The NCAA does not allow students that are receiving more than 20,000-dollar scholarship to have the ability to work freely. Even if you are under the 20,000-dollar amount the place of work has to be proven as a true place of work before you can actually make money there. If you are someone who is luck get a job as someone over the allotted money amount you must consult a coach and someone in the athletic department before you can even consider a job. There are too many complex rules and regulations on the people trying to get a job that it doesn’t seem fair. It is understandable that they would try to control this, because it helps prevent the laundering of money to players, but 70 percent of all college students work a job, because you need money to live but it seems to be to the NCAA that if the students shouldn’t have they shouldn’t eat either. Until last year the athletic department was not allowed to provide food for the student-athletes. This is ridiculous, because if the coach invited his players to his house for a barbeque and the players did not pay for the food that was provided then it is a violation and there could be repercussions for the athletic department for having the team over for food. NCAA finally realized that this was a bad rule and this year they changed that rule to allow student athletes to be able to eat. Its rules like this that prove that the NCAA does not care for its athletes.
There is also some accountability that needs to be held by the administration. The Universities are being controlled by athletics. The NCAA is not alone in being the bad guy with there polices. Universities are also not-for-profit institutes, but yet the University of Michigan made 82 million dollars of the football program alone and 147 million dollars off college athletics in total. With 700 student athletes at the university, it seems a little unfair that none of this money can be spread around when the head football and basketball coach making are total of 5.5 million dollars a year. There just doesn’t seem to be a fair distribution of wealth when the athletes are the ones bringing in all the money into the program.
Collegiate athletics also have a big problem with merchandising and sales of licensed products. With jersey sales of players numbers and the use of players in video games it can be confusing to those students who do not get anything from the sales of these products. Licensing of athletic apparel is a multimillion-dollar business that leaves the school and the sponsor with gains while leaving the student behind. Other than some free equipment and apparel there is no benefit to the student athletes. Michigan alone has a 80 million dollar deal with Addias. This is also not to mention the food deals and other sponsors that the athletic department receives to fund the program. There are tons of money flowing in and out of college athletics and there needs to be more compensation for the student athletes of these universities.
Although it may be obvious that the NCAA does not properly represent student athletes, what is not as obvious is the how exactly we compensate for their work. If the NCAA does decided to start paying athletes should it be a semi-socialist mentality where all athletes are paid the same or should it go by how much there respective sport makes. Also would this affect recruiting if some schools are able to pay kids more than other programs. It is a sticky situation for the NCAA and the universities involved. I believe this is why there has not been any action to change what is going on in the collegiate athletics.
There are already is steps that are moving in the right direction for helping players out. There is more and more articles and documentaries coming out every day to that state that these student- athletes are not being properly represented by the NCAA and the athletic departments of the university. Examples of such is the fact that Northwestern University has unionized to try to protect their rights and interest safe from the NCAA and their athletic department. This is the first union for college athletes. This is one of my favorite solutions to having the rights and interests of student athletes protected is to have a nation wide union of all college athletes, one union for the individual sports in the NCAA to represent there rights, and a local university union to help to protect there rights against the athletic department. This is a great way to be able to have the student athletes voices heard, which has been a problem in the past, and easy solution to getting their rights represented.
Another recent development that has helped the rights of student-athletes is the landmark O’Bannon vs. NCAA court case. Former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon likeness was used in a NCAA licensed videogame; he was not contacted about this and did not receive any money for this. He then sued the NCAA for the rights to his likeness in videogames. This resulted in the court deciding “that the challenged NCAA rules unreasonably restrain trade in the market for certain educational and athletic opportunities offered by NCAA Division I schools” (Judge Wilkin wrote) This decision has lead NCAA having to pay the athletes $5,000 dollars every time they use there likeness in videogames or other media, which can be up to $20,000 dollars in there college career. In result the NCAA stopped licensing video games because now they would have to pay the athletes.
It is important to realize that there are more severe injustices happening in college athletics. The NCAA is corrupt, the universities are corrupt, and the students don’t have the same rights as the rest of people attending college through ways of compensation. Although we may not know what changes need to be made or how to fix what is wrong with the NCAA and their rules, but eventually something needs to be fixed to make the sporting world a better place for all people who work with student athletes, play college athletics or just enjoy the purity that is college athletics.
Works Cited
"Five Key Things to Know about O’Bannon vs. NCAA." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2014."It's Time for the NCAA to Pay Student-Athletes." Reason.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
"It's Time for the NCAA to Pay Student-Athletes." Reason.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
Kingkade, Tyler. "Paying College Athletes: Not If, But How." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 07 Jan. 2013. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
"Michigan Won't Back out Early from $80-million Adidas Deal." MLive.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
Services, ESPN.com News. "NU Players Cast Secret ballots." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 26 Apr. 2014. Web. 08 Dec. 2014.
Schooled: The Price of College Sports. Perf. Kevin Anderson, Jay Bilas, Taylor Branch. Makuhari Media, 2013. DVD.
"Wolverine Football Carries Ever-growing University of Michigan Athletic Department." MLive.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
Reflection
I really enjoyed writing this paper, It was something I am very interested in and am happy with what I said in it. I was very focused in writing this easy because it really clicked with me and I have had this opinion for a while. My thesis was well thought out and I spent a lot of time and poured my heart in this paper. I’m very happy with the product.
In writing my paper doing a lay out before hand made me focus and know what I was writing. I also liked adding the reflection at the end of the paper because it helps me focus on what I’m trying to say. Also the drafts we wrote to prepare helped me create a better paper. Also reviewing my paper made it a better paper. This is the best paper so far and I’m more confident.
Over all this was a enjoyable paper to write, I think the editing that we read to prepare us to write this really helped. It really helped me think about the world as a whole. This is a good conclusion to my papers because I think I improved a lot and it.
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