The Case For Paying College Athletes Analysis

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The article, “The Case for Paying College Athletes,” by Allen Sanderson and John Siegfried, seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of compensating college athletes. Specifically, Sanderson and Siegfried analyze the history of the NCAA and its governance, the reasons for operating commercialized sports programs, the market for college athletes, the NCAA’s power, the distributional aspects of change, and finally, how changes will arrive (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 115-137). The authors begin with a description of both the history and governance of the NCAA. The NCAA was established in 1906, resulting from President Roosevelt’s advocacy to improve the safety of players (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 117). Over the following 40 years, however, …show more content…
Also, the NCAA restricting the voice of the student-athletes, allows universities to overuse their underpaid inputs (student-athletes) (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 126). Further, Sanderson and Siegfried discuss the NCAA restrictions on transferring. Not only can universities dictate where a scholarship athlete can enroll, but the athlete also must sit out a year (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 127).
Next, Sanderson and Siegfried discuss the distributional aspects of change. One set of redistributions might be among athletes (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 129). The authors discuss that not all athletes are exploited, therefore, compensating the revenue generating athletes could potentially result in some athletes being worse off (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 129). Also, this could cause Title IX, issues, as paying football players could result in a loss of 85 female scholarships (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p.
…show more content…
In terms of internal reforms, the NCAA now allows universities to offer unlimited meals and snacks to their athletes, and also provide additional benefits to scholarship athletes (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 133). There have also been proposals to allow multiyear scholarships, and to also support athletes who want to further their education after their eligibility expires (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 133). Regarding lawsuits, the authors discuss the O’Bannon v. NCAA case, the collective bargaining case by Northwestern University athletes, and the collection of similar cases that seek to attack the ceiling on grant-in-aid (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p. 134). To conclude the article, Sanderson and Siegfried express their expectation regarding what will happen to collegiate athletics. They state that they expect an evolution in the labor market that will reduce, and even potentially eliminate the monopsony power of the NCAA, collegiate sports teams, and conferences (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015, p.

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