College Athletes Should Not Be Paid

The controversy of whether college athletes should be paid or not is a significant issue in the sports world, today. In this issue there are two different sides the NCAA and then their college athletes. The main reason the NCAA states they will not pay their college athletes is because they are ‘amateurs’. According to the NCAA, “Amateur competition is a bedrock principle of college athletics and the NCAA. Maintaining amateurism is crucial to preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority. In the collegiate model of sports, the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second” (NCAA). The NCAA states that their college athletes are amateurs and this is the main reasoning they should not be …show more content…
Also, the NCAA states that their college athletes should be putting academics first and their athletics second. This might not truly be the case, but this is what the NCAA wants to impression onto their college athletes. Although, the NCAA states this message, it most certainly is not the case for many of their college athletes. In a recent study, it was found that between the years of 2006 and 2016, 114 college basketball players left their college after one year to pursue a career in the NBA and became drafted (Hero Sports). This statistic is simply including college basketball players that left their college to pursue the NBA and were drafted. There are other college basketball players that leave their college to pursue the NBA and do not get drafted. This just simply shows that several college athletes will attend college for only one year to get more exposure to professional scouts, so they can become drafted by a professional team. The whole purpose of this is so that these athletes can start