As college sports continues to evolve and cultivate more and more popularity and attention in our society today, the controversial question of “whether college student athletes should be paid?” has consequently been debated endlessly over the past few decades. Being a student of one of the biggest and most prominent sports dominant universities in the world, I can’t help but notice how impactful and fanatic sports plays in the culture of not only our school, but our entire society. In correspondence to such growth, organizations like the National Collegiate Athletic Association along with advertising corporations, sponsors and broadcasters all generate immense revenues under the benefits of the growing industry. Yet, despite the success of
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Many oppose to the idea of paying college athletes because they still buy into the myth of “amateur athletics”. However, unlike the typical setting where the captain of the football team dates the head cheerleader, and students only spending their after school hours practicing in the gym, college sports is a business with a well consolidated and organized system. Participating universities require their athletes to dedicate the majority of their time practicing, and training to optimize their performance on the field. Students athletes are more than often “expected” to miss class in order to attend trainings, practices and games. March Madness alone requires students to miss more than 6 days of class, and the road to NCAA’s championship may require students to miss more than a quarter of the semester. Furthermore, the scheduling of the NCAA also forces students to miss classes on regular basis. With the universities prioritizing the performance of these students on the field over their duties as students, as well as how much revenue is being generated around these athletes, it’s absolutely absurd to consider college sports to be amateur sports. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) alone, makes a total revenue of 10.6 billion dollars annually (statisticsbrain.com). March Madness alone, generated 1.13 billion dollars in revenue last …show more content…
Though it’s true that these accesses to free education do offer values to these athletes, however, they’re also heavily dependent on the performance and condition of the athletes throughout the course of their career in the specific university. A survey was conducted to over 21,000 current athletes at Division 1, Division 2, and Division 3 schools which included more than 1600 football players and 417 basketball players by USA News, and according to the survey “In the top-tier Division I, almost two of every three said they consider themselves more as athletes than students.” This is due to the fact that the time and dedication these student athletes put into sports far surpasses the time and work they put into academics. USA news also noted in an article that “Football players in the NCAA 's Division I Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) said they spent an average of 44.8 hours a week on their sport — playing games, practicing, training and in the training room — compared with a little less than 30 hours on academics.” In retrospect, most of these star athletes made their decision to attend their respective universities based on
Many oppose to the idea of paying college athletes because they still buy into the myth of “amateur athletics”. However, unlike the typical setting where the captain of the football team dates the head cheerleader, and students only spending their after school hours practicing in the gym, college sports is a business with a well consolidated and organized system. Participating universities require their athletes to dedicate the majority of their time practicing, and training to optimize their performance on the field. Students athletes are more than often “expected” to miss class in order to attend trainings, practices and games. March Madness alone requires students to miss more than 6 days of class, and the road to NCAA’s championship may require students to miss more than a quarter of the semester. Furthermore, the scheduling of the NCAA also forces students to miss classes on regular basis. With the universities prioritizing the performance of these students on the field over their duties as students, as well as how much revenue is being generated around these athletes, it’s absolutely absurd to consider college sports to be amateur sports. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) alone, makes a total revenue of 10.6 billion dollars annually (statisticsbrain.com). March Madness alone, generated 1.13 billion dollars in revenue last …show more content…
Though it’s true that these accesses to free education do offer values to these athletes, however, they’re also heavily dependent on the performance and condition of the athletes throughout the course of their career in the specific university. A survey was conducted to over 21,000 current athletes at Division 1, Division 2, and Division 3 schools which included more than 1600 football players and 417 basketball players by USA News, and according to the survey “In the top-tier Division I, almost two of every three said they consider themselves more as athletes than students.” This is due to the fact that the time and dedication these student athletes put into sports far surpasses the time and work they put into academics. USA news also noted in an article that “Football players in the NCAA 's Division I Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) said they spent an average of 44.8 hours a week on their sport — playing games, practicing, training and in the training room — compared with a little less than 30 hours on academics.” In retrospect, most of these star athletes made their decision to attend their respective universities based on