The Problem Of Paying Student Athletes

Register to read the introduction… What am I going to eat tonight? How am I going to help my family out? Questions like these often creep into our minds as well. I’m fortunate enough not to have these problems first hand but some of my teammates struggle in eating every night because they just don’t have money to always buy food. Not everyone on the football team is on scholarship, we have a good amount of walk-ons on our team and after practice we eat dinner, but just the guys on scholarship. It sounds really harsh but that is how the NCAA rulebook is set up. Do I think it is fair? Of course not these guys put in the same amount of work as we do. Paying student athletes would really benefit people like this who are already paying for school while playing football. Another common problem I come across is whenever we get a chance to go home some players just can’t because they don’t have money to get back. Many of our players are from Florida so buying a ticket to fly home and fly back can really add up over the course of the year, and with a constant money flow this would take the load of their families. This is really bad because we don’t get to go home as often as the regular student because of games and etc, so whatever chance you have of going home is more appreciated than one would think even if its only for 5 days. I’m fortunate to only live 3 hours away so going home isn’t as hard on me as the other players but I feel the pain that they go …show more content…
This isn’t an issue that will be solved overnight, if the NCAA decides to pay the players there will of course be rules and regulations that the players and universities will have to abide by. If the NCAA continues to not pay the players then more eyebrows will be raised due to the fact that universities bring in so much revenue from their athletic teams. This issue will always be highly argued due to the fact that so many people are involved. When you have a job you get paid, and if you happen to get injured on the job you get workers compensation, right? College athletics is a job, but if you get hurt they can’t do anything about it, even if the injury is a life-threatening one. This results in many people trying to sue the NCAA because they believe this isn’t fair but that is another discussion. College athletes deserve to be paid based on all they do for their university.

Works Cited

Edwards, Harry. “Share the Wealth” 16 December 2011. Web. 18 April 2013
ESPN. “College Athletics Revenues and Expenses-2008” 2008. Web. 18 April 2013
O’Toole, Thomas. “NCAA reaches 14-year deal with CBS/Turner …..now” 22 April 2010. Web. 18 April 2013
Schneider, Raymond G. “COLLEGE STUDENTS' ……STUDENT-ATHLETES.” June 2001. Web. 18 April 2013
Wieberg, Steve. “ Ex-QB sues NCAA, EA Sports over use of athletes' likenesses” 7 May 2009. Web. 18 April