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Should D1 College Athletes Be Paid To Play Sports
For a very long time, Athletes in Division I schools have been putting their heart and soul into the sports that they love and work very hard for. Many college athletes know that this is the last time they will be playing their beloved sport yet they leave everything on the table for their last 4 years. Other college athletes have the luxury of playing professional at the next level and therefore will be compensated for all of the hard work they have put in during their college years. However, in recent years, there has been a debatable question that remains in every college athletes mind: should students who play a Division I college sport be paid for their time and work that they put in? In this essay I will decide whether or not this is a good idea. Billions of dollars are made by the television and advertising industries along with the Colleges and Universities all just from these Division I college teams. Fans invest money and time cheering on their favorite team just like the professionals. In retrospect there is not a big difference between college athletes and professional athletes, besides from that fact that college players do not get paid and also still have to attend class while training for their sport. Today’s version of a college athlete or better known as student-athletes usually receive free scholarships to attend the school as long as they agree to play the sport. They still have things to pay for just like any other college student but are not able to work for money. The wrong thing is that they are not allowed to accept any gifts such as a free meal because it is against the NCAA rules. Nowadays this is a really boiling topic with many college athletes stepping up and speaking out about it. Recently during the NCAA national basketball final game, Shabazz Napier took the microphone while receiving his MVP award and blurted out that college players go hungry and do not have money or enough food to eat. This has caused the NCAA to give free meal points to all Division I athletes. College athletes believe they should be paid because they are putting in the work for the sport and the money is being generated for everyone else involved besides the player that is actually doing the work. According to www.ncaa.org the current total revenue is approximately $800 million. Now where does this money go? Well, www.ncaa.org states that Ninety-six percent of NCAA expenses benefit student-athletes at member schools through services or direct distributions. The NCAA supports operational expenses and student-athlete travel expenses for 89 national championships in 23 sports. The NCAA also provides catastrophic-injury insurance coverage for all student-athletes and various scholarship, grand and internship programs. According to www.ncaa.org the NCAA and member schools together award more than 2.4 billion in athletic scholarships every year to more than 150,000 student-athletes. With the NCAA making that much money, 84 percent of the money earned was made within a three week event, the Division I men’s basketball tournament, otherwise known as “March madness”. In this era, money rules the world. This is why you see many athletes leaving school after one year to go professional and help their families. This is why the NBA is looking at new rules that prohibits college students from leaving school after one year and are attempting to make them stay for minimum two years of college. Many college athletes do not agree with that rule because they need money for themselves and others because most of the time other people such as family and friends rely on them and are waiting for the college athletes to make it big and get that nice luxurious pay check. According to psu.edu there was a study that looked at both the pros and cons of having college athletes go professional so soon into their college degree and guess what was the number one reason? Yes,