Why College Athletes Deserve Proper Compensation
Today, sports are no longer just fun and games, sports are a business, and college sports are no different. College sports are producing more revenue than ever before, which in return provides a huge source of income for the universities’. The school receives money from a variety of sources such as ticket sales, merchandise, television contracts, boosters, and many more. On the other hand, the athletes only receive their scholarship and nothing more. The ethical issue of fairness arises when college athletes put in the same amount of work as professionals and yet they receive no compensation for their efforts. Along with, the utilitarian approach of the ethical framework is questioned when the NCAA is more concerned with the money they’re bringing in rather than the well-being of their athletes. Student athletes deserved to be properly compensated for their contributions that make the universities’ as successful as they are. The NCAA is a multi-billion dollar industry that generated over $845 billion last year due to their athletes performances (Sonny). Instead of the money being put to use to help student athletes with every day expenses that their scholarships doesn’t cover, the money goes straight back to the university for them to use as they please. This is where the ethical aspect of utilitarism arises because there is a small amount of people receiving the good, rather than it benefiting the majority of college athletes. Colleges spend the money on rising coaches’ salaries, a higher recruitment budget, and general needs of the athletic program. The average assistance that each university gave to the athletic department was $10.2 million last year. Of that $10.2 million, coaches’ salaries accounted for over a third of the budget. The players, who are responsible for the money being brought in, suffer the setback of fewer scholarships being available because of the massive hit the coaches’ salaries have on the budget (Lee). To put things in perspective, there are over 420,000 student athletes that participate in collegiate sports each year and of those 420,000 only 35,000 receive scholarships (Shaughnessy). That leaves many individuals with a lack of financial support. On the other hand, there are only 10,000 college coaches whose average salary is 100 times more than the average scholarship awarded to student athletes (Shaughnessy). This becomes a problem in the Ultiliarism view because there are 42 times more athletes than coaches and yet the coaches reap the majority of the benefits. The NCAA and the universities can work together to institute a plan to share the profits more equally between coaches, players, and the school so it can benefit a greater amount of people. These athletes are not in a position of control during their college years. The NCAA has invented the term “student athlete” to differentiate their players from professionals who get paid to do almost the exact same thing. The NCAA didn’t want their athletes to be considered employees and thus entitled to a wage (Efap). The ethical issues of fairness arises here as the college players are putting in the same amount of effort as professional yet they are not receiving wages. For example, the average salary of a professional baseball player last year was over 4 million dollars while the average baseball scholarship only totaled $75,000 (Blum). There is a huge gap in benefits for players that perform essentially the same task. They both participate in off season workouts, film sessions, mandatory and non-mandatory practices, and countless hours in the gym. So why is there a difference in wages? In order to decrease the gap in wages and increase the fairness among athletes, the NCAA needs to implement a system to increase the incentives for their athletes for the hard work and the countless hours they dedicate to the university and their sport. Athletes are not only putting their time and effort