My fellow classmates, there is an issue that must be presented to all of you. College athletes: should they be paid for what they do? The answer is simple: yes college athletes should be reimbursed for their efforts. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) basketball athletes are being treated like slaves. They do all of the work, they might get a little reward, but they usually get nothing. Why should college athletes get paid for what they do? It is very simple, they work very hard, the NCAA makes a lot of money, and many scandals can happen if they are not paid.
These players are considered amateurs but they perform just like the professionals. Firstly, if the NCAA pays their athletes, they will need a lot of money. Fortunately they already have a lot of money. Other then merchandise sales, there are four ways that the NCAA makes money. They get majority of their revenues with broadcasting rights. Revenues are the collective items or amounts of income of a person, a state, etc (http://dictionary.reference.com).
The NCAA has a very strong partnership with CBS and Cable Turner Sports. During March of 2012 the March Madness (A tournament by the NCAA) games were broadcasted on four channels.
CBA has been with the NCAA for almost three decades (http://www.investopedia.com).
In 1982 CBS and the NCAA agreed to a $16 million per year contract. In April 2010 CBS agreed on a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract. This will produce about $800 million per year, almost 50 times more than the 1982 contract (http://www.investopedia.com).
The Essay on Top Five Money Mistakes College Students Make
College students face many hard financial decisions. As a young adult they need to figure out how to pay for college, earn some spending money, and still get a good education. This is a tall order for anyone, so it’s no wonder that many college students end up making some costly money mistakes. Unfortunately, these mistakes can actually cause damage that lingers for decades, so making sure your ...
Another way the NCAA makes money is advertising during important games. The March Madness is able to grab many viewers to watch their games. This is a perfect opportunity for companies to advertise their products during the event.
Airing a 30-second commercial during the early rounds of the tournament will cost about $100,000 (http://www.investopedia.com).
The price increases to more than $1 million per 30-second commercial in the final games. For the Final Four games of the tournament, the NCAA made over $12 million per game just from advertisements. The river of money is always flowing when a commercial appears on your television screen when watching a game. Ticket sales and sponsorship for the March Madness event produce more than $40 million per year for the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
This money combined with the broadcast rights make up 96% of the NCAA’s entire revenue (http://www.investopedia.com).
The last way they make a lot of their money is by wagers. Millions of sports fans bet on the March Madness tournament. Many experts state that about $7 billion is wagered on the March Madness games. This number exceeds the Super Bowl’s estimated $6 billion on bets (http://www.investopedia.com).
When it comes to the NCAA the bank will always be open for more cash. It is very obvious that the NCAA can make plenty of money to be able to pay their players.
Secondly, allow me to entertain the topic of college basketball athletes working just like the athletes in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The athletes in both associations average about 40 hours a week of work (http://www.businessinsider.com).
That means they approximately practice for six hours a day. Unlike many amateur sports, NCAA basketball players cannot choose if they want to play or not.
They must participate in every practice without an absence if they want a scholarship (http://www.businessinsider.com).
They must adjust their lifestyle because of fatigue. On top of fatigue they must squeeze in their education with all their practices and games. These players are also restricted on what they can and cannot do which really gives you a feeling of the professional life. These players entertain viewers as well as NBA players for what, for scholarships?
The Essay on Show Me The Money
I. How many times have you been watching a professional game and you've heard the announcers say, "Oh, he just signed a twenty four million-dollar contract" II. How many times have you heard the team you love, end up in finical trouble? III. Has the team you love to watch had to move cities? IV. Have you heard that your team got sold to another person? V. Chances are you have heard some of these ...
For scholarships that do not even cover their full college fees (http://www.businessinsider.com)? These players need to get paid for what they do. These players are the ones that people want to watch. These players are the reason why the NCAA is making money. If these players are the money makers, why shouldn’t they be rewarded for the success of the National Collegiate Athletic Association?
Thirdly, there is a very well-known documentary featuring a famous group called the “Fab Five”. This film was produced by ESPN Films, directed by Jason Hehir, and released on March 13th, 2011 (http://en.wikipedia.org).
This group of five college players played for the University of Michigan. They were famous because these five players started for their team and they were only freshmen (which is very unlikely for 5 freshmen to start on a team).
Nike made shoes, shirts, and other merchandise with the name or faces of the Fab Five.
These players also made wearing black socks popular so Nike immediately made black socks. These players also took time out of there day to promote their brand of clothing around the world (http://www.bvonsports.com).
This was labor intensive because they would practice daily, have schooling, play games, and promote their clothing. They also raised the Michigan University merchandise from $1.5 million per year to about $10 million after their first season (http://www.bvonsports.com).
All of these things sound really great but the unfortunate thing is that they did not even earn a dime from doing all this and this led to a huge scandal. Former NBA superstar Chris Webber was charged for taking money that was given to him. He took over $200,000 from a friend, Ed Martin. He took it for his own purposes and he lied to the court for not taking anything. He was charged $100,000 for lying to a court and taking money illegally (http://www.bvonsports.com).
If these players were paid they would not need to ask for money and most of these scandals will be diminished.
There is a way to fix this problem. A very intelligent business man named Joe Nocera proposed an idea that can benefit the players and still make the NCAA happy. He says that the NCAA should minimize its scholarships and give each team a cap of $650,000 (cap means amount of money that each team can spend) (http://www.businessinsider.com).
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The NCAA: Out of Control Darnell Autry was a member of the Northwestern University Wildcats football team. He was a dedicated student and an All American running back. He was also a theatre major. So when he was offered a small part in a motion picture he quickly accepted. It was a non-paying role and he paid for his own plane ticket to Rome, where the movie was being filmed. However the National ...
This will give a minimum salary of $25,000, allow coaches to give their star players more money, and will still satisfy the NCAA (http://www.businessinsider.com).
This amount will not make players rich, but it would stop many of the scandals and put some money in their pockets to pay off their college fees and live a normal student life. This is like receiving a bonus mark on your math test: you will have an extra mark that can boost up your grade.
In final analysis, it is important to pay college athletes for their effort because it helps them live a normal student life. It also stops many of the scandals that happen around the NCAA. Besides, why can’t the NCAA pay their players? They clearly have the money to pay them and the athletes are the reason why they are making profit. It is important that these players feel important enough for the organization that they are in so let the owners sign the treaty of repayment to these young athletes.
Persuasive Essay Bibliography
Folger, Jean. “5 Ways March Madness Makes Money. “http://www.investopedia.com. Investopedia, March 22, 2011. Web. 13 Apr 2012.
