Analysis: Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

Recently, the hot topic swirling around college sports has been the issue of unionization and payment. College athletes from several schools threatened to unionize and demanded they be paid royalties when video games were released containing their names and likenesses.
The topic has even roped in famous non-athletes such as Jay Bilas of ESPN. Though it originally started as a question about video game royalties, it has blossomed into an argument about payment in general. While this issue certainly isn’t new, it has become intensified in recent months and years.
The proponents of this argument like to claim that athletes should be paid because they are performing. The athletes also bring in a lot of money and proponents tend to view the money …show more content…
No one is forcing them to participate. Though every athlete performs, not every athlete gets injured. Sports are different and the chance of injury in different sports varies. A swimmer’s chances of injury are not as high as a football or basketball player.
Just because a college athlete performs doesn’t entitle them to a paycheck.
Second, only a few sports tend to bring in money. Often, it is the big programs — football and basketball —that bring in the most revenue. Other programs don’t make any money while some even tend to lose money. It is the big programs that pay for all the smaller programs. The money these programs bring in goes to pay for the facilities, the training, the programs and all kinds of other expenses of the university. So, just because there is a cash cow that produces a lot of money, it doesn’t mean that money can be used to pay the athletes.
Most people tend to overlook the fact that so many athletes are already paid monetarily in the form of scholarships. But looking past that, they are also paid in experience. It is the education they get that matters. Athletes often have their pick of the litter when it comes where they want to go and play. Just because they aren’t receiving money for what they do doesn’t mean they are aren’t being

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