NCAA aAhletes and Pay - 1142 Words

Should college student-athletes be paid has become a much debated topic. The incentive for a student-athlete to play a college sport should not be for money, but for the love of the game. It has been argued that colleges are making money and therefore the student-athlete should be compensated. When contemplating college income from sporting events and memorabilia from popular sports, such as football and basketball, it must not be forgotten that colleges do incur tremendous expense for all their sports programs. If income from sports is the driving factor to pay student-athletes, several major problems arise from such a decision. One problem is who gets a salary and the second problem is how much should they be paid. Also, if the income†¦show more content†¦There would be no rush to graduate because the student-athlete is receiving free education, housing and meals as well as making money. College sports should be played for the love of the game, not for the love of money . If the NCAA decided to pay college athletes, it would create more problems than solutions. For example, if student-athletes are offered a salary, most likely the cost of school tuition will go up because the money paid to the student-athletes must come from somewhere and the revenue from sporting events and memorabilia will not be enough to cover all student-athlete salaries as well as expenses to run all the college’s sports programs. In addition, not all college sports draw the same fan base and therefore, income is greatly varied between sports programs which in turn will create an unfair balance when determining the salary for each student-athlete. All student-athletes regardless of which sport they are participating would expect equal pay. If the student-athletes are paid a salary, in addition to receiving a scholarship, which includes, tuition, books, housing and meals, it would be grossly unfair to non-student-athletes because tuition costs would be increased dramatically and ultimately be unattainable for the non-student-athlete. Without reasonable tuition costs, less students will attend and in turn this loss of