Despite the significant help, college players have been for their schools and the revenue they bring in they get nothing in return. Another example, in his article “How Much do College Sports Generate” by Scott Morgan he mentions ,“The NCAA, the largest collegiate sports organization in the United States, directs much of the business of American college sports. “In 2011-12, the NCAA reported $871. 6 million in revenue – 81 percent of it that came from broadcast rights agreement with Turner/CBS sports". (Morgan).
One of the main reasons is that college sports are very popular and the attendance, especially at the football and basketball is growing every year and breaking attendance records. Furthermore, TV ratings for the tournaments series are the highest they have been in years bringing billions of dollars in commerce for schools. Schools use their players’ face and names to promote their schools and gain more money. Of course, college athletes get scholarships and get education, however who benefits the most from their success? The answer is schools.
Athletes in today’s society that pass up college to play pro sports are making a bad decision. A high school player that goes straight to the pros does not have enough experience. Sure, we hear about the high school students that went pro and had instant success like Lebron James and Derek Jeter, but these are only a fraction of the thousands of players that go pro each year. 85% percent of the athletes that go pro out of high school are unsuccessful and end their careers after just five short years. They are not ready to play side by side their professional counterparts because of lack of experience and immaturity.
But should companies like Nike have to give student athletes a piece of their jersey sales? Absolutely. The NCAA throws the word amateurism around far too often. There is a fine line between remaining an amateur and becoming a professional in the eyes of the NCAA. Turning pro does not guarantee endorsements and royalties; it simply means that an athlete will be paid to play for his organization.
In the 1996-1997 season, NBA’s Michael Jordan was paid $33,450,000 for the year, or just over $1.06 per second, an outrageous amount of money for a player to play the game he loves to play. He was paid $178,000 a day whether he played or not. There is no doubt that professional athletes are talented, but when Kevin Garnett, who is not even a college graduate, makes over 16 million dollars a year, that becomes a problem. While that may seem outrageous, deliberations over pro athletes salaries are nothing new. When baseball’s Babe Ruth was reportedly asked about earning a larger salary than the United States President Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression in the 1930’s Ruth defended his salary in response, “Why not?
In short, this rule puts a limit, of twenty hours, on the amount of time athletes can allocate towards their sport. Conversely the USA Today article, College Athletes are full time Workers, states that athletes spend on the upwards of 40 hours a week towards their sports, leaving little time for education or a job. With little time left to work, college football players feel not enough money is given to them to cover living expenses. According to the USA today article, Athletics Cost Colleges, division I schools spend on average 6.7 times as much money per student athlete than they do on regular students. In contrast, schools that do
That being said what is an athlete going to do once he or she is done, money does not last forever; especially the way professionals spend their money. One of the coolest things I remember about high school is that we had a teacher that had won two super bowls with the Steelers. This man is a prime example of why you should get your education: he graduated from Clemson and after he had his professional career, he ended up having to get another job. Turning down millions is a hard thing to do, I imagine, but it is the future that an athlete must think about before making his or her decision. In the end it comes down to the decision of the athlete: risk it all for money or have a back up
Michael Barbuto College Writing October 2, 2013 Professor Eaton Descriptive Essay Last year playing high school football was probably one of the most entertaining and exciting things I have ever done in my entire life. The reasoning behind this is that we had an outstanding team which sent eighteen kids off to play college football. Therefore, eighteen out of twenty one people were sent off to play college football, which is pretty good in my eyes. When experiencing high school football, it is all about brotherhood and family throughout the whole entire team. This year playing football for Springfield is not the same as last year in high school because I’m not as close with the people on my college team.
We would pay the tuition, and yes, we would tell them they would get playing time”. Being able to recruit makes it all most impossible to not have a good team. Private schools steal athletes away from smaller public schools and create teams that can’t compete with the stacked teams recruiting can create. Even big public schools like Broken Arrow, that have the sports that private schools have, cant recruit their players for each team. Public schools don’t have good teams every year, but private schools have stacked teams every year because they recruit their players from everywhere.
“Colleges and the NCAA generate more than $10.8 billion per year off of athletics” and yet, student athletes do not get paid at all for their hard work. They put in a great amount of time, effort, and work into being a student athlete. Being a college athlete is exceptionally laborious and can be both mentally and physically exhausting. There’s far more that goes into being a collegiate athlete than most individuals realize. Many people just see these athletes as the average student that in addition, gets to do what they love as an extracurricular.