The Pros and Cons of Paying College Athletes

Recently, the matter of paying college athletes has made such a buzz in the sporting scene. If we are to look up what NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) – the implementing body in collegiate sports – has maintained regarding the issue, it’s this; paying college athletes is a no-go. But this doesn’t mean the “big guys” of the association have already made their final decision; debates are actually still going on even within the members of the board.

Why has this issue not been resolved yet? Is there really a need to change the norm of not providing the athletes extra money aside from those they get from traditional scholarships?

The Pros of Paying College Athletes

In this age where social media is the king, making a profit out of sports is even a more ludicrous pursuit. Schools are actually making more money than ever from the revenues of televised college sports, especially the most popular men’s football and basketball.

However, the athletes involved in these games – the reason why sporting shows are such a hit in the first place – are not getting more than their scholarship grants; it is not even enough to cover for all their expenses; tuition, food, board, travel, books, and others. They have no other means to compensate for this need since sport practices take up all of their time after their academic responsibilities. Paying college students, a little extra, would actually go a long way, especially for the ones belonging to a family with low income.

If this point would be considered it might help to finally stop the abuses happening behind the scenes; abuses such as interested parties (i.e. recruiters) offering the athletes special “privileges” for favors as to how they wanted games to turn out. Shady business, yes, but it happens.

The Cons of Paying College Athletes

The main reason why paying college athletes still isn’t legalized is because of the strong stand of the spirit of amateurism against the idea. Most traditionalists would also argue that college sports exist not so the athletes could gain profit, but to foster the true meaning of sportsmanship between colleges. Involving money in the equation for the players’ participation would debase the essence of amateurism. Another big problem with the idea is its mere “unfairness” to less popular sports that acquire little to no revenue, and of course to the colleges with lesser funds. Who would be responsible for paying the students in this case? And what system will be used; do athletes with better performance get more pay than other members of the team?

These things and a lot more only would result to many complexities, and thus, paying college athletes might indeed just deviate the students from what they went to their respective institutions in the first place, that is, to get a degree, not to gain a salary.