Should College Athletes Be Paid 

College athletes should be paid for playing a collegiate sport. The NCAA alone makes over 15,087,000 dollars for a big game in college football. The average cost of a college football game ticket is $141. With stadiums that fill up with over 107,000 people. Not to mention college’s deals with major television networks. The average contract with a Television network amounts to 2.64 billion dollars. As well as their contacts with clothing companies. Yes, the NCAA does have to pay NIKE their money with the money they earn but they still get immense profit only needing to pay NIKE around 252 million a year. They still make money off of their sponsors averaging around 1.24 billion dollars a season. This just proves my point that they are making money off of their athletes, immense money and they have no intention of paying them. 

I know what some people are going to say. They do pay their athletes with education through scholarships. I understand that most of these athletes get the opportunity that not a lot of others get. However most colleges and universities only get about 750,000 dollars in scholarships that need to be divided between all of their sports. That may seem like a lot of money but when you take into consideration that a football team alone is filled with over 120 players you begin to realize that not every player on that team is on scholarship. Most of the back ups and other players who are there are also paying for their tuition by themselves. To balance work, school and playing a collegiate level sport is practically impossible. Mostly the star players at these big time universities are getting those scholarships. If the players on that team didn’t do exceptional in High school or a junior college then they would only get around 14,270 dollars. And when you think of how much college tuition is nowadays that isn’t anything. I want you to think about your son or daughter if you have kids. How would you feel with the idea of your child going hungry just to play a sport? That is what millions of mothers have to go through everyday. Every young adult who is just getting to college not knowing what the next three or four years will be like needs to understand that it isn’t as magical as they think. I’m not saying don’t follow your dreams by all means strive to accomplish your goals but know what you are getting yourself into with college sports. It is a business not just all fun and games. I understand that some people might think otherwise and say that the kids put themselves into this situation because they wanted to play a sport in college. There are some kids out there that need to play a sport in college just to be able to further their education. A lot of children have dreams of playing in the massive NFL stadiums and standing in front of hundreds of thousands of people. The only way to do that is to go to college and further your athletic career. The only way to make it big being an athlete is to go to a high end college and play sports and show out and do well. On top of that keep your grades up to par for the NCAA’s rules and don’t make a mistake off the field that can get you kicked off the team because then your dream fades away. 

I’m not saying never chase your dreams, I encourage people to follow what they pursue. I am however trying to warn young men and women about how corrupt the college industry is. Most people don’t realize everything I have stated. They just focus on their goal and I respect that. All I am saying is that if college athletes got paid for doing their sport in which an industry makes millions off of them then it would solve a lot of problems. We can not fix coaches immediately but over time they might get better. College athletes need to be able to focus on their sport and not how they are going to pay their student loans or eat. Even if they do not make it to the professional leagues at least they will have an experience they will talk about for their entire life. As well as their education allowing them to get a good job and become successful human beings.