Imagine playing at one of the largest schools and being the best athlete, achieving national championships, and all your coaches and staff are getting paid, but you’re not. Many athletes who are competing at the D1 level are not receiving the pay they deserve.
Playing at the highest level doesn’t just demand time from the athlete’s life; it demands energy and dedication, which all of these student athletes show every day, even when they are tired. Winning national championships doesn’t come without hard work and determination and to not get paid for accomplishing and training every day is something that I would take seriously, especially when your coaches are getting paid and they are just running practices, and teaching the athletes, not playing. Time, Grit, and determination are what all of these athletes have in common and they should not stop the fight till they get full pay.
NCAA athletes are fighting for what they believe and what’s right. Student athletes’ amount of time spent on athletics is more than half the time they spend on academics making it harder for them to study and get school work done. Many athletes spend more than 25 hours on sports-related activities other than games, such as practice, workouts, team meetings, film sessions, and travel. Athletes only spend less than 8 hours on academics outside of class, including writing papers, studying, getting tutoring, or working on group projects. Athletes and coaches at the Division 1 level both agreed that sports related activities should be limited during exam periods so that students are able to pursue educational or career development opportunities.
According to “The Case for Paying Student Athletes,” Division 1 student-athletes reported spending a median of 33 hours per week on athletics. The time commitment matched the median time spent on academics, creating weekly commitments approaching 60 hours. As an athlete myself, multitasking can be extremely stressful especially when you have sports all the time and I can’t imagine playing at the collegiate level and having to multitask while also worrying about games. It is a huge responsibility as an athlete to do well both at your sport and academically. All of these athletes deserve the right to get paid for all their hard work and dedication on and off the field/courts.
The NCAA is a huge profit-making enterprise that gets rich off the labor of student athletes. Universities make so much money off of their student athletes, especially the good ones, and if the university is getting money from the institution’s sports, then so should the athletes who actually play the sport. Many athletes are not able to work because of the immense amount of athletic training and traveling that takes place, so for them, money is something that they may need. One source explains, “Players who help generate billions of dollars for a wide array of companies and organizations, they contend, deserve a portion of those profits” (“Should National Athletic Association (NCAA) Athletes Be Paid?”). This shows that athletes play a very big role in making college sports successful. Even though they help generate this money, they are still not being paid. Because of this, college athletes deserve compensation and should fight for it.
Many athletes perform high-value labor for which they do not receive compensation for. College sports bring in huge amounts of money from ticket sales, television deals, and merchandise. The athletes are the reasons fans watch their teams. According to the Case for Paying Student Athletes, “The value of an average starting football player in a Power 5 conference ranges from $120,000 to $1.7 million per year.” Some athletes exceed 4 million. According to another study “the marginal revenue product of a premium college football player exceeded $1 million annually. ”Even though athletes help create this much value, they do not receive direct pay. Because they generate so much money, it is only fair that the college would be willing to pay the athletes.
College athletics is definitely something you have to want and work for. They put in so much time, energy, training, and practice and dedicate many hours to their sports and to not get paid for it is just insane. Watching your coaches get paid for just coaching and you’re actually playing the game and accomplishing things is not fair. Not only do these athletes play the sport for the love of it, they play to reach new heights and compete for championships. Many of these athletes are practicing hours on end each week, leaving them with little or no time to do their school work as well. That’s why I think student athletes should be paid because of their demanding hours, practices, and dedication to the game.
The opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Wayne Valley or the newspaper.
