NCAA Not an On-Campus Job For Athletes

Big time college sports backdrops like the Bowl Championship Series and March Madness have made TV networks billions. Network execs need to foot the bill for production costs of the games but they do not need to compensate the talent on the field or on the court in Division I. As student athletes continue to wonder what monetary television incentive is in it for them, there simply is not a way to fairly pay college athletes.

            College postseason television deals are continuing to go through the roof, with CBS reaching a new 14-year agreement with the NCAA to broadcast the men’s basketball tournament every March that will pay the NCAA almost $11 billion. Meanwhile ESPN is paying $125 million annually to broadcast BCS games, including the National Championship Game for the next four years. All the while the actual players are not making any money. In other words, the NCAA is gaining revenue to simply allow TV stations to carry games while only having to pay for tournament facilities and nothing else, not even the athletes that are competing at a level that NCAA execs certainly could not touch, although the execs are the ones getting paid.

            So, why is all of this not good enough reasoning to have college athletes get paid? The reason is because of what a college student’s priorities are. Regardless of how important it is for fans around the country to see their favorite college sports teams succeed, the players are on campus to perform in the classroom and graduate, first and foremost. The right for college players to get paid is in the fact that they are allowed to leave early from school to go to the pros. If a graduating high school senior who plays basketball is talented enough to make it to the pro level, then the required one year of college before his draft eligibility is merely a formality that he is only embarking on to comply with the rules of the NBA Draft. Some players like Brandon Jennings bypass college basketball altogether to get paid in European leagues to gain draft eligibility without going to school and to have a good amount of money in their pockets a year earlier. Although it is not that easy to do in college football, a player can still skip his senior year to go pro and make millions.

            College athletes can’t be paid because there is no way to fairly negotiate for everyone. A player’s worth could not be determined because of all of the diversity of the college landscape. In Division I alone there is the bias of different conferences being better than one another, including ones that are automatically given bids to BCS bowls and several slots in the NCAA basketball tournament. Competition varies too greatly to fairly give anyone the right amount of money. Can you conclude that a football player from the WAC with the same exact statistics as a player from the SEC should earn the same amount of money? No. The playing environments of the two players are completely different. Not only that but college players get in trouble for contacting sports agents already so how could any negotiation of NCAA revenue be considered legal if players can’t associate with agents until they are out of school? Besides, most Division I athletes are receiving great college educations for little to no cost just because they can excel in sports. Now that is opening up another important debate but isn’t a scholarship enough of a reward to be competing in college sports? With the word student coming first in the term “student athlete,” the answer is yes.

            TV revenue from college sports needs to be understood as just TV revenue and not something that is robbing the athletes of anything they do not deserve. Their abilities have earned them scholarships that are putting them on the fast track to success in life without tuition costs down the road. The last thing that should be on the mind of a hard working college student is money.