Hannah Goertz
From day one, parents tell their children they can be anything they want to be, but what if their child wants to be a professional athlete?
Student-athletes are being scouted and recruited from all around the world to serve one purpose — to help their team win and support the school they are playing for.
According to the NCAA, there are around 480,000 student-athletes playing in the U.S. Only a select few of those athletes will move on to become professional athletes in their sport. The percentage of athletes that move from high school sports to the NCAA is six percent, and from NCAA to major professional leagues is just two percent.
Although these athletes do receive generous scholarships to be able to attend the university that recruited them, is that enough for them to give up all their free time and not get paid for what they are doing?
Student-athletes deserve to be paid by the NCAA in addition to receiving the scholarship they were awarded. Division 1 and 2 schools give out more than $3 billion in athletic scholarships annually to more than 150,000 – student athletes. Division 3 schools usually don’t receive athletically related financial aid because there are more than 190,000 student-athletes.
Everything you receive in sports is earned. Collegiate teams pride themselves on creating the best of the best and in hope they will take what they have learned and apply it to their professional careers in the future. Therefore, they think these athletes shouldn’t be paid.
The NCAA does not want to be a source of income for the athletes because they don’t consider them professional athletes.
The NCAA and Division 1 universities should take in to account that they make an immense amount of revenue off these athletes and media around each sport. For example, the Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship television and marketing rights makes around $821.4 million and other smaller streams of revenue come from a variety of sources like membership dues. Another $129.4 million come from championship ticket sales. Although it is all distributed to the rightful places, it only makes sense that the athletes putting on the “show” get their piece of the pie.
They believe since these athletes are receiving collegiate scholarships that can be worth up to tens of thousands of dollars annually, that they don’t recognize that these athletes should be paid a dime because of how much money they are investing in them for a college education and sports career.
The scholarship the athlete receives is a valuable resource, but the scholarship is for athletics and not academics. Also, only two percent of high school athletes receive these sports scholarships every year at NCAA colleges and universities. Most of the time, the average of these scholarships is less than $11,000.
Even though sports are seasonal, the training is not. Often times, student-athletes sacrifice a lot of time for their sport. They train, workout and are still expected to keep up their grades.
If sports and school take up all of the athlete’s time, how are they supposed to have a consistent income or hold a job? These athletes cut their vacations early to come back and train.
These student-athletes give up their lives to be able to play and train at a top-level school, and they should also be able to get paid for all of the time they commit to their team and coaches. These athletes are training every day to better themselves and push themselves to be the best they can be. The NCAA should reward all of their time and dedication by paying these athletes.
Student-athletes have worked hard to get where they are and should be rewarded for that. Their education is the primary reason they are here so their grades are a huge factor for if they stay on the team. Sports are a huge reason colleges get funding due to their high demand. Athletes put in a lot of time and devotion to their teams and should be rewarded more for it than a scholarship ranging from 2,000 to 11,000 dollars. They should be paid a salary for giving up all their time and dedicating themselves to their team above anything else because that dedication will show them self-discipline in the long run.
Hannah Goertz can be reached at [email protected]