Pay the Athletes?

Football and basketball, the two biggest moneymaking sports in the NCAA. The debate goes on about whether or not the players should be paid for playing on these college teams because of all the money and prestige they are bringing in for their schools. All sorts of money is being made from the televised games to the jerseys you can buy at a store like Footlocker and the players get none of it.

These players who do get exploited this way should get some of the money they bring in but if they did it would have some downside effects. Football and basketball bring in a lot of money where other Division I sports like swimming, tennis, or rowing or other sports do not. The money brought in by these sports helps fund the traveling and competition of the other sports. If more money was put toward football and basketball and their players it would affect the funding for other Division I sports like these. Many sports like crew, and rugby have become club sports because the schools could not afford for them to be varsity sports. To give more money towards football and basketball would be an issue for the other Division I sports.

So if the NCAA football and basketball players deserve to get paid or some sort of compensation for playing, but we do not want to put the other Division sports at risk of losing funding, what else is there to do? Sports Illustrated published an article called “The Free Market Plan” where players would be aloud to accept endorsement deals. The schools would not be giving them money, but they’d be making money from sponsorships. To make sure no schools gain a competitive edge, the schools can monitor how much players get, similar to how salary-cap rules work.

With the Free Market Plan players can earn money on their own apart from the schools. Those players who are seen as the star athletes of the college league will get a chance to make money, and schools would not have to pay them, and other sports would continue to get funding.