6 • OPINION
Monday, May 6, 2013
COLLEGE ATHLETICS
Studentathletes are already compensated enough
Collegiate athletes deserve to be paid for their abilities
PRo
Scott Roberson The Telescope
Can you imagine a business model in which the employers didn’t pay their employees? How about a corporation in which the employers made millions, but the employees were penalized for receiving any form of benefits? This model is not fiction and is currently being practiced in college sports. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) generated $845 billion last year. To me it is simple. The resources are available, so we must pay the players. According to Corey Walker of Bleacher Report, Ohio State University made $118 million in football revenue in 2009 alone. Walker questioned, and so do I, why he should be enraged over Terrelle Pryor, Ohio State’s quarterback from 2008-2011, in receiving a free tattoo while the football program made millions of dollars off of his and his teammates’ efforts. I do not believe universities should pay these athletes in excess, nor do I believe they should be paid by their performance. However, a monthly stipend, in accordance to the cost of living in that area, should be allocated to these athletes. The most common argument against athletes being paid is that the scholarships provided save the individuals money from student loans. In addition, they have the opportunity to receive a top-notch education. I can smell the crap from here. The requirements are much more demanding for those on athletic scholarships compared to an academic scholarship, yet the same form of education is provided. While students participating on an academic scholarship are required to maintain a GPA, athletes are required to uphold a GPA while dedicating “X” amount of hours a week to successfully compete for their school. Student athletes, for the most part, are young adults who have never lived away from home. They simply do not have the experience in time management and do not possess the self-discipline
CON needed to hold a job while making time for class, study and practice. College is the first opportunity when young students have the freedom to explore who they are and express themselves. Unfortunately, not all athletes have the money to interact with their peers and develop some sort of social life. Believe it or not, having a life outside of the classroom and school in general is essential. Without a break, students may become overwhelmed. According to dailyfinance.com, 86 percent of of athletes in college actually live beneath the poverty line. Without a steady source of income (i.e. a job), and the absence of financial support from home, results in minor and major infractions being committed to NCAA regulations. According to Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Poverties. org indicates that the United States has performed many studies since the 1970s that have linked a connection between unemployment, poverty and crime. So just as neighborhoods with high poverty correlate with higher crime rates, there is a high probability that infractions made against the NCAA regulations were made because these athletes had little to no money in their pockets. Reggie Bush was penalized and stripped of the most prestigious award in college football, the Heisman trophy. All because he accepted money to have his family taken care of. It’s not steroids. It is not any form of performance enhancing drugs. It did not give him an unfair advantage on the field, nor did it violate a state or federal law. Would providing a stipend to these athletes end all future infractions? Absolutely not. There will always be the select few who choose to violate anyway, but it should alleviate the financial tribulations that have led to many of these violations. SRoberson@the-telescope.com
Cliff Ireland The Telescope
Yes, it is true. There is no way to deny it. NCAA sports make a lot of money every year. According to NCAA.org, they made $871.6 million in revenue for the 2011-2012 year. Yes, it is also true that schools with big football programs will also make huge revenues from their teams. For instance, in a December article for Forbes, Chris Smith reported that the Texas Longhorns Football program had revenue of $104 million in 2011. Yep, it’s a lot of money and one has to think about where that money is going or where it should be going. One place, though, that it shouldn’t be going is to the players themselves. There’s been a suggestion that NCAA athletes should receive a monthly stipend of $1,500 or $2,000 a month. It is easy to say the players for college teams are being taken advantage of because the colleges are making profit off of their hard work, but should they be paid? No, they shouldn’t and NCAA President Mark Emmert agrees. While speaking to the Houston Economic Club in November 2011, The Associated Press quoted Emmert as being adamant about never allowing students to be paid. In his article “NCAA student-athlete participation hits 450,000” for NCAA. org, Gary Brown reported that the 2011-2012 year had the highest amount of athletes for any year in the NCAA history. In that school year, there was a total of 453,347 college athletes. I am not the greatest at math, but 453,347 athletes times $1,500 each equals out to $680,020,500. That’s a lot of Benjamins for only one month. Now, remember that $871.6 million in profit I mentioned earlier that the NCAA made in profit for one year. Well, that same year they also had $800 million in expenses. There is a little left over yes, but clearly not enough to cover the $1,500 stipend that will be paid to each athlete for only one month.
So where is the rest of the money going to come from? Will the NCAA pay it? How about the colleges themselves? What, how about the federal government? Lord knows we Americans love our sports. Wait, now someone is going to bring up the fact that not all athletes should get paid. That is interesting, because who and how is that decided? Can you imagine being the Athletic Director and having to tell the women’s soccer team that even though they won the Division 1 championship, they are not going to be getting a stipend because no one went to their games. I would love being the reporter covering that lawsuit. Really, what it comes down to is, if people think college athletes get enough with just an athletic scholarship. To do that, it is important to understand what they do get. To put it simple: Free food (even specialized by nutritionists), free housing, free traveling, free trainers, free health insurance, free tutoring, free public relations that could lead to a job and most importantly, a free education. To help put into perspective how much some athletes are getting for free, last year’s final BCS top five football team’s average cost of attendance for one year was slightly over $43,000. I figured that alone equals to $172,000 worth of education. What I found most intriguing about that, though, is that it is $172,000 less than the average student might have to take on after graduating from those same schools. I couldn’t imagine going to a school like Notre Dame, where, according to its website, the cost of attendance for one year is $60,117, for free. Sports is a business, and if you still want to complain about it, come play at Palomar College. This is a junior college where I have had the pleasure of watching some outstanding athletes play their respective sports. And guess what, they don’t get a free ride, because no junior college athlete in California does. As a matter of fact, they pay to go to school and to play the sport that they love. I like to believe that, maybe for them, it’s still about the game. cireland@the-telescope.com