Read Sports Geek’s argument that NCAA student-athletes should be paid, and Bleacher Fan’s argument that NCAA athletes should not be paid.
As I was preparing to write the introduction to this debate, I took a trip down memory lane. Back in the early to mid 1990’s, before the days of Playstation 3 and Xbox360, I had a Sega Genesis. Admit it, you did, too! One of my favorite games on the Genesis was Coach K College Basketball. I spent many afternoons after school playing that game! Of course, being a college game, the names of players were not listed even though the numbers were. The sports junkie that I am, I knew that Ed O’Bannon was #31 for UCLA and I knew that Scotty Thurman and “Big Nasty” Corliss Williamson were numbers 30 and 34, respectively, for the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Fast forward 15 years later. O’Bannon is back in the news for the first time in years. He feels that collegiate athletes should be paid for the use of their images in video games, DVDs, apparel, and so forth. We’re not really going to debate the specifics of the O’Bannon situation, but he does bring up an interesting topic regarding whether or not college athletes should be given some type of monetary supplement.
It’s no secret that college athletics, if managed properly by the athletic department, can usually be a big money maker for the school. Obviously, football is the main source of revenue in collegiate athletics. The BCS alone brings in millions and millions of dollars to the participating schools and its conferences. That doesn’t even include the revenue that is brought in from just one regular season game. Imagine how much a school like Ohio State profits from a normal fall Saturday home game. And, these athletes are on full scholarship. They are getting a free ride to a school when the majority of their classmates have to pay their own way. In fact, many students today have to borrow money (I certainly did) to pay for their education, regardless of whether or not they have a part time job.
You can really go in-depth with this argument. Perhaps another debate is how to come up with a formula to pay athletes. But, for the purposes of this debate, we are going to just focus on whether or not they should get paid in some form.
The question is: Should the NCAA pay its athletes in some form?
Sports Geek will argue that the NCAA should find a way pay its athletes and Bleacher Fan will argue that athletes should not be paid.
There you have it. Present your case to Judge Loyal Homer.
Yeah, they need to figure out some way of compensating these kids for the millions of dollars in revenue they make for their schools. I’m not sure exactly what it should be, but I wrote about a couple of possibilities a month ago…
http://doin-work.com/2009/05/29/just-pay-these-kids-already/
Thanks for the comment. Curious to see if the debate changes your thinking in any way.