Should College Athletes Be Paid?
Athletics is part of the activities that are carried out in the institutions of higher learning. A debate exists on whether college athletes should be paid or they should not be paid for their services. People who support for college athletes to be paid claim that the students entertain the institutions with their sporting talents, and therefore, they deserve to be paid. People who are against the payment of college athletes claim that participating in college sporting activities is not a form of employment, and student-athletes should not be paid. Some students are interested and gifted in college sporting activities. However, these gifted students quit sports because they lack rewards from the colleges. Many students who are talented in sports quit athletics while in colleges because they lack motivation for their efforts, hence the need to pay college athletes.
College athletes bring revenues to their teams and colleges when they participate in certain tournaments. Since the student-athletes bring revenues to the colleges, the students themselves should also receive some payments from the profits they bring to the colleges because of their sporting talents. College football and the men’s college basketball programs are popular programs that are liked by many people all over the world. The college football and basketball games are the most widely watched college athletics, and they earn the participating teams a lot of revenues. In most of the colleges, the earned revenues are taken by the team coaches, but not the players. Also, in circumstances where the school teams break some records during the tournaments, the coaches are the ones who are paid for achieving new records. The coaches play a significant role in the college teams success, but the student-athletes are the ones who work hard in the field, and they deserve to be paid instead of all the profits earned by the college teams going to the coaches. Students athletes work very hard in both the fields and academics; therefore, they require to be paid for their hard work.
Being a college athlete is a full-time job where the student-athletes are tasked with the responsibility of balancing between academics and sporting activities. Most of the student-athletes experience difficulties while trying to make ends meet in both class work and academics. The college sporting activities require that the student-athletes perform physical activities such as the gym work, where the students have to create extra time for these additional physical activities. Also, the schedules of the National College Athletics Association (NCAA) tournaments require that the student-athletes must miss classes for the gaming activities. Therefore, the student-athletes do not get any time to relax because of their commitment while trying to balance in both the academics and sporting activities. Therefore, due to their commitment, student-athletes in colleges deserve to be paid as a result of the hard work. Students-athletes need to be paid as part of motivating them to continue with their hard work.
Students who excel in sports should be rewarded through payments just as students who excel in their class work. In most of the colleges in the world, most students who succeed in academics are highly rewarded by the colleges for their hard work. Some student-athletes achieve great success in the sporting games they participate in. To achieve success, these student-athletes have to work hard. The student-athletes argue that they should be rewarded as a form of motivating them just like the other students who succeed in academics. The colleges act unfairly by rewarding the students who progress in academics and fail to recognize the students who progress in sporting games. Most student-athletes argue that the act of treating them differently from the academician students discourages them from working hard in game activities. In all the sporting activities, motivation is very crucial in boosting the mentality and the physicality of the players. Student-athletes require to be mentally positive in order to succeed in the games they are interested in playing. Paying student-athletes motivates them, which boosts their mentality hence resulting in to great success of college teams. Student-athletes entertains the college members with their sporting skills, and they deserve to be paid for the entertainment services they offer.
Student-athletes deserves to be paid because of the roles they serve in advertising the colleges and entertaining fellow students and staff members with their talents in sporting activities. Most of the colleges use talented students in sports as a strategy of advertising their colleges. The colleges include the images of these talented students in their television and media adverts. When other students who have not yet joined colleges come across the images of the student-athletes in the adverts, they are easily attracted to join the colleges so that they can also achieve success in games they are talented in. Therefore, student-athletes are used by the colleges for advertising purposes, and they require to be paid for the advertising services they offer. During the college sports day, student-athletes showcases their sporting skills to their fellow students. Also, during the sports day, college staff members are entertained by the student-athletes who show their special skills in different games. Due to the entertainment services offered by the student-athletes, they should be paid as a way of appreciating the student-athletes.
Contrary, student-athletes should not be paid because playing is not their professional careers. The college sporting games are just extracurricular activities that are pursued while pursuing professional courses. The main purpose of students in college is to learn but not to play, and therefore, paying the student-athletes can destroy the nature of colleges as learning institutions. Also, if the student-athletes were to be paid, some colleges would pay much money to their athletes than other colleges. As a result of this disparity, the student-athletes would transfer to the colleges where the payments are high, which would affect the learning in the colleges.
In conclusion, student-athletes deserve to be paid because college teams earn revenues from certain tournaments. Most colleges do not give equal privileges to the students who are talented in sports as students who are gifted in academics by claiming that college sports are not professional careers. To maintain equality, colleges should pay student-athletes just as they do to the students who excel in class work. Student-athletes are used by the colleges for advertising purposes, and they deserve to be paid by colleges because of the advertising services they offer. Also, students-athletes entertain college members during sports day, which qualifies them to be paid for their services. Most students in colleges who are talented in sports give up in their sporting dreams due to lack of college motivation. The student-athletes should be paid for their efforts in co-curriculum activities as a way of rewarding their extra efforts.