Critical Thinking Paper Rewrite

Griffin Reilly - Blue Group

In the past decade, student athletes have come up with more reasons why they should be given

compensation for the work they do for their schools in games and competitions. Many argue that

athletes shouldn’t be paid because a scholarship already gives them enough of a compensation. The truth

is, however, that the vast majority of college athletes do not in fact have a full scholarship, and they have

to pay for all of their tuition and books, along with all the things they need to live, such as food and

living space. When one takes the time to realize all the things that these college athletes do for their

schools, television networks, companies in advertisements, and sponsors, it becomes clear that they do

deserve some sort of monetary compensation. Because athletes in college sports play in games that

produce millions of dollars in revenue for both colleges and television networks, because they miss

multiple classes a year due to games, and because the high performance of college athletes may lead to

an increase in admission rates of their universities, the NCAA should provide compensation for players,

as they may as well be employees.

Every year, CBS/Turner Sports makes up to 11 billion dollars during their presentation of the

NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The problem is that none of this goes to the student-athletes, who

are the ones actually playing in the games. It seems fair that even just 1 billion of this should go back to

those athletes, who are doing the real job. To some of these athletes, even a small payment could help

them feed themselves, or even support family in need back at home. It’s unfair that students do not get

any kind of reward for entertaining the millions who are watching back at home during the tournament,

and it’s even more unfair that the NCAA refuses to do or say anything about it at all.

And CBS isn’t the only company making money from of the games. It goes to all of the

networks who play the games, all of the companies advertised in commercials, all of the sponsors, and

all of the schools. A full-ride scholarship to some of the nation’s best schools is in fact a great privilege

and reward, but scholarship money does not go towards the athletes themselves and all the money they

need to help support themselves and their families. In fact, of the approximately 600,000 college athletes

(across all sports and divisions), only about 175,000 scholarships are available. (ScholarshipStats.com)

That means that 70.4% of all college athletes aren’t on scholarship, and have to pay for all of their

tuition and books without assisted funding, and that doesn’t even include the money that they need to

support themselves; food, living expenses, etc. Most athletes are not able to take jobs outside of college,

because of how demanding their sport is, even during the offseason. For example, the college football

postseason ends for most teams in early January, and then preseason workouts and meetings start up for

the team again in early march and sometimes late February. That gives the players a slim 2 months of

non-football time each year.

One of the most rigorous of these colleges when it comes to football, is the Crimson Tide of

Alabama. The University of Alabama is known for its consistently incredible football program, and also

for the amount of money that it brings in for the school each year. In 2012, UA generated $124M in

athletic revenue, and $82M of that was by the football program. (Huffington Post) The only person on

the AU team who makes any money is Nick Saban, the head coach. Saban, 62, just signed a contract

with the Crimson Tide for 7M dollars a season, while not one of the 85 players on the team makes a

cent; and they are the ones actually doing the work. (Huffington Post). If schools and television

networks are going to make that much money, at least some of it deserves to go to the players. Now

once again, imagine what 1 billion dollars could do, and what it should do.  

An average workweek for the average worker is about 40 hours a week, approximately 8 hours a

day. The average Division I football player trains and works on strictly football-related activities for an

average of 43.3 hours a week during the season (CBSNews.com), which puts them 3.3 hours over the

average work week. And these football players also have classes to pass, and possibly another job to

manage. If football or any other sport is going to take up the time of a full-time job for students, and

force them to miss study time or miss classes, they deserve to be acknowledged as employees and given

compensation.

This argument can also be linked back to the scholarship debate. Approximately only 29% of

athletes are on scholarship out of all athletes in college. (ScholarshipStats.com) However, if most of

their time is devoted In fact, most athletes spend more time on their sports then they do on their

schoolwork; approximately 10 more hours a week. (CBSNews.com). It doesn’t seem fair to give

students the responsibility and dedication of a full-time job, and not give them any sort of compensation.

And it definitely isn’t fair to expect their grades to be stellar when you factor in the load that the sports

put on them. The answer to all of these questions is in fact no, and that all colleges need to recognize all

of the work that these athletes truly do for the school, and for the programs. Right now, we are in the

middle of one of the most famous college sports competitions in the country, the NCAA men’s

basketball tournament, in which 68 D-I schools compete for their chance at the national title. This is an

incredible opportunity for all of the student-athletes who are competing, and it gives them a chance to sit

on the big stage, and allow their names to be heard across the nation. However, these games do not take

place at each college’s home floor, which means that it serves as an extended road trip, and it can last up

to a month for certain teams. During this time, the athletes have little to no time at all for anything non-

basketball related, and they miss tons of classes during their time away. In these schools in the NCAA

basketball tournament, some student-athletes may miss up to a quarter of all spring semester classes.

This tournament alone forces some students to miss an eighth of all their classes for the year, (ESPN),

and yet once again, there is no compensation whatsoever. These athletes are missing so many classes

along the way, and we should begin to wonder how much a scholarship really means to them, is it for

basketball, or education? If sports in college is going to take up the time of a full time job to a student-

athlete, and require that they miss nearly a third of their classes in a year, then this should be recognized

by the NCAA, and compensation should be rewarded to these athletes.

There is one more way that student athletes impact their school that is often overlooked by

people on both sides of the debate. College athletes often attract students to their schools when they play

better during the season, and these schools experience rises in application rates, allowing them to accept

students with better academic credentials. When Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie won the

Heisman Trophy for his incredible performance in 1984, BC’s undergraduate admissions increased by

25 points, and average SAT scores for incoming freshman went up by an amazing 110 points

(Forbes.com). Even though Flutie played almost 30 years ago, these situations still happen today, and

there are even higher increases. If one man can help the academics of his school in just one season,

schools and the NCAA should also pay their athletes for helping the popularity of colleges across the

nation. The performance of these athletes such as Doug Flutie and Patrick Ewing strongly advertise the

college to the nation, and help the school gain fame that could place it into a higher conference,

therefore gaining recognition.

One school that has been widely known for its sports (specifically basketball) is the University of

North Carolina. If it weren’t for the basketball program and players that have shaped it such as Tyler

Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, and Michael Jordan, North Carolina would not be as well known as it

currently is. After the UNC Tar Heels won the 2009 National Championship in basketball, their

admission rates went up by 15.6% throughout the course of the year. (The Business Sports Exchange).

The team played in 23 games over the course of the season that were nationally broadcasted, which was

about 46 hours of game time. The increase in admissions led to $104,000 in admission fees for the

school. (The Business Sports Exchange). In the end star players Lawson and Hansbrough gained

incredible recognition for their schools, and helped UNC make up to $100,000 along the way, and yet,

they were not compensated for their work.

In order to show that the NCAA should pay college athletes for their work, there is no need to

warp facts into opinions and exaggerate things so much until it is something that it isn’t. The facts as

they are speak for themselves, and show that these college athletes do so much for so many

organizations around them, without gaining a single dime. Colleges turn their athletes into full-time

workers, and expect them to also succeed in academics as well. Athletes in colleges support the schools

by gaining the attention of sponsors, higher conferences, and television networks, yet they are not

rewarded with anything special. For the minority of athletes with scholarships, they have that to help

them through college. But even still, if these athletes are forced to miss up to a third of their classes each

year, how much does that scholarship really do for them? Because of all these reasons, I do believe that

the NCAA should provide compensation for all college athletes.

Works Cited

"Chances of a High School Athlete playing College Sports." Scholarshipstats.com. scholarshipstats.com, n.d. Web. 30

Mar. 2014. <http://www.scholarshipstats.com/varsityodds.html>.

Edelman, Marc. "21 Reasons Why Student-Athletes Are Employees And Should Be Allowed To Unionize."

Forbes.com. Forbes, 30 Jan. 2014. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcedelman/2014/01/30/21-

reasons-why-student-athletes-are-employees-and-should-be-allowed-to-unionize/>.

Galehouse, Dave. "Odds for an athletic scholarship don't depend on participation numbers." VarsityEdge.com. New

England Interactive, 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

<http://www.varsityedge.com/nei/varsity.nsf/main/football+participation+numbers>.

Hartnett, Tyson. "Why College Athletes Should be Paid." Huffington Post [New York City, New York] 21 10 2013: n.

pag. Print.

Judah, Kyle. "NCAA Championships are Changing the Game of College Admissions." The Sports Business Exchange

2.1 (2010): n. pag. Print.

Lief, Fred. "Education Comes First at Ivy League Schools : Coaches Deal With Tough Academic Rules in a Different

World of Athletics." Los Angeles Times [Los Angeles, California] 9 Mar. 1986: n. pag. Print.

O'Shaughnessy, Lynn. "Do College Athletes Have Time to Be Students?" CBSnews.com. CBS, 18 Feb. 2011. Web. 30

Mar. 2014. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/do-college-athletes-have-time-to-be-students/>.

Toma, J. Douglas, and Michael E. Cross. "Intercollegiate Athletics and Student College Choice: Exploring the Impact

of Championship Seasons on Undergraduate Applications." Research in Higher Education. New York: Springer, 1998.

633-61. JSTOR. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40196314?

uid=3739704&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103765783917>.

Wilbon, Michael. "College athletes deserve to be paid." ESPN.com. ESPN, 18 July 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.

<http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/6778847/college-athletes-deserve-paid>.

Annotated Bibliography

There are numbers upon numbers upon numbers that all describe in different, unique ways that it is in fact difficult

for a high school athlete to make the transition from high school to college sports, much less to get a scholarship. -

Scholarshipstats.com

Reasons in multiple categories (financial, economical, academic, etc.) of why college athletes are essentially

employes of a school. - Marc Edelman, Forbes

The odds for a high school athlete to get into a Division I school is extremely rare. For the 6.9 million high school

athletes, there are about 250k high school seniors that play football. About 5k athletic D-I scholarships are awarded on

average each year. That gives each high school senior football player a 0.02% chance at a scholarship. Slim, isn't it? - Dave

Galehouse, VarsityEdge.com

Being a college athlete is a full time job (essentially), and causes kids to miss many classes, and athletes have very

little ways to pay for themselves, since scholarships pay for tuition and education, not for their lives. - Tyson Hartnett,

Huffington Post

Performance in widely advertised competitions increase popularity of the schools playing, and therefore lead to

admission rate increases, SAT score increases, and reputation of schools going up. Athletes in these games also deserve

recognition, as they are helping better the name of their school, and improve the academics as well, which could lead to the

hiring of more well-known professors. - Kyle Judah, The Business Sports Exchange

In different schools across the nation, there are different levels of importance regarding athletics vs. education. In

Ivy League schools like Princeton and Harvard, education tends to matter more to students and coaches than athletics, as

these colleges are mostly focused on academics rather than sports. Other colleges in conferences such as the ACC and SEC

need to realize that the student-athletes are not at the school just for sports, and need to get a good education as well. - Fred

Lief, Los Angeles Times.

Across all sports in all college divisions, athletes tend to focus more on their sports rather than their classes. Athletes

miss up to a third of classes each semester due to scrimmages, practices, road trips, and tournament competitions in their

sports. - Lynn O’Shaughnessy, CBS News.

Among large universities, success in high-profile intercollegiate athletics appears to be one factor among several in

the college choice process for aspiring undergraduates. Winning a national championship in one of the two most visible

college sports--football and men's basketball--is routinely accompanied by significant positive attention for an institution.

That attention appears to translate into increases in applications received for undergraduate admission in subsequent

admissions cycles. We compared year-to-year and multiyear changes in the number of applications submitted following

winning a national championship with changes in parallel sets of data from peer institutions that did not experience a

championship, thereby isolating athletic success as a factor in the college choice process. We found that notable increases

generally occurred in admissions applications received--both in absolute terms but more importantly relative to peer schools--

in the years following the championship season. - Toma, J. Douglas and Michael E. Cross, Research In Higher Education

The incredible steady increase of produced revenue for college schools, the NCAA, and television networks and sponsors

leads to the suggestion that athletes deserve to join in on the production of money for themselves. - Michael Wilbon, ESPN