Point/Counterpoint

Not paying athletes defies free market

By Jake Palmer

Better Than Talking to Yourself

College sports are starting to feel a lot like baseball around the mid-2000s these days. We don't know who is clean and who is cheating the hardest. It is clear that the system is broken.

As Ohio State, Miami, Tennessee, Auburn, USC and others have shown us over the past few years, many winning teams are most likely committing some kind of egregious transgression against NCAA rules and regulations. But what they're really guilty of is meeting the expectations of the free market.

Face it: Big-time college sports make big-time dollars. Winning programs get a bigger cut of the cash, so many coaches and university presidents respond by operating their departments outside the rules set forth by the NCAA. But let's not forget who is actually working to win these lucrative games: the players.

Players who make up the National Collegiate Athletic Association are held to an ideal of amateurism. How is this fair when every other student in college does not have a limit of how much money they can make while in school? Explain to me how this makes sense: A person who is notable nationwide and motivates people to donate to his or her respective university gets little to no financial help on top of their scholarship, while a person like me, who no one knows and has little effect on the university's bottom line, can make as much money as I can earn.

Also, how can we ignore the fact that there are no sports or billion-dollar industry without players?

People who say that they are getting paid via their scholarships and that they should not get any more money for doing something they love are missing a major reality of the college sports world: Participating is a full-time job. Ask any athlete in a Division I program, they are working on their sport 40-plus hours a week. Sports and scholarly pursuits is not an easy balance to strike with the hours upon hours of practice time and travel.

I'm not advocating that they take scholarships away from the other programs that the major sports fund; but shouldn't the people who bring in money to the university through the sale of their jerseys and likenesses in video games see a little bit of the cash that their face and actions helped raise? If collegiate journalists get a share of the revenue brought in through advertisements, why should athletes be held at a different standard? Also, we can't ignore that many athletes come from a background where they would not be attending a university without an athletic scholarship, so shouldn't they be the first to receive aid to help erase the financial barrier between them and the general student population?

This uneasy balance the NCAA is trying to achieve is tarnishing the image of competition at the collegiate level. The use of universities as a free minor league system is un-American. First of all, it prevents people from earning a living out of high school and forces them toward an education -— which as we can see by the plummeting graduation rates across many winning D-I football and basketball program — that is seemingly unwanted in the first place.

If you're going to say that education is the compensation for their time at a university, shouldn't the athlete at least actually receive that education? Also under the current system, if a player does not live up to expectations on the field, they can lose their scholarship at any time, ending their opportunity for education. So, what really matters to some of these programs?

Note: Please do not think I am lumping Gonzaga into this group of NCAA outlaws. There have been no formal allegations against GU, and seeing as how I am not a part of Yahoo! Sports, I have not been doing any kind of investigations.

One last final thing to consider when wondering whether players should get some leeway concerning the money they take while playing in college: There are rumors that while John Wooden was coaching at UCLA, boosters paid some players, breaking NCAA rules.

So, it's time for the American sports fan to decide what's more important – the myth of pure amateurism or national championships, because there are very few cases where they overlap. It's time to redefine compensation at the college level.

A free education is payment enough

By Ian Powell

Sports Editor

There is one simple answer to the question whether college athletes should get paid:  They already are. 

Scholarship athletes are paid with a free education.  They are given the opportunity to go to a university paid for by the university.  At Miami, tuition costs around $50,000 a year.  Paying for an education is the equivalent of signing a four-year contract worth $200,000 if they decide to stay all four years.  Not only are universities providing these athletes with a free education, they are giving them an opportunity to showcase their skills and to make it to the next level.  For the majority of college athletes that do not make it to the professional level, they are given an education to spearhead a career outside of athletics. 

I believe that athletes deserve a free education for their skills and the countless hours of work they put in every day, but I do not believe they should also be paid. I value what athletes do and the hard work they put into creating a true spectacle for observers to enjoy.  Athletics builds an atmosphere around college campuses that is unique and creates memories for fans that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. And for that, I am grateful.