I have admittedly been on the fence regarding the issue regarding the payment of college athletes. College football and basketball athletes arguably bring in a good deal of money for the school, yet a majority of athletic programs still operate at a loss because of other non-revenue sports such as wrestling, cross country, and track and field. You cannot really justify paying certain athletes and not the rest of them, and there is simply no money in already slim athletic budgets to compensate all athletes at a particular school.
A potential option would be to have student athletes compensated by the NCAA itself, but there is still the issue of how much to pay athletes. It would be difficult to explain equal pay between a football player at USC who is responsible for a good deal of money for their university and a track athlete at California State University, Long Beach who may not be responsible for any revenue.
A solution that I found particularly interesting was the one raised in class that allows athletes to benefit from marketing themselves to outside agencies. In this scenario, big-time athletes are able to capitalize more because of their status in relation to an athlete that is lesser known. This also eliminates the need for schools to dish out money that they already do not have and instead puts the responsibility on the athlete.
This is a very interesting point to watch as big-time college sports eventually get bigger and bigger. I predict that something will have to give sooner rather than later.
Ashton Stine
LT 24
KIN 577
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