Student athletes and professional athletes exist in two different worlds — one group plays competitive sports while attending school, and the other plays competitive sports while earning a salary. But what if the two worlds were not mutually exclusive? What if colleges began to pay their players?
A 1905 editorial in Harper’s Magazine first begged the question. They saw the popularity and profitability of college sports as a clear justification for the financial compensation of student athletes.
The article spread like wildfire, stirring discussion at colleges across the country — but these debates didn’t die down. In fact, they continued to ramp up throughout the next century. An issue that started on the basketball court quickly escalated to the Supreme Court — or nearly, at least. In 2016, the Court declined to hear the case of a seven-year legal battle a professional basketball player brought against the NCAA on the issue, more or less sealing the fate of collegiate athletes as being unpaid, for a while, at least.
An opinion piece by Ryan Swanson in The Washington Post on Monday resurfaced this question, in response to the the last several weeks of scandal at the University of Louisville.
The Louisville basketball team bribed a new recruit with $100,000. An investigation by the FBI into the case led to the arrest of 10 people. Many people in the world of college basketball are familiar with these illicit tactics, and suspect more arrests could be on the way.
In his article, Swanson made the argument that the solution to the situation is cut and dry — simply allow schools to pay their players. He is by no means alone in this opinion. NCAA sports have been faced with decades worth of articles, blog posts and op-eds arguing the same thing, to little avail.
It isn’t hard to see that paying athletes would put an end to the bribery and fraud and under-the-table deals. But what about the laundry list of new problems it would create? For one, paying student athletes would be creating a multi-million dollar industry. Where would this money come from? Would we get it from slashing coaches salaries and cutting funding for athletic facilities? Would we take the money from teams’ travel expenses and equipment costs? The scale of budget reorganization that would have to happen systemwide is enormous — and maybe even impossible.
It has been argued that our current system is built off the exploitation of student athletes. They are putting in hours and hours of work for their team in order to bring in money for the school, though they don’t end up seeing a penny of that money themselves. Instead, it goes towards coaches and scholarships and facilities. But here’s the thing: that’s what seeing the money looks like. Student athletes don’t need to pocket this cash directly to be reaping the rewards of their highly attended games. Yes, they are putting in a huge amount of work for their school — but in return, they’re getting an education, not to mention all of the experiences and other free things they rack up along the way.
Student athletes already have a reputation for prioritizing athletics over academics. They are well-known for not meeting the same admissions standards as their non-athletic peers. And even after being admitted to a school, these students are under incredible pressure to put their athletic responsibilities first, no matter the cost to their academics. Adding a salary to the equation would tip the scales too far. Students couldn’t help but to put everything they had into their athletics, as their academics fell to the wayside.
If this were a question of schools paying student athletes so that they could afford the costs of attending school and playing their sport, that would be one thing. But this is far from the reality. Student athletes are already allowed to receive monthly stipends to cover all of their extra expenses on top of the full-ride scholarships that many student athletes already earn. There is no reason to think that paying these students even more would benefit them at all.
There are a myriad of other factors that make paying collegiate athletes a bad idea. For one, there is intrinsic value in amateur sports. These students are playing for fun and for experience and for the team, rather than being driven by money and greed. And that’s not to mention the culture of entitlement that paying these students would create. If regular students are taking classes alongside people people who are essentially professional athletes, we would create an atmosphere that wouldn’t benefit anyone.
But there is a solution. Student athletes could have the best of both worlds.
The NCAA could continue to ban salaries being given to student athletes, and instead relax some of the other standards they impose on them. Let these students be sponsored by companies. Let them appear in ads on TV. Let them earn money in all of those other ways that professional athletes support themselves.
It wouldn’t create a logistical nightmare, it wouldn’t affect the integrity of the game. It would give teams some flexibility in how to attract new players, and it would give athletes some incentives to stay in school.
